Well the dogs begin to bark, disembodied
on the cemetery hill. Gravestones are silhouettes,
furniture in the night. From here you can see the housing estate,
constellations of halogen bulbs and bicycle reflectors.
All is still but my mind and the sound of the dogs in the distance.

A lofted branch, a hanging thread:
when did the rope-swing become a noose?
We came down from the trees
to burn them to the ground.
A thousand signals pass overhead. Unintelligible.
Unseen. The homeless leave ****-bottles of cheap cider
and backwater in the flower bins

but no one has seen them do it.
A chapel reflects the distant street-lights, unmoving,
so that only the trees share my discourse with living.
The dogs have shut up. The signals continue.
I lost my way again on the cemetery hill.
Scars have become medals.
My heart refuses to still.

Now the working day got me blue again
and the taxman takes all profit from my sanity,
lining the pockets of the rich in this top-heavy system.
I fell to the delusion that the left is always right
in this fight for centralised power,
but now the working day got me blue again,
and I'm tired of watching the news at ten.
I'm tired of seeing the human race **** each other,
so I turn off the television, and I try to live again.

Try to live past that working day,
past the need to keep artifacts from yesterdays
that can never effect the here and now.
Try to live past the event horizon,
the Great Electron in the sky;
the awful weight of uncertain futures-
but the working day got me blue again,
and those twelve hour shifts **** my strength
before I can punch through the wall that separates
you and I, from the happiness we earned,
the tears we cried.

The working day got me blue again,
and I've been quitting smoking for five years now,
But bad habits accumulate when you have no time
to file all the information that passes your way-
like dust across a construction site, when they promised
things would change. Though I've been breathing since birth,
I still turn to cigarettes as if they were the only thing that will calm me
in this sea of high expectations, sugar and caffeine; an isolated reality.
The working day got me blue again
and only music seems to talk above timesheets
and all those titles given to fools that you must obey.

I try to live past this humdrum panic,
this commonplace, day-to-day emergency.
I have been waiting for the paramedics,
for a team of experts or an expert lover
to frame all my fears into words, into diagnoses,
into myths and fallacies that tell me everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay, despite the finger on the button,
despite the chaos in my brain.
The working day got me blue again,

the working day got me blue,
and so all I can think of to do is to
fall into the grooves, into the static sheet of familiar melodies
on midnight walks, only my headphones and a cloud of smoke
to keep me company. The constuction site is always under new management,
the disabled are always ****** over by the government,
and its a surprise the fire service can still afford the price of running water-
double the price of Coca-Cola, and all the sheeps left to the slaughter.

I try to live past the bitterness that kills invisibly
like Carbon Monoxide; a fog, a cataract, that occludes the vision
so steadily, so incrementally,
that you cannot see the Scrooge in you,
until you find yourself alone in your room,
when only yesterdays remain, tattoo on your skin
in a series of callouses, of scars; photographs of guilt or all those better lives
lived by better men. Better women: better blades of grass and ameoba.
We stare into our phones in some punch-drunk hypnosis,
glowering at the world that distracts us from distraction.

The working day got me blue again,
and so I fall into a retreat. Into a fox-hole of self-delusion,
of puppetry in the world through my ugly words
and solemn verse; as if being clever with my tongue,
as if being cursive at the microphone is enough to save the world-
or at least, to save myself. You see, I've been a beacon of poor mental health,
I've been a victim of my own crimes for too long,
but the working day got me blue again, and before I find that strength
to punch that wall, or to make a change,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me blue again.

I try to live past the elevator jazz, as I stand on hold
for a company that would just as quickly drop me,
despite the smiles on their logos, despite their slogans of delight.
The lights went out a while ago,
and so I'll work another weekend,
I'll fix up my future pay, I'll sing sadly into my guitar
after a twelve hour shift, my ode, my unrequited love,
my poetry for Saturday.
You see, the working day got me blue again
and though I've spent my time saving up,
putting in the hours to fill my cup,
the working day got me blue again,
the working day got me down.

When the talking is done
When the **** hits the fan
When the lights all go out.

The strategy is to make us see our
brothers as enemies,
which frees the blame from the ones
who start wars in my name.

We collude with them by buying their lies
by learning to despise,
by seeing our brothers through the
warmongers eyes.

