Might we all have an expiration date,
A notation reading “best if used by?”
Spoiled if not given proper handling
A critical concern now up for debate.
I’ve noticed lately my skin is wrinkling
My eyes are becoming rheumy, I fear,
I’m clearly not as good as I used to be
The milk in my refrigerator is blinking.
Past my prime, still I’m good for awhile
I don’t see a date stamped on me either
And I don’t feel I’m all used up quite yet,
If for nothing else, I’m good for a smile!
Written February 28, 2022
Once again we’re wedged in a wrinkle
of time in our lives; a wrinkle that can’t
be so easily ironed out and pressed away.
Yet the ironing board of solutions remain up
and challenging steam continues to gush out;
however, conflicting political sizing complicates
the strained ironing out process…stalling progress.
Those of us familiar with social distance look on
in curious awe at the pandemonium of the social elite
sanitizing and quarantining themselves from each other.
Meanwhile, let us not be remiss nor dismayed by the
present dilemma; let us give it inherent attention; for
before modernity, our ancestors—the help—the hidden
numbers—laid out and taught us ingenious methods
of smoothing out nagging wrinkles inhibiting our progress.
Thus, let us not forget to remember those under the mattress
techniques designed to keep us healthy and strong in our journey
along the wrinkling road towards all-inclusiveness in this nation’s
pursuit of happiness through social, economical and political equality.
©millardlowe, 2020
Undulating waves of color
cascade over ebony skies.
And greens and blues waltz with the stars,
rippling across the black of space.
A hypnotic, haunting hum strums
in Aurora Borealis.
And sacred, spiritual sounds
resound: in abject solitude.
A collage of visual notes,
orchestrated tunes; tug heartstrings.
And mesmerized by their music:
I pause for quiet reflection.
They are as intangible as
the ethereal breath of God.
And my soul shucks reality,
to surf the waves, wrinkling the sky.
Give me not your style today :
the visceral truth, liberated
from painkillers.
Spying singles out the flesh
after the resentment of torture
to do more wrong ;
going away in yesterday
puts the life in apocalyptic shade,
the orange condoles for dark
when I lie still on flames
of sandalwood, setting the sun
bleed in blue eyes
of lonely sea. I am again
sleepwalking on salt lake ready
to draw the boundary of reasons,
the second-hand stitch for the eternal wound.
SATISH VERMA
Give me not your style today :
the visceral truth, liberated
from painkillers.
Spying singles out the flesh
after the resentment of torture
to do more wrong ;
going away in yesterday
puts the life in apocalyptic shade,
the orange condoles for dark
when I lie still on flames
of sandalwood, setting the sun
bleed in blue eyes
of lonely sea. I am again
sleepwalking on salt lake ready
to draw the boundary of reasons,
the second-hand stitch for the eternal wound.
SATISH VERMA
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