I found her as a whispered line in an editorial
stuck on the silk folds of a silver jubilee
like regret.
She had bled once in a different continent
A red thread pulled taut at thirteen
Doctors sealed the loom forever.
I was thirteen too, still learning the
topography of my brown skin.
My hands trembled like birdcage doors
unsure whether to open or close.
The article was a medical moonspeak
which orbited her wound like gravity.
Her body was an eclipse,
a shadow swallowing the sun before its rise.
Some thresholds are chasms I learned that day
shaped like hospital beds,
where young girls are unravelled.
The editorial has faded like old ink
on rain-soaked newsprint, but her sentence lingers.
And I am still standing barefoot at the edge,
where pain and empathy hold hands
like hesitant strangers beneath the doorway called thirteen.
What is to be known of the honey comb?
A frightening look at overcrowding at home.
She comes to this tribal gathering in robes,
wearing slippers, newsprint on her thumb.
Affection awaits the cat, whose attitude carefully
adjusted, has decided to stay off this ottoman.
It is February, and the weather remains cold.
To be warm, I should flip the calendar to autumn.
Tomorrow, let us fly rainbow kites of our sensual
minds, entangling kite tails of the color chrome.
Another day of endless poetry in her dreams.
The poetess composes another dreamy poem.
He watched her through the rusted window grilles;
While chalk dust danced in streams of morning sun;
His trembling hands left prints upon the desk wood;
The ceiling fans cut through the province heat.
He saved his coins from morning bread and ice drops;
To buy her books, wrapped careful in newsprint;
Their phone screen pierced the February shadows—
Each message worth the hunger pangs at dusk.
Manila called him like a siren's promise,
While she stayed rooted to provincial soil;
Their messages grew shorter, then to silence,
Till college turned their world to separate skies.
A decade melted into office silence...
He sees through seasoned eyes what youth had veiled—
A boy who built his temples out of whispers
In that old room where mangoes rained like tears.
She still drifts 'tween his dreams of Guagua's twilight,
Still wearing that smile time could not erase;
Though years have softened edges of those moments,
His 2-A desk still guards their carved remains.
-
Poetry expression,
of fragile anorexic bodies in search
of affable systems
and psychotherapists
from beyond the garden.
Crepuscular foggy mangrove frames
that dilute the mournful search
for the end of time
and the rhetorical horror
of the "I believe that, but the question is complex"
Imagism of saying the pain,
limpid and clear
and selling it off
on a canvas of bleeding flies,
l'art pour l'art,
among the notes of croaking ukulelis.
Poetry like newsprint
to wrap withered skulls and
remnants of good intentions,
glares of masses,
desperate sisterhoods,
maternal pity for cheating biology.
Poetry, turns the inert dastardly
and banal
one heals wounds with puns
Beaten down for centuries
Splattered in newsprint for all to see
It has been that way ever since
they came from Africa on hollowed ships
Enslaved, raped, hanged, broken
Traded for sins unspoken
Successful towns burned to the ground
Wiped from the maps never to be found
Protestors marched as sons and daughters were shot
Police bullets took lives without a mere thought
The unarmed men and women trying to survive
in a country who ruled they had no right to life
Battered and beaten, black lives shattered
Skin color, if Black leads to lives in tatter
Equal Pay? Equal rights? Do Black lives really matter?
Republicans gerrymandering to silence their rights
Statesmen cloaked scheming through dark days and nights
The front of their neck rests the white man’s knee
trying to gasp out the words “save democracy”
Ignoring their foes
they showed up in droves
Standing in line
No concept of time
Wind howls, rain pour
the right to vote has never been yours
Extra , Extra
Read all about it
I took out Add Space
To Crow Lyrical
Boom back from Self-Imposed sabbatical
So welcome to my Title Shot
At the Big Show
Or heaven forbid
Critically maligned follow up failure
That ends in recriminations and tears
And once upon a time former champions of my cause
No longer taking or receiving my calls
Success takes Ages
Failure is Instant
Yesterday's Newsprint
folded into her
own crinkled
wrinkled
newsprint self,
delight and enthusiasm rapidly
dissipate
Torn pieces of herself
languish
in her own self-imposed
purgatory
joyless, she sees nothing
of her former light.
In greyscale, her
essence
waits in anguish for
the return of self.
Each box holds its secret.
Old memories, dreams that died.
The sum of every promise-
the dividends and sighs.
Paper, cloth, and pottery-
a postscript of our prime.
Wrapped in yellow newsprint-
the passing of our time.
Clutter from our passions
lay there dead in place.
While ties among the living
die somewhere else in space.
