a connotation of infinity
sharpens the temporal splendor of this night

when souls which have forgot frivolity
in lowliness,noting the fatal flight
of worlds whereto this earth’s a hurled dream

down eager avenues of lifelessness

consider for how much themselves shall gleam,
in the poised radiance of perpetualness.
When what’s in velvet beyond doomed thought

is like a woman amorous to be known;
and man,whose here is alway worse than naught,
feels the tremendous yonder for his own—

on such a night the sea through her blind miles

of crumbling silence seriously smiles

Waiting for spring to return this winter’s day.
Straining to touch warm breezes of the past.
Caught in this prison of gray and white.
Wishing to break these dark chains that hold me.

Remnants of fall, crumpled like brown paper on the ground.
Straws of pale brown growing up through the snow, ******* it dry.
Seeds and freeze dried fruit lay scattered about under trees.
Bare limbs and stalks drip with liquid glass.

Trees hanging bare, gray in lifelessness.
Winter birds call out, single in their pursuit of leftover meals.
Tracks of animals unknown dot the landscape with patchwork.
Waves of ridges etched in white lead off to nowhere.

Sparse, sun filled days bring brief glimpses of hope.
With the promise of warmth waiting to banish the cold
that holds me to my past and this existence;
waiting for spring to return and thaw this frozen heart.

You tell me that you love me
Then leave me for your friends
You make me feel so happy
Then you do it all again
I’m left here lost and lonely
A feeling that I’ve known
I say that it’s no bother
But you of all should know
You say you understand me
These feelings that I get
But you don’t seem to realize
That I don’t get them yet
You say that it’s not my fault
That I’ve don’t nothing wrong
But everything you say and said
Pointed at me all along
You tell me that you love me
Then why do I feel alone?
It’s me, my books, and poetry
My lifelessness set in stone

I was first born a solar system.

Living in a realm where I wheezed stars and suns. My eyes, black holes to a new universe.
It was a time where planets burst from my belly and latched onto my ******* - no longer hiding in my vortex of a womb.

The world swung around my neck heavily. Steadily, I adorned my fate gracefully...

...because I was born second a mountain.
My hips creating hills and heaps while my tears birthed oceans. I carried the crescent moon in my left eye - Venus in my right.

And often times, I’d shape shift and kneel to the ground, grabbing the soil of the earth.
Its mud, dancing under my nails and knuckles. Its dust, smouldering the creases between my palms.
Sand, caressing and matching the tones of my skin. Accenting hues from the palette of eternal life.

My mouth, birthing spirits and spells. Souls - mining from my ribs.
My womb, carrying ancestors and avatars - Coloured girls glowing in browns, blacks, purples and blues.
Their nebula personifying secrets from Zion as they break through the realm between my legs.

As I continue to carry my message in the wind; breathing life into lifelessness;
narrating stories of hope in times of hopelessness; morphing my magic across the abyss.

I was born third a Nubian.
A Maasai, I am the one they call MAKEBA.

Walking these townships streets as though diamonds lay at my feet.
Gliding on gravel from the ghetto to Greece. Leaving behind a fragrance so sweet.

Blessing the unblessed even when left distressed. Honoring the feminine power that flows within me. The roaring lioness! Smell the audacity of my celestial essence. I am the first to bleed, but last to fall – the S forever embroidered on my breast.

For I am you and you are her and we are She! MAKEBA!

Inkosazana. The melanated fruit that you seek. You stare in disbelief at these words that I conceive.

Sheba!

Ke mang a tshwara thipa ka bogaleng? Ke mang afang botho mo batho ba hlokang motho? Ngubani le mbogodo elingabambeki?

Beka!

My eyes, carrying alchemy.
My smile, a treasury. My skin, reflecting the origin of humanity.

I am, MAKEBA

I like the way you destroy yourself. The way your corpse-like face, with its sunken in cheeks and hollowed out eyes, smiles a crooked yellow smile at the thought of being buried in the ground, rotting away. I thought it was beautiful the way you'd force your fingers down your throat with spindly fingers, "look a rainbow," you'd say, "it's so beautiful," you'd whisper, clutching a slow burning cigarette between the two yellow fingers of your other hand. You'd flush the toilet with such grace. The whole process would've been that of a maestro conducting Beethoven’s 7th symphony, and for all you knew, it was.

