Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Thursday, January 07, 2021

Every day seems an apocalypse

for L.B.


Every day seems an apocalypse

clouds plant their borders in beds,

these immense struggles go by 

*

In the harvest, the friend is a forest,

the friend who walks into the snow

measures beauty yawning in mud

*

Gathers our indecisions into words,  

into seeds, reimagining the drought 

of tongues, scattering in floods of fear

*

Here is apotheosis--we can lie down and 

not die, we can let ourselves be carried 

away by love, becoming transformed by it.

_______________________________________________

"what didn’t you do to bury me/  but you forgot that I was a seed" Dinos Christianopoulos

“They tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds.”  Protest slogan in support of the Ayotzinapa 43 /Families Belong Together. 

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Expiry Date

I want so much for us as I wake this morning

wordless--moving only heart, breath 

surprised at how steadfast


for much goes missing all the time: plans or

a present or something that lies, dead

as a future kindness unsaid.


I lose my sense of self, my words; I have

become that one actor who played 

that part in that one movie--


Do you remember? How much bigger could I 

have been, how much bigger my role, 

my words trawl empty


yet full of yearning; and errant words return

sad, humble. I need an army--an armor--

...I'm too numb to concede


our decline of tenderness, as every sign of 

bitterness witnesses us forward,

begrudges us to a deadline.


Monday, December 14, 2020

Through my Head


My children's love passes right through me

(like an arrow, like a bullet)

My parents' love steeps all through me

(like a tantrum, like a blush).


I fear death; there are deaths I fear more:

My deaf father sleeps deep

through knocking, my mother and sister 

talking--unmoving.


My tired children sleep past the blare 

of smoke alarms, heavy

I wonder if I can shake them awake

like a pair of dead batteries.


But the world does its singing, then

my body curls like smoke

plummets, coaxes with folded hands

draws doors in heartache.


So let me tell you how I scan the dates 

of people's lives, guessing--from 

the headlines of their last year--if death 

might have felt like a blessing.


_

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Tiny Notes


The tiny tree went up this weekend--powered 95% by At and Nu. 

😍

While I was writing that poem about Chelli's moving day yesterday, I was trying to make the verses look like the many roofs we've been under, but it actually looks like a tree too!

Also, as she said after she read that poem, I completed it "so fast!" High praise indeed! 

😛

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Moving Day 8000 Miles Away


8000 miles away

my sister is moving  

her furniture is being taken apart now

it will be put back together again, very soon.


She remembers how I arrived at her 

house in Delhi the week before she did,

how I cut my hand open unpacking boxes, how 

I made that a joke about my rakta dan--"blood sacrifice." 


I don't remember this story. But 

she giggles and so then I giggle and then 

we tell each other how much we love each other. 

When will we see each other again? (There aren't even plans.)


And I want to say: Take a break! 

Need to ask: Are you tired? Is that heavy?

But I look at the telephone; I just... miss you. 

There's more air than we can breathe between us.


Exile now feels like breaking--

like an earthquake--inside out, fragile 

as though an eggshell holding hatchlings,

a coming to--on the other side of worldliness.


There are stones in my throat all day

so I stumble. I speak slowly as though in 

a foreign language (all language feels foreign,

cannot say what I feel, clots like moonlight in my brain).


I just parrot from poems I read:

"Art thou weary? Art thou weary?" I dream you 

give the movers the address, but Bangalore traffic sounds

harmonize it into my name, send it--back in a whisper to you.


-

Thursday, December 10, 2020

On the Road

Early morning run. Frost. Today. I will 

love. Everyone. Like I'm long lost

family, prodigal,


like you're special. I'll stitch love to 

even your lack of care, neglect,

share a request--like


tossing a small wish, easy as pennies

into some mall fountain--please,

can you wear a mask?


It lingers in our air--your answer is

irritable, the road rifts, rebels

at your insolent stride


I follow that script, know that road

I sift regret from the open

arils of the day 


I still. The road calms, a dove coos

I know now it is "mourning"

not just--"morning"


Sunday, December 06, 2020

Leap of Faith



I'm attracted to gravity, the weight of it

the way it settles into a palimpsest 

of belonging 


Children   best friends   puppies   homes 

friends   in-laws   all them totems 

of becoming


Yet: new laughter moves me, old words 

bend my mind--press guesses 

into being


We can enter spaces where time fades 

earth freezes or poles thaw us

into belief

Tuesday, December 01, 2020

Mud Minotaur



my mask mimics teeth

I hiss from my heart

I've scratched earth from the inside

till it hides at my center, fills my nails


tranquilized by living

traumatized by living

I take the silky dismissal of the day 

beat its filthy drum outside my body


like whiteness, it feels-- 

white, old, dead, cold

or you know--just snowy and lonely 

and knowingly waiting for my touch

_________________________________________________________

Note: I yelled out to L that the fallen tree's rootball looked like a monster. Just silence--no response to that, so I turned around to look and couldn't find her! For a minute or so--she was off taking some pictures too... But it was spooky and I panicked hard for a few seconds. Reminded me of reading Donna Harraway and loving on Jim's Dog.


