A BRITTLE RETROSPECTIVE
provocative
innovative
sensibilities
seminal
decorous
imitations
experiments
impeccably
ingenious
determination
of
febrile
serendipity
in
possibilities
of
myriad
perspectives
Love,they say has many a cloudy nomenclature
Lang of metaphors and figures of virtual stature;
Those who resort to it live in the wild cavern
Of blown up false images and chronic concern;
An enigma that makes one go out of oneself!
Romeo and Juliet have left behind the Mawn--
Tall claims and a bright aura around Eros's crown
Have not many been tossed and whirled across
The endless yards of the illusion pursuing dross,
Leaving the chaser sapless , febrile and thirsty..?
Who is wiser :Narcissus who loved himself more
Or Echo who killed herself to dote and adore..?
Strangely, the height and depth of fond limerence
Has no meter or measure to gauge its reverence;
May true intent prevail ,aye over the strong urge !
I’ve been unashamedly holiday focused,
everything fit together like a puzzle,
all febrile worries were pardoned,
we took haven in our comforts.
I slept shamefully late,
We weaponized fun.
The world seemed parasitology free,
pharmacology, pathology and histology free,
if not entirely anatomy free wink wink
and except for my mom, assessment free.
It’s been great, it’s been Christmas!
But soon, my cares will, again, be fined tuned
by the Gordian knot of learning
and it’s ungentle reckonings.
If it weren’t all asked for - I’d be pissed.
.
.
A Song for this:
Coney Island Man by Swing Out Sister
Counting every hour,
minutes marked in blood,
seconds weighed in tears—
waiting for the flood.
So precious at first, all the firsts:
hummingbird-heart memories,
both febrile and lucid,
a fantasy of feathered dreams.
Your hand around my heart
as you slid the truth off my wrist—
a deft sleight of hand,
misdirected as we kissed.
Where did we go, beneath the waves,
breathing water, searching shore—
a brush, a taste, missed memory,
a trick of the light, nothing more.
Foppish fringe flutters..pianist tendrils tinkling..
Flitter finessing leathery fruits..
Caressing..stitched dreams tickled & tailored..
Swing..swerve in clandestine cahoots…
Curve…voluptuous velvety verve..
Wobble seam serendipity tempts..teases..
Sliding across creases..angle architect gliding..
Heaven sent tyro riding blazing trails..
Hellbent brio…Waggers & Trent..Timmy trio..
Touted trinity…selector trifecta..febrile fan affinity..
Tim’s timber hoicks topple Toblerones..
Schadenfreude stats sips.. Oiks suggest Timmy..
Ersatz Test imitator of Jimmy…
Naysayers…tut tutters spew from trolling gutters…
As Yoda may say…"Devil may care..unfair..flair in the air..this bowling pair share..'
Muffled murmurs of the goat..Hadlee float…gracing grassy notes..
Timmy..go on gimme one final shimmy…
Dare to dream…it will end.. as it did begin..
With that boyish grin..just beam..old friend
Febrile Fog obfuscates palimpsest varnished promises..
Naysayers hoodwinked... deluded players peeling layers..denuded..
Deafening din of our chagrin...
Espoused by rabbles roused by mandarins’ sins..
Tarnished...pampered pilferers pickpocketing public purses...
Deploring the warring cacophony of citizens curses..
Ignoring the boring nagging nadir of nurses...
Corporate castles built without stilts on hourglass sands..
Placards versus lanyards..
Culprits preach parsimony from privileged pulpits..
Civic critics.. protests...pyrrhric..?
No tut tuts..relax…gluts of tax cuts for property sluts..
Licentious larcenists..lust for boom then bust..
Lavishly lacing our lives with lies..
Yet the more we holler...hanker..
Murky truths get darker...muckier.. starker..danker..
Avaricious arsonists torching our cries of why...
Leave us lolloping in a regret & forget.. leaking latrine...
Reeking of what could & should have been..
Amóre; what is that, he wondered,
before, before her, before the raw
Circean glimpsed across the buzzing
dance crazed rhythmic beating pulsing room.
Erudite, perniciously droll his
father was, he could have been, the old
generation, but not him, no sir;
he was master of the universe.
It took a while to traverse the room,
jam-packed with hot, febrile bodies in
karezza writhings, bodies touching;
love, or lust, on their minds and on his.
"May I?" "May you what?" She taunted;
neither spoke; both stared. His head bowed in
obeisance, bright red shoes his focus.
Power shifted, as both knew it would.
Quarry now the huntress, wolf killer
relishing command, his submission.
Slowly, mischievously; a wink; words;
"take me to your room, this moment, now
undress me; like you have already."
