Part I.  Like Gods Falling

At first—
new trembling
and then she didn’t want
to be—

alone

with guilt

or seen

as **** half-eaten evidence
So she held it out to him
with her half-hearted, “It's OK.”
her crippling distance

“Why doesn’t she just embrace me
as before?”
He thought
that he had never seen her eyes that way—
with no words for their ruin
he loved her fearfully more

Gorged in the aftermath of forbidden
fat and animal fruit
Sick with excuses
Staring at
the core of lust
Rationalizing
Food?  Beauty? Intrigue?

Wisdom!

Searing awful terror
into each other’s minds

Part II.  Love and War

In the years between
the harrowed rows of sprouting corn
they found pleasure without plan
that bound them more than guilt had severed

How curious the textures of a man
in sunlight

her power?
In all the brilliance she had bargained for

How curious this burning for her
in the sodden life of rotting

She was always holding him now
from the scorching day
as the earth sizzled and swam
in seas of senseless—
background drone of locust and revenge
sealed in sweat and clutching labor

She was always holding him back by night
from the icy crackling mad!
his restless hunting hate!
And sometimes, while she pleaded
he would seize her
Make her pay!

For that afternoon

by the well where the boy was washing
A basket of vegetables returned
a bowl of blood

Part III.  Grief

Prepare the darling carcass
Shroud it in her pleas
clawing in the mud beside its silence
consumed beyond all fire by her anguish
“Can this not be enough to make him move?
Yes! He did! I’m sure I saw it!”
Can this not be enough?”
to stop the knowing…
grief from pouring into space?

Not even light escapes
____

Returning from the Mount of Meeting
hollow chores
collecting fatwood
grinding joyless grain

From corner of her eye
she watches the boy
walk toward the forest
spear in hand
She pauses
looking down
at hands on stone
that once had cradled...
Breath catching on jagged sorrow

She continues to grind

bitterly pregnant


Part IV.  Endings

Descended now
Reclining heap
reflects before a sun’s surrender
His face gleams with last light
hair blown back by volleys of wind

Her face
Not visible
as we are behind them
Her head rests in his lap
She is on her side
Soles of her shoes
mute and toward us
His eyes search the sky for a god—any god!
Her God

Exhaustion poses them past
the point of question
When the matter of “Why?”
becomes each other

Close in

the net of twilight
Dulled of hope and pain
at the edge of all that can be done...

...everything is gray going on black—
but we always knew that

As the day is bled into the river
I watch the coming and going.

Place me in them
each one has a name like me
a home and a family
where their mind work laden
would have a heart to anchor
children to love and care for
a night to stir the fire
to burn all the bitterness
and be reborn the next morn
to shuttle one bank to the other
of the wide river.

I marvel at the chance
of meeting them once
suffering the absurd pain
of never crossing their path again.

ten beams into the building I knew her
she was the tiller from a seagoing vessel
a sway a leech to the port a missing tender
a long lost vestige of her cargo
the gold the plates
the necklaces traded
all on the bottom
and this tenth beam now holding the center of the floor of
this old building straight and level
had her strength once floating
on a sea ridge a foam of shore
crashed into
and broken apart
and spent and forgotten and under dark tides
was alone
in her failure so long ago
that sent men and cargo to the depths
she staggered again into being
taken from a watery death to live
as the  support
of this
odd sort of haunted structure
proud now and determined
wood finished and raw and old  and bowed yet
stout and proud
and I sensed her ten beams in

We live in a house, simple and nice
With a garden lined with crotons in rows
Not so neatly trimmed or pruned as before
And a lawn not always well manicured
But abounding in plants with blooms of varied hue
From shady corners, orchids peep
They bring forth flowers in bunches and mass
Only on certain seasons, not the year round.
Then a visual treat to the eyes, indeed!

Trees big and small border our land
Mango trees and jack fruit trees
Coconut palms and guava trees
Twining creepers with globular passion fruits
Bushy plants of sweet and sour berries
Rose apples, papayas and Chinese limes
An epitome of country abundance!

In front of the house was once a stretch of fields
Lush and fresh with paddy plants in June
And in autumn, bent with arching sheaves of corn
Green parakeets used to come from far
To eat the grains ready to be reaped
Having their fill they would fly westward in flocks
Such scenes were a source of instant delight

But sad enough, those fields were gradually filled
In place of paddy and other seasonal crops
Industrial units, big and small have emerged
By degrees, the quiet and coolness of the place
That once soothed our frayed nerves are gone
Now an exodus of men have landed here
Laborers who have come from Northern states
To eke out a living in a better clime
Speaking languages, Bengali, Hindi and Tamil
Leaving the area noisy with incessant chatter

Along the road that runs parallel to our house
Now speeds past, motors in unbroken row
Honking horns and raising a screen of smoky dust
Spoiling the ambiance of our verdant setting
And badly impairing the neat surroundings
But with every change of scene and setting
We, like nomads cannot change our stay or dwelling

Well acclimatized to all noise and commotion
We now stick to our home, our humble haven
And strive to create within an inner landscape
Not polluted by the ravages of time or clime

Home is the sanctuary where we roost and rest
A sweet dwelling, more than all mansions blest
And it should be an abode of love where hearts embrace
Every turn of life, grim or merry with no fuss but with grace

How sweet it is to dwell beneath this roof
Our wedded life’s enduring love’s living proof!

