finding our way back again. to what? this is a steep question. I am drawing this map of words, today we should speak of what is, the roots of words, this silence their soil, these words vehicle for the inexpressible.  Gaza strip, day 52, Jordan foreign ministery says Israel is busy with genocide. what else is trully new, for sure not pain, a fundamental law unrecognized by physics. the paradox of time that goes deeper into words when we feel them. the center cannot support itself exposed in cruel eyes. fall and rise of a time we lived in sometime like in a house with no windows. reality is and is not in the same spacetime simply unreachable, untraceable, incomprehensible. someone speaks in a low voice, another speaks more with the eyebrows. the door opens to the dance of life, and who is riding the dance. brave minds and collapsed bodies, I didn't want to be here today, she says. one feels disgusted by the expulsion from eden. I am looking for the secret garden where the mind of the body grows, but I don't know it. I am looking for a theory of absence. this is a story about the impossibility of story.  we have to listen and forget so that life goes on

a desire to erase,
to stay away forever.

an opportunity to transfigure,
to sit on the floor and wait for storms.

a line to cross, a lion at dusk,
a catastrophist.

a pen filled with acid,
a book of theories full of holes.

once this begins, there are only endings.

382 days and counting
Since I've last seen you
Not a day has gone by since then
That I don't incredibly miss you
Hardly a single breath of fresh air has been
Inhaled without even the slightest hint of you
And all I seem to do is drink more without you

382 days checked off the calendar but I still keep waiting
Anticipating for the morning I wake up when I'm no longer waiting
Waiting to let go or the day I stop wasting
Wasting these days away, erasing the images I keep repainting
Beautiful mural images all over my mind and I can't  stop retracing
Remembering all of our bitter night endings
are better than this empty bed that I'm facing

382 days have passed and I'm trying to let go
Clenching my fists toward my stomach and taking a blow
Pulling my hair out from the roots just to watch it regrow
Smiling in front of the world and screaming into my pillow
Going crazy and wishing I could go back to 382 days ago.

It's always either too much
or not nearly enough.
I cringe at the echo
of voices that carry
and words that slip
over my teeth
like molasses,
but the silence
can be deafening
in an empty room.

I vacillate between
thoughts that fill up spaces
like black balloons
and smiles that sink ships-
twisting between
tepid emptiness
and emotions that press
on all of my soft spots,
intent on seeping out
through my pores
like little pinpricks
of madness.

Caught somewhere between
a *****, a child, and a housewife;
I want deft hands to
wrap up all of my
loose ends
and in the same breath
I want to shave my head
and curl into cold corners.
I want to run through
fluorescent meadows
and twirl round in cotton skirts
before receding into
the bleak landscapes of my mind.
I want to make him breakfast
and fold his laundry into hearts-
then get drunk on cheap wine
and **** like that's what bed springs
were made for.

I want to say the words
that are festering inside
of my worm-eaten skull,
I want to see the disgust
on their contorted faces,
but on the other hand,
isn't it nice to be a pretty face;
seen, but never heard.

I want it all,
I want none of it.

slumber is fleeting
so is the promise of love
which can easily
be lost

Home – This warm familiar place
An ****** of every day to me
Where cooking smells and laughter dwell
The cat curled up on grey settee.
Noisy kids run in the hall
Sun beams hang in shafts of light
But dust motes in suspended drift
Reflect that something isn’t right.

Agitation twists her thought
He said he would…but didn’t then
Which led to heated, wounding words
That killed the mood and distanced them.
Home, where no one lies and cheats,
No one says those hurtful things
Unravelling the textured trust
Dispersing peaceful tranquilings.

No one storms into the night
With slamming doors and loud abuse,
Wracking sobs at kitchen sink
Unravelling to no good use.
Fearful, wide eyed, silent kids
Crept away to sanctuary
To furthest bedroom down the hall
Where silence helped the peace to be.

Home – that warm familiar place
That ****** of everything to me,
Where once, that ghost of happiness
Would dissipate from us to flee.

M.

