Just one more taste.
Just one more hit.
How I miss your smoky, ashy, charred aroma, that taste.
Your smoky, ashy, charred aroma haunts me, begging me to take one hit.
Just one more inhale.
That smoky, ashy, charred aroma, taste of that rebellious girl I once knew.
The corn has ripened.
With it is the wizened laughter of a
Mirthless age, showing ashy teeth
Of dappled cowries.
A flavescence so bantered by the courage
Of wilting bloom!
Sadly, sea waves truss the feet of
Burning skies, loosening the tongues of beaches,
Which, with ague, recline on cold, cringing currents.
Old cats mourn the fall of strafed pillars
Burrowing through silt-buried kennels re-grassed for the
Salutation of new vistas.
While smoke enshrouded us one crowded night,
Obscured by grey and ashy sea-breeze air,
Your face reflected flame and sparks took flight,
Eyes burnt-sienna, set a-dancing there.
Your voice stayed with me, wrapped by memory.
It played the deepest emerald melody,
To me, not quartet, but a symphony;
I only wished the music just for me.
Unknown to me, you heard my singing too,
And day by day sat listening to my song,
A quiet audience to me, running through
Each possibility, what could go wrong.
So many trials, our voices rang in tune.
But hope surmounts, beneath this glorious moon.
after doors close after hours when scarlet neon flickers out red-light nights fill voids of need my body is a ripped flower my throat tingles to the burn of vodka-fire gleaning the gleaming water-washed street for an answer to the latest outstanding bill sadly grateful for the slightest footfall twenty for oral forty for full car park dark steam-heavy dark not streetwalking but streetstaggering in hollow-pod hell anaemic-ashy and vodka-fumy amorphous shadows loitering on durex-dotted waste ground in secret alleys back to dank brick or deep throating down on my knees skirt around thighs fingers come-pearled and slick come quick after doors close after hours when scarlet neon flickers out cold glitter of streetlights gleam of cold hard cash cold kisses colder touch no eye contact look away the cold nothingness that we say
Standing tall, beaming with pride,
finally clean from this world’s poison.
I reached for the skies with no need to hide,
thanking God for the blessed horizon.
What bliss when the air was pristine.
On cloud nine, there was no smoke in sight.
For the first time since I was thirteen,
Blue skies mended ashy blight.
A storm came unprovoked,
hurling me down below.
Blood spilled; bedrock soaked.
There was nowhere else to go.
A haunting sight, filled with wrath.
So be it, it’s not a crime.
Standing once again on this path,
I have no choice but to climb.
SMJ
To those wrapped up in pitfalls of own,
E’en pretty appears pedestrian.
To him down with jaundice,
With pallid prejudice,
Even moon-white conch looks dullish wan.
______________________________
Translation |20.09.2024| pitfalls, pretty, prejudice
Poet’s note: Sanskrit has thousands of verses of wisdom called Subhashhitam. He who is wrapped up in pitfalls of his own, suffers prejudice. To him even what is pretty appears pedestrian. Even a moon-white conch to him will look ashy wan. The transliteration of the Sanskrit verse follows:
Nija doshha-aavrita manasaam, ati sundaram eva bhaati viparitam |
Pashhyati pitta-upahatah shashi-shubhram shankham api pitam ||
Ashy Prinia pair
Flitted across my garden
Catching something here and there
Yellow Portulaca flowers looked brighter
Once they saw this
Ashy Prinia pair
A lone lotus
Swayed as the gentle birds
Flitted across my garden
I wondered how
They stayed happy while
Catching something here and there
She tired of being a step,
The toil and aloneness.
She dreamt of being a princess
Before midnight.
Sadly, only frogs arrived,
Their magic never tricking her,
Damning her to shine,
Under cloak of Darkness
During Its wee hours,
Leaving her a pile of cinder
With the return of every sun.
She thought it was her only Ending,
Making It “The Only One.”
Now she’s been returned to Step,
Below where she first begun.
It fills her mouth with ash,
Shreds her heart to trash:
This hope to be a part of Sum
Instead of “Only One.”