I found a way to make it painless, to make god good, to make myself good, to make myself god—me—Joshua Jerome Hutton, sound familiar?  

God I hope so.

I found a way to make it painless in the checkout line, while the bleary-eyed maidens of South Moore, one in front, one behind, talk 3 a.m. rallies and resurrections right through me.

I found a way to make it painless at the eternal stoplight, watching the eternal Vietnam veteran in eternal rags holding eternal cardboard, summoning crumpled bills from anyone other than me.

I found a way to make it painless during the photo shoot, a way to place my chin so thoughtfully in my hand, a way to look into the middle-distance, a way to imply self-deprecation, a way to find near perfection—only under ample light, of course.

I found a way to make it painless in the soup queue, amongst my fellow unshaven, shamed naked, shamed to the bone, shamed pure, shamed to one flybuzz drive: I must consume.

I found a way to make it painless, to make it to the center of the white space, to suspend, inking out the worst parts of me, an all caps ATTRACTION, impossible to pinpoint, all for the review of books and the cabal of the slowed-down and insane still reading the review of books.

I found a way to make it painless by never breaking eye contact nor speaking a word as you talk yourself deeper into what you hate about yourself, and I stir my drink with a black cocktail straw, and I clear my throat, and I hahaha to myself, and I say these little issues just seem like problems. Just wait. You just wait.

I found a way to make it painless, to eek out of my own borderlines, to meld with the air and chemtrail across the sky, to observe from a holy distance the tightrope walker, the controlled demolition, the desperate young men lagging five feet behind the elusive loves of their lives, firing every clever phrase, hoping for one to land, to glean one little pause, a moment to catch up, and here, I must admit, it gives me great relief to be this removed, this far gone, this far god.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Any time of day, when mind wanders,
it's like the water...splashes...escapes,
and flows down the precipice...
it spreads, surrounds, and creeps
...in and out of us......water sustains
...but....it can also drown us...

we come across big or small rivers,
...feel their depth....our feet, as feelers,
...narrow......running...calm......serene,
in cool colors of silver, blue or emerald green
they don't roar...they just make ripples
on the surface, when a breeze blows,
....dancing our blues away, on tiptoes

then, there are colder streams,
darker....where anguish, despair and
brokenness...comfortably dwell
...testing us....giving us choices...
some opt to float on the water,
thinking, none else matters~~~~~~
then, surrender to the rushing current,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.....when they could sway, or play
they could waltz with the water...

the wise ones dance...fight, with some art,
they do freestyle.....breast....or back,
or the wavy butterfly stroke,
til they find a most welcome shallow part...
.........:::::::::::::::::::...........
for those fed up...and trapped
...at some point, they give up
surrendering to the force of the current
they abandon their body and soul,
with nothing left behind,
...........just an absolute

...D..e..a..d......W..e..i..g..h..t...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sally

Copyright July 25, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

the tectonic plates
in me
are shifting
     as our continents
approach collide
my ocean is
getting closer
to the mountains
on your landscape
  tallest grasses blowing
         in wild demon dance,
                shaking their
          heads as heated
storm approaches
oven-baked air crackling
    with its own
         electric currents
Nothing can stop it
it's a magnetic force
              one to be
                   reckoned with
               surrendered to
as dust foams
like ocean froth
around our heads
clinging to us in tiny
starlit fragments
and soon will come
        the slick dive into
             wordless waters,
                    just skin on skin
        slippery mouth muscles
like entwined snakes
flick-flicking, shiny
in eye-lit cherry moons
Take my hand.
Just pull me in.
Enfold me,
          without talking
watch as my aura
rushes into you,
first a delicate whisk
             of cool light
to slake the thirst
of coal-licked caverns
then sparks
and bubbling oxidation
turning into liquid brushfire
Hold your palm
to my chest,
as if to keep
    my heart steady,
        my glowing flare of halo
  pressed into your
clavicle, taking in
the embryonic beats
soothing my torrid ache,
infusing minerals
in vitamin-laced libation
It is time to simply bask
in the new
crispness of radical
shake off
           the silt and salt
and rise up
into the spheres
      of memory
      of soulspeak
of collapsed time zones
budded breath
spiraling up
in curls,
       diaphanous
dark mist
ascending
                 into
           light

They bring with them the baggage of men
the lost children attempting pathetically
to recreate the aura of time long gone.

If you discount the roughness of skin
travel past the thick hedge of beard
penetrate the silt on the eroded eyes
you can delayer the hardened coats
and get to see  faces barely recognizable.

Some were once too close to be missed
their names and all
but most you could hardly recall
and it agonizes your thought
were they in the same class or not.

You smile till your jaws ache
fetching stories from the blue
dazzlingly colored and half true
for they are all in the mood
to joyfully succumb to falsehood.

You could tell from the body language
who's  in the backburner
and who on the front page.

Forty years break and make men
but they feign happiness
to be united again.

Sei Un Universo

Fall into a bed of flowers.
Let your mind ripple like aqua
Under the melting sun.
Your honey like skin,
A nurtured drop of sunlight.
Absorb It.
The moon and the sun shall hide
Within you.
For in your bones is the dust
Of planets.
And in your mind are
Boundless constellations.

You are a universe.

- A.F