Nodded Poems

When Tom Understood Jerry

I hated him,
fought with him,
threw words sharp enough to cut.

I called him a psycho,
as if he was
and he—
he just nodded,
as if guilt was his to bear.

He took my beatings,
my storms,
without a single strike back.

And when I broke,
when tears came like floodwater,
he didn’t turn away.
He pulled me close,
patted my hair,
and whispered,

“It’s okay… I will be with you.”

That was the moment,
like Tom understanding Jerry,
we stopped being enemies—
and became something more.

The Night Light

It was after midnight,
when he slipped out of bed,
careful not to disturb,
the trailing streamers 
of dreamers in la la land.

The house held its breath warm—
willing all within its walls
to stay asleep; not be stirred.
The creaks of timber stairs
were never heard, never slurred,
to blurt out their secrets and 
break the stark, thin, brittle hush of night.

As he snuck into the kitchen,
the night light came on,
saving a bare-foot snub. 
As he stooped to open the fridge,
he saw the note she left on the door,
from the day before, saying:
“I forgot to tell you the milk's a little off.”

He smiled at the crooked charm of the message,
feeling a ghost in the whispered warning.
Fed the milk to the cat. 
It purred with delight.
Sometimes he thought, such tiny phrases, 
slip in before they're noticed,
curdle before you taste them.
Only to slink away with a sting in their tale.

With that, he nodded and returned. 
The fridge door slammed itself shut.
He wandered back to bed, on tiptoe, making no sound.
He left the light night burning,
for the shadows that rose on the landing, 
and for the cat. 
Both slunk away, back to bed.

The cupboard light

It was nearly midnight
when he slipped out of bed,
careful not to wake her.

The house exhaled its silence—
walls warm with sleep,
timber creaking
from the day’s last heat.

He padded to the kitchen
in bare feet, opened the cupboard
where li’l miss had hidden
a note for him the day before:
“I love you even when you forget milk.”
 
He smiled at that.
Switched on the stovetop light—
not bright enough to disturb,
just enough to see his notebook.
 
He scribbled under
a half-written poem:
“Faith is not thunder. It’s a fridge humming through the night.”

A creak behind him.
Li’l Miss in her tiny dressing gown,
one sock half-off, thumb in her mouth.
 
“You writing again?” she asked.
He nodded.
She nodded back, solemnly,
like a poet-in-training,
and padded away.
 
The cupboard light blinked once
and stilled. He returned to his pen.
The house listened.
 
 
 
.

The Hunt

The hunt for quails had begun.

Two old men sat on a bench on the main street.
A shot rang out of the stillness of the countryside. 
Below one old man, weak-sighted but the sound of hearing, 
raised his head towards the ridge.
"He missed! Surely the fool has missed!" he said.

Up the street, two youths approached, both carried 
a double-barrelled repeater. Both had empty bags.
The two young men stopped in front of them. 
"Oliver would have hit any bird even with half-blind eyes,"
the taller one said. "And you, Bert?  Come with us tomorrow?"
Laughing, they continued their way.

"Of course, rest assured we are indeed men!  
I lost count of the number of quails I caught!"
"We are men!  You know what, we’ll go hunting too."
Two heads, one white, one bald, nodded in unison.
“We’ll meet early at six tomorrow.”  They agreed. 

The town hall clock rang out every hour. 
Six o’clock struck. Nature slept on. 
Below, in an alley, two old men dreamt. Damn fools! 
They moaned in their sleep. Why can’t they shoot straight?

Alice Through The Wormhole

The wormhole led them to a desert, 
where they could see dunes ahead. 
The elf looked at Alice, nodded, and smiled. 
She understood what his smile meant. 
A few hours later, they stood in front of the dunes 
When suddenly sentinels appeared around them. 
Alice looked at the elf, and he smiled at her again.
 She wondered why he smiled at every encounter.
The elf whispered some words,
The sentinels merged into one another and disintegrated. 
He stretched his hand toward the dunes, 
and they all flattened out. 
Alice's eyes widened in amazement as cacti sparkled like diamonds. 
As they approached, 
The cacti grew tall and large,
and water gushed out from them, 
And Alice and the elf were carried to the shores of an island. 
They were lifted by giant birds to a rainbow castle. 
There, Alice saw the book of seven seals, 
a powerful book that restored the seven lost kingdoms, 
where Alice would continue her adventures.


July 21, 2025.

A touch is a Hug for the Lonely

A touch is a hug for the lonely,
I thought as I sat on that plane.
The sleeping man beside me,
Would never know that feeling he made.

As his head nodded off,
His elbow extended to mine.
This little little tap
Echoed in a hollow mine.

I savoured such a warm embrace,
From the man that would never know me,
But I couldn’t help but be reminded,
Of all those times I have felt lonely.

Wrongful Life Claim Against My Father

They filed his blood beneath a numbered case—
the marrow went to war without a call.
The VA counted cells, not what took place
in basements where his stare could split the wall.

The cancer knew his secrets—mutiny
against Guam’s humid silence, its red debt
claimed as the twenty-one guns thoomed in key.
We stood. We nodded. No one cried. Not yet.

There’s money now, for toxin’s wrongful death,
Agent Orange crusading through his bones.
But not for years of learning that a breath
is held—not for the legacy of tones.

They pay for what his blood became, not how
it taught us all to disappear. Lie down.

Whispers of the Wild

I walked where the trees don’t speak—

yet somehow, I heard everything.
The wind and the trees held secret meetings,
and the leaves nodded in agreement,
like spectators dressed in green.

The waters didn’t rush—
they marched steadily down the riverbank,
telling stories in ripples—
of rain that once fell,
and mountains they had kissed on the way.

