Pain in chest
Pounds and with
Each inhale
Stabs of lightening
Like I swallowed a taser

One glance skyward
And then I shift my position

Death might not be all that bad
Just the sharp pains leading up to it

Forty years in this old house
It’s filled with treasures lacking worth
To anyone expecting gold,
But priceless in the life recalled.

The warnings came a week ago-
A cataclysmic storm they said
Stock up water and food to eat
That won’t require electricity.

I laid in water and granola bars
And put some things in plastic bags
I wrote my ID on my forearm
Feeling silly as I did.

I moved things to the second floor
Assuring them of some protection
I wish I could have carried more
But the rain was knocking on the door.

It came seeping underneath
And as I watched, it soaked the rug.
Not satisfied with ruined carpet
It crept up the sofa’s skirt.

What am I still doing here
They said do not evacuate
So I am forced to watch the death
Of all I worked so hard to own.

I’s almost knee deep in the kitchen
Where’s my hammer and crow bar
Dang! they’re both out in the shed
I should have thought to bring them in.

It’s lucky I don’t have a pet
No dog or cat or bird or fish
Another life to fret about
When I can barely save my own.

The water’s nearly hip deep now
And rising at a hellish rate
The walls are shaking from the pressure
It’s time for me to move upstairs.

The rain’s a wall I can’t see through
I don’t know how my neighbors fare.
The power’s out - the house is silent
Except for the drumming of the rain.

My lantern is the only light -
How long will the batteries last.
Oh Lord, I’m starting to get frightened
Water’s coming up the stairs, silent as a burglar.

They said don’t go into the attic
Get up on the roof instead.
They didn’t tell us how to do that
How to break ceiling and shingles.

I’m old - I’ve lost the strength of youth
I don’t think I can get up there.
If the water keeps on rising
I must prepare to meet my maker

All I love live far away
Are they as frantic now as me
Will a neighbor come and find me
My cel phone battery just died

Still the ugly, ***** water
Inches further up the stairs.
The old house shudders in the windy gusts
And I can’t keep my fingers steady

I just wrote something on the wall-
A farewell to my family
They should know I thought of them
As water seeps across this floor.

I’ve broken out a window
Over the submerged porch
There’s no point in going out it
I’d only just be swept away.

The water’s almost knee deep here too
I know it’s never going to stop
It’s foolish to stand up on a chair
I’ll say my prayers and go to bed

I’m sure that only God can save me
Neighbors have their problems too.
I’ve lived for eighty happy years
It’s time to shake the hand of fate.

I wonder what it’s like, this drowning
They say you see your life again.
That almost makes it worth the going
Except the sadness left behind.

The bed clothes now are wet and sopping
I never knew I could feel so cold
There’s a rumble in the distance
Like a giant waterfall.

Growing closer like a jet plane
What do you suppose it is
Now the house is really shaking
And I can

ljm

I'll just play that song again
pine away in
hope the one part of me
not dying yet

and suppose
or check the door
with every creak
every settling of this

old house
wipe the cobwebs
away from
the window

and peep at the
empty street
just
hope keeps me

these days
company

In a photograph
without a subject
you, standing
with your back
to my camera.

I long for a face,
your eyes, a soft smile,
or even just a pair of hands.

I remember us being
so lonely for each other,
and there on the shelf
a girl standing by herself.

Not just the empty cottage
dilapidated, all alone, my love,
you left three months ago
and the old house behind the dunes
now a photographic manipulation.

A wonder of the modern age,
complete with cuts and splices
where you used to sit, an empty
place in the bed, a gaping hole
somewhere above my navel.

words fell
    like broken
        glass
                from
your lips
                onto
bloodstained
                       carpet
lacerations
              searing your
bruised heart,
      transplanting
              its jagged rips
into mine
  beats sharply feathered
like injured
                wings,
angel eyes
   pigmented my color,
    blinded by a
cool sheen
hiding behind
                 tears
You are but a child,
young fresh entity
yet know the weight
of heavy
    and suddenly
nothing else
       matters
only your light
in my world,
however
         dark you get
nothing material
can fix it and I will
stop it all
to press
the button
          of time
and give
you
the
       world

Good ten minutes to four
I reached the temple door.

Take your offer for the God
the flower seller was eager
no haste, he smiled
his time for a rest
will soon be over.

I wondered
why I'm never contented
with what God has to offer
and as a rule
my bag of grievances is ever full.

In the faint light
I held his idol in my sight
listening in the quietude
to the temple pigeons.

