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touka Oct 2018
tonight,
my shadow settles
in a different corner of the world

and his obscures me
content to hang on my frame
shielding any light from my eyes

faith's grievance -
the gravest sin I'd commit
salt to skin

faith's only albatross -
the bits of faith I'd toss
like Ms. Greenwood's dress
into the darkest parts of New York

like I think of my name
winking into the fixed abyss
indifferent to its prior disguise
when it does not leave the lungs enough

and on the height of my fuss,
inspiration flees
like a sour gust through the city at night
- a hint of death
a tinge of it on my hands

the void I fault for its expanse
promises to snarl his shadow from my shoulder
invites me into its limbo
desperately whines my title

it calls with little confidence,
but I linger to step in
flecks of gray interrupting the black
wafting,
purposeless black

will I?
will I live, wander the world's breadth
with the impetus of two dead legs

or will I become a cry of breath?

I flirt with two dooms,
swinging like a two-phase-moon;
stay, go, stay, go
weighing the whimper of my soul
against brain's drive to die alone
hope - he bends like a lion
like one does to drink
looks into the mirror of my face
he urges; he is thirsty
does so silently
well, I am the stream

who else will drink of me?

as if I am as still and quiet as some water
and I cannot beg access to his lips
for I've none of my own to part
touka Oct 2018
mist stretches along the tops of trees, bosoming coldly over the brush
like the bodies of lost souls

like the words that hang from the page
withering, wilting ghosts
that threaten to slither from their place
wobbling wraiths I'd traced;
my heart's yearn to spit its hopeless thought -
reduced to something like child scribbles,
like nonsense I'd etched with my non-dominant hand
with blithering, faltering pen

I swing like the moon between two phases
sure, unsure
how long will I sit here?
a few lunations scramble past my head
words on words on words
blend together in sequences of lines
that I no longer recognize
as anything close to cognizant

I read the lines again
dismantle, disassemble them
eyeful work;
like science sates its spirit
by prodding at the seams of the earth
no fear that it may unfix
the stars that string like stanchions in the sky
heaven's performance toppling

my words collapse before me
nothing more than a brief hiccup
before their quiet, noon oblivion
miscalculated blots that do nothing but spoil the purity of the page
I crinkle it, toss it behind me
grab a new sliver of square
uncrinkled, uninked
I stare into the ceaseless white
brinking, unblinking alabaster
immaculate - the center of nonexistence
so foreigning; a burgeoning sense of casuality within me

I remind myself that it is a piece of paper

but do I dare soil it?
ebony tweens from the pen as I press
callous deflowering;
assaulting the page with senseless drivel I will realise
five to ten seconds after I write it that I hate
what
touka Oct 2018
is it the hour of my knife?
am I fortunate, yet
for it to steady its hand,
hone its blade on my rib?
the worthy one,
from Adam's own cage

let me be ground back to dust
and tossed
like the two lovers from Eden,
blind in the draff of fresh sin

ah, I sweat
with this life on the wind
thrown out like the refuse
will I let live?
let my anger run loose?
uncurl the collar of death,
let it wild from its noose?

tomorrows worries suffice;
I am reckless, let me abound, and then
let the end strike me twice over! but, again,
life beckons me in --
as the light rages
against its own dimming,
I sweat

if to die is to live,
if it is...
my mothers testament;
the panegyric on death
×
don't leave, yet
  Oct 2018 touka
Nat Lipstadt
Why Men Cry in the Bathroom

For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.

Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.

We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.

Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.

Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.

But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,

The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath


Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.

Why just men?

I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know.


Jan 6, 2013
your effusive and lengthy comments are each a poem in their own right.  

Tinkered with June 22, 2013
With a push from Bala,
A serial peeper, thank God!
touka Oct 2018
"it's between the world, or me."

I drop the gun at my feet,
drop to my knees

and the sun swallows the earth up.
  Sep 2018 touka
Donall Dempsey
THROUGH VERY SHORT TIMES OF SPACE.

The red door of No.16
North Frederick Street

slams behind him as he
enters into this newly minted

morning
sunshine so thick

one feels like a fish
swimming through it.

Sunlight spangles
a tiny puddle

turning it into a jewel
that only the eye can cherish.

Ahhhh "...the ineluctable
modality of the visible."

He turns right into Upper
Dorset Street

pulling an "Ahhh...howya!"
out of the man who makes the false

teeth!

Then turning left into
Eccles Street

giving the nod to No. 7
Bloom's house in ULYSSES.

Here in its run down state
though still shining in his fictionality.

Soon they will knock it
down and what will the tourists

do then
poor things.

Sure some bright spark
will rescue it from its rubble

and the door will live again
some streets away again.

Ahhh...." the ineluctable
modality of the visible."

I go to Quinn's gym
to get my Molly

(  Philomena her name is )

a cottage cheese with pineapple
on a Weetabix base.

It is a 16th of June
somewhere in the 80's

as I retrace my own earlier
Joycean footsteps.

Rat-a-tat-tat on Bloom's door.
"Are ya there Leopold?"

But the bold Leopold
doesn't answer.

The 16th of
forever I am

"...walking through it
howsomever."

The sun smirks
as such Joyceisms.

"I am, a stride of  a time.

A very short space of time
through very short times of space."

A horse and cart as if
from the past

saunters by
timelessly.

Ah "...the ineluctable
modality of the audible."

My Molly who is really
a Philomena

spoons the deliciousness
of the creamy dessert

into her
and yes she says

mmmm...yes....mmmm

Yes.
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