The sun appeared,
golden and gentle.
Snakes and lizards lay still,
watching its every move,
careful not to miss a single step
that warmed every corner of the land.

And the birds—
they sang and danced
to the rhythm of the wind,
and to the slow ripening
of wheat and corn.

Even the silent waters grew bold—
I could hear their rhythm
as they carried a message
toward the sea.

A message sent
by the kings of the mountains
to the queen of the tides:

"Remind the man
who rides the wooden boat—

to plant more trees.

For when the last tree falls,
there will be no boat
strong enough
to ride the rising tide."

— By Davie Kaliu

Nothing Like A Thank you

For the favor you did but never let me forget,
for the “no pressure” laced with regret.
for every “no big deal” that came with fine print,
I paid with a thank you,
and smiled like a flint.

For all the gifts that came with a clause,
For the cheers while citing my flaws,
For every applause wrapped in dissent,
I returned with a thank you,
as empty as the intent.

For every "helpful tip" served cold as a sneer,
For the pats on the back that came with a leer.
For the free counsel that came with a leash
I muttered a thank you,
then moved out of reach.

For the “just looking out” that clipped my wings,
For the fake "take care" with invisible strings,
For the hugs that came with terms to agree,
I nodded a thank you,
then quietly set myself free.

For all the words dressed in sugar and spin,
for all the eyewash blurred what's within
You spoke in ribbons, but traded in brick—
so, here's my reply
nothing like thank you does the trick.

Ghosts of Havana: A Letter from the Other Side

I speak now, not with breath,
But through the bones of history,
Through palms that never bore fruit
Because your embargo starved the soil.

You feared not our weapons—
We had none to match your bombs.
You feared our ideas,
Because they burned too brightly in the dark.

Sixty-two winters and summers,
My people have walked in chains—
Not of iron,
But of isolation, hunger, and propaganda.

Is it a crime to dream in red?
Is dignity a sin,
When worn by brown hands
On a small island that refused to kneel?

You said it was freedom—
Yet you crushed us under boots
Stamped democracy,
Laced with hypocrisy.

Your friends—your “allies”—watched.
Some nodded.
Some traded,
And many sold their silence for your gold.

Fidel is gone,
But the embargo remains—
Like a ghost that haunts both jailer and prisoner,
A curse passed down by cold-hearted kings.

America, when the axis shifts,
And the sun of the global south rises—
What will your monuments say then?
What flag will you wave when truth takes the throne?

History is a patient god.
It watches.
It remembers.
And when it judges—
It does not ask permission.

why am I here

soothsayer stopped and said “someone died here”
we know, I said.
My husband nodded.

You can sense spirit, she stated.
I offered her a chair, and she sat.
Your grandfather is here, she said.
And my grandmother, I replied.

You do not need me, she told us.
You can conjure spirits and feel them yourself.
Why am I here?

We wanted to see if you could feel them, I told her.

The Glass Eye

You stood there unsteadily
at my bedroom door,
holding your glass eye
in your palsied hand and asked me
if I’d ever seen one before.
Can’t say that I have, Aunt Mary.

You held it like an offering,
moonlit and lidless,
as if it might see me better
than you could that night—
or remember what 
time had stolen.

They said you once owned
a bordello in Chicago,
and had connections with the mob,
but I didn’t know if that was true.
I did know you
roamed the country
with strange, obsequious men
who trailed behind
like footnotes to your stories.

And yet you were the one
who gave me the best gifts—
a microscope, an erector set,
science kits with powders and wires—
things no one else thought to give,
as if you knew I needed
wonder more than sugar.

You nodded once,
slipped it into your pocket
as if nothing strange had happened,
and vanished down the stairwell—
leaving only the faint scent
of camphor and questions,
and a silence I still
haven’t found the bottom of.

Rejection After the Reading

Someone brought tacos
to the basement bar—
al pastor, slick with pineapple
and something red
that warned from the foil.

I took one
because she handed it to me
with both hands
and said nothing.

We ate standing—
elbows touching,
our breath fogging the same patch
of mirror behind the liquor shelf.

My tongue lit up
mid-bite.
Heat
that made my eyes water
the way they do
when I say too much
in a poem
and no one cries.

She nodded once
like I’d passed
some unspoken threshold,
then wiped her fingers
on the hem of my draft
and said,
now you’re getting it.

Muted Song

His lips parted,
yet the notes clung,
threaded in silence
by invisible keys.

The song stayed,
in a nest of aches,
where wishes fluttered
with no hope of flight.

He hummed,
but no one heard
the melody curled
beneath spoken noise.

They praised
his calm, his quiet,
and manly things
he always played.

Never knowing
his practiced hush
was a wretched note
never to be sang aloud.

He nodded,
clapped in soft time,
while his ribcage beat
a slow mourning tune.

Some songs bloom
like flowers aloud,
but his grew in pain,
rooted deep in hush.

Still it throbbed,
a muted plea—
just once, a tune
to be heard and freed.

That's Not Safe

I swallowed words like razors in the dark,
A thousand cuts across my broken skin,
They told me "silence"—so I hid the spark,
While screaming softly, bleeding deep within.

The mirror lied: it whispered I was whole,
But fractures ran beneath the painted face.
I smiled and nodded, playing the doomed role,
While scars—my silent hymns—betrayed my grace.

They told me love was safe, but it was fire,
A flame that licked and burned my fragile core.
I danced on glass, mistaking wounds for choir,
And sang my pain to walls that asked for more.

Now I refuse the comfort of the lie,
For silence kills, but screaming helps me fly.

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