Pasta

They ask, “what is poetry?”
I’d give them a bowl of spaghetti.
Naturally they’re taken aback.
No surprise about that

Still I’d tell them,

“Here, take a bowl of my tiny soul.
If you look into it well enough
You would know that it’s not just a mush of twenty-six alphabets
See, I took the sticky dough that composes my mind
And shoved it through the tiny holes I call standards
And carefully pulled out the strands of words.

I’d tell them,

“Then I would pour the red sauce, my personal favorite,
That I cooked up with my blood and tears.
If you taste them correctly, a voice will sneak into your minds
And speak their reality.
Although it may hurt, that way you will see.
That’s my poetry.”

I would tell them, but I think they weren’t listening because
They would just drink up the whole thing like hungry savages.
And I would quietly stand there in awe
Because they wouldn’t understand.

today as i watched a movie about c.s. lewis
and his wife was dying
a thought raced across my mind,
death is weird

we live a certain number of years
in solid masses of skin and muscle
with something called a soul.
we feel more than animals,
some worship a God who created,
we love and we hate other people,
who are the exact same as us.

and then one day,
a different day
and a different way
for everyone,
we just
stop

today as i heard the news
that a four-month-old named zoe
died suddenly
a thought raced across my mind,
death is weird

*(a.m.c.)

paper carefully ***** my words
sentences are formed
liquid and dark as velvet
like flowers of silence

tones of a gentle song  
are showing the monologue
born out of my being

it has been
a long time
when I tuned the strings
and wrote the arrangements

and still I’m busy
bringing them to perfection

if i can't make you snort with laughter on your sad days, do not stay with me. i do not deserve you
if i can't make you giggle like a little ******* your tired days, find someone else, i'm begging you.
if i can't even make you smile on the days that you kind of hate me, then i am not the one for you, i promise.

and if i don't have you feeling otherwise on days where you find that maybe you don't want to be alive,
leave me
leave me.
for there is someone better out there for you

you deserve someone who fills your life with color and makes you happier than you ever thought you could be
if i can't be that for you,
if i can't make you feel that kind of love,
leave me
please leave me.
for there is someone better out there for you
you deserve them

I am trying not to
let your silence get
to me because I
know that you mostly
speak with your limbs
and they say love
but maybe your heart
speaks a language I
understand well while your
head communicates in foreign
tongues I cannot translate

Today, I accidentally spoke to a stranger.
Seated at the round table with my laptop,
I stared at a couple speaking my language.
He caught me looking, and seemed confused.
I was embarrassed for staring
so I explained, "I understood them-
there aren't many other speakers that I know,"
and quickly looked back down.
And the feeling of regret welled up inside me.
It was far too late.
I can see him staring at me, now.
Burning holes into the back of my screen.
For a second I thought he might have been mute.
Why stare at me so hard without uttering a word?
I'm not wearing anything particularly interesting.
He must know that I see him in my peripherals.
What if he really is mute?
Maybe he needs some help?
Should I look up? I can't.
Why not? Because that would mean
I'd have to speak more.
You shouldn't have spoken at all.
I was embarrassed for staring.
He should be embarrassed for staring, too.
I hope I didn't "speak his language."
He probably isn't even looking at you.
We're the only ones at this table.
He keeps looking up from his book.
Maybe if I look at him quickly I'll know if he's looking
at the empty billboard behind me instead.
I just looked up.
He's looking at me.
And not a word was exchanged.
Now this is that much more awkward,
I'll never look up again.
I'll just pack my things.
And never speak to strangers again.
But wait...
what if he knows me?
What if he's waiting for me to recognize him?
I don't know him, I'm sure.
He won't stop staring.
I close my laptop
and see my motley stickers.
Some with writing, some with pictures.
Sigh of relief.
Just my stickers.
I'd look, too.
Packed it away
and went to class.
How silly was I, just then?
But I still won't speak to strangers, again.

