Silly little details

 
You said
it was the way
I looked at you
played with your fingertips
drowned in your eyes

starving your skin
you felt happiness again

your very words
butterflies in droves

stomachquake of love

yes, happiness

I held as long as I could
until you went home
and fucked your partner
for yes, of course
he took precedence
over everything
and of course
I wasn’t legitimate
in any way
and you were a butterfly
intoxicated on fields of flowers
and I happened to have one
ready to bloom

I let you pick
bunches by the armful
you smelt them to exhaustion
examined each
cupped in your hands
then lovingly
you sapped them all
one by one wilted
until the hill, sombre, faded
and you went home
content, sated by
all of those silly little details
which, somehow, mattered
but, eventually, didn’t

who knows how many fields
how many silly little details
laid to waste there

I held as long as I could
until you went to love more
someone more deserving
and let’s face it, better
with all my silly little details
folded up in two
in a fraying petal
soon forgot
inconsequential
in the grand face of
the supernova
of your other love

 

Us all

Death born as us

borne within us

every second of every minute

not even masquerading or posing

undetectable not because 

it is a part of us

but because it is us

not even waiting to be

just being

Existing

as us

innocent until darkened

innocuous until stained

until the will to live eternal

grips it at its core

wrenches the madness

inside its shell

until finally, when the time has come

a time not even it could determine

it unleashes life as its ultimate weapon

killing us with an overabundance of it

cells upon cells upon cells

feeding us the life it takes from us

feasting with a gargantuan appetite 

until monstrous, adipose, ignoble

deformed beyond belief and recognition

now a behemoth, yet celerous and cunning 

with unlimited resources and craft

infests and corrupts, multiform

unique and multiple

insatiable, unoblivious but adamant

because in fine the lifeblood

can flow eternal

life only matters

its fear of death killing it eventually

Unstoppable, suicidal

outpacing our ability to cope 

with its greed, its power

the aporia irreconcilable 

killing us eventually

for just being

a cell, a soul, us all –

It starts, and ends, with us.

Palms

 
In the concave of her hands
The water as an ocean
A gowpen of hope
Larger than galaxies
From which we both drank

In the concave of her hands
The soil orb-like
Brimming with life
Delicately deposed
Tree, plant or flower to be

In the concave of her hands
The sun as if harvested
A cornucopia of fruits
Carefully pitted and washed
The season allowed bounty

In the concave of her hands
Hollowed-out space
All but empty
I buried my face
Finally finding love, and rest.

 

The first day of spring

There is a shocking violence 

in the birds singing this morning

– this quiescent sunday morning –

perhaps they think that

after so many rainy, dirty days 

they ought to have the right to sing

for they do it so boisterously

– almost belligerent in the face of peace –

with a raw, unfettered rage

as if they cried ‘spring is here, spring is here!’

with a jagged knife to our throat

curdling both blood and coffee

like so many threats of burning the world down

they chant the behoveliness of revelling in

nature and life in drunken ecstasy 

upon pain of painful death

– enjoy or die –

– dance or die –

– fuck or die –

– and that’s final –

they don’t seem to care 

if their lungs explode in the chorus

– those scruffy savages

frothing at the beak –

or if they starve to death

– they sing, unrelenting

with every fibre of their frail bodies –

their incessant, arrogant cacophony

fomented it seems since the last equinox

isn’t a celebration, it’s an invitation to murder

to a clamorous massacre

in every hue and smell spring brings

as we all must partake in the rite

they’re past febrility, or even tension:

they’re out for bloody mayhem, these birds are

spurred on by a ferocious hunger

and ravenous lust for their

bellowing decrees the solitude of the flesh over

– step into the light and break body and heart –

as if the only way to cope with so much beauty

was to wreck and laugh and bleed and dance

yet it seems such a small price to pay

in the grand decadence sung

in the sunlit-engorged fury

of the birds’ extravagant song

for we know deep down they’re right

our hair prickling on the nape of the neck

and a jubilant sizzling in the pit of the stomach

with so many things to look forward to

– death, love, sex, comedies, tragedies –

on the first day of spring.

