Best Flatness Poems
I.
Fold, crease, unfold, sheets
of paper thin as possibility,
a crisp white plea to gravity.
Forty-five times, a cosmic origami
building bridges from table to the moon.
The mind dreams, unfurls
dimensions from the flatness,
each fold a petition of ascension.
But reality, that quiet artisan,
intervenes. Seven, eight,
perhaps nine folds—
the paper resists,
its fibers tightening,
a rebellion against a lunar destiny.
The geometry of dreams
collapses into the physics of limitation,
a negotiation between ambition and restraint.
II.
Sated with the hunger of excess,
we feast at counters where gluttony
is a ritual, a rhapsody of indulgence.
Plates piled high, offerings to the insatiable
gods of appetite, mouths moving
in a tempo of ingestion.
Like a paper's rebellion against too much
folding, the body, too, whispers its limits.
Sometimes in tears, sometimes in laughter,
but always in inevitability, the stomach's
silent protest, a wall that even the voracious
cannot breach. Eruption looms, a volcanic
protest, or else the creeping weight, its own
gravity pulling the body to a corporeal moon.
III.
From paper to body, from the moon
to the food, all are tethered by the finite,
implacable laws governing a universe
of possibility.
Fold and unfold, feast and decline,
the trajectory of excess tempered by
the ever-present specter of consequence.
Fuchsia panels
Standing parallel, like soldiers standing to attention
Push them forward, and venture onward
Like a woodpecker pecked cloth spread across the atmosphere
A permeable shelter of green does cover the cobble below
The darks and the lights of the jades and the emeralds
Add shimmer and flatness to this world of calm
Suspended from somewhere, someplace above
Hang scattered hues of violet
Almost candy floss like
Breaking up and breaking through the veil of green
Clusters of red also
Climbing up, up
Reaching towards the skies
Though forever trapped within their own dwelling
Observe, the kaleidoscope of colours
.............................................
And then, once more, the fuchsia panels
Standing parallel, like soldiers standing to attention
Push them forward - and leave behind…
Silent in its violence
the sun lays ancient fire-fingers
on the heat-scoured concrete of the promenade:
boxy seafront chalets tilting and creaking at angles,
scorched, salt-stiffened gardens,
sand dunes, a screaming blue sea.
It is so difficult to accept a loss, a deprivation.
Innocence flaps its winding sheet behind me,
its mummy cloth of myth.
As from an isolated moon I see
the first cold breaker rush to engulf me -
an underwater undulance,
undercurrents of menace, of malice.
The sand-strewn strand stretches into infinity,
shimmering with the visions, the voices, the echoes,
the faceless departments of government and society.
I watch the insouciant people around me,
they possess a flatness, like blank paper.
They hump and lug plastic picnic paraphernalia,
ridiculously, all beach grime and blistered backs,
reduced to a red cindery glow.
Ice creams, scooped from the freezers
in trinkety seashore shops,
are clutched in sunburnt hands.
They are spreading striped sunbathing mats,
snide and smiling slyly.
Is it a mirage, a delusion,
dredged from the desert-dry air?
The air snags in my throat: the flat summer stench
of warm wood, sun lotion, billowing cotton -
blank but expansive. The creaking, the flapping.
A strange wind howls and banters in my ear
and the train shrieks through its station,
the station of my brain -
a riddled red abyss, poker-hot.
The sun is sinking -
a disc of fire, a blood clot.
Water floods the ridgy shallows,
eddying into treacherous pits.
The black gun muzzle of my mouth
blasts the oxygen from the air.
My nerves a hive of wires suffering
the scarlet atrocities.
Pokers put out my eyes.
Squeezed by the forceps of agony
I see nothing, there is nothing
but a mirage of wavering dunes closing in
and the sea splintering; a multitude of glass glittering.