Vainglorious once; now, kin to a
witless fool, he stood, helpless; she stared;
x-rayed him with her cold steel-blue eyes;
"you're blushing," she whispered. The words like
zephyrs softly caressing his face …
When you enter a certain age
your opinions don't count
In the West age does not carry consideration
for the aegis of youth prevails
with your Tik Tok and Instagram
instant accords of the febrile mind
When Pavlov’s dog met Schrödinger’s cat, the world stopped for a minute.
It didn’t really stop as such but glitched, a febrile minute
A thought experiment of sorts outside the box and in it.
The feline, they were out of sorts; a strontium addiction.
The dog conditioned, slobbered as a bell rang in the distance.
The cat’s eyes focused hard on the saliva of the hound
And under kitty’s observation, it dribbled down and down
The dog stared into the pool of spit and saw its own reflection
Still hungry, dog took stock of their repeated situation
Quantum in its furry form, the cat reflected also
Wondering about the stress upon its fragile torso
The cat laid down and closed its eyes; a fatal premonition
Only to breathe life again, a zombie like condition
So slobberdog and quatum cat began an interesting chat
About philosophy and science and ehtics and all of that
And quatum kitty laid their head upon the throat of dog
And wished that they could die together in the universal quantum fog.
Fresh and serene droplets rest in galore
As the dawn smiles on them to adore
The tiny prettiness in spectral mode
Downs from out of the heavenly abode ;
In dainty drips and drizzles the elixir
Enlivens and recharges the aqua-spur
Beyond the brim and out of norm
It sinks the floater and defaces the firm -
Mounds or mansions,weed or tree
Huge or little - are all toppled free ;
Strange are the ways of the cosmic strain
Be it the wind ,fire,tremor or rain
Atop the floating debris and decay,
The self-centred biped strides astray
With a whimsy wand and febrile chill ,
Streching the vicious arm for infinite fill
Of the precious trash ,never for any use;
Yet as ' trade ' - the imbalancing ruse.
HAPPENINGS
impressions of experience
& reputation
so obvious
intense&
predisposed
to deception
this
malign attention
of thought
an apathy
seldom professed
a
passion
supposed
by
influence
&prejudice
precocious
creating a
febrile tumult
THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE without grammatical symbols the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and respond thus making the form a two way interplay and often a unique interpretation by the enigma so derived
Easy to judge by what it seems to be,
More effort to immerse in what we hear.
Take time to talk, there is much more to me,
Before you tune me out, lend me your ear.
Estranged to yours my life seems to appear
Yet I laugh, love and struggle as do you.
Same start, same final and same febrile fear -
To be misjudged for diverse points of view.
Bisected by a biased borderline,
It only seems we are two worlds apart -
For eyes to see, open your closed up mind
Lend me your ear, I’ll open up my heart.
March 18, 2021
Once,drenched in mournful tears,
'neath the timid soul in fear;
Now,burning in anguish's flames.
Once,trodden and unheard,
Battered and bruised;
Now,searing in febrile waves.
And once fragile and tamed,
A prisoner of your whim;
A slave of your caprice;
Now, ready to unshackle the chains.
So behold me,
As i surge high;
As i fly away;
Once,caged in your vile world;
Never ever again !
Never ever again !
Never.Ever.Again
A man with no fingers
waves his fingers at me.
My third day of amoebic dysentery
and though my yellow eye
can see, they see what they choose to.
The guy is not a feverish delusion,
he comes to my house
every morning to sweep my veranda.
I hear my young wife
scolding our Siamese cat,
its brought another snake home,
Chiang Mai abounds with them,
but today my skin is crawling enough.
The guy with no fingers – just stubs,
goes under the house
to hunt for larger snakes;
the house is on stilts
and I imagine his head
under my cot.
his skull is slowly blooming.
leprosy flowers are sprouting
from the hole at the top of his head.
The word ‘puce’ will always
make me think of puss from now on.
From now on
I buy only red flowers for my wife.
There is hardly any blood-letting
at the leprosy institute
just a slow wearing a way of dry flesh,
and me with a fever
that will return forty years later.
Tropical Ohio lasts for some days.
I imagine the cot, the mosquito nets,
a slow moving fan too high above
to save me from a febrile drowning;
then the serpent in my brain
passes away from lack of sleep
and an excess of chicken broth.
The love from these bigger versions of him is unparalleled
he has dad, mum and big sister, what an absolute colourway
for making his important existence temporize
the heavens know he needed this care, gratitude to his spokesperson
jumping from breast to chest to shoulders, what a bliss!
Passing through training, well cooked and garnished
enjoyment in full, even when comfort is febrile.
Comfortably picking his traits while on a piggy back
fine growth, in steady calibration is ongoing
oh no! Bigger is he for these pillars to gradually fade
another is born, the break is permanent
now a broader shoulder he is, the acquired strength he must revive.
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