The hunger of the forest

Speared by the trident of the sun

on the hill overlooking Athens

the beast’s heart grows faint

 

The smell of charred bodies and wood

ancient and still as the rocks

weighs on the senses

The blood spangles

each drop mirroring

earth, sky and sea, and

the victor, legs akimbo

The hunger for the forest

equalled by the one of,

ravenous in its devouring of time ,

gorges up on the lives

lying there, standing there

never sated, it seems

The beast’s vitreous eyes

a glow of melancholy and ire 

the spectacular light in between

flickers like a moth’s wings

set afire on a torch

That very same flame which set

the hill overlooking Athens

ablaze like a thousand suns.

thirty thousand people

The day was torn and grim

birds yet began to sing

as if they knew

nothing’s eternal

and old gives way to new

that man, one day, will fall

to the nascent murmur of

thirty thousand people chanting

in the fragile dusk of the night.

There is no chosen one,

only the days, torn and grim,

and sometimes hung in the sky

a great white pearl 

that makes us cry

to the undulant tumult of 

thirty thousand people chanting

in the gloaming dark of the night. 

And lost memories

keep coming back

torn and grim

and we dare not look

and we cannot understand

and we thought

we could deal the final blow

estocadar the pain 

the unease, the numbness

perhaps drowned in the roar of

thirty thousand people chanting

in the solemn dark of the night.

But the bull in our brain

in one last flick of his horns

impales, bolts and bucks

in the navel through the mouth 

rips us apart

leaves us bleeding

blue and white 

walled in by the applause

and the deafening thunder of

thirty thousand people chanting

in the grimmer dark of the night.

 

Habits

I am a man of habits

I got to this conclusion

because I flash-realised

that I am hoping

that someone, someday

will see the patterns

the routines

nurtured for years

and wait where

we both expect

myself to be

Lichen

The blind woman next to me

fidgeting in her seat

visibly uneasy

brushed my arm

as if in need of help

with her train ticket

but she tricked me

her hand hovered

over mine, her

fingertips the texture

of centuries-old lichen

their pulp supple once

yet gentle still, attentive,

finding the folds in the skin

with such exactness

such deliberation

she smiled and

pursed her lips

fluttered about the scars

for she was but looking

for stories in hiding

for life, she said without words,

happens at the cracks

she held my wrist

the coarseness of her skin

made me wonder

if one day myself

I’d ever see

the way she did.

home again

The buzzing in his ears subsided a little

– the pain, the pain, though –

lying on his back

he couldn’t feel his legs

– what had happened though –

he was running and

Jack on his right was running too

and then, and then

too much noise

too much light

“Jack? Jack?”

the noise was still there

pounding

Jack didn’t say a word

perhaps Jack was too far already

he lifted his head

scanned the ruins

and then he knew:

war had happened

– he recalls the officer

on the campus saying

“War can happen, son”

– he had nodded his consent –

– he was bang on, that officer –

and war hurt like, like,

like a volcano

the burning searing

through the flesh

and then

his da was there

kneeling next to him

shushing him

(he knew his da)

(had passed away)

(when he was ten)

(he smiled at him)

his hand

tapping his chest

(his dad looked young)

(as young as himself now)

(his da smiled too)

“it’s ok, son,

it’s ok,

you’ll be home again

soon.”

This heart

 
This heart of mine
isn’t mine

It’s been used
I can tell
it was broken, once
but it’ll be
nonetheless
the best ever

I was given it
by a stranger
who wasn’t heartless
when they passed it away

I thank them
with their whole heart
and take it to soul
to make them proud

this heart of theirs
I’ll make it mine

 

Arranging flowers

You’re arranging flowers

the same way each day

getting lost in the art

– you always ask me because

you always forget it’s ikebana

– but you remember the legend

of the tamatebako

I made for you, 

and keep it on the shelf

with your favourite books

on the verandah

your hunched silhouette

– the chaos of time within

briefly made visible

in the slowness of your gait –

you seem inert almost

but you are bustling:

vivid hands dusting leaves

nails nipping dead buds

and withered petals

surgically so

whispering to each plant

telling them they’re home

the water holding in the plates

only thanks to surface tension

is somehow like you

– come to think of it,

you’re the plate

and the plant –

briefly you look outside

hand like a visor

the rising sun flooding

the warming room –

the clouds seems to be pushed

by an invisible hand

– it’s the tide, you say,

it pushes the rain inland –

I know at this moment

a memory is being made

– I relished it then –

– fondly recall it now –

sitting in the empty verandah,

the flowers and plants

withered in dry, flaky plates

and cracked, ashen soil.