Happy Hallows

Pumpkins carved, like child teeth
costumes hang around closets
bats, candy and skeletons, wizards and leaves and violins
damn the violins, that's all you hear
but death is optional
sometimes its necessary to just be
in character

image copyright: google search. 

Sharps,Flats, Neutrals

The notes come like bricks
make them slowly
piece by piece put them together
it is the series of sharps and flats
you hear

there are a few solitary creatures
unpicked and left behind like rotting leaves
on the pavements of autumn
these are the flats
you hear when you focus

and then disasters come together
in duos, like rain and earthquakes
like smoke and fire
like the flower dangling form the gun's nape
these are the sharps
you could possibly hear amid the noise

there are still those, like daily bread
risers for work
feeders of chocolate,
some who worry about the birds getting wet
and the sky turning into earth for a prayer
those are neutrals
sitting on the margins
of music.

Bright eyes

The sun, she knows hurts her
like the edge of sharp mirrors cutting into her hands
too much of one thing
spoils the rest
too much light
spoils color.

she knows his eyes hurt her
the way a thistle pricks
an unsuspecting child
intense and soft
too much of his eyes
spoil her stomach.

she knows that the end
lines to places, distant or near
would hurt her, like death
like dreading the daylight

she knows it all because
only bright eyes, like his, like hers
contemplate darkness

Pastpresent

the distance between tomorrow and yesterday
is essentially the same
divide it by four, multiply it by insignificant details
lack of attention to the change of the clouds
or the departed when they depart
the reminisce begins when the seconds pass
the distance between tomorrow and yesterday is essentially the same
it's the purity in each second that makes
the bigger separation

On a separation wall

The graffiti left behind, baring names of people
questions, without their punctual marks.

(Inspired by Ezra Pound, clearly)

Cemented

Something crackles inside
it is loud, like race-bikes on a dirt road
I can smell the burning of tires and the lifting of stones
as I move my shoulders
Something started crackling inside of me
and for a reason I cannot figure
when? where or how?
Something barks inside of me
like a homeless dog, like an injured child
it seeks me when I least expect it
demanding my full attention
Something crackles on the left side of my body
ah! must be the heart surgeon,
last month, he ripped out my heart
and cemented its place with bricks.

How to split a body into two

                    I. 

It is one thing to handle what comes your way 

it is another to handle your snores, 

loud and vulgar like the laughter of a midnight dancer

deprived of sleep 

I lie, contemplating the night as your chest rises and your head falls 

into visions I can no longer access,

 places I'm no longer interested to explore 

I know your body by the inch, you know my brain by the corner

we are even

                          II. 

Half open, you leave each morning

the toothpaste cap, now in front of me

mine or yours?  We stopped asking a long time ago

when questioning ends, you blend like color in paint

you make a new color, your own 

                         III. 

Try a drop of oil, I suggest to you

you can rub the oil on your shoulders where it hurts 

You tell me you've been carrying boxes, weights 

I say I can relieve you from the ocean that's on your back

but you turn your head toward the bedroom door

and I stay with the television, talking senseless 

reporting a world, miles away closer yet than 

the stairway to our bed.

                      VI. 

Tonight is another dark room

the curtains are fully closed

it is awfully quiet here, under the clean linen

smelling of fresh roses

there's no snoring tonight

but I cannot fall asleep.

the cut

there's an incision bellow my navel
it is fresh as milk, burning like an old birthmark
patched, I cannot move
the scar is tender but this time it isn't our doing

Shepherd's night

Ewes, don't hold your milk- for you are safe
no fangs shall harm you whilst I am
awake to watch and hear the hiss of footsteps in the grass
dawn on dusk, no damnation to haunt you.

I will call for the third time again
maybe like Peter I will hear an answer, maybe not
it is a form of betrayal: denial that munches harsh
but I will never sleep with its guilt

Sleep safe goats, sleep with thick wool, sheep
for the chambers of soft sleep are painless
to the jab of fangs and the noise of panic
sleep sound, sleep safe

Be safe, fear no fangs but the one who calls them
 by fault, or by trial
for I am the only fool, the sick shepherd,
who calls onto the wolf, every night to his herd
I drown the sheep in nightmares
and keep the brown-eyed village girl on the run.

