I am the first page of a well-loved novel,
But often the first one ignored,
Dog-eared and transparent at the corners
From the touch of one too many hands
And witness to the enterprising twist of a smile
As my readers are privileged to only pieces of me.

You, like the binding that surrounds me,
Enclose and encircle all that I am. Write a novel
Under my skin. I’ve falsified too many smiles,
Sacrificed even the best of myself for ignorant
Delusions of caressing hands
That take and abuse my corners.

The used bookstore on the corner
Of Middlebury Marbleworks, Otter Creek and window-origami —
My salvation and river-penance. Seek my story with hands
That feel to comprehend, with novel
Softness and a tenderness that ignores
My pleading glances and indecisive smiles

As you speak in hush-whispers. Smile
With your eyes as you touch my spine — corner
Me at the exit. I want you to ignore
Faults, make peace with flaws that inhabit me
Like poetry misplaced within a novel,
Or willow branches falling too low, tired hands.

I memorized the shape of your hands
The first time we danced to Chaplin’s “Smile,”
And wrote on the broadness of your shoulders a novel
Of my sins, apologies stretching to your corners
In villanelles — repeating refrains. It took all of me
To tell you what I could no longer ignore.

Because once you start to ignore
Conflictions that exist in the nerve-endings of your hands,
What you feel becomes a burden. For me,
Sand ran out of the hourglass when our smiles
Stopped touching — and at the corner
Of Maple Street and Printer’s Alley, I said goodbye, our novelty

Gone. Still, I find it hard to ignore what used to be when you smile
As you look at her, your hands on her back in the corner
Of the room. You remain my unfinished novel.

Wishing on an eyelash, on
a star, on
a candle
Wishing on fragility
A breakable thing, a
fly-away thing, a
blow-out thing
Wishing for a dream, a
promise, a
love
Wishing for for better things,
Impossible things,
fairy wings,
magic
Wishing is fragile,
breakable,
something to be lost,
Floating
Wishing is hoping,
and hope is
what saves us

You cain't go back
to yesterday's dawn
by adding another verse
to an old song

When time was by my side
we galloped through the years
Now the time shows and slows
and disappears

"Where has time flown ?"
is but an insult to youthful plea
protagonist to the old
and just echoes in me

While love was delegated ,
regulated , copulated . . .
it became sedimentated ,
heated , then pressurized

It became cold marble
entombed in ways
that now are just
memorried

Of all the random movement
In the world
It seems no one has time
To notice your struggles
Anymore than one is saddened
By a broken sidewalk
Or demolished daisy
And now I know
How far from here
I have to go
The thought of you
Causes me to tremble
Put in simplest terms -
So much for fine words
No one can live up to them
Let me wake from this
Dream of life
And fly finally past the darkness
That reaches out for the darkness

There's more that meets the eyes
And this will never change
It's too complicated to explain why
The answer will never be the same
Just remember to hold us when we cry
And beware those moments we act insane
Sometimes a firm, warm place to land
Is the only thing to soothe our weary brain
Were difficult at best, impossible at worst
But true love is always on our mind first
Some women want the finer things in life
Some just want children and to be a good wife
Others need to be held and reassured constantly
Some just want to trust and receive honesty
No matter the woman, you'll never understand us all
But keep in mind... There's no greater feeling than the fall

~~
Sometimes Loudly
Sometimes Silently
Yellow leaves have fallen,
Becoming dry
Pale
Passing through as the grained Sound on the Street

Slowly dark flees across the evenings
What an Illusion!
What Shadows!
Has Shuffled
The Past
Present
Future

Your form that creates metaphors
And what a wonderful feel
Through out its gravity
Night dancing,
When aroma of Night-Queen
Moving in the air,
Plays with the moonlit
As if Reminds
The First love Poem

Has burned within the form
Standing to fascinate
Away, a dense bunch
Of vine Forest
Bored Air moving
Listening the murmur
Of dried leaves
In the passing wind of banner
As if Someone Calling with
My old name

Empty
Restless Heart
Today is the tune that somewhere else
Like a flow
Of a distant river melody,
Surging waves of the attack
In the Strange night of Spring

Continuous grey leaves falling
Falling on the Floor
Whispering the words on the street goes through
What an Illusion!
What Shadows!
~~
@ Musfiq us shaleheen

the legend of Bobbie Jo


The bar room was noisy
When Bobbie Jo sat down,
Her stage was like a postage stamp
Her eyes creased in a frown.

Her T shirt was faded
Her jeans full of holes
But her face had a beauty
Neither young nor old.

She slung the strap of her guitar
Behind her slender neck,
Six silver strings to strum
Six Silken Strings to pluck.

The instrument was battered
In need of some repair
But the damage was cosmetic
The music *lived in there.

Her hands were not that beautiful
Red tipped, raw *****, and small
They looked almost masculine

The first chord was a *drawl.

Hooked up by a chord
To an electric amp,
She tuned her instrument a bit
And put on a clamp.

When she began strumming
Live music filled the place
The cowboys kept up with their noise
But a smile crept 'cross her face.

The chords crept into plucking
A Flamenco kind of riff
Spanish at its finest

The laughter seemed to drift...

Off into the distance
And the familiar chords
Of country western "Crazy"
Hit the ***** Tonkin' boards...

"I'm crazy for tryin'
And crazy for cryin'

I'm crazy for lovin' you..."

