“You still use that thing?”
What a question!
My favorite tool
those tongs in the kitchen
to pull the hot toast out of the toaster
that you glued with tiny hands
twenty-six years ago
in school:
a clothes pin in between
two tongue depressors
and the recall of your granting me your gift,
your boy’s eyes aglow with pride,
handing me the fruit of your ambition and labor
in pursuit of praise and appreciation
that led to one tiny family legend.

Little do you know that when those tongs
hold the morning toast
they also shake hands with me
in your place,
pulling me close to remind me
of other tangibles I keep inside a shoe box:
a lock of your baby hair, your first doodling
on a piece of lined paper,
a bitten piece of a crayon, red in color,
one tiny sock, one tiny mitten that lost its pair,
and your tyke shirt, Dr. Denton’s, size three-months,
which you outgrew within the first couple of weeks.

All these little things stir the memory
of your enormous ability to change my world
with your baby smell, your baby warmth,
your child’s laugh,
and your first “I love you”
that caused the time to stand still.


 

The dawn of the last storm…
Though anchored inside the exactness of insomnia,
you feel fortunate
as you shiver
with your forehead to the windowpane.

The lights are out,
the lightning slashes the sky into uneven wedges,
and the floorboards shake
under your feet, threatened by the raucous thunder
bouncing its articulate rumble
through the arid darkness and tearing into
your eardrums with candor;
your cat meows
shaking in abrupt terror under your unmade bed.

On this godforsaken island
sitting between two anonymous coasts,
you watch an arsenal of floods sweep away
the ground down below, and since you put up
with robust flaws in relative chagrin,
like an aristocrat in silhouette,
you too are a part of this storm.


 

She writes inside the lines
and in between
scattering rumored secrets
like broken glass,
sharp-edged, cocky,
cutting through her breath.

She gasps,
struggling between the revered truth
of wanton fiction,
and frankly, the stories
she’ll never tell
out of mercy, or pride,
or love,
stories deep, dark, cold,
stories abandoned
curling dry on emptiness.

She says her prayers
every night,
to keep her alive
so she isn’t left
empty-handed,
and with her words growing skin,
she hides inside each prayer,
every night telling a story
of errors
to herself.

1013410

Poets' Practice Pad  [18+] Write poetry from prompts just for the fun of it; formal or free verse, you pick. by Joy

"Picking up
shards of hope
my unique talent,"
I boasted,
while you kept vigil
in haunting dreams,
hazy memories,
botched up yesterdays.

Today, maybe,
I'll find a roadmap;
maybe, I'll trace back
the steps I took
and connect the dots of hope
in my storybook.

I'll meet you on your way
to see
if either of us have gained
any understanding,
if you can still sing
through the eclipse of the moon,
not if
you float distorted
as a vision
I imagined
from afar.

But...
to sweep out the hazy memories
haunting dreams,
and botched up yesterdays.

This time I want to embrace you
the way you are.


 

Not an easy reality
racing through damp narrow streets...
A childish heart,
worn-out legs,
an aged cramped mind,
rummaging around for musty dreams.

My search gnawing the grain
of a sorceress city,
with its history
mingled with mine,
once upon a time;
its grey river, now miserable
by rains unpredicted.

Angst digging in through,
the insane summer of 2002;
Europe fouled by floods,
increasing the deepening torment
of each footstep.

                    Summer 2002 from the Latin Quarter, Paris

The secret of re-birth,
nibbling on renewed sights,
hoping, loving, leaving, dreaming,
among morose monuments
dwarfed against the sky.

“E-mail home" says
an orange dome-shaped sign,
of a feisty cyber café,
at a corner cradled
in Latin Quarter.

To e-mail home,
one has to be away;
yet, here I’m home,
with my high-pitched song
of intoxicated wonder.

Inside Café de Cluny,
toasting with hope
to this chancy life
I am young,
again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Joy

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(to an old friend)

Primroses exploring
the vast ocean of friendship
and the simple life;
drinking a bucket of water,
improvising abundance,
crowded together,
inside hanging pots,
on the balcony, Apartment 2A,
at Place du Tertre, Montmartre.

A visual keepsake.
hooking itself
on the altar of recollection.
The flesh of bare walls
throbbing with artsy aroma.

Questioning the presence of shadows,
in cheerful quavering lines,
young-girl-laughter,
our careless wisdom.

While you sleep,
I spill off to the river,
scavenging for turpentine dreams
through slumbering shapes
along the bank.

No way we'll be leaving,
for we'll stay inside memories,
like petals drifting unto the same pile;
now hovering over letters we send,
we never have been closer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Joy

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She first goes to bed
with lights on,
a modest hope chirping under her eyelids,
preferring to ignore the darkness,
trying not to feel,
trying to slip past herself,
trying to toss away dreams,
but a weak tear reappears over the misery of a rustle
of recall, a rumor she didn’t heed, like the whisper
of green caterpillar legs sliding on a leaf,
that forecast rose petals to be eaten away.

How vaguely she created an unrecognizable face,
a lover’s image,
her soft hands reaching to loss, dragging excuses,
tangling in calluses and shams!

No more hush-hush...

Her shriek, though internal, shrill and wild, pierces
through the lampshade, like the Munch drawing
“The Scream”; an outcry among black ink lines
tracing countless sobs, struggling for voice inside
the terror of the dark through a throat engorged with agony,
attempting to feel a horizon and go
beyond surrendering
to fury.

