He dwelled in depths I dared not enter
Satan the landlord; he the renter
He packed his things but left behind
a lidded box he hoped I'd find.
It was not of the Pandora kind.
Curious as to what he'd put inside...
Yes, I was inquisitive enough
to know if its contents had the power
to devour me whole or leave me sour
over the promises he didn't keep...
the vows he broke that made we weep.
He'd stolen my heart and I wanted it back
I the prey, he the hunter.
Sunset descended behind willow trees
before it felt right to open the lid,
for in darkness, he'd left me in sorrow,
grimly haunted by the memories of him.
In stygian shadows is where he often hid.
How fitting the hour of midnight appealed
to me to unseal the box, its cover to lift.
Therein I found his silver wedding band
and felt I should thank him for this final gift.
In the box of dreaded darkness, I found light.
A gift I understood as I held it in my hand.
He the giver, I the receiver.
Sometimes I contemplate about my own self-destruction.
I wonder if I am at fault for the way this state has simply become a dreadful inevitability.
I wonder if I am at fault for the way my mind hums with a silence that scratches my soul.
I wonder if I am at fault for the visceral, undeniable pull that tugs at my sternum.
Fatigue.
It’s a conflictive concept.
It’s practical. It’s biological. It’s physical.
But for me, it’s the definition of my existence.
It’s the medical complications that pile up through my fingernails like tangled vines on a hanging tree.
It’s the pocket-sized triggers that push me back into a room with claw marks on the door.
It’s the way that no matter who I am, what I am, or where I am, I will always be a victim of exhaustion.
Not the sleepy, heavy-lidded homesick type.
But the invisible type.
The blood-itching need for evaporation.
The throat-clamping desire for combustion.
The tear-scarred plea for deterioration.
And I wonder if all I am meant to be is a hanging tree;
vexed by the vines of her own making and hung by the carvings of her own captivity.
If I wandered through the room
With lazy-lidded eyes
And a half-cocked smile, barely there
Would you see through my disguise?
My aura’s calm and steady
I’ve filled my head with songs
I’m channelling the tranquil spirit
Of someone who belongs
Relax my shoulders, slow down my pace
And say
less than
I could
I keep my speech cool and composed
Feigning ‘everything is good’
Fabricated serenity
Is wrapped all over me
(I’m wicked-nervous to the core)
I'm giving off ‘carefree’
Woke up at 3a.m., heavy lidded. Had no other go but to embrace it. The clock was ticking 4:20 when I was facing my book feeling groggy, but my desire to score won’t let me doze off. Got dressed up in my school uniform and found myself waiting for the school van. Despite my wait, the van made an appearance 35 minutes later. It was an exam day and I’ve already lost 35 minutes. My mind was in a state of unrest. Got in the van with the very same state of mind. I got to witness the outside world between 8:25 a.m. and 8:55 a.m. for the first time which seemed to me so eternal. I happened to see my friend after a very long time. Though I didn’t get To talk to her, my heart began recollecting the memories. The sun was brighter and more glowing than ever. The gentle chill breeze approached me through the window. My state of mind? Was peaceful than ever before. Maybe sometimes it is good not to resist what is to happen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A penny face-up in the gutter—
Abraham’s copper gaze half-lidded with rain.
I pocket him like a secret,
like the first digit in an equation
no one taught me to how to solve.
The laundromat coughs up dimes~
silver cataracts rolled under dryers,
buried beneath lint and lost socks.
I tally them in my palm,
each one a tiny moon
pulled from the tide of neglect.
My grandmother saved buttons in a jar,
swore they were pirate treasure.
I collect coins instead~
nickels in parking lots,
quarters wedged between bus seats,
their edges bitten with teeth marks.
When the year ends,
I spill them all onto the kitchen table~
a metal harvest, a jingling autopsy.
Enough for a coffee,
a lottery ticket,
or the weight of knowing
that fortune isn’t a mountain
but the slow accumulation
of what everyone else
steps over.
She stares out the window
at the bare limbs of the maple,
at the gray clouds gathering
like a secret no one will share.
He sits two rows over,
leaning back, his sleeve rolled up,
laughing at something
I will never hear,
looking at someone else,
someone whose name I don’t even know.
I imagine her hair,
gold light spilling from the top of her head,
her eyes half-lidded,
the curve of her lips when she smiles—
and I wonder if he sees me at all,
or if he even notices me
shrinking in my seat,
hands folded, invisible to all but me.
Facebook is full of whispers:
“Did you see him yesterday?”
“They think she’s the one.”
I scroll past the glowing rectangles,
heart hammering,
knowing my own name
is never typed there,
my face never tagged,
my longing unread.
My eyes stare straight ahead of me.
And yet—
I have him, here, in my chest,
a quiet drumbeat he will never hear,
a small, fierce warmth
that keeps me awake all night.
even while he looks away,
even while she smiles.
I can't think such thoughts about him now.
That I will regret, he loves someone else and I now know that nothing's coming next.
The moon and stars used to be
both things that brought joy to me.
Now I see them one and all,
forms that find a need to fall.
Drop and leave a vacant spot
where two lovers claimed their lot.
Spreading dust of dreams once made,
fireflies glitter in the glade.
I used to see moon's face aglow,
shooting moonbeams down below.
In youth I gathered them up,
kept them in a lidded cup.
I dreamed I would grab a star,
place it in a covered jar.
When I'd have to make a wish,
I'd just have to view that dish.
These memories bound up tight.
My star captured from the night.
And yet still I cannot seem
to find that sparkle in my dream.
Youth has gone and old age stayed.
