I’m the moon
Orbiting around your pull
I’m the humid june
Wrapped around you like wool

I’m the palm
Of God’s trembling hands
I’m a ticking bomb
The Saharan sands

I’m the forever
I said I could never could be
I’m your latest endeavor
As alive as the Dead Sea

i want a love
that will make me feel
like the world
was made just for the two of us,
the stars revolving around our lives
like they're connected by a red thread.

i want a love
that will be so strong
it will burn the world to pieces,
and then
build it all back up again.

i want a love
that people will remember,
one that strangers
on the street
will be able to feel
just by looking at our smiles,
and the light in our eyes
when we're around each other,
the others' presence
simply just enough.

i want a love
that will last
longer than a lifetime,
one that would have us
shifting in our graves,
one that would be spelled out
in story books
and love songs.

i want a love,
this love,
to be between you and me,
because darling,
i would do anything for you,
hold your hand,
kiss your tears,
know your mother,
make you tea,
plan out dates,
take you to new york city,
paris,
collect sands from the moon,
if only you would ask.

High in the saddle, reigns taut,
We galloped away from home,
Proud steed and lean rider
Searching, searching, searching
Seeking from the world
A meaning of sorts; such is the folly
Of the Young.

Long and arduous has been the ride,
But worth it if only to see! The ruins,
Columns in the sands bleached white
As if to be the picked-clean bones of
Those that came before, macabre
Testament too the Singular Truth.

Closer to the ground now,
In more ways than one.
I left my horse buried in sand
And miles, miles, miles.
Such is the Truth of things.

But alas! At last, a meaning!
The Grand Epiphany, you see;
For the further I wander from home,
The closer to home I'll be!
With this Better Truth in hand,
I stopped, turned, and chose a new heading
Towards home.

I wonder, have you noticed yet,
That when we look into our friends’ eyes,
They refuse to meet our gazes
Lest we see the pity that therein lies.

I try to question them why it’s so,
But they deflect with waving hands
Saying, “Enjoy the summer sun,
The beach, the waves, the sands.

“Cast your minds upon happy things.
Don’t think about what lies ahead.
Remember picnics and smiles and laughter
And warm nights of cuddling on his bed.

“The summer will give you life;
Its multitude of golden rays
Will support and nurture your love,
And provide memories of pleasant days.

“For you’ll soon have to face the truth:
When the autumn strikes
There’ll be no more days of tanning
Or cooking or kissing or riding bikes.”

They told us to enjoy the here and now
Because reality would set in soon.
When they told us, I came to you crying,
And you held me under the mid-summer moon.

Everyone was talking in our ears.
We could try to make it through the fall,
But when frost touched the ground,
No doubt, we couldn’t hang onto it all

But, darling, I’ll tell you a secret,
Something that they don’t know:
You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
And as far as seasons go,

We cannot be constrained by time.
Distance does not matter to me.
Despite everything that they will say,
We can beat the odds and break free.

You had left
You were sorely missed
And even upon your return
Some still missed you
For you had returned not as yourself
But as a butterfly done with metamorphosis
Borne of a crysallis of pain
Formed into a butterfly of superfluous acts
Still there remained all we had loved
The depth had not been filled by sands of darkness
But with sorrowful sand
Letting tears shed stain your path
And causing more
For the ones knowing of your heart
Feeling almost as sad
Never has there been such sadness
Nor on a widow's night
Or a young loss
All of it encompassed in one person
Spreading from mouth
Encompassing all the near
While all the near would like to see you happy

"a canvas, which reflects
sunlight in rays unseen
before submitting itself to a life of color"

Razelle McCarrick
--------------------------------------------------
From memory she painted me,
Tho we had never met.
She painted my biography
On an easel of paper, brushes of pencil,
Exposed, bereft, inexorably delighted
At being dissolved in words that were not mine.

My annotated notes herein ascribed
To her revelations of my secreted stories,
Were written as I gazed upon the multi-blues of
California's beaches, neckline decorated with
Strands of white pearled beaches
Opposite contusions, bruises of
Orange terra cotta roofs, a burnt coral,
Colors that demanded attention, preservation,
Salutations, all hail the penetrating gaze of
Razelle, betrayer and savior.