The chain of the lamp swells inside her hand as she pulls, daring
the ominous darkness.

To escape from a nightmare will not be easy,
unless she burns the bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Joy

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Somewhere to the south of the Equator,
on the western slopes of the Andes,
a rare oak tree rustles, chanting its special plea,
when the wind breathes through it,
with the sacred sounds of a reed,
played in a temple, in worship.

Hearing the Southern Wind, the oak in my backyard
--shape-wise a pyramid--
in a ritual few have witnessed,
turning its branches upward
like hands praying,
echoes the chant, which,
through intricate continents,
promises golden wings out of gloom,
blurring the edges between people and creation
and dreams they yet don’t know of.

When that mesmerizing chant touches my ears,
trusting the experience of a moment’s rapture,
inside my silence, I reflect
on any sin I can own up to,
inverted in self-defense,
using any crutch I can pick up from my collection,
and the tree sends down its offerings of hope
to establish roots under my feet,
without asking for repentance,
without any fancy words,
without disbelief,
but through acceptance,
grounded in infinite love.








 

I gaze into the old photo album,
for
regret,
a secret vice, so loyal,
grabs the heart like a vise,
never deserting,
and I recall you showing me
your old dog cuddling the stray kitten:
“See, how unlikely!
If they make it,
why can’t we?”

But I, too juvenile too unwise,
believed in the silly counsel of others
in my clumsiness,
since you, an ancient poet,
had already written your past
in volumes and tomes.

Now, thirty-two years later,
in broad daylight,
no more are there stars
to wish on,
and
a gibberish,
akin to smoke spiraling up
through the chimney,
rises inside my mind:
“Why do I still weep
for not dancing
with you?”

This may be heresy,
but I think,
then,
if I knew,
where to stand...
I’d stand beside you.
If for nothing else,
I’d have good photos
to show for my life.


 

Impossible to imagine
that hand etching the stone
with toil, fascination,
patience, and yearning,
chipping with the fire
stolen from gods.

A vision of a blessed mind
in gasps of anticipation
sleepless under black skies,
through deadly storms of living.

A dream alone,
accomplished passion,
whisperings of love,
implied in the object
only through labor;
yet,
left
to a sparrow’s screech.

Bird droppings on marble
a sculpture in chains
with power to crumble
a steel heart.

 

A shadow wandering
under neon lamps,
still searching for a merciful gaze,
I, a fated tiger,
not as sleek or fast in my bony frame,
pray that the forest grows
apart from me,
and, if not to the sound of my roar,
the rapids run
down through time,
so part of me lives on.

Since in this arid circus
the ground is wrinkled with greed,
I stay silent
solitary, locked in,
though growling at gestures now and then.
What else is left when
people just recognize the fur I’m wearing
or the metals glittering on my collar
under moving lights?

If I am a prowler, so why am I the prey
to the whips snapping?
Am I an impostor beast
with little substance, yet waiting,
for their sticks to crack?
Or is my reflection a lie
conjured up by men of sinister deeds?
Is there nothing else to do but run around
in circles and stand on hind legs
for morsels of flesh?

Yet, I’m the one who got caught,
who exiled herself,
who built her cage bars from her own stripes.
So now, almost extinct,
wounded by lifelong blows,
I lurk
among the bookshelves
for words I need.




 

That fierce warrior, the night, battles on,
binding the earth to ebony sky,
trapping the unknown
within the mind.
I, at first, shiver
inside this bare windowless space,
searching for blame.

Who broke the sun and blew specks of gold dust
into heavens?
Or are these just shapes passing through
to God, only to get stuck in
serving time for a promise?

What a maze of culpability, as entangling as vines,
when evil enchantresses lure Orion to trails of stars
to hunt; so when he unfastens his belt,
they strangle his devoted canine Betelgeuse,
hanging fear, a suspended chandelier
of black lights, on
its cold jaws!

Then, guarded by grey shadows, thin feathery cirrus
thread under a moon too bright,
maybe tonight, La Luna floats
beneath those clouds,
looking for a savior.

My impatience expands into edginess,
with claws scraping, I toss
my cape off,
bare my fangs,
to howl.

So, hearing my tune,
the stunned moon
becomes my prey
and feels
my pain.


 

My shadow,
trailing behind me
in geometric shapes,
daring
to interrupt the light,
feeling not cherished.

At times, it sways
out of sight
to thwart off
onlookers.
Yet, then again,
it scans ahead
uneasily,
like a presentiment.

The higher the sun
the more it shortens,
with a devious tilt,
akin to miserly violets
on a mountain path,
veiled inside
purple shades,
hiding their fragrance.

I relish the piquancy
of its many ways,
for my shadow throws its net
steadily,
shrugging off dimensions,
acting sassy,
as if to say
it doesn’t care.
I guess,
it’s afraid
of fading from view
and dying unloved.


 

Dance as if nobody’s watching,
rising from the soil
naked, cane-like,
spinning your golden legs,
stomping your feet
atop clouds of sparkles,
so nothing stays the same.

Make your own music
with your own special voice,
sensing the touch
as if giving birth,
to the new you.

If you recall your name,
do not stop the dance,
just raise your head,
and purse your lips
to blow a kiss
at the silver streaks
of remembrance.
Then, feeling a sweet strain,
do not leave anything unsaid.

Surrendering your senses,
cast off your tangled ropes;
as stylishly as you wish,
release the woman within,
to the heart of the universe,
to the pain of pleasure,
to your enchanted fire.