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What does this mean?
This place I find myself between
A love I’ve waited lifetimes to find
To another he must bind

A joyful lament, a sorrowful laugh
What an untterly absurd sort of path
If the gods did tell a joke
It would be in lines of code

An embrace more tender and so true
Comes from a love I can’t imbue
With not but longing, hot and bright
Which can but scarcely see the light.

Devotion like bees in my veins
My blazing heart in love remains
True to love as sure as a spark
Illuminates the coldest dark
For anyone in love’s impossible absurdity
Cree‑cree, Cree‑cree,
Papa Limbo,
Lè ou vini,
pa janm antre.

Papa Limbo,
tall and thin,
Creeping ‘round my house again.
Tip‐toe, tip‐toe,
can’t come in,
Salt and brick dust on my skin!

Metcha’ a man
inna’ crooked hat.
Sleeps all day with a one‐eyed cat.

Sings me a tune through his busted tooth,
’bout-a girl he lost
in a photo booth.

Jump, kid, jump.
Don’tcha fall.
Rusty nails
Rusty nails
stickin’ in a doll.

Gonna clap twice,
Spin a skirt around,
Listen to him moan like-a jail-house hound.

Trip that rope
hear his call
He’s still collectin’ girls for his picture wall.

Cree‑cree, Cree‑cree,
Papa Limbo,
Lè ou vini,
pa janm antre.

Clap two times,
spin about,
Papa Limbo,
you get out!

Red dust, white salt, slam the door,
Shadow can’t cross
my floor no more!
Jump Rope Chant (Creole) inspired by Shay Caroline Simmons https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5129264/from-a-sugar-bowl-womb/
Chain-link clatters,
her small pickup nosing through.
We’re here for a refrigerator,
her new apartment,
first time I’m meeting anyone in her family.
She’s beautiful,
nervous in the passenger seat,
told me her brother used to be a skinhead.
Now: better, odd jobs,
an Asian wife.

Sparse walls, half an office building
pretending to be a home.
A baby crawls on the kitchen floor.
Mei: tired eyes, lipstick,
business suit, late for work.

Her brother just waking up,
empty malt liquor cans,
talking too fast,
about jobs, about not sleeping.
I’ve seen this math before:
people who struggle to get their life straight,
their day straight, their time straight.

The fridge is light as air,
a few condiments rattling inside.
We slide it out:
black square on the linoleum.
The square bursts,
roaches bloom and scatter at my feet.

Thinking: pick up the baby.
Mei already has her,
no expression,
like this scene’s happened
a hundred times before.

"We’ll keep the fridge outside,
- just a day,
use boric acid, no smell."
I smile when I say it,
like I’m just talking about a squeaky hinge.
Inside it, insects crawl around the compressor.
My girlfriend looks away, down.

Fifteen years from now:
A faraway post online,
in memoriam,
her brother beaten to death.
The baby, the family, now
gone from the map of my life.

Only the black square remains,
still crawling
in the back of my mind.
Yucca wind cuts through my coat,
the markers blur and fade.
I rode a while on golden dice
and now I walk in gray.

The sun still hangs, a blistered coin,
A whisper left of heat.
I shake dust
from a hollow skull
and drift on tired feet.

Cantinas hum their broken hymns,
the meek slip into pews,
they trade their vows for bottle rims
and saviors they can use.

The stew’s been warmed and left to cool,
her smile is soft and deep.
I pull a blanket to her chin,
watchover while she sleeps.

Their toys lie mute in cedar drawers,
their shoes set by the door,
and she still scrubs the cracking tile
as if we could make more.

I left my heart in a canyon’s jaw,
too hard to dig it free,
and let the desert keep it warm,
the way her hands keep me.
 Aug 13 Rastislav
vik
i woke inside the trench.
my teeth were not my own.
my hand was gone, or chewed
in word i’d never known.

the war was soft and wet.
the skull had turned to chalk.
birds dropped like folded notes.
the siege forgot to talk.

she rode like wrath grown tall.
her helm was grief made gold.
no mercy in her path,
just silence, woe and cold.

the saints had kissed her lips.
their bones were in her hair.
the banner trailed behind,
stitched from a baby’s prayer.

she said:
stand. (i was.)
bleed. (i am.)
forget. (i have.)

they named her rust and sin.
they called her winterborn.
i called her sir. she knelt.
she cracked the siegehorns’ horn.

she fed the dying steeds.
she named them one by one.
she burnt all of their spines
beneath a rotting sun.

we drank the ink from flags.
we ate the borderlines.
we fed the crowns to crows
we wept in battle lines.

dull gape, like beryl stars,
spun like a compass dead.
she searched for Gods on fire,
who left the church in red.

our vows were carved in filth.
she wore a veil of teeth.
i wore the wound she gave
and nothing else beneath.
a love poem, oddly enough
Like stepping into rooms that are almost, not quite formed, inhabited by blind guides. Enthusiastic sages, whose mouths drip with the oozing compost of yesteryear’s salvation. I’ve seen this one before, this party is the same as the last. The sigh that slips out is like so many lungs full, from a balloon released from a child’s clumsy fingers.

I look back for friends, praying to step through the threshold accompanied. Who likes to show up standing with the host, making small talk with the gal holding the shrimp tray, trying not to let the eyes linger where they shouldn’t. But the air is slipping out of the front door, threatening to change the world outside. It’s not like there was a choice, move forward, or step back. One last glance, behind the hedgerow, beyond the gate, the clamor already complains.

The air is penetrating still until lilting melodies, crack open each room like canned joy, preserving the freshness of someone else’s moments. Sharp laughter of someone hunting for their self-esteem pierces the stochastic void, reminds me of the last time I cried. The sound waves carry reluctant feet down dark halls lined with the regrets of paths not taken, painted over with grim smiles. Reminders that the future is already littered with the corpses of good intentions.

The hall ends in an ornate door, carved by hand with sigils and runes, marked, ‘remember’. I want to, because surely what has been is not all that there could have been. I step up, alone as on the last day. Praying that ahead there is a miracle that rescues from certainty, and it’s like a voice on the other side whispers “this is it,” but when I turn the handle, it’s just another room. One more closet full of the artifacts accumulated in the pursuit of meaning.
I want to respond to The Body that Hoped Not to Be Real. By hellopoet(ry) wordsmith: Rastislav
 Aug 11 Rastislav
am i ee
hello boy,
who is me!

you don't answer,
so i see.

you are me.
don't you see?

lost in duality!

you and me.

~~~

2023 esk
#nonduality #love #loss #bofriend #advaita #wonder #life
 Aug 11 Rastislav
am i ee
Firelight
Candlelight

Matchlight
Lantern light

Star light
Moon light

These are the lights I love!

Soothing light,
warm light,

peaceful light,
Natural light.

Mother Nature
Designed by her,

Her grand plan
Utter perfection!
 Aug 10 Rastislav
ac
directions
 Aug 10 Rastislav
ac
so tell me, where shall i go?
to the left, where nothing’s right?
or to the right, where there’s nothing left?
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