3 Poems

Sy Roth - 3 Poems 12/17/20130 Comments Picture Silence I’ve dreamt often that she crept deep Into my cellular structure, Some time in the nightfall of my being And planted deeply into my mitochondrion, A magical silence pill, Drowning the kittens of speech Cloaking the vocal chords in invisibility. Erased all thought of sharing things with others-- Silenced me in rooms filled with people; Silenced me in rooms with only my self to bear witness; Silenced me in a world Where silence is intolerable noise. I inherited her silence, Beet-cheeked princess of a dark world Where inhumanity ruled Like a thick quilt smothering breath, Where midnight flashlight reading Transported me to other worlds Where people speak volumes-- Where men in prayer shawls do not beg Elohim to spare them, While they giddy yap on fictitious camels Carried along on whispered prayers In a hip bouncing fornication ride Wafting hollow messages To ears that cannot hear the din inside a parbroiled brain Where I drown in silence and isolation. Sojourn to a Gravesite Sojourn to a gravesite Visit marked by miniscule stones memories Whipped by time’s breath from their perch. Reminders of their once having been, Lie in a sepulchral pile at the base. Headstone etched in alone symbols Miles traversed with others, Then got in the way of larger plans. Commited a meaningless sojourn, Raped into submission-- The end uncovers another end. The living kneel at the edge of eternity Find only a reflection of being Perched on a ledge, Ready to swan dive into a shimmering darkness Wrapped in a black-velvet vale. Denotes something, anything, Cain’s mark to distinguish him from others, Ultimately extinguished. Survival, Microsecond mirage An end to travails falling, kerplop, Into the arms of a vacant mob Content with their part Of putting an end to this iteration. Conundrum sits like a magpie pondering eternity. Fall, tumble into the vast abyss Punctuated by an exclamation mark Ending in a meandering interrogative. The Land The earth’s taken a vacation from its Pristine verdant, forests and almond star speckled skies. It’s sailed off to alpha centauri To admire other stars in their infancy And pine for their future. It needs a rest. surface, a gelatinous brie, oceans liquefied into thick, brown bile. For its sea legs Wobble on shifting tectonic plates. The mountains have stopped growing. It searches for a life boat. Time to row like hell, Salvage what’s left. Enveloped in briny air It brandishes a magic wand, Rips at the albatross about its neck with its crooked fingers, Exhales fading dreams into the air. While the lifeboat’s boards shrink beneath a desiccating sun. Loose the mizzenmast, it screams, Dream of a wind that will whip it to a safe shore. Slack sails do not prick up in the worthless wind Heavy with the weight it carries. The shore shrinks away with each curling lick That slaps the sides of the rotting craft in rhythms set pounded out by jingoistic drummers beating it to a pulp. No life boat. Only waylaid pirates reside there on the shore, Black-bearded Rumplestiltskins, prancing wildly, Their scabbards hoisted moving the murky air. The land is theirs. Earth, a shabby grandmother, Lounges in the wings dressed in mourning clothes.