Pillow

He always seemed eager. Even after they

became official, he loved her like love

was a bird that outgrew its cage.

She wondered why love deceived men.

 

But he always announced her. Even when they

were alone, he reached out to her as if silence

was a cliff-hanger. And this pleased her.

She wondered if love could be selfless. But

 

singularity introduced itself in their pleasure,

the sweetness of her surrender faded

and he became distant.

She felt love could be inconsistent.

 

I wish I could intervene. My arrows

sow seeds at birth and life is an old friend

that flowers with rhapsody. Give me time, it

will happen to you too.

 

At Sea

I found a wish under a manchineel tree
and I asked that you
become bored of your immortality.
I prayed so that you come
with liveliness and wit.

These are the signs,
look at the romance we created above –
The eternal sway between
the sun, his ebony maiden and my fleshy earth. For
my love, you bring the sun.

Take me to Olympus
when we are done.
Take me to Olympus
at the break of dawn –
Take me to Olympus
on impulse and I promise not to get
bored of your familiar strangeness.

Her horse drew sly faces and
gossiped with the moon.
And as we ascended to where fate resides,
the wind returned with the scorn of
a stormy lover. In your haste,
you did not hear me fall.

We share a curse, bound in rue –
I call for you in waves, crashing at shores,
And you set with the sun at sea.

Brother

Brother

Do you miss it here? The noise you hear
and the tears you see is the joy we felt. All the fights I
planned but instead, it’s silence you return to.
I have some secrets to share, rules to fear and bruises to compare.
I know you miss it here.
The friends you could have made and the
girls you could have dated
so on restless nights I waste these thoughts
in a spiralling haze. These are trademarks related to you,
it rains frequently and now I have formed an unholy habit with
the sky to shy away any blue.

Report Card

Today we get our report card and everyone
is expected to do better than me.
Some of my classmates are busy working on
new ways to irritate the teacher.
After a year of lashing at paper planes
he simply ignores them.

Today, I am still and confident. I’m trying to
replicate my father’s placid confidence that
he chooses to hide when he speaks back to the police.
I’m sure he knows we share the same affliction,
the same desire to be accepted but superior.

I have the same ambition as the innovators
in my textbooks, but under the nature of my skin
it turns into greed. I have to confess I dislike maths.
It leaves no room for argument. If you make a mistake
that’s all there is to it and I am not fond
of things that lack subjectivity.

Today I feel like I’m the first of my kind to
buck the system without needing to clench my
fist or grab a gun. I’m inclined to believe
that this is a summation of my dreams but
everyone is either aggrieved or hushed – my teacher
says one of life’s first needs is for us to be realistic.

Heaven

I am in a place where destiny
and life’s rhythm is set –
yet the moon never rises.

I long to set sail but the
tides have no master. I came servant
to two wills – fire one day, ice another.

There is suffering in the land
of milk and honey; prodigal faces
wonder around gawkily and as night falls
a crowd huddles to plot an escape.

For forty years we wander wilderness,
tasting manna and quail. There are signs
that a sandstorm is building but in
that suspense I notice that the
juice in my eye has returned.

Exist

 

Exist

Seasons will be new, and we must find ourselves
apart. Darling, you arrived bright
with warnings of danger and abridgement. On
the fourth day you dictated sacred tales
of cold caves and restless seas – pray
the wind be still, as I flounder lonely as a kite.

Pray these dark clouds be still as I hide
behind enemy lines. At the time your voice
was pure music, from moans of thunder to
stolen notes from songbirds. On nights
when my passions grew devout, I crowed
while you labored. Although we never

acknowledged the constant fragility of being,
I wonder if the earth had much to say. I am
drunk, swamped with leisurely truths and immediate lies.
With your knee on my chest and your fist at my
throat, I see plainly that the earth aches. Whenever
you shatter, I lament that I am the reason you exist.

A challenge: Incisions of Rust and a broken Heart

---

 

I was challenged to write about this particular topic in twenty minutes and with less than 15 lines as an exercise to sharpen my writing. It was fun and I came up with the poem below…

As the blade slid out,
I knew this scar would never heal. I
sit and watch cobwebs grow thicker on
the window until I can not see the sun.
Now castles form at the roots of my veins,
so you can remain prisoner in my dungeon – I
beg for solitude but my blood grows unforgiving as
I keep guard. It turns grey and a hardening darkness
cloud my eyes. When cracks appear and form new maps
on my skin, I can feel your memory purging against my flesh.
I despise the rust you left.

Lane

You are one stone throw away, naturally

you make you hard to forget. I plotz at the

logic of your prescription – these gorgonizing

hallucinations speculate with devout sloth. I repent

in the shadows of secrets hidden in plain

view, while we wither. You may say

 

the future is meek – live for the moment, swim

against the tide when the time is right. Slip into

a mood that burns a light between your thighs. If you dare

to read my intentions cold, let the devil breach my chest –

in the isolation of dawn, when pride and shame separate.

 

We dance cordially then ache, colouring foul service from

infernal regions. Command my expectations, and watch as I build

you a maze. It may be too soon to wrest my feet

away from this landmine, so I chose to forge the line

 

that keeps you away. Next time we meet, in a novel or

a poem, inscribe my features discreetly, then imagine

my touch as a lingering sentiment of  white felicity. If you return

pierce my reflection and start again.

Tempestuous

And light discontinues receipted joys.  Like

a daydream, a confident maybe, discreet desires

deafen our differences. My knight forgot to take off his ring,

the art of dark routines. His touch gives my small

life weight  – treaties signed in combat, when I rule his world –

the adolescence of rage, a perpetual passive phase.

 

The stale tang of bloom, skinny-dipping in sick, drowning in piss,

it does not matter how sore I get – I tip the scale.

The scheme of my trade: modest in shadows, bumptious

in character – a quiet spot, a cramped car – feeding the needy. Hunger

is a bitch. Stacey ended up in a ditch, she always

made poor pitches. “I made twenty more bucks

because I let him smack me”.

 

A price, staked at the first sight of my moon, displays

my minority.  The familiar stab of fragmented attachments,

frolicking at the bed of tombstones, realigning celestial paths.

One in a particular – a man of uniform – cast his

fiction with regularity – the art of dark routines. His touch

inflames the seams of my mortality, feigning in and

 

out of shades. Everything good feels – temporary –

my morbid existence is bind by honesty. These street

lights are my offering tray – That one will make me

look fat and washed. And this one is too bright, they will

notice your boundaries. Light sanitises ecstasy, everyone

in the business knows. These lights make it hard to forget.

I am not unique.

Introvert

It began with the first whispers of spring.

The last chills of a prodigal winter, barren

and bitter, linger on my fingertips. The other

trees littered the streets with cobbled rumours.

Mealy-mouthed reproaches and solemn groans,

thunderstorms hiss and breathe. The sky looks

rapt with carnal oath, sulking with conviction.

 

My frail countenance mobs their derision.

The wind arouses their buds: sweet, silent – stale.

In that pregnant pause I miscarry the allure

Of parroted youth. At my feet, ants wallow

in throngs, boyish and industrious – God

save our gracious queen – as fertile as sin.

 

Tuned to a sour pitch, a sickly omen is

born with wilful rapport. The ending

of days – old oak trees seek asylum

in their wisdom, aching at the deficiency of time.

The earth stops dancing, dazed in amazement,

 

as stubborn rivers hush, the sun veils

her lonely sight, submerged in the tears of the moon.

I took a picture of my treasure and hid

it in my lover’s bosom – under the serene

stars, the swirling heat. Unprepared for change,

ignoring reality – my branches yearn for adventure –

spitting cobras on my sleeve.