Be

I
was the culmination of years in making
like sculpting, now
I
am the transformation of desire
taking shape from the earth's nape
to navel to nape again
red like burning coals and blue like thunder
prancing, throbbing,
light as a sigh, I am exhaled from dirt that shaped me
I am
and I know we shared this a long time ago
the thinking of where we were and how we became to be
flesh and bones out of sticks and broken stones
Adam's first breath and Eve's first pang of guilt
you share these too, aware or not-
we are the sky's wingless birds
the ocean's deepest pit
I as you have been infused with the spirit to be-
be every possibility
be the answer to questions I didn't dare ask
I told you I am infused by the spirit of wild horses and the return of the swallows
to warmer weathers. I, as you have been made at the earth's navel
yet we have always longed for the skies, searching
the question of the word be, the letter and its calligraphy
how  curvaceous it rolls, we push it second.
I
was infused by a spirit
 who places B as the second in the alphabet
but the first of God's words
before time.
because let there be, he said
and it was

Where do the lonely bury their weariness?

In blues, in jazz the lonely discard
bits and pieces of their weariness
they carry, printed against their skin beneath their eyes
black pouches full of sleepless nights,
thinking and
weariness, plain and raw.

(part of a longer poem still in work)

Feed the world

Funny, how much you can do with so little
shiny coins and fold-able paper
feed the world
all it eats is money

under the mercy

There's more than will to make you
stand on your feet, under the rain waiting
for a revelation or a leap of faith, calculating
the leaves that fall within seconds of you standing
while you still can
there are people like this, like rocks, like statues
who have the will to remain standing
in the face of the hurricane, under the mercy of the sun.

Rock-Paper-Scissors

At times

you cut me, to my depth and shred me to pieces

 like a raw rigid paper

this always happens before I crush you, smash the metal rims where

I usually hold you, where you fit perfectly in the spaces of my fingers

then I blend you, carefully like cake-

push me and  I will

fall over you. I, who was once your rock. 

chain of tests

everything burns down, save for titanium
titanium stands the wrath of hell
it passes the test, the same test Eve failed successfully with a simple apple
a ring of plated titanium, a diamond sparkle for her, that's her test now
a word and her, that's his test, the ultimate
forever the hardest to pass.

lightweight

Three drams of whiskey down and the north bridge starts to lead south
three drams again and not only would the trams move, but also the city
Edinburgh and its lit streets and monuments, of old, historic value or of newly weaved cashmere scarves
soft, tender is the shape of the clouds as they walk overhead in tune
to a wailing bagpipe and the hustle of a sharp northern wind-
a wind that resembles ice, yet softly nudges music into the ears of the passerby
awake, wrapped in a coat, or half there and half elsewhere
his core at least isn't present
and he could only blame it on the powerful Scottish.

murderers by stone

The red dove that lives two rows up my windowpane goes down

she collapses.The same lotus that once sang 

a break without patience

is now the break of the patience I had

with the training of my neighborhood boys

murderers by stone in place of nobel archery

I spy

I spy with my little eye
roundness, a fish's view of the lane next to my house
it looks to me like a circle, unending
the trees, the sweet shop with its swirl of sticky gums
at the end of the cardboard made telescope, colors and shapes I spy.

Today I spy with my little eye
three children awake at the hour of travel,
their parents in deep slumber,
deep yet gentle like grass in spring
I spy children spying with an eye, the world bigger than it normally is.

I spy with my little eye, a mother, like mine
reading to her child a bedtime story at noon-
to calm down his fear of the clouds, of monsters under his jacket -turned-blanket
and I spy a dent in my head, now alone I am like a motherless child.

and when I turn to my window, without a telescope I spy
the scenery: a river that runs beneath my feet, helping me day-dream
in full color of mountains and sites I haven't yet spied-
yet what bothers me is, how long it's been since I last
glared and spied at the core of the world
the same way I did when I spied with my make-up free eye.

Fortune Cookie

The shell is open
crumbs here and there over the shiny brown table
the paper wedges itself between the index and the thumb
he feels for it again
'falling in love is easy' says the first half of the fortune cookie
'it is like fal'.... the second half is undone
falling into an incomplete hole, torn out by fortune on a Sunday morning
the cookie tumbles and tins in the bin
falling hurts anyway
as do unprepared, unsolicited cookies on a quiet Sunday morning.

Googled a fortune cookie for your Wednesday night (picture not mine, obviously).

B&W

Some say black is the collection of everything colorful
I say leave black to decide which side of the spectrum it falls into

Some go and separate gradation, pigments of  color like they do their vegetables at lunch
the darker the shade, the further away from their precious food
the darker the shade, the lighter is conversation
the darker the shade, the slow-stewing of shame

Some say that days should be lived by the hues at the clouds' belly, grey and white
like soft unborn children. I say one should live by the sun's reflections on every living creature.