“The Fixer”
While clearing gutters of the autumn leaves
I was pushed by a wintery stiff breeze
Falling from ladder, by freak circumstance
Crumpling into flatness by haphazard chance
I felt a beer can directly under me
Memory of him, forever would be
For my Grandfather had tossed it there last
Discovering it flat, from days past
From bikes and cars, to rusty door nobs
As to how to fix their thing-a-ma-bobs
All would come for his consultations
For he was the fixer, of all contraptions
While others would tinker for hours into night
Grandfather would always have the divine light
Scarcely even did anyone ever say
That Grandpa needed more time than a day
He was a helper, a handyman, a friend
Sadly he died of his drink, come the end
As little boys
we rode bikes
fast down the dunes,
on the vertical side
of Sand City
Big tires creased
deep furrows
in the down-slope,
same as boats trailing
wakes upon the swell
At the leeward portion
of the great sand hills
the long bronze
shadows of late noon
stretched to east
Meeting low pines
over ice plants
just as early suppers
smoked the spice
into mists above
Under which boys grew hungry
and boys grew weary
when drawn on-shore,
but grew bold again
when looking back to sea
Then fortified, soon returned
astride soft summits
as if to challenge
the long leading
boundary of night
A boundary against which
little boys are forbidden,
because bay breakers
rage half-seen
against the land
Because the turnstiles
of time get sand
in the gears and
the rising moon
comes fully into its own
Because the dawn sea
compresses foggy dimensions
into the unlearned territory
of young hearts
with full moon in the eyes
Of four-foot warriors
solemn in afterthought
huddled in a circle
as night overtook
a long day of handiwork
And even the bike furrows
grew silent at last
their contours to vanish
in darkening flatness
somewhere below our feet
sweet decadent belly
how ever will you forgive me
i didn’t know
couldn’t know
how to love you
i didn’t see that you were more than a belly
you were an entire person
an easy breezy lover girl committed to the pursuit of all things joyful
i used to joke that you were bottomless
an “animal” of your own
what a gift that was
you let me live in faraway lands
and graciously indulge in local delicacies
what an honor it was to be held tall by you
to bask in your beauty
you captured hearts of all kinds
everyone wanted part of the whole hearted embrace of life you offered
even if just for one night
i must now admit
with a heavy heart
it took sharp hip bones jutting out to lengths they never should be seen
for me to set the record straight
i needed seasons of too much nausea to stand
let alone eat
for me to learn to beg for your forgiveness
my stomach now boasts the flatness I’d always been urged to dream of
and I spend my days split between my bed and survival
friends exclaim
“wow you look so skinny!”
men praise the unnatural concaveness of you
saying things like
“maybe you weren’t played such a bad hand after all”
as if whether my body has value should be up for debate
like a certain quantity of fat cells reflects a quality of life
and I can’t blame them for not seeing
because neither did I
they don’t see the poison we’ve been spoon-fed
to categorize a healthy body as
“too much”
and a starving one as the ultimate prize
they do not see that this body takes dozens of pills a day to sit upright
in it live tsunamis of fear, pain, isolation
while my old self was free
and buoyant
while I cant change the view from where they stand
(and I stood)
i can remember your brilliance
and vow
if we're ever lucky enough to be reunited
i will honor you for what you truly are:
a home
The Virgin and Child
Matrix of allusions.Its intersections
dipped in the beckoning depths of chaste dark
to grow limbs like any other. To mark
a departure into a great mission.
Life dipped in a suave and rare medium
of strokes and streaks . Who would not sense
in the vision-flatness an equilibrium
of solidity and reassurance.
The harboring grid of hardened faith
is crowned with thorns of colored distractions
without the telling placenta of birth
but still-lifed in womb-dark meditation
I ‘m the virgin, the lactating breasts, the birth
I ‘m the baby of the resurgent earth.
Form: A modern Sonnet, attempted.
**Based on the painting “ Virgin and child” by SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA
S.Jagathsimhan Nair,
26th Oct 2013.