Only blackness where stars once played.
I dream now of midnight bliss,
when stars and moon bow and kiss.
It whips legs, spins minds in a tumbler.
roars with the discarded clothes
of mad clowns.
Bundles of fine bones and twirling feathers
burst apart in a random turmoil,
deer swim toward a gasping night.
A mottled land shakes its muddy ribs.
as a whittling wind hammers on.
The sky has opened a double-lidded,
dragons' eye,
a pitiless tornado is upon us,
it lands to lift and discard,
then dances with the bobbing dead.
All who dodge that swirling danger,
thank a God,
who like us, shelters in His bunker.
Hiding out my soul,
in Carles’ Happy Flamingo,
feeling too small
to be larger than life.
She was a tattooed lamp and
shape-shady,
willing to go down
for the wrong guy.
I bought her a drink,
a double-lidded wink -
a ‘bar lizard’ move,
there was nobody
left to care
here or anywhere.
The music was nasal wallpaper
I just sat there
dripping into my heart
until she - bored
with my silence,
slid
her hips away
to pour into someone else.
Mantis eyes magnetised her sister’s heart
felt its imprisoned glint of gold
willed it to enlarge into a
lotus leaf upon a sea
It floats on a lake of blood before
dawn turning hot burning blue
heat of her own blood
gold of her own heat
‘Let her not drown in
bloodied gold of red
running thick and deep’
So she murmured, so they did
To a shore of soft sand
Heart sailed escorted by
obsidian lidded dragons
gloomy gold unshackling
Guts, throat, tongue
puddle, pond, lake of
blood transmuted to turquoise
gold and blood morphing
Cupids created decoupage dishes
with bloodied dollars gold
called for another stint
to alchemise pentacles cold
_________________
PUBLISHED: Edge of Humanity Magazine
September 26
He smells the passion and perfume,
the mild and manic moments
of a young love.
Here comes a ragged flight of crows;
he squints in the cold sunlight.
Blue shadows glimmer and glint.
He has a lover in mind;
a dead one,
the crows carry her memory to him.
The aroma of deep red wine,
silk stockings discarded
yet still writhing and tangling.
The clumsy sincerity
of sexual pantomimes,
Tipsy lipreading's of arousal
utter their naked words,
glimmers sculpture
tantric passions into recollection.
He wonders
did any of this change -
the girl, the crows, the tidal musk,
the surfacing ebb and flow
the sense of it all?
Autumnal flares
restore a late warmth
to cooling images.
The long-lived
out run their dreams.
Ardor awakens once more
between scarlet lips.
It's a kindred, half-living
kind of being.
The seasoned
shelter such memories
under concealing crows feet,
or beneath
chameleon-lidded eyes.
Heavy lidded
Quiet and still, blurring
Visions with inklings
Of slumber, laboring
To breathe dreams
Through the embrace
Of comforting sheets
In colors of soft light
Lavender and pink
Blushing like roses, gentle
Graceful as the morning
Whispering fanciful
Fantasies, wishes, reveries
Blended on the moments
Dozing like the memories
White lace nightgowns
Intimate as poetry
Brought to life on hearts
Who listen to the glow
Of swift, still light
Reviving the feelings
Laughing silently
Through promises
Of dense truths, honesty
Growing wise inside
The heart who believes
This sweet serenity
Only comes with the closing
Of the eyes, the night
When everything rests
Soundless as the snowflake
Caressing the naked branches
Light as the wind
Sleep frees the spirit
To know the night’s abandon
5/11/22
I remember a boy child
who thrilled to hear dark
ghost stories
Told around a crackling fire
circle of faces
looking
imaging down
heavy lidded
in toward suggestive
face drawn shadows
warming late night
glowing light.
Outdoor cold wildness
exciting safely distant terrors
experienced vicariously
around this goosebumping circle
of starlit trembling bliss
Safety,
sustained light of humane
encircling comfort,
shadowing resilient powers
of divinely demented health care
despair
Devoid, for this evening's moment
of ghosting cathartic fears
behind mythic morbid stories
avoiding bad guy
or sad girl
creepy nighttime visions.
I wonder,
now reflecting later peak experiences,
if a sequel love story
of young romance
between a boy and girl,
A passionate embrace
erasing space
in-between a boy
and boy,
A forgiving grace
for unconditioned regard
between two girls
who would not think to touch
without a grateful kiss,
Might these have been
a warmer loving way
to send us off
into cold sleeping bags
at end of camping day
anticipating dreams
of tender touching terror.
Sweet scent of magnolia permeated the air
on the cusp of a balmy summer gloaming
Myriads of stars would soon gleam above
My garden was already dappled with light
awash in the luminance of tiny fireflies
Diminutive lanterns had taken wing
in search of a mate or to feast on prey
Dancing in circles while crickets chirped
Not syncopated in rhythm, but all the same...
I was enchanted with their golden glow
Flickering sprites, mystical fairy creatures
They lingered long after the moon had risen
I dared not move in fear of chasing them away
No lidded prison would hold Nature's treasures
flitting in my garden in the aura of dusk
I'm going to the zoo. Oh, I am going to have some fun, I get to see the kangaroos and the baboons too. The happy sun is shining and I'm standing in front of the cage of one, very slow moving, Sloth suspended from a tree limb.
While no one was looking, I put my arm through the bars of the cage,
and manage to reach in and pat it.
The look on its flat head face and bandit heavy-sleepy lidded eyes, in outrage, it murmured with a gentle greeting, a soothing grunt.
" Go away human I want to sleep."
I scream and pull back my hand. You! You! Set off on a run.
6/16/2021
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