I loved that time we were lying in that figurative gutter of morality and you handed me a sharpie, "wanna play connect the dots?" you rolled up your sleeve.

I still remember that day you stole that wedding dress from the Salvation Army. it was out of style and it's still up for debate whether that stain was red wine or blood, but you waltzed right in there, a needle still sticking out of your ******* neck, took that dress in your own two, scab littered arms, and walked right out the front door like you owned the place. I could've kissed you.

In that dress you looked like a princess, with your stringy hair and frame so malnourished that it hung off of you like you were wearing a pair of drapes, you looked like a something out of a bonafide Disney movie.

With my hand in your right hand, and a bag of speed in your left, you pulled me around the corner into the seclusion of the alley.

"I look like a princess"

You looked beautiful

"And that makes you my prince"

A homeless man stirred from behind a dumpster, peeking over the top, his eyes - though showing clear signs of many years deep in any bottle he could find - showed realization. His hand disappeared in the downward direction, his eyes were wide.

“And you know what princes and princesses always get?"

My hand was around your fragile throat, your neck read like Braille, you smile, such a beautiful smile.

"They always get, a happy ending"

And from there, I can't be sure, but I think all three of us finished at the same time.

But of all the days we had together, of every self-destructive tendency you had, I will always remember the day, all of your endless hard work finally materialized into everything you wanted it to become.

“I am the **** of the ******* earth”

This was the day you destroyed yourself. You told me why.

“I turned to self destruction for solace, solace from everything I was expected to become being shoved down my throat, I wiped my *** with morality and dogmas, and I became the antithesis of what I was supposed to be, I ******* won.”

And with that you dropped to your knees in front of the coffee table, the transparency of its clear glass surface obstructed by five pristine white lines. Like perfect little white picket fences, surrounding perfect little yards that perfect little children would play their perfect little games while their perfect parents would do not so perfect things behind the doors of their perfect little houses.

And this is when I understood.

Your *****, messy, clumped-up hair offered a half veil for your face. A $1 bill hovered above the first line; your practiced anticipation was beautiful. God, I loved this part, because you loved this part. Just before that first hit, just before the euphoria expanded, washing over you, blanketing your lanky figure and troubled mind in bliss. Your last seconds on earth.

And this is when I understood.

Before long, all five lines were absent from the table, and making their way through your system, you were glowing. You raised yourself up and teetered on your 6-inch heels, your stick thin legs threatening to snap in half and cut you down. You wrapped your arms around me, you didn't say it, neither did I. Your eyelids fluttered and you batted your eyelashes. I don’t know if it was on purpose, but it was ****.

You walked to the balcony, I knew you wouldn't jump. You just stood there, impossibly high, in your impossibly high heels, at the impossibly great distance to the ground. Your tiny frame, illuminated perfectly by the glow of the electric bug zapper, it was the perfect analogy. Your spotlight was a killer, and your beauty was destruction.

The sun fell behind the horizon lines, and the crescent moon rose high in the sky.

“I’m going to lounge on that”

The stars were faintly visible though the light pollution.

“I’m going to find the flattest stars and skip them through galaxies.”

You had a bottle of ****** in one hand, a bottle of ***** in the other.

“I’m going to visit every planet; I’m going to live in their gutters.”

The bottles were both open, you set the ***** down, shaking out pill after pill into your open palm, you smiled.

“I’m going to meet an alien; I’m going to dance with him.”

A mouth full of ****** and a bottle of ***** to wash it down.

“I’m going to meet God, if there is such a thing.”

Hours passing, felt like seconds. You’re starting to slip, you’re starting to float up, up to all those promises you made to the moon, and the stars, and the aliens.

For the longest time, I couldn't tell if your lifelessness was figurative – conjured up by my perspective of what you are – or literal. I may have sat there for a long time, admiring the beauty of everything you worked so hard for. You looked the same, and I think that was beautiful. It was beautiful the way you epitomized ruination. How you massacred every conventional idea of what it meant to be alive and well. How you taught me that a sense of loss is only relative. I think it was beautiful the way you destroyed yourself.

Remember all the Wise Men on their knees upon your yacht?
With orphans on their backs they’d crawled (with others that they’d brought)
Through rubble on the highway sands and residues of Lot.
They came from severed cities selling postcards of your thoughts,
Though offered for a penny piece, not even worth a jot.

