“Welcome”
a robot effigy of painted aluminium
on its face a vestigial smile
chill, uncharismatic and instant,
voicing through it
like rasping metallic file,
a platinum echo, distant.
Its unmoving countenance
worn like a habit, a shiny mask, ill-fit
the smirk of a smile sewn on,
with crayon drawn on,
it did not move as if to prove
a robotic ability as ventriloquist.
I was transfixed
with words that keenly gnawed:
“You have been thawed.”
I looked around with icy perception,
with roving eye and no movement of limb,
where had I been?
As my body warmed and my limbs gained inflection,
so my mind was pierced with icicles of truth
of a previous existence and a distant youth.
It’s all coming back now,
it had worked somehow:
Cryogenics.
HEART
of cold
solid stone
is now standing guard
silent and unmoving
its tears discarded by time
“time will not remember your name”
Morwarra wa bophelo,
the breath that once did clasp
Life's glowing warmth hath fled;
the frame that used to run with heat
now lies unmoving, cold, and still.
This mortal dust of him who hath forsaken us—
The late departed, newly reft of vitality—
hath vanished from the earth,
no longer bearing the quickening spark.
He hath no breath, yet he inspires no fear;
He hath a shape, yet he cannot tire.
He walked the earth, but now he stays
A silent house of cold, pale clay
About
Here’s to the ones we’ll never see…
Your demise gets summarized into goodbyes and memories
But its not as simple as that
Time could never encompass the essence of your being
Words at its peak could never articulate you
Your bag-skin lay unmoving, rotting
But out of it came a voice never to be heard
Your eyes hosts no light now
Your smile gone, your uniqueness gone
And like I said… words could never do justice
Same with how insurmountable this pain will be
And while i wait for our next meeting
You’d be missed everyday
A vacancy never to be filled
I felt you.
A current cascades down my spine.
A ripple in my quiet unmoving sea.
I seek that very ripple. That shiver.
Craving it.
I long for the day that your ripple may finally become a wave, yearning for it to wash over me and swallow me whole.
For when I would finally be immersed with you.
Shadows tightly folded
into the hour of noon.
Clock hands clasp
and time stands as the stork does:
unmoving and going nowhere.
Venerable old men,
anchored on park benches,
idly stare in hagioscopic squints
at panting patrons
of sidewalk cafes.
A fly buzzes,
decelerates,
comes to rest…
The dog twitches,
unhitches the fly,
stretches under the table.
Another glass of wine sedates thirst
in warm sips.
A waiter trips.
The dog growls.
Time unclasps its warm greeting.
The stork repairs its stance.
The old men look the other way.
Shadows begin to unfold slowly.
And, as the last chime of twelve
hangs in the air,
only the waiters rush about
like buzzing flies.
Premier Trophy Win in Brian Strand's contest.
synced with unmoving consciousness absolute
animated stillness acquires a new name
we have now given up the God-search pursuit
and there are neither any tempests to tame
nor any yogic practices to compute
for both God and soul’s light within are the same
and this being so there’s nothing left to do
save letting throb of bliss magnetism renew
Visitors
Frantic bass shakes the farmhouse windows.
The red pop-top screeches into the driveway,
its driver pounding on the horn.
Two men in the back, shoulders moving to the beat.
The three vaulting in sync
over the doors
onto the pavement
sauntering up to the house, through the garage,
pulling open the studio door,
pressing into the dining room.
a breeze drifting through the open window
three figures freeze in place
fingers skimming beneath the jaw
chins quiver
ears resisting the tug of fingers
blinking eyes
fix into stillness
masks dropped onto the light cherry-wood table
under the flesh, a flickering translucence
bodies already thinning at the shoulders
the three turn toward the open door
raised fists closed in one last salute
the red pop-top backs out of the driveway
masks left discarded
on the dining room table
eyes unmoving
lips flutter
EXPECTANT THRESHOLDS
suddenly
conscious
of
perceived
patterned
memorials
beginning
to
crystallised
in
strange
experiences
reflecting
the
uncertain
mixed
tense
activity
indicates
transparent
unearthly
anticipates
awareness
immediately
surrounding
shadows
creeping
pictorial
spheres
veiled
unmoving
dissonant
transitory
fragments
Truth and facts are twins,
born from the same silence,
cradled in the same light,
yet hunted by different men.