Some say the world is better in monochrome
 I stand to wonder what would you learn from a sieve that only broadcasts a roll of movies, plain aimless faces?.

yet some moan that there is not enough in monochrome to stretch and widen like an artist drawing a field of  poppies
the blacker the filter is, the harder it becomes to see,
have they ever felt a night to its core, a beauty in absence?

yet most work around light, because it emits
the energy they are not willing to share
but most forget that light, in its bright whiteness is the negation of other colors.

A single word

I am grateful, the words stops in midair
unable to continue the remaining parts of the grace-
her graces spill out like beads, 

times like these, when the wind fills the holes in her lungs
and heat drains at the end of a long hour- her mind wonders

what would experience feel like

if she could tell
the whole world a tale in a single word?.

in his head

wet lemon snores, dry

he's long given up on sleeping in Jul, the sizzler

shifts through the layers of the night

small hours, rough ends- yet

she, the passenger on the left side of his bed bleats kindly,

 her weary head tender, his

 rueful- crying youth between snores.

moving

There is no shame in movement
forwards or backward. Shame is in halts
that's how we have been programmed, robots with brains
receive shame when you quit moving and hold your legs up.
There is no shame in laying and letting
the bigger picture slide, maybe even breaking away from the frame
framing is not a daily necessity, it is not like food and water.
There's no shame between us
but we make enough stress on voids of movements
we generate what we would want least-
a pause in the sentence, a comma, an interjection
to subdue with what we have we say
Keep moving, keep rolling - but mottoes sound the same
every cliche has been hammered the exact way its sister does
it is easier to say than to push the wheel of days
keep moving, never stop or bend to the ground
because life may flatten you raw
keep moving
there's shame in void
keep moving not onward, away
away from it.

In her kitchen

   flour mounts... white

eggs tumbling... proudly made a crack

not her heart this time

but a way to make

fat, low& kind

Window pane

The window pane is darker than brown
lighter than ash but the stare escapes her
and lands on the softly mowed lawn
she passes the garden every night on her way to the patch she calls her own
now from the window she sees the frost laying its blanket for the night
five flowers fragrantly fill the room with the smell of a promise
and warmth, nothing like roses to put the mind into
wandering, old romantics like poems and ancient poets
 technicalities needed to build up an illusion out of missing
that the things that are available will be for a while
that the faces like stamps make a print, with wet ink
that the truth can be folded like a pretty napkin and stowed away till further use
she dusts the picture on the windowpane, another reminder of the hand behind the roses
all before she stares again into space out of the diamond-shaped windowpane
she will gaze

lover who are you thinking of
under the blanket of sky and furry diamonds
who glues up your pieces
tonight?

Consider this

Consider this-
there's some stillness, ever present in the loudest of noise
an instant where calm creeps in like a cat tiptoeing on a fence
out of the blue, it rushes over and heeds for control

Consider this-
the answer you seek will arrive
in various shapes and forms, in the mail, in a dream
only when you stop chasing it, only when you stop knocking the wind out of its lungs

Consider this-
distill the leftovers from yesterday's dream and the day before
and the previous day too, the past belongs to a time that's left
for a purpose, its own

Consider this-
the me/s, the yous,
the us
a start to possibilities

now consider this-
a landslide, a warning, the answer
to stillness

product of rush

I am a product of rush
I have been made for the extras: the last beats of music before closure
the notes of furious fathomless masters
makers of destiny and design
I have been made out of the dents
left on cars before the crash-
measuring the swell of possibilities
I am the hiss the river makes right before it breaks
a thousand pieces of a waterfall
because even in its weaker moments
the river has the soul of speedy, it is made to compete with fish
I am meant to be a product of rush because even when I walk slowly
there's a race between my ears.

Land and Sea

 I.
 I take an arm's length to answer you.
You ask why there's a pause, like a solemn prayer wedged beneath us-
you insist to know before I join your lips in holy prolonging
or you join mine in holy speech. Briefly we meet, at the rise of the day
at its closing, like meetings would bewitch us. Briefly we touch, a peg of shyness here
a splash of distance there and minutes buoying without prior alarm
it catches me off guard, even though you've done it well before- questioning
I hesitate to let you know my secret,
my scales are adjusted to salty environments and the gills are used to severe oxygenation.
You will never know.

II.
I ask about your three new scars, the ones you tuck safely under a smoking shirt
of red and black. I can read your scars, the sore parts of your skin the same way you read
the newspaper, skimming for surprise at the headlines.
It is true you've damaged half your arm and half your brain on the way to meet me
You've lost flights in timber and I've lost patience-we have both made enough
 sacrifices to last us a lifetime, now before you drop another coral into my waters
tell me really, how have you been?.

