NO FEAR

My eye has acted like a painter and engraved your beautiful image on the canvas of my heart.
My body is the frame that holds this picture; to draw that picture with perspective, realistically representing depth, is the highest skill a painter could have.
Only via this painter—my eye—can you find the image of you that dwells continually in my heart:
Your own eyes are the windows into my heart.

Now look at the favors our eyes have done for each other:
My eyes have drawn your shape, and your eyes are windows into which I can look to see my own heart, into which the sun also likes to look, taking a peep at your reflection.

Yet my eyes lack a certain skill that would grace the others they already have:
They can only draw what they see; they don’t see into your heart.

When I went out
The sun was hot
It shone upon
My flower ***.

And there I saw
A spike of green
That no one else
Had ever seen!

On other days
The things I see
Are mostly old
Except for me.

But this green spike
So new and small
Had never yet
Been seen at all!

Little Box talks back
With a new set of teeth
And pink gums
A fake nose and a wax mustache
She disguises her voice
To sound like Groucho
  
•

Little Box opens up
And cries to her psychiatrist
I don’t know why they hate me
I’m such a sweetheart
I volunteer at the zoo
And teach Mandarin
To their bratty children

•

Little Box is not happy to see you
So she closes herself up for months
Years, decades, and two millennia!
She tacks up a sign that says
Nirvana

•

Little Box is undead
She sleeps all day in a coffin
Hands over chest
At night she cruises the mall
For juicy victims

She prefers type A
But AB if she has to
What can you say
Vampires can’t be choosy
She likes your stupid brother

•

Little Box is on the psychiatry couch
Everybody hates me
Nobody loves me
Little Box lies on her side
And spills her guts

•

What’s in Little Box
A perfect orchid
A chocolate-covered strawberry
A new iPhone
With a glittery sleeve
Amber earrings from Pushkin

Keys to a new Porsche
A retro Chanel brooch
A Getty scion’s left ear
A Czar’s *****
Gifts so rare
Please don’t stare

•

What’s in Little Box
Rancid chow mein
A sliver of cold pizza
Last week’s hummus
You’re a starving orphan
From East Brooklyn
And you’ll eat it

•

So you want to **** Little Box
You want to know her secret
She won’t open up
She won’t give it up
And you are genuinely repelled
By her filthy ribbon

•

You want to DO the Little Box
You are a sorry story
You big creep
Why don’t you get off the couch and find
A real girlfriend!

•

Boss Box
White, square, and without a soul!

•

Please don’t analyze Little Box
She’s just cardboard clogging the landfill
Her mother Precious Jade Purse
Has been regifted

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the ****** disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

                       - *Arundhati Roy

on windy plains
flattened panels beneath tight-pressed scarves, they stand
on the edge of the highway
seeking the last streaks of eve's sun
bodies on windy plains where, in the lap of poverty, kids play and listen
the ***** little words mothers spill
a hapless world in flats steep, laundry billows on higher
than most dreams can possibly reach


1.
song to be sung, yet youth's golden mouth swift-ripped away
by hungry-crones topped in white hats and over-spiffed lines
poor boy couldn't hold it together, they fell apart
scatter the crowd in fold-up chairs to make it look less empty
spread the tea-garden in the hall, circulate those tiny packets
so much **** noise, is that all we waited for?

revolutions were built on disparity's hand ****** in the face of the poor
pity the drug of current day keeps all so well glued to the system
somebody wise once said that royalty awards knighthood
                                                *exactly for the same reason
to keep gentry where they are seen fit to belong: below
                                                           ­                   the swirl of understanding
so, there won't be enough cake for everyone.



2.
when saviours ring in the new, for a short while
and new heads bring down the old names
and gut the bastions of the past
surely, when we destroy the ugly parts of history, we conceal truth
with pompous new plaques and road names for petty achievers
even bad press is held up as recognition these days
and too many are numbed, hopelessly foiled by the feed
peck, peck.. nice, little chikken
                         (mind stuffed with trash, mouthpiece occupied)

some content to catch a few crumbs on the way down
while others tread lightly on their way out the back exit
the more we so blindly buy into the whole mess
the less we see the big pic
                           (the real one)
nebulous covers the screen so well: away from organic life
life on a farm, growing your own stuff
       needing less of plug-in
       more of play
I steadily tire of the filthy streams we're led to wade in
thick and viscous with the stench of decay
and no way out but the meeting with barbed-wire walls

oh, for days of simple pleasures.. walking in the park
                                                      swingi­­ng high into the blue sky
with eyes on the rim of the planet
a ten-cents pineapple-popsicle
and no fear of the unknown
       but beautiful discoveries, good and not-so-good

now, a man will die in the hands of a stranger's care
at the mercy of their kin's timetable
busy, busy, busy.. loved ones moving on
ah, no time to enjoy a tot, some oenomel.


3.
say, God.. you got a moment? I'd like to address a grievance or two
are we forgetting what you told us?
what was it again -- on the day, we tried to understand your identity
                                    in a tongue this world's memory suffered lapse
there was a time we understood your meaning
today, I hear your voice in the rustle out my meadow
right here
in the green leaves

I think I can hear you right
loving your remembrances.



*silent anger brews in the streets, common folk took enough
tired of threats and crumbs left by chunks others gorged on
retaliatory mountains grow, a surge in march
a touch too late to retract some acts.. for haste & judgment hurt
where many struggle to breathe, so hatred cements its template
slowly, time may crumble them to stones, then dust
            or hope build a rope from heart's twine
            or love blow breezes of care on this fiery circle
faraway, where queens live on ginger cakes and ale
on windy plains.

it saws old rain in my skull
and your thoughts take a tour; wet and heavy
and quietly, the dirt shifts in the metal tracts

you break me every single time
my internal spilling is entangled
hopelessly

my summer-psyche enmeshed in your season
and forever swallows a few more ribs
don't wake the children of the light
for their feathers will burn beneath my nails

a storm hangs patiently on the wall
like a delighted painting made from frantic crystals
and I skitter from your towering moods
yet the moon dances in and out of every calm abyss

the lid is no more vacant than my veins cursed with
your silence
like algae, I slip on

my terror squeaks like a vehicle possessed
cheeks go ashen in my gay smiles
you will blush, in secret at what I will do
to you

sails lift on garlicky air in a port where ships don't wait
and my tongue loosens another melody only doubt hears
I'm completely in your hands
and willing for that crush

my acts for coins fall meaningless in embedded frustration
       don't come to the table, then
       keep the shades drawn
only the sense of phantoms
will be hanging in my smoke
intoxicating me to radiance
racing through to the ripples in your day

I'll keep lancing pebbles across the ocean's surface
they will never really reach the riverbed
frosty comes in agonising diamonds
a feast of distress sitting urgently
a shudder flutters through me, imperceptible

reduction of sweetness
a date with the cherubs from a netherworld
my nose feels the snows you carry
and I know you constrict still
my language falters and thinking shatters
and although slumped and vulnerable, it flourishes.