Feels like grumpy faces when I close my eyes.
Unflattering flour on an unflattering apron.
Sandpapered down thoughts.
Flies.
Feels like a garden filled with sand, and maybe creaking sounds.
As if there’s a ghost of a swingset.
Sticks in the grass, but some are alive.
Growling, chomping apple pie with teeth.
It’s all grandma’s house,
Weird bugs, sticks coming to life, torn up scarves.
The vases in the closet.
She used to live here by herself.
We had said for years the same pestering stuff.
Even the willow tree snapped at her.
The feeling is as familiar as gravel in her driveway almost flying into my eye.
I think 92 was it.
Feels like her apple pie spattering near my burning feet.
Flies.
The mellowed out wallpaper.
Hair.
It was the night before her 92nd birthday.
I said “92 is coming for you,” in my sleep sometimes.
Would wake up with flour in my eye.
A feeling like apple pie slobbering on me.
Feels like grumpy faces-
Not grandma’s but her childhood friend in my double vision.
She knows what there is, over there in the light…
Flies…
…eating a Juicy Apple Pie handmade by some stranger.
At my age
words now fail me—
they limp out of my mouth
like old dogs
that once chased fire
and now only wait
for a warm place
on the floor.
I used to spit lines
that cracked open the night,
but the years sandpapered
my tongue,
left me with a quieter truth—
nothing stays,
not love,
not hate,
not even the furnace
of a younger man’s struggle.
Still,
I scratch at the page,
because silence
is a heavier enemy,
and even a broken voice
is better
than no voice at all.
the streets smell of coffee
and the burnt ends of last night’s cigarettes.
faces move past me like they’ve been sandpapered—
eyes dull, shoulders pulled up like bad weather.
the mailman walks slower,
the bartender pours heavier,
even the pigeons look nervous.
something’s in the air—
a weight you can’t see
but you feel it pressing your ribs.
I drink my beer,
pretend I’m above it,
but the truth is my chest is tight too.
whatever it is,
it’s leaking through the cracks.
and we’re all standing in it,
pretending it’s just another day.
How I used to care for this finely beautiful gate, once!
Couldn't ever see it rusty, dingy, dusty, dirty;
Creaking of this gate left me psychically in a dunce,
I sandpapered; cleansed; oiled; kept it gold-shiny and flirty...!
This old rusty gate now retells within many stories:
Stories of our union; innocent children-communion;
Stories of progress in all glorious territories;
Stories of rise and fall and separation and union...!
How death of dear ones leaves one's existence absurd and void!
The old rusty gate now revealed to my neighbors, common;
My sadness, emptiness, dankness, loneliness and schizoid,
And announced: though I was alive: R.I.P. with Brahman...!
I should, though late, renovate this old precious rusty gate,
Relish my memories till I live and rewrite my fate...!!!
27 June 2022
a tiny tip has been placed
where your nose used to be
your lips have been plumped
you have a practiced smile
you wear permanent rounded breasts
your skin has been sandpapered smooth
tightened to restore your youth
your original thoughts are memorized
someone writes the words you use
you want my heart but i'm sorry it's mine and it's real
can you see where that might pose a problem for you and me
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