And when the lights do go out and
the **** hits the fan and the talking is
done,
whose son will you ****?
or will you even care?

it is in the cool green edges
of my memory
that i see you
                            standing, talking, with other men
                            cigarette in hand, a hat cocked on head
                             all tall and strong and smelling of brylcream
      

it is in the deep purple
of my mind
that i love you
                                 remembering days stolen from a lost childhood
                                 beacons on shipwrecked love
                                 admist the heaving sea of a saddened childhood


it is with orange streaked red rage
that i hate you
when i can be bothered to hate you
                  
                                for parties lost, birthdays  fogotten
                                for questions asked and gossip whispered
                                for the belief instilled by lack of interest
                                 that i was not enough, that i was the problem


it is with a tired sky blue
that i forgive and recognize you
    

                                                as  a man who wished, and wanted
                                                but was unable to give and recieve
                                               a world of wonder and days of sweet wine

it is with white...i let your memory drift...into the dark  of your making

and it is to the bright welcoming yellow of my life
to be lived, that i turn and embrace....

visions of what could have been
tempt my thoughts into such dreams
****** my heart into such longings
leave the sails of my vessel to the taint of dark winds
but still she shines in my thought dreams
so vivid and clear

from the photograph
i delve into her image with my mind
can taste her scent on my lips
her warmth fills me
her glossy lips entangle me
release me from lingering here
this dark endless wishing on what could have been
this photograph torture

before she turned away
she had paused
in that brief sliver of time
my heart had captured this image
this perfection
this utter truth
this box of wonders i trap myself
this place where the taste of her lips lingers

My skin color
Doesn't make me free
You can't assume because
Someone looks white
They are treated equally

Being white doesn't
Make me privileged
I worked hard to get
To where I am

I am not as "white" as I look
I am Hispanic
Which means that
Behind the scenes my
Family is not as
Well put together
As we may look

My parents are divorced
We're not poor but
They're struggling to
Get their kids a college education

I am a female
I didn't always have the
Rights I do now
For many years
My kind couldn't vote

For many years
Women were forced
Into a gender role
Being a female
Doesn't mean I'm weak

I am not straight
But also not a lesbian
Until this year
I didn't have the luxury of
Getting married to
Who I wanted where I wanted

People still don't understand
They think I'm confused
I can pray it away
You know what
Not even your
Backhanded religion
Can save me

I am not even
Safe in my own mind
There is a
Constant war
My depression and anxiety
Is eating away at me

You look at me
You see white
My people
We have
Always had to fight

"I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me..."
George Gordon Byron

"The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind:
No powers of body or of soul to share,
But what his Nature and his state can bear."
Alexander Pope

"...body is but a striving to become mind... it is mind in its essence"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"... insight that he in some sort possesses,
A privilege whereby a work of his,
Proceeding from a source of untaught things
Creative and enduring, may become
A power like that of Nature's."
William Wordsworth

"What am I? ?Nothing: but not so art thou,
Soul of my thought with whom I traverse earth,
Invisible but gazing, as I glow
Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,
And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth."
George Gordon Byron

"Imagination is a Divine Vision not of the World, or of Man, nor from Man as he is a Natural Man, but only as he is a Spiritual Man."
William Wordsworth

"Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woaful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"That awful Power"..."which unites clearness with depth, the plenitude of the sense with the comprehensibility of the understanding".*  * the creative faculty [my note]
S. T. Coleridge

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

The sweetest smile
Is the smile of a mother
Who loves too much
Who Cares too much
Who gives too much
Who never counts rewards
Just sincere love...
Only a mother can
Die for
Lie for
Sacrifice everything
precious
for her innocent child
To grow up happy safe and secure
The loudest cry
Is in the heart
Of a mother
Who folds her sadness
Deep down
Who fakes a smile at times
Watching how swiftly
Her angel child grows
There are times
A little Sorrow in her eyes
When you let her down
A tiny tear drops
Does it show?
Her gentle heart sometimes scarred...
Occasionally bruised..
Her hidden tears
Her frustration and anger
Will you know?
Her heart always warm
Her hugs sincere
Sweet mother
Never bitter
Trust a mother's love
For better for worse
Her sweetest love
will never shatter..

I figure
He'd miss this day
Just like he had before
During my most important days
Throughout my grow up days
My first day at school
My concert day
My speech day
My sports day
And other significant days..
But i wished he is here today
To witness this meaningful day
How I wish you are here daddy...
Somewhere in the crowd
Wearing your blazer and your ties
Like the way I used to see you
During my childhood days.....
I take a last glance at the audience
in the magnificent hall
I stand still
A pang of frustration
My anger boils
My name was announced
I am taking my step
Heavily
Very slowly...
Unbelievably.......
A proud figure standing tall
at a corner
The loudest clap I hear
A handsome smile on daddy's face
Daddy is finally here..........
‪#‎Convocation‬ I wish daddy's here

the sea is sighing like a woman
and I can hear its breath
of a hunted man
nearby yellow flowers
wild stones
salt drops stinging my arms
two seagulls dart out of my eyes
and fly side by side
speaking to each other over water
like human beings
in the absence of love

Carmen Firan
translated by Andrei Bantas