Sunday, November 29, 2020

I take myself down to a beginning



Many things are older than me, I know

many things more mature, mellow

yet someone tells me write

so I say thank you 


with a part of the pencil I use for writing 

myself, highlighting--I always forget 

to use the part for erasing--

my eyes, my loudness


for all those babies even now in cages

the leaving parents the babies 

who take care of babies 

babies given away


grief on grief--I am unready, each one 

already too much.  With long arms

I sweep the water's flow

over and over



Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Curling into an ending




Kiss the day with mother-tongue

HumHymnOm to morning

parse words from sounds

through the day.



Monday, November 23, 2020

To Sleep


How did I not get here earlier--

Was I just riding skies

instead of seas--


Sadness and gladness are cruel 

sirens, crossing countries

with me, waiting


near the cave that is my mind.

Do you hear me? Hear me!

Bear me forward.


I hymn you in the old ways

drowsily exhaling light

breaking like the day. 


Sunday, November 22, 2020

Out and about


Today I want to write a poem that will not be about dying 

maybe something something being in community 

about being connected and continuing


About holding my arms out like a tree even when empty

(stop that!) about sending all my pain to the sea, 

where it's already salty


By day I will read something lofty, edifying, clear

At night, I will watch stars that seem cold 

and know they're really quite fiery


Alert with my intention, my asylum of inattention

I sling myself to beauty, ignore summer's

pillows smattered with snow




Thursday, November 19, 2020

Within Without

Please hold my head as gently 

as a bomb labeled 'headache'

knowing the earth is waiting

feeding time under the loam


who is it who knocked on the door (we didn't hear)

who is it who wants to come in (we can't really see)


howling into the cusp, dreams away from disaster

learning the circuitry of sadness, the lineage of loss


For in a different world 

I lost many months ago

my tongue a tombstone

fingers clawing worms


Monday, November 16, 2020

Auspice


They tell me time is a thief 

I plant surviving memories

for there is no cure for life

as there are no answers.


There is history to my grief

geography too--I wear what 

was done to me--uncertainty, 

a sadness, the calls to flood. 


Someone--carry my disbelief, 

it is heavy as a civilization.

I read skies to déjà vu myself 

greying--sometimes--silvered.


Sunday, November 15, 2020

Ill


I don't know what's left to say:

here's pain; here's my armor

still songs beat in my heart

return me to myself, kids.


I have become a ghost; I go;

I was gone for a generation

until tears filled my prayers

swam into years of sky.


Return me to myself, kids,

I belong to a god who has 

never even once killed me

the press of axe is only ice. 


When surrender lies inside me 

I... will shatter--into your accents

your stories, curious superstitions.

For you, I will... love unfinished. 


Tuesday, November 10, 2020

I keep dying

                     1                                                   2                                                     3

    But was it Camus who said      Wasn't it the butcher who said        Perhaps it was I who said 

    Autumn is a second spring       he'd operate on my identity            my tongue was wronged--

    when every leaf is a flower?     until I had slowly been bled           as while I prayed and read 

    Yet I know that I am dead         into kindness and serenity?          and inherited freedom songs,

    and dead-er by the hour           Not sure anymore--it maybe          my mind, raveling like a knot,   

    in my sad and furious head.     only leaves were actually shed.    forgot--sick tyranny lies ahead. 


Saturday, October 31, 2020

Charades


it sounds like a daily hell, but it isn't 

though we die a thousand times


I can feel my heart used as a rattle 

right before I start our lullaby 

 

We're at once uncertain of tenderness

yet totally convinced of its ending 


bitterly tracing all my sentences 

to revolt, recovery, everything


Friday, October 30, 2020

you look like a picture / and then you are one


                                            water leads water                                        how it desires                                   

leaf leads leaf                                              then devours

     my thoughts                                                a space of ache 

 like an animal                                              and surrenders

now desperate                                             where I marvel

with promises                                              at your name


Monday, October 19, 2020

Sing

Every night quakes lightly

--like childhood's laughter.

Quick, give me a new thing 

to see--yes, you, so beautiful 

to me. America, 

you're breaking

me. 




______________________________________________
Earthquake dreams, deadlines, fears, news, OMG.


Monday, October 12, 2020

Return (For my Chelli)

From any direction 
I try to meet you,
you greet me.
We hold hands,
"la biss" kiss-
kiss, kiss-kiss.

There was a time when all
I had to do was simply turn
if I wanted to see you or play. 
Do you ever yearn for when 
we were fed from just one 
plate--no yours, no mine?

To sleep together, curling like
vines? Discuss how parting 
our twin beds, sending them 
to opposite walls was painful
(almost as if conjoined twins 
beginning surgery, separation).

My room now--though bright
feels dim and scribbled over,
continents and years crawl
over--what I fear--were last 
visits. Lost keys, lost locks, 
oh--the stitches come loose.

If I am not an island,
how can I swim to you?
I am now just a body
of water surging,
my eyes growing 
round as our earth.

I am come to an age with
endings coiled inside me.
The pandemic's parting gift,
a gift of parting, is the empty
vision unfolding, trying to return
to decisions I made decades ago.

I want to walk up to you
talk about what I have/have
carried. I bring you all this... 
sadness because you'll say you 
see it, know just how to see it,
and be the first to throw it away.

From any direction 
I try to meet you,
you greet me.
We hold hands,
"la biss" kiss-
kiss, kiss-kiss.

"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that St...