Her voice was melodious
But it was haunting, too
Much like Joni Mitchell
But with a country blue.

Then the chords got lively
In a folksy slang

"The Night They
Drove 'Ol Dixie Down..."

The walls of that place *rang!

Baez could do no better!
The music did its thing...
Boy! That girl could play that box!
Man! That girl could SING !!!

The place was deadly silent
When she sang a blue
And it was a stompin'
When the beat picked up its tune!

It got to be midnight
The middle of the night
She had taken not one break!
The music? OUTA SIGHT !!!

It got to be 2AM
She still kept up her strum!
And the cowpokes
were tired clappin'
By the time the night was done.

When it was finally over
She picked up her case
The owner came over
A strange look on his face.

He said to her, "Young lady,
You made a helluva night...
The best sales here ever
And there was not one fight!
I want you on here permanent
Could you do that, please?
I'll give you $500 bucks a night
And I'll help you release
A country music album
You've written your own stuff...
I'll help you release it.
It's way good enough...

She said, "That's okay my friend,
I made $500 there
They piled the money in all night
It's right inside my jar...
So I'd best be goin'
The Greyhound leaves at five...
I'm headed for Nashville
I think I will survive.
Just remember me some later on
When you hear my songs
You can say I played here
And the music was real strong."

He gave her a wry smile
And he said, "You bet..."
He would sure remember
How could he forget?

She had to turn some cowboys down
When they kinda came on strong
She had a big ol' bus to catch
So she left alone...

No one ever saw Bobbie Jo again
But later on they heard
Her bus had an accident.
Killed everyone aboard.

But her legend still lives on
Where her music rang
The cowpokes swear
her ghost still plays...

*everywhere she sang.

“I want to feel weightless. Warm too... like this foam”, he added looking down as he dabbled his feet in water.

She saw him with an amused expression.

“Do you come often?”

“Yes. At nights. Alone. Whenever I'm too tired to sleep”.

“How can someone be tired and sleepless at the same time?”

A smile lit his face, “Can be. Look ahead”.

“The ocean's tired of gathering all of river's salt. Still tries to push it to the shore with its waves. Sleeplessly”.

“But why?” she asked, clearing strands of hair out of her eye. The cool midnight breeze carried salt in the air on a quintessential moonlit summer night.

After holding a pause, he added, “Maybe the ocean has no choice”.

“Why not? Who's stopping the ocean from resting down in peace?”, she questioned.

“The same melody to which all life must dance”.

She looked at him with questions in the eye.

“And what of these waves which crash on feet of rocks? What pleasure does such dance bring? Everything just dies eventually. This can't be a melody.” She was curious to hear from him now.

“Not all silence is death dear. Not all ends are the close. This.. and not even a trickle of water which lets loose from sky leaves its place without a reason. That rock has a reason to be. That wave needed to die for a reason.”

“What's all this thing about silence and death then? There's no melody in silence, or is it?”

“If there can be a music in sound, why can't there be a music in silence?”

“Now you're not making any sense. Silence is the lack of sound”.

“Not quite. Sound is the absence of silence. Sound is a cloak which hides the real face of being. Actuality is not sound. It is silence. And in this silence hides a million possibilities of being. Including this crash of waves... this tumble of the midnight tide... of you and me.”

“Hm.”

After reflecting on it for a few seconds she asked, “So end of things is just one possibility? What are the other possibilities then? Immortality? Isn't death unavoidable?”

He tried to lay it plain now. “Look at the chances of you and me being here. Right here. This moment. Sitting on this rock. Few months ago we didn't know the other of us even existed. What could be the possibility of this happening? Life is all about one possibility growing roots into another. Of chances forming relationships with each other. It all forms a web of instances which we connect with. Which we remember as life experiences.”

“But ultimately, we do have to die, don't we? We need to stop somewhere”

“Yes but what suggests that possibilities of existence end with death of body? The wave doesn't really die with a crash. See? There it came again,” he pointed with a smile.

“That's not the same wave...”, she was quick to revert.

“No that one was bigger. but”... “yeah i get it”, she interrupted him

“Its a part of the same thing. Same ocean i mean”, she said.

He smiled and added, “Also has the same rhythm”.

She smiled back, “So everything is brimming with life then? Skies and seas, plants and rocks.. all of it? Sounds like something out of CS Lewis' fiction”.

“Mhm”

“Guess everything could be as fictional or as real as it can possibly be then. Depends..”, she said looking at the midnight sky.

“Totally.”

“And this applies to everything, hm?”

“Completely.”

“What's real then?”

“Redness in your cheeks when you smile”.

A giggle followed to which he pointed his finger at and remarked, “As I was saying...”

“... stop it silly”, she interrupted him grinning.

“I meant what we see and feel this moment is real. Feeling is real. Maybe what we felt yesterday was real then, but we can't feel it now. We can't feel the first rays of dawn yet, so future is not real either”

They faced midnight's horizon. Immersed in placidness, pondering upon the gaze of sky and water with something which connected them both incomprehensibly.

“I think I can feel hearing to the sea now. Its refreshing.”

“Sure is.”

“To the silence of sea now, I mean.”

“Yeah.That's what I always come here for too,” he mumbled slowly.

"And to see the waves break themselves on feet of rocks with longing, while the rocks are deeply immersed in hearing the silence of their being in tranquil quietude".