It’s blasphemy for the half ashy to try and blast on me-n-my family/
Fits about brass class for free from that lasting Gee/
A ghastly last plea is all I’d need for a decree to decrease or desecrate/
I’ll diss a crate of hate with what I integrate and create/
Fate did initiate a wait to anticipate the plate with a faint taint and I’d dissociate
The phase we’d taste may have been a graze and raid/
It’ll stay and abase their grave base they blazed/
Fiddle away a trace to appear like zany raves/
Little to say the way his faith’s light is a conclave/
He prays every day for grace to pave a bomb wave/
Delay no more and move forward with your higher courage/
Away I’ll store her more oranges to ravish/
Fly high for yours and theirs as you’re a rad fish/
Plan and pour an attack dish like a bad wish/
A span sore and sad but a serene swish/
Send a band to bore and stand up to ceilings amiss
I adorn your flesh in trivial words and heat,
The quartz in each brushwork may deplete.
Ashy blossoms under shattered feet,
In the dusk, inspired by optimization accrete.
Deep-set violet eyes without a discreet,
Reaching clouds that cover your sight beat.
Seeking to deprive the tempo of greet,
Illuminating this obstacle isn't defeat.
When your sight is adequate to compete,
I shall entice you till our bones excrete.
Betrayals occur during the heat of deceit,
Overwhelmed in combustion entreat.
Salt from the sea is in tears and downbeat,
Inhaling every color of poetry may reheat.
I bestow my words to the shells of your feat,
Leaving blurry traces in my vision to meet.
You are safe and muttered during the retreat,
I am inhaling your irrational fear and heat.
Rose petals satiate voids in the heartbeat.
Written: December 04, 2022
Sticky coal is pouring down,
looks like it's gonna be a moonless night.
From a rooftop I observed, this inconsistent city with it's logic twirled.
Starved for attention and wanting to be heard,
these "awoke" people absurdly refused to hope.
Irrational thinking took over, as most were hypnotized and lost composure.
Now, tainted, spoiled and infected,
the deadly rain's collected and ingested.
Chewing ashy snow with their mouth agape ,
some puked their intestines while others reshaped.
Neglecting their well being for a comfortable skin,
as the official death of caring intensively, gives birth to shallow acquaintances.
leave me here
sleeve me here
in red
in my ashy bed
i never want to see light again
once there was a lady
who like to where the color blue
i never once thought that she would be shady
nope, never even had a clue
professionalism went out of the window
once she changed the way i watched the wind blow
she was the alcohol to the heartbeat of my liver
i died a slow death when the nature of her wrath sent me up the river
leave me here
sleeve me here
in black
with a size 8 stiletto heel print on my back
i never want to know what is bright again
nothing is perfect
rain does fall sometimes
the weather can be temperamental
the sun can be stubborn
the moon can be uncooperative
in the end, we do the work to work it all out
nothing is perfect
valentines day can be cancelled
anniversaries are oftentimes forgotten
selfishness tends to take center stage
the routine of things is known to cause an odd sort of amnesia
in the end, we do the work to work it all out
nothing is perfect
suitcases by the door can be misleading
ashy knees may be in need of absorbine, jr.
sore throats may have a dire need for sprays and lozenges
air conditioning and heat will, perhaps, need to suddenly merge
in the end, we do the work to work it all out
Praise The Lord, and The Lord We Do AllWays Praise
for it is Miracles Through Him that we have survived it all and are still here Together.....'Perfectly'.....
The Brown Grizzly Bear is so called,
not for its grizzled hair, grey-tipped
but because it is truly grisly, horrible!
(Ursus arctos horribilis)
This brown bear is gruesome and deplorable.
The amber Pizzly Bear is so called,
not for its swizzle stick.
but because it is a hybrid bear,
a Polar-Grizzly cross,
(Ursus maritimus × Ursus arctos)
The ash-grey Koala Bear is not a bear at all,
though it's nice and teddy-bear cuddly.
(Phascolarctos cinereus)
But the 'arktos' in its genus name, means 'bear'.
Its been wrongly named from the start,
the 'ashy-grey' pouched bear.
So there you have it!
Three bears, caught breaking and entering,
slagging off the language.
A cigarette burn hole
with floating memories
crushing the ashy edges.
God, please quit smoking by
the next time you mold me.
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