III.
Hover high ahead, be careful where you land I tell you
there's enough danger if you rock me three times, sideways
before we break like a wave and hurry for another day
we'll save the snippets -the mundane, the daily-for next meeting
I am sure we would meet when the two poles salute
or when the equator trades places with the ozone
and you tell me not to tear, tears are made up of salty waters you say
what difference would they make to the ocean?


IV.
Now do you still ask about pauses in our speech
after all of my desperation to fix one sentence for our egos?
let's string a few words to satisfy flight times and nose dives
only question marks pop in my head each time I try to answer your questions.
Questions breed more questions like rabbits, unable to stop
so low, let us not venture into the forbidden territories.
Yet before you flap your wings, before I rub my scales against the coral
know this is why we are like a traffic light on orange
I love too much the ocean, my local, my coral and you
too much your cloudless sky.

Artwork credit: Sea Land and Sky by Jeff Montogomery, courtesy of Google search. more on the artist here:http://fineartamerica.com/featured/sea-land-and-sky-jeff-montgomery.html

Thermal Waters with a Roman God

Half past two, the autumn showers
drop as if someone unzipped the clouds
to pour. The goddess is careless to the change of the hour
she descends into the thermal waters,
plaid patterned swimsuit,
volcanic breath from the earth's sigh
the water ripples as she touches the surface
her hair fraying.

Three on the main clock in town
and autumn is still showering down
her thoughts drown, she loses gravity
she falls forwards, like a drop
he catches her.

Three ten, the Roman god flexes his muscles
lifting his arms towards her
she notices an old battered olive tree behind his shoulder
squeezed in its enormity into a small pot of clay
she marks the freckles under his hazel eyes
 it reminds her of a place she once called home
the water ripples.

Three twenty five, he's talked to her about the
great Roman empire, as if she never knew what it meant
of flat, rocky steps, and arches and education
of art and mighty men and wars fought for women like her
like her he says. As he moves towards her
she sucks the heat of the water, dreams of his lips.

Three thirty,
the water is boiling, all she sees is fog
frayed up hair, Roman chins and Roman glory
oh, all the great cities
the sounds, the heat, the fury
gnaws, escalates, grunts,
the water ripples.
.

the tortoise story

arthritic tortoise

rims the edges of the pond,

extinguishes thirst between the leaves, scavenger

accelerates for greenery, dims, bows

to move again.

things I tag you with

bottomless

weak, we hold our hands for thunder

no rain drops over the frail lines of our palms

it's gone, the storm has passed

               invisible

is what we speak of yet keep inside

walling it by roses, dividing it by thorns

 we say we are both too bold

moving islands away

yet we cringe at rainwater on our necks

                   straightforward

we walk the steps of others, not looking behind

not once-

I peer at your face, it glows like a new found coin

glows anew with the past

            Unforgivable

the melancholic tunes you sing

in my dreams, every night

tell me how can you chant my heart out

when you cannot even hear it beat?

filling the rooms

In hushed whisper we enter to speak 

in the house of low ceilings and high decorative arches 

and paint and half finished, half red kitchens

we enter to speak again

the air hangs, neither summer nor winter. It is pulled by the hair 

sticking at the roots like worn-out dye- fading never a single color

 the dog lies on its bed, its head turned to face the excitement of the windows, 

he is what remains of his owner, black fur here and there 

tools, a few shoes, movies and dancing paintings and pictures:

below the ceiling and above the sofa, a canvas

a young couple burying their faces into one another, eyes shut

lips apart. The owner, the dancer, the teacher, the indentation between
two feet on a flat wooden floor has been gone a while
gone to harvest, harvested going

 We enter to speak again, we whisper asking about time 

that flies stealing half the pictures, white-washing the last trays of song and stars

where does it all go? where do we all go?
do we all harvest?
we enter to speak again of the feral cats that left to harvest
the last mice of autumn, left with their owner
feral for life.
All is gone and done in a whim, the last pieces of summer
the owner's shadow, the coal in the grill and day light
but in the small house we enter to speak again of the things that leave
I look at the walls
it is true that at first it struck me,  the big canvas frame of a young couple in love,

their kiss for all eternity, saving itself like speech, like vows

like the big canvas frame, the tiny fireplace and the cushions
parts of a whole, that's only a part now-

the dog is out too, he is chasing daddy long legs in the grass

all in the back garden
I turn to enter the house of low ceilings and high arches 

when  it strikes again

the smell of one person, the memory of a human

filling the rooms. 

Tasting alcohol

the taste of loneliness is like alcohol
sweet is the first cup, tangy
like lemon blossoms and long summer nights
but sharp is the taste of loneliness on one's buds
like crunching chilly pepper in hope for
sugar. Like alcohol loneliness wanders
too heavy to leave
too happy to stay
like alcohol, unremembered.