Written Aug 13, 2018
THE DUNMURRY INCIDENT
There’s a big row going on in Dunmurry
And the whole place has come to a stop
There’s a war going on with the girl who makes cakes
And the bird in the newspaper shop
They both fancy Taxi man Terry
Though Newspaper Nell saw him first
Yet it seems he’s enticed, by Puff pastry Pat
Now poor Nell is fearing the worst
Pat has been seen tempting Terry
With her big baps, and choice of cream cakes
Poor Nell can’t offer those fanciful things
But she’s willing to do what it takes
Then Pat hit Nell with a doughnut
So Nell thought she’d better give chase
She walloped poor Pat, with an old Sunday Life
Then rubbed newsprint all over her face
Pat staggered back to the bakery
And she brought out a large lemon pie
It went over Nell’s head, and into her ears
Some even went into her eye
Nell made a soft muted whimper
From the sting in her eye I suppose
She reached in her pocket, and that’s when aul Pat
Got a triple A, stuck up her nose
Well the cops, they arrived in a hurry
And they pulled the two ladies apart
So peace was restored to the village
And poor Terry, he had to depart
the fiber optic cables are swollen with grief
blood clots the airwaves
faces beyond despair stare from half a world away
newsprint is smudged with the tears it’s reporting
the world’s absurdity
nature’s cruelty
man’s depravity
all in high-resolution overdoses of reality
there are too many claims on my sympathy
too much need for the morphine of apathy
to preserve my faith in humanity
I have to ration my pity
stop my ears
turn away from the carnage
lest my heart grow cold faster than the bodies
so I exchange the funereal for the farcical
take sabbaticals from the news
and seek refuge in the world of Pixar
I think of you with tenderness that
seldom knew breath when you were alive.
Like tattered, yellowed leaves
images appear scattered in the recesses of my memory.
Mom and I wait patiently at the East Williston station
where the 6:20 takes a brief bow before its next destination.
I wait under the station’s awning,
promising mother I won't dance on the tracks when
I see an army of gray flannel felt hats; a tide moving to shore,
smelling of stale cigarettes and filthy newsprint.
You appear from the gray fog.
Your disappointments, your exhaustion gives way as you lift me
and my face is poised above your own.
I peer into your velvet brown eyes, crinkling at the corners.
Later, your massive hands massage mine over the porcelain sink
as thick snow-white lather soothes our intertwined fingers.
I look up into the mirror and I see your serious expression
behind my smiling face.
Dad, did you see me?
Because now I am thinking of you
with tenderness
that never knew breath.
Come and Find Me in My Solitude
four fingers in a water glass
to keep the “creep” away
four fingers in a water glass
to keep the curse at bay
no ice, let’s keep it quiet,
hard bite of whiskey’s sting
“hair of the dog that bit ya”
as the dying grey wolves sing
rocking inside the boxcars
camping beside the track
drowning dreams of a yesterday
that’s never coming back
huddled beneath “newsprint” blankets
curled in pain’s fetal ball
dreading the sounds of the sunset
fearing the crash of night’s fall
praying for death in a doorway
shivering against marbled stone
a vision through slow closing eyelids
of somebody calling him home
12/2/2016
submitted to – COME AND FIND ME IN MY SOLITUDE – Poetry Contest
Nothing much said
Rejig what's paid
No news to pitch
Bad tales then hitch
Recast the bad
Sales up not bad
Newsprint seeds poise
Hurl mouth of choice
Puff pungent smoke
Tragic news poke
Leon Enriquez
28 November 2016
Singapore
The lights have been turned on
in the attic
Someone has flipped the switch
exposing
cobwebs, caster oil, crutches
newsprint and cheap china
Which I'm hesitant to touch
least it falls apart in my hands or
cracks like the blue Robin eggs
I once tried to store in my pocket.
I know I should begin cleaning
but I dread the cobwebs
and I'm allergic to the dust (I tell myself)
that's been layering for fifty years
Undisturbed
I am
Disturbed
by the invention of
long lasting light bulbs, showing me around
no, they wont burn out anytime soon
and I will open a window
letting in the city sounds
that drown out the adults
fighting downstairs
distracting me from my chores.
Old tree here
Big yet unnoticed;
Loiters lonely
~~~~~~~~~
Dazzling rays blaze
Bamboo pines veil;
Touch of magic
~~~~~~~~~
Stray cat basking
Fat and fuzzy;
Carefree attitude
~~~~~~~~~
Busy feet zigzag
Workday blues;
Sad distractions
~~~~~~~~~
Two old men
Sit watching happenings;
Blank curious eyes
~~~~~~~~~
Poignant moments
Go with the flow;
Dare to live now
~~~~~~~~~
Bank queue
Long time waiting;
Abrupt transaction
~~~~~~~~~
Telling words
Morning highlights;
Newsprint echo
~~~~~~~~~
Primal urge
Focus delivers;
Freshly minted voice
~~~~~~~~~
Walkway journeys
Fresh morning sun;
Dreams chase form
~~~~~~~~~
Leon Enriquez
14 December 2015
Singapore
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