Fast and furious energy
Spinning into my orb’s flatness
A rotating funnel
It whirls and spirals
Rearranging what was
Mind reflected
In its menacing eye
Force fields emerge
Pressing together
Two lives
Fires once banked
Flame anew
Mindless of what should be
What is emerges
Love’s tensile strength transmuted
KDK
between new nightmares
and day dreams
of a better life
lay reality resurfaced
tight with taut brutality
unspeakable thoughts drift
down through time's flash
triggered not there
not then
but now and here
her mind digs through fear
as she sinks
slight form down
crisp skirt's rustle sound
folds with her
to ground
and she says to herself
I will lay here
in this hollow
it fits the curve of my spine
holds the shape
of my hips
and the grass padded earth
cups itself a little
around my waist
hugs me
till I sleep
I am still alive
I am dead
to the world
tar roads
pavements
are too hard
concrete
cannot hold me
the same way
they resist my shape
press flatness
hard
against me
leave me sore
unrested
complaints unheard
where may I sleep
With fragrance
of grass and earth
maybe
in a garden
a cultured space
thoughts arouse
aroma once known
from those past
yet still present
places
so pleasant
maybe then
I will fall into dreams
of painless light
sunshine will soothe
I will feel bright
flame red flowers
in free fall
Will not burn
as they engulf me
float from arms
branches
blue sky stretched
they will caress me
in potpourri perfume
memories mock
her senses
she yearns to block
their burn
when I sleep
I'll not smell
petrol fumes
flared up
I will not hear
the shudder of bodies
breaking down the door
I will forget
the screams
eardrums pierced
my own
I will not feel
my body burn
in hell hound fire
twisted hatred
from ordinary mothers
fathers sisters sons
bizarre beliefs
turned my skin
from brown silk smooth
to outlandish patches
pink and brown
how will I
become
familiar
with who I am
now
she falls asleep
dreams
of sunshine
tree shadow dappled
nature cradles her
in dark and light
she breathes low
drum sounds
bring her back
there
next to eyes
awakening
her fingers
delicate drummers
play the earth
With firm tips
tap tapping
a well known song
her long gone
mother's lullaby
hush my child
hush now
don't cry
sleep sweet
against my heart
hush now
hear the beats
of my love
for you
hush now
so angels
do not sigh
hum drum
hum drum
hum drum
she starts to cry
Posted:15-12-2018
Note: "Sister" poem to "thin skinned"
Though I am a blank but still,
I can smell their shallowness from twill,
How debunked shame and superficiality in them,
But no cuss, ahem…
Because it ‘be questioned, frowned and fuss,
Hah…so this fallacy of twenty-first,
Disguised under flag of ‘coolness’,
Don’t abuse it with the with f n b in utter flatness,
Because, its today’s trend,
To be free in all the evils commend,
Which makes per worthy to the cool breed
That creed which is clad in obscene lee
What an awfully excruciating enlightenment I see,
In which moral and respect bleed
I implored myself with money and okay,
thought that feasting at the time was no crime,
and as the chyme soothingly rolled in my head's threads,
then in pretense covered that craving with a palm,
that craving very agile and corporeal.
upon my lulling, the asking defied;
i gave it money and honey,
filled up with joy and future employ;
i promised burgers served with kandara,
njugu karanga and bits of cars
yet the desire waxed insatiable!
i gave a good girl to woo,
it looked out the more.
and i got another maid of the style princely;
her bosom decorated with flatness and uniformity,
reaching up to the moonlight in height,
digging deep beneath the heels of fashion,
she walked gracefully like a drunken monk,
the music of buckles and golden rings begged much;
and that's what i added to this creature of ghostly beauty.
then this calling wants a third one!
it wandered to the ages of history
and excavated childhood dreams,
dripping with rottenness and obsession,
in the life of civilisation i was tormented,
degrees but tormenting,
good jobs but tormenting!
sooner i resolved to quench the question of "enough?"
and made myself a vocation
to drench the injustice of childhood poverty
with the justice of excellence.
a redeemer of sorts,
the light in the way of a night walker.
many looking from my reverse
see hope under my feet-stool.
i am become the man of going,
and going i do.
behind is troop of people unseen,
jerking forwards, themselves a foothold to obtain.
soon they'll play this game my style,
and it's a vast quiz.
tell me,
how vast is it?