I love the spring
Watching Robins nesting and rearing young in my garden Shed
Also I watch the crows nesting in the trees outside my bedroom windows
Baby rabbits basking in the warm sunshine with watchful mothers grazing nearby in the field next to the house
Blossom on the trees and green new leaves looking so pretty against the sky
Daffodils, Tulips, and Bluebells making a beautiful carpet in the gardens and surrounding woodlands
Time to plant tomatoes, Beans and potatoes and all awhile the chattering of the Magpies waiting and watching to see what they can steal
They are so naughty digging up and taking the seed
Busy pecking at the fresh young shoots for more than they need
Crisp dry days and. some rainy ones all helping things to grow new life
I'm greedy to see all these things
Yes I love the spring

The streetlight is shaped like a lantern
And its golden light spills out in a clear, spoked pattern of darkness and illumination
Its shadows stretch long
And reach their fingers into your empty windows.
If I stand at its base, I stand at the center of a great perfect wheel of light that sprays in all directions.
I speak to you
Because you speak to me.
I wonder
If you recognize the surgical mask swinging from my arm
Soft and white.
They tell me your walls breathe poison
They tell me
That I shouldn't.
I stand and whisper to you
Who I am
Who I have been.
Perhaps the shade of a girl like me
Peers out your yawning windows
Through the spaces where the glass has been punched out
Past the ragged, yellowed curtains that sag limply from above
Out
From between the leafless ivy that twists its gnarled strands up your crumbling skin and digs into all your weaknesses.
Perhaps if I had shown myself a bit earlier
If my life had begun before it did
Perhaps we would have met in a different way.
It makes me sad that I fear you.
Your stone steps, carpeted with dead leaves, black metal railings leaning drunkenly to either side.
Your unnatural stillness.
But I do not fear to walk your halls
Not like the others.
No,
I do not fear you
I fear to become you.
That still
And that lifeless
Like a tree which has long since died and the core rotted
But the husk remains standing
As if it contains something alive.
Are you lonely?
Are you still afraid?
What does it feel like every night
When this streetlight above me blinks on
And peeks inside your high windows?
Do you rush to shut the drapes
Soggy and transparent as they are
Try to pull some tattered protection over the garish
Harsh emptiness you hold?
I stand here
And I feel you looking back at me
And I am sorry that nothing lives in you
And I am afraid that nothing lives
In me.
And if I were to go upstairs and peer out your top windows
I am afraid I would become see through
Like a strip of film
Illuminated.
I fear that I would be a projection on a solid world
And I fear
That somebody
Would turn out
The light.

At the old market place, there is a locksmith
The slipshod ancient road leads to his shop
In the business of repairing locks and making keys
For almost half a century, a dedicated soul
Right from a tender age he picked up the skills
Accompanying his father, to learn the tricks of the trade
Slowly he became adept at repairing the locks
Like a wizard, replicating the keys, for those have lost it
His name spread quite afar, for people sought his help
In times of trouble, as they were locked out of homes and shops
He knew the heart of each and every lock
Reviving at the touch of his dexterous hands
As if he used to command the locks to open at his will
Like a ring master at the circus
Each and every key combination were memorized by him
Recalling them like a mathematical genius
With the permutation and combinations, he found the magic numbers
He wielded the keys like the archer’s precision
Always hitting the bulls-eye
He knew each and every house in the town
For, over the years, everyone had come to him for help
He was the only one who knew the key to open any lock





© Amitav (Radiance)

so you have no name...i can yet name you; no bother
it is a simple thing to have a hole in your honor
and sideways now is always

and you remember how your scars are like twilight and cinnamon

if you keep the happiness of happiness
it was tonight... and yet
ours is to loom in troubled avatars
and i suspect
the winter in summer’s teeth
to sink at least as deep as goodbye
and hours will be hours
at a time

The bones of love howl such parodies

That cannot speak more seldom of Paradise

Black sand irritates the Pearl...

Faith maligns the Believer

As God invents Pain,

Shrill phantoms

Over Love's

remains.

butterflies and jitters
stutters and whispers

shaking and sweating
hesitating and forgetting