Facts stand naked in the marketplace,
cold, stubborn, unmoving.
Numbers etched into stone,
events that happened whether we like them or not.
But truth…
truth walks deeper.
It enters the soul of things,
breathes beneath statistics,
and whispers what facts alone cannot explain.
A fact may tell you
that chains once held a people.
Truth will tell you
how those chains still echo in their minds.
A fact may record
the fall of a nation.
Truth will reveal
who sold its future in the dark.
And so the world fears them both.
Because facts expose lies,
but truth exposes intentions.
Politicians manipulate facts,
crowds distort truth,
and loyalists bury both
beneath noise and emotion.
Yet the twins endure.
For facts are the footprints of reality,
and truth is the soul that left them behind.
Separate them,
and society becomes blind.
Unite them,
and even darkness begins to confess.
The sand was always falling~
but then, between one grain and the next,
a pause.
A fracture in time,
thin as a hairline crack in glass,
where You stood,
unmoving,
while the world blurred around You
like a river around a stone.
I reached~
not with hands, but with something older,
something that remembers
before skin, before breath~
and for the length of a held heartbeat,
You were there.
Not a voice.
Not a face.
Just the weight of being watched
by something that never blinks.
Then the sand rushed again,
and the moment dissolved
like salt in water.
Now I carry it~
this glimpse, this splinter of forever
lodged in my ribs,
where it burns
and does not burn away.
It feels like it’s been forever,
Spending eternity unmoving,
Cluttered with bugs and branches—
Still, stuck to the same tree.
All I do is watch the stars,
Watching as they shine,
Each one trying to steal my gaze.
But then I saw the moon,
Infatuated, so full of life,
It didn’t bombard me with light,
Yet it was the brightest in sight.
Everything began to clear—
While I was left motionless,
My vision a blur—
I cried.
The moon gave me a choice,
To chase its light,
Or stay stuck on this tree.
And for once in my life—
I stood.
I hate everything -
the reflection my mind shows
is jagged,
pointing at every flaw
with cold, surgical precision.
I do not understand the lessons
I should have learned by now;
The maps others followed
were incinerated
before my fingertips met the pages edge.
I speak.
I act,
and every word fractures the air.
faces tighten
like brittle glass
under unseen pressure.
And still, they call me
"The best thing in the world",
light and death,
while I spread the poison like a disease
just from inflating my lungs.
Sometimes I wish to vanish quietly,
leave no trace,
no smoke,
no echoes of the names you once called me.
But the accusation of selfishness strikes with immediate,
deafening gunfire.
I continue to patch the wounds and holes left by others,
my unneeded and wasted blood filling the voids
while my skin breaks cleanly,
my heart tears without mercy.
The figure my mind has constructed
waits in the dark,
unmoving.
while I screamed with my burning lungs
to take me away
Like when "Love" took away the pain
that used to be enough
to keep me here.
Are you a stone?
Are you a brick wall?
You're the definition of unmoving pride.
You can't process a word I say,
you're unmoving in all regards.
You say I need to be adaptable; malleable,
when you; you are not.
You are unchanging and rigid and love to attack,
ignore.
Any issue I have with anything at all,
is an issue with my character.
You can't differentiate person from problem,
distress from personal flaw,
sadness from anger.
You; you need to be adaptable and malleable.
And, stop
attacking me,
over every little thing.
Just,
love me.
I'm a prisoner of time
A prisoner of space
Only able to exist in
This non existent place.
On a safari through time
Back to the Dinosaur days
To observe and to study
Many Dinosaurs ways
Enclosed in a force field to
Avoid Contamination there
I stupidly stepped outside
To smell and sample the air.
I stood on a plant so
It couldn't feed a bee
And the ripple down effect
Removed existence from me.
Not really still alive
Yet not really dead
Non existent in the future
Just stuck here instead.
Unmoving in time and
Unmoving in space
I've become the shade
That haunts this place.
Just a prisoner of time
Just a prisoner of space
Only able to exist in
This non existent place.
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