October
The summer just turned gray and left
Leaving the door open to the chilly draft
We are still playing this game of chess
Of protracted moves and pauses, and countermoves
A waltz, stepping forward, then back, then a move left,
All across the dance floor until a shoe drops.
Salt in open wounds, the screaming man is now
Named a tortured soul and cast aside
What rough beast hosts this gathering of fools?
Upon whom does he pray? I have a door left half open
Yet I am shackled, to the floor of possibilities
Intrigued and disgusted, how deep is my self-hate?
Winter is around the corner licking it lips
Last vestiges of the fire are extinguished
Hope too dies a silent death, and truth be told,
None will be the wiser for it than I.
In this cold, where poetry dies an eventual death,
You, me, and the night are still swinging in the wind.
Battle For Words
What is the language of the poet?
Does he speak in metaphors?
His dialect of feelings is scripted in endless lacerations
Each drop of blood that trickles out is his exhalation
Like mango flowers sprouting on branches
At once fragrant and mortally fragile,
Each cut is a word unspoken, each pause its syntax.
What does the poet want? Is he aware of the
Power of words? Does he buy that the pen is
Mightier than the sword? Is the gun mightier than both?
If poet knows what he wants, how does he
Invent his language to suit the ministry of pen?
Who lends him words and phrases?
How does he sing his poems? Does he pause to weigh
Or sing his words carefree for it’s dust returning to dust?
Seek truth between small gaps in narrative,
And meaning in lapses in memory and subtext?
Is he forced to release his unspent feelings against his will
Or hold them for a gentler tomorrow?
Hold on to them like an oyster holding a grain
And hope for a pearl of wisdom when meaning relents?
What do you want from the poet? Fill your shadows with light;
Confusion with lucidity? Be silent against his will?
Paint over the evanescent shades of mood with mirth?
Is his mother tongue intrigue of intellect? Or raw emotion?
How does it end? Each night he loses his battle to confusion.
Memories envelop fallen words like blankets in the cold
Dead feelings arrive in a coffin every morning when the smoke clears
And he prepares the funeral for silence that falls between words and
Meaning. His song lies mute, his instrument silenced and
His windpipe, crushed from the electric embrace of emotions.