His moniker was a borrowed line,
Still crazy after all these years,
How could this unknown girl of twenty two
Clear capture, undress me in the poetry of her canvas,
The instant and constant self-examination,
The rapture when transcending the fears
Instilled from birth of how I ought to be,
Which sixty two years on, the wrestling never ends.

Color me flesh nude,
Color me blue bottled,
Red ripped asunder,
The sweetness ascribed to my love poetry,
A subtraction of the bitterness of a failed life.
Colorist of my seams, my woven words,
I am white now, my canvas completed,
Waiting another poet to write over it,
And chaining new words to what was writ.

N.M.L.

-------------------------------------------------------

Razelle McCarrick · Sep 21, 2010
Biography of a Man
Someone wrote a biography of a man. Said he liked to write poetry and spend time in nature. But there are many things its readers will never know about. The streams of thought, the analysis, confusion, the Sadness, sprinkles of joy, the Transcension. A strange man he was..sweetly strange, but strangely bitter. At odds with the halves of himself..or perhaps thirds. But who will know? Someone wrote a biography of a man, but didn't say he was crazy. Or that he had a sharp mathematical mind and tried to add up the components of life to find it wasn't an equation in the first place. It was omitted that he was not merely a man, but of some other kind, often missing his home and his people, though he didn't know who they were. They didn't say when he became deaf, that he still played his favorite songs because he could feel them all the same and see them in colors. And no one knew that he refused to write in pen, but pencil only because one day his work would be rubbed away by the sands of time, just like his body. Someone wrote a biography of a man, but there was no account of what he did on a beautiful day, like the time he sat by a stream pondering his life and rewrote the biography of a man.

The world has cast its spell on me.
I’m caught in her net of loveliness.
Like a fish I gape, open-eyed,
In wonder, forever and ever:

The star-laden cosmos unfolds,
Infinite, endless, with no borders;
How do the planets move in sync?
Exact, perfect, never out of step!
I can barely keep my car in line.

Nothing I see is plain, or mundane.
Dawn shines on saffron-shaded peaks,
Evening sets on the purple rocks.
The sea rushes in and retreats,
Across the white sands, the dark shores
Resounding with deep loneliness;

Seasons change -- the blue waters flow
Past green fields, yellow with mustard,
Apple trees rich with white blossoms --
Till the winter winds shake them down.
Every day, I wake up, somehow,
And find silver strands in my hair,
New wrinkles in my ageing skin…
All things change, one by one, while Time
Playfully lingers, unchanged, timeless.

Wonder comes to me, on certain feet.
How beautiful the world, how diverse.
And here I am, a lost traveler,
Stranded under the swirling stars!

Diptesh Ghosh

In Orange County


In Orange County, Californiyay,
When you arrive at John Wayne Airport,
No need to show driver license or passport,
But be prepared for inspection to gain entry.

Are your teeth white enough to light the roads?
Is your navel hairless and clean enough to be licked?
Do you have two tats, if not, get going back
to wherever!

If your not blonde, produce pictures of your parents,
In any event, law demands, go directly to the colorist!
Everybody smiles and says hello, so friendly,
But having mastered the technique of doing so
While looking over and past you, rest assured,
Your New York sensibilities of ignoring the movie star
Sitting next to you on the subway feels like the ultimate,
True cool.

In this place the sun never sets, which is why the citizens
Have sunglasses surgically attached to their heads.
Have not seen a big nose 'cept mine
Being looked down on from people who by law
Must be a minimum of six feet tall.

Need my gritty, need my cabbies giving me the finger,
Need the senior citizens fighting tooth and elbow for anything on sale,
Need my rivers, need to bleed orange and blue,
Need my ballet, my museums, my rude compatriots,
Who rush to your side when you sidewalk stumble,
Who never judge a book by its cover,
Cause the jerk next to you is likely the author.
Who open their pockets and hearts to every needy person,
Hand extended, give 'em a buck, genuinely wish 'em God Bless,
They who let us share the fabric, woof and weave of our
City streets, their homes...

I got beach, I got mountains,
So maybe they're not visible from my living room,
But I got more living in the hearts of my fellow Yorkers,
Than there are grains of sands on the beaches of
Orange County.