With great peace
I bought two lotus at fifteen rupees
from the flower seller
dividing our happiness
into equal share.

In a momentary haze your mind spins
It droops and falls helpless into a vortex of
Smallness insignificant cold uncaring lonely
Smallness of the day when everything big
Either hurt, or used or didn't bother
It knocks the air out of your lungs that suddenly
Have no cause for breathing for why waste the
Precious oxygen? Yet you inhale in quick desperate gulps
And the ground slips from under your feet
It's all pointless - to save yourself, to seek help, to go on
Too small too emptied and filthy with their intentions
In tension with the needs needs needs...
The hopes that you found suitable for fire setting  
Pointless naive stupid hopes
So hatable you demolish them at once
Into waste under worthless sign
Forget the pain whatever it takes
It left you with blisters and hanging shoulders
With your chin tucked underneath your
Self-worth and you are not walking you are
Dragging yourself along the path
In the direction of pointless consumerism
And fame fame fame is all you wish, its all you hear
It's all you know of care because it's all that keeps them around
Them the faceless the soulless manikins that
Seem to have something you don't
Those hatable bodies that fill up the space
Around your black hole
And you fall and you fall and you fall
And all the things you have don't make you happy
And praise or kindness makes you paranoid
And you take all these little tablets of oblivion
Together in one gulp to forget
Just how far you still are from where you
Wish... if only you could wish to be

He knew the ache could not be recompensed
they knew it too the moment echoes fell silent
There was already not enough love
in a world grown dark as darkest past

It wasn't the color of his skin nor dialect
or the  journey of a  thousand  miles
Not the place that he'd come from
       back when ―  left behind

             nor a heart of gold,  
      that never became a home

The colour of  unwritten silence
had  eclipsed  the waning  light
On the run from who he'd become;
     ashamed for all he was,  
couldn't erase a lifetime that felt a waste ―
               trying to untie a Gordian knot

He saw his body as an entombing barbwire cage
    imprisoning  a  wellspring  of  love writhing deep therein

Immured at arms length from the outside world
    where  the soul of a teardrop  abides  within
                         its insignificance

Shielding the  inherent  maelstrom
                          from the innocent passersby
Buried thoughtfully for the greater good of all ―
for the unsatiated dream boundless love betides

Written  artifacts  exhumed  like  ***** secrets
a lifetime of stigma's stain swept under the rug;
just whispered words written from an unfinished life
few ever really looked deeply between the twisted lines
arising from the soul of just another passing stranger

The long road begets a suffocating silence
choking out,           extinguished love inhumed
Ashes  of what once had been life aglow of light
               forevermore shrouded
          like the dark side of the moon



rivers

13 | 31 Poems for August 2017

I wrote many of my poems in Braille for the kind of love I was desperately longing to feel.
I’m still catching feelings; my words are revealing and that’s why you’ll know that this poem is about you.
Let me tell you about my version of events while we listen to Emeli Sandé on any given Sunday.
For what it’s worth, I was only trying to make things work, but I got high on love during my hiatus.
I’ve had to learn to love you in silence and as if that wasn’t enough, I’ve had to learn to love you from a distance.
I know you didn’t give me permission to, but I already started talking to God about you.
Maybe in your quiet time at exactly the right time, I could possibly be your one and only valentine.
I think I finally understand it now, I’m a hopeless romantic who insists on remaining hopeful.
Let me tell you about my version of events while we listen to Emeli Sandé on any given Sunday.

i stopped talking to the stain on the wall when i realized it wasn't you,

just the desire of it to be you.


the house where you were born, is standing up just by the bones of you,
i'm sure.

dad sometimes says your soul is still trapped here,
like it dug a grave and buried itself in the foundation.

i wonder how that can be --
have you wrapped the roots of the maple tree around your middle?

are you holding your breath as if the soil is water;
As if the meaning of you is still refusing to go on because there's a snorkel attached to your mouth?
Because i'm here waiting for you at the maple tree
with the ash you would call snow,

in my arms,

and you're still in some place I haven't found yet.


The stain on the wall doesn't look the same.
The place where you should be feels void,

and outside there's a storm,
it's causing the heads of the flowers you planted to bat against each other.

I wonder if you've possessed one of them,
I wonder if you're trying to **** me so I can possess one too.

I wonder if you're even here,

or if I am even here.

Sam.
Sam.
little brother?

i'm sorry.

The ground beside your grave is cold,
I've dug dirt stained nails into the earth to try and reach you,



but you never reach back.