I'm here. These texts these sacred carnivorous words
this verbal membrane
(read carefully I summon you read twice!) :
curtain meninx electroshock therapy
blanket straitjacket
bed-sheet ***** placenta

I praise this osmotic verbal membrane
I give you I get undressed I curse myself
Ah! my repressed whorish pathos:
I give you lucidly
Any poetic art is written in ink
(I calmly assure  in public)
in fact
in these mortal neurons

Darkness and dust

These texts these words I've picked from books and streets
Only this ultimate membrane
(precious like the *****
fragile like soap bubbles)
still separates me
from the psychic space where you've pushed me
                                             as towards the springs of the Nile
from the psychic place whence  I try - cautiously
painfully - to pull out:
my hands my paws my brain my heart
What is beyond? darkness and dust
What is left? a poetic art this darkness this dust
these cracking neurons

Marta Petreu
*translated by Liviu Bleoca

I didn’t know you were here to stay... you’ve found a place to rest inside this chest. there is no one there, on the other side. why can I measure my life in pain-years?  I am going to listen to the weight of your step... we are so many... poor bodies with slaughtered desires. life lifts up gently like hypnotic steam from raw bodies while you growl inside my bones. you have thorns of truth and short sentences: “papa doesn’t love me”, “mama keeps cursing”, “I am useless”. you are the only thing alive since I insist to lay down in my mother womb over and over again. have me expelled, have me covered in a blanket of blood so that I do not see the future.  you keep giving birth to my selves.
stop looking at me with charcoal eyes, father
look, mother, you can have me silenced for the beauty of dawn

Note: this isn't my work, but a work of one of the poet named Haron River ( currently go by H A Rivers) in this site who is currently MIA! Time to time I would scour poet's work, and allow them to teach me with their wisdom with their penmanship.  This was a poem Haron River gave me as a memento, but all his work is golden, and should be shared!  Hopefully new comers would check his work out! Without any further ado, here it is!

Untitled

Refreshed perspective gathered words
Like the ocean riptide gather
The rivers' flow at the confluence
Repurposing back-eddies,
Rejuvenation of stagnant brackish waters
Inherent soul-shine purging
From ancient core of earth mother

Light arising from the depth of inner stillness
As if a refilling wellspring burst forth,
Reawaking sighs too deep for words
Forming poetic constellation
To lighten the nebulous darkness,
Like sea of ink transformed into poetry

A sage opus renewed
By the muse of a migrating flock
Striving to discover new sacred grounds
Yet there is an undeniable song sung
In the howling wind of change
An incitement from a higher dialect
That empowers a restoration of the spirit
Oeuvre uplifted by rogue waves of wind
Arousing that which time erases

A renaissance manifest
Among the rousing nuances
Of poetic continuum,
Provoking a verve revival
Judicious to discovery
The enthralling vastitude
Of every breaking wave
In a vast sea of poesy

Where prevailing currents
Stir oceans of verse eternal;
Provoking verve revival,
The magnitude of an unbroken circle,
Oceans swells merging oneness
With the omnipresent of color
Of uncharted depth

As if thoughts assuage
By the Union of distant touching souls,
Spark nuances spanning poetic realms,
Transcending barriers of unexplored lexicon
To manifest the immensity,
Enkindling rhapsody of hearts and minds

Deeply rooted soul replenishment
Harvested from the tree of humankind,
Willingly sharing without regret
Enabling a metamorphosis
Of the human journey

I could tell by the intensity she knew the game
But I was far superior
She was there for the taking
She was toying with me
Does she know who she’s dealing with
The gesture with her hand
How dare she
Fate was surely on my side
After all, I was a man of the world
She was watching me
Like she knew my next move
She was challenging me
Challenging me
How dare she
I composed myself
Honour was at stake
She was smiling, inviting
I had her
She battled well
But knew it was the end
She screamed
I might only be four, but I can count
That was a two you threw
Now get down the snake you cheat
Mummy, he’s cheating again
He’s a man honey, that’s what they do
Someday a man would come to the door and ask for her hand
I wouldn't stand in his way.