They mused
               “How are you feeling? What it is you want, you’ve got.
               The words you scrawl on calling cards: ‘I AM – the others NOT’
               Shun wisdoms of the Seven Seas: ‘Salvation can’t be bought’ –
               Your fathers tried before you and your fathers came to naught.

               “You started out by gelding goats and then by casting lots
               Of bodies to the battlefields, contorted, tight and taut,
               Then wallowed in the wake of trails the dervish devil trots.

               “With marching bands of fatherlands, and drums of Hottentots,
               You lure your legions in harm’s way like giant juggernauts.
               Like Tweedle Dum your minions come (the sober and the sots,
               The troglodytes, barbarians, and mislead patriots,
               The Vandals, Huns and Hannibals and seaport Cypriots,
               The Japanese, the Congolese, Americans and Scots)
               To vanquish bows and arrows, spears and catapulted shots
               Of those who hide in bamboo huts their families, pale, distraught,
               (Their withered wives with dried up *******, their swollen babes in cots)
               Who swoon, engulfed in poison darts and vats of acid hot,
               Consumed by magic mushroom clouds, atomic megawatts.

               “In churches of your deities, your Holy Huguenots,
               Your Imams, Rabbis, Voodoo Dolls and Mitered Lancelots
               Lit wicked kindled candled walls in temples (while we fought)
               (Used pins and needles, magic spells on makeshift mock whatnots)
               And mosques, cathedrals, synagogues have blessed each new onslaught
               With prayers for pipers, puppets, pawns, your rigid armed robots.

               “Upon your knees in golden naves, while peeking through the slots,
               You horded thirty silver pieces, downed a whiskey shot,
               Then crossed yourself and wrapped yourself in furs of ocelots,
               And danced on cleated cloven hoofs in purple polka-dots,
               Then drank His blood from chalice cups with pious afterthoughts.

               “You’ve treated men like mongrels chained, like little flies to swat,
               By doing what you wanted to, instead of what you aught;
               You’ve wiped your nose with dollar bills and paid your serfs with snot,
               But when you’ve paused to preen your pride, you’ve scrubbed a scarlet blot.

               “In ashes of our victories: the diamonds that you sought,
               The crock of gold, the Golden fleece of bogus Argonauts -
               In mirrors of your lifelessness, the evils you begot.
              
               “The haunted winds strew leaves of time across a shallow plot
               Where now, beneath the frozen stones blanched bodies bathe in rot,
               Disintegrate, return to dust to feed Forget-Me-Nots
               Amidst the bane and pits of pain where broken bones lie caught.

               “In fields above the catacombs and tombs of Camelot
               The black and withered tree of Death arises from the spot
               Where oft beneath a bleeding moon you hid your gold in pots
               Embedding doubts neath barren bogs where roots of wormwood squat.

               “While waiting at the river Styx, in twisted time untaught,
               From branches of the gallows tree, in recollections wrought,
               Your soul, a beggar’s blanket, hangs in crazy quilted knots,
               With dangling pearls and diamond studs mid dripping crimson clots
               And gaping wounds with bulging eyes like fouling apricots,
               For wrapped in chains around your throat, the Reaper’s grim garrote.”

Yes, that’s the fate of all your kind, disclosed by Wise Men taught.

But that was, oh, so long ago, by now you have forgot…

No more guises,
Just look into my eyes
Every word said from now
Will not be a lie
But every word about to jump
From your lips shall die
Because your carnal cravings
Will eat them alive.

I’m slowly dissipating
But I know you can revive me
A fallen tree, I sleep here
Slipping into lifelessness
But I feel so ravenous
And I know you can feel
The thumping of my heart
It’s eager; deeply.

You crawl up to me
With a different face
Different intentions
Breathing different air
I inhale your energy
My longing embraced
I want every trace of innocence
Completely defaced.

Overpowered
By this yearning
We want, we crave
And we’re still learning
I cannot feel a thing
But a burning hunger
You cling to me
I invite you in

Of course, I do, I crave your skin
It’s a liquid I wish to immerse myself in
Your scent rinses me
Keeps me within your carnal hold,
Let the numbing begin.