the sea of desire,
all opportunities begging a piece?
shall i be satiated getting a graduate degree?
or a postgraduate?
first-class or distinction?
will adorable mistresses and pageants
announce your destination,
oh desire?
i sought, and i'm seeking,
behold nothing satiates.
it's insatiable this life.
in traffic there is an accidie and weariness
and flatness and humdrum of the road
but leonard cohen helps with that
and i think about the poor north koreans
without their fix of coca cola
and the mental health of the finnish with
their billabong of coffee and caffeine flowing
out their ears and the best brand of water in china
has the biggest market reach and woodpeckers don't
get headaches because according to a
professional content provider they just don't
and speaking of the chinese
they've found a hut on the moon
some distance away from their rover; who can tell
who might be living in that hut
i look up out the windscreen at the moon
and imagine myself living in that hut
or maybe leonard cohen is living there now
and england have lost the first ashes test
and outside the hut is a scoreboard showing
australia need twenty runs to win
the hut has become a pavilion and there's plenty of
tea drinking going on
no finnish there pal
and someone shouts howssszat! across the galaxy
as asteroid 4660 nereus misses earth
as i miss childhood
it travels on and on into the depths of the saddle
of the universe
I don’t believe Donald Trump should be impeached,
He’s brought light to the Presidency, a dynasty,
Of a long line of ‘born again’ believers, screeched,
Wiling government into a god-inspired fallacy.
Burocracy is not an heuristic term or value judgement -
It’s a rational roll of reasonable deliberations, business,
Mirroring the typical American citizen as sediment,
Which Mr Trump places, to his credit and best guess.
He’s not a force for power without love and freedom,
Stealing smiles from unlikely Democrats, Pub’s alike,
He gives the lesser the right to arbitrate and custom,
When climbing the hierarchy an eager workers’ hike.
He’s not killed five people, an individual’s sadness,
Another quinquennial would see America great again,
With Covid faced squarely and firmly by flatness,
Joe Biden will take it as efficient, practical and fain.
Let the people speak from the Representative’s House,
Not one view, but proffering all view’s to regulate,
Bold with speech, he’s turned the stiff upper clouse,
Into commerce’s flutter, so please give a vulgate.
Dominique Webb
Redding Poem 4
“Flying Down Interstate 5”
We departed Redding at 3:45,
In the dead of an October night.
Those tumultuous streets were morgues then,
As we raced to the deserted Interstate 5,
Zooming across the snoozing Sacramento River,
Going at a constant speed of 85,
Passing the snoring cities of Red Bluff, Chico and Yuba City,
Slicing through the darkness of early morning,
With the tule fog scratching over the countryside,
Shrouding the distant lights like blinders on a roan.
One city after another, my speeding treads arriving
In dark sleepy Sacramento in two hours.
With the sun not waking yet, but stirring,
The internal beast passed Stockton as a blur in time,
With other speeding drivers merging onboard,
As insistent captains of their own landlocked ships.
Then looming before us, the San Joaquin canvass;
A devouring flatness five hundred miles long,
Of faraway farmlands sleeping overtime,
The majestic surreal banality of Central California,
Magnetizing us, hypnotizing us to the hastening flow,
Of southern currents and windy traipsings;
This caravan of one, this golden fueled protrusion,
Of the nomadic heartbeat; the inertly-moving soul search;
This final journey to the rapids of my youth,
Where undead ghost boys still climb the rebar rungs,
Atop the old tower on the water’s edge,
Still spit into the blue, slow-paced river below.
Dropped down upon my head with
A withering drone
Like 747's passing through a small tube
In search of home
Absurdity perceived realistically
Things go soft and gooey
A descending drone of primary tones
Flashing beacons, misdirection
Conveyor belts of hardest bricks
Reciprocally pelts
Coming up for air
Perception
Lastly,
The drone crushes, crushing until their flatness
Matches
Like ancient Peruvian stones
The moment before flattening, suffocating
Sameness
Before release into
The true line
Bends
Is the line which bends
In timelessness
A circle which is complete
Yet never meets?