You and I would stand in front of my bathroom mirror and
just hold each other, naked, acquainting ourselves
with the strange, biblical union of joints and hair
and skin and crevices and curves that we make
together...

Fingerpainting reverently on your chest,
I'd kiss your freckled shoulder, eyeing your reflection as it melted,
falling for me again-- and you'd
tell me in return
that my eyes are beautiful, and that they are green,
just like yours.
They are brown, I'd say, and
laugh and
leave
you to
confront only yourself
in my mirror.

Every day that I stand again
in front of my mirror alone--
a similar but emptier amalgamation of joints and curves--
I could swear that my eyes
look a little bit paler...
like if I
point my nose up to the high hat on my ceiling,
with the fluorescent light spilling into them
the color could certainly pass
as the same green in your eyes and
I wonder,
and I hope

that being wrong all this time
doesn't mean I was wrong about you, too.

31 | 31 Poems for August 2017

There’s something exquisite about your smile, your brown eyes have got me hypnotised, and your heart is a gold mine.
I’m addicted to everything you say and do, so be my poet and I’ll be your muse.
We’ll figure out everything else once we’ve found something to do between our sporadic bursts of laughter.
Let me comfort you with soulful conversations accompanied by several bottles of red wine.
We could vibe out and listen to James Blake, and you could tell me about the days when you couldn’t see the colour in anything.
I’m no stranger to the waves of the ocean, so I eventually want to get lost in the depths of you.
You are a picturesque South African city worth exploring even when tourists no longer come to visit.
Their dollars, euros, pounds, nairas and rupees may run dry but my love for you will keep overflowing.
I could write poetry and love letters on your skin but my handwriting is not as beautiful as my words are.
I’ll be your poet in a world that’s still acquainting itself with all the writers of exquisite African literature.
In the Supreme Court of your love, people have told you untruths while under oath – I think the law calls it perjury.
We could vibe out and listen to James Blake, and you could teach me how you see the colour in everything.
I want to get lost in an endless field of sunflowers while basking in the warmth of your presence.

For what does the hummingbird weep?
For the lost and forsaken souls?
For the trepidation of mortals?
For the embers of brisk passion?
For the lashes of the night warden's whip?
For the eternal brace of hurt?
For the rantings of a madman?

Or is what the hummingbird weeps for not of this nature?
Could it be that the nature is of a nature from which nature's motherly embrace accepts?

Could the hummingbird weep for the mild tranquility of said mother's embrace?
Or for the warm glow of a homely flame?
Or for the amber shine of dancing stones?
Or for the soft brush of lovers' lips?
Or for the faint cry of a newborn in the arms of such lovers?
Or for the quiet persistence of solidarity?
Or for the peace of acquainting serenity?

Truly, the gentle tears of the hummingbird
Are born of a passion true to mine own
For these gentle tears of the hummingbird
Are the same as the trails of ink that roll off my page

Arising to your fascinating persona,
Sleeping to your colossal heart,
Gasping frantically, to reach the surface,
Trapped underneath the coldest ice, in the widest river,
Shivers down my spine,
Pins and needles through my heart,
Consuming me with fear,
Scared of the rapture,
Inner interrogation of mind,
Acquainting myself of new horizons,
But remaining lonesome and fearful,
Crumbling when in your presence,
Listen to my penance,
Would you be attuned,
To my vulnerable aching heart?

Fell on the green grass
In a silent deep forest
Green grasshopper escapes
From my heavy thud
White Rabbits peeping out
From their burrows
Brown woodpecker stops
It's wood work
Yellow and brown monkeys
Jumping from branches
Black ants splitting
From their lines
Yellow spotted deer running
As fast as he could
Orange chirping birds on trees
Gossiping about me
Coo-Coo, faraway sings
The black beauty Cuckoo
Grey bats fly out from a cave
With a screeching noise
Scary innocent creatures
Reckoning me, their enemy

Getting up from the ground
Nearing them slowly
Acquainting me as their
Friend and not an enemy
One by one they came
To feel it in real
Touching me with love
Fed me with nuts and fruits
Playing with great cheer
With no more fear
Suddenly it happened
A powerful roaring sound
Giving them an instinct
Of their helpless death
Cuddled around me with
A message to save them
Roaring sound was
Moving near to catch its prey
Promising never to leave
Prepared myself being brave
Getting a call from my mother
Have to leave them in my dream !

Your coy movements wave at the world's end.

Stuck within the hinge of a tear dollop,
Your form dances in and out of focus.
Emerging like acquainting whispers,
You are the unkept secret tucked away.

My mind barks orders to produce an image.
Gears hardly churn like chewing stale gum.
The very idea seems intruding,
Rendering your features would be rewarding.

Avoiding the gaze that may morph to a glare,
Foolishly scared like a cherry red kid.
Confidence regained, paralysis sustained.
My actions are planned and assembled.

Beneath my brow, muscles flex, tendons stretch;
My eyes become the second hand's twitch.

I turn to you already turned to me.

It was the first time in a long time.

I had resigned myself to being locked in my fortress, alone, but safe.

Then you came.

You were a friend at first, and then you were more, and I opened my shackled doors.

Things were good. They were hard sometimes, but they were good.

You wandered my castle for a time, acquainting yourself with the parts of me you could reach. Sometimes you hurt me when you were hurting, but I didn't blame you. Because I loved you.

After more time had passed, I allowed you into my throne room.

Told you what had been lurking in my depths, the fears I felt and how the mortar of my structure was crumbling. I let you into my very core. I thought you could help.

You seemed to grow slowly hostile after I told you. My halls weren't filled with the usual warmth. Then I brought you to the throne room when my stone began crumbling and my throne began splintering, you agonized on how the splintered wood affected you, instead of giving me the support beams I needed to stay together. The wood of my legs split, and I was hurting, and I needed you most. I still bore your weight when you hurt, but my breaking, jagged wood was... Too much for you. Though before I began crumbling, you had told me you would endure anything, for you loved me.

But then you left.

My throne was broken, the stone of my castle shuddering without support; I was falling. I supported you in your loneliness, cradled you by my hearth when life was too much. But when I began crumbling, you decided my halls were not for you any longer. You would not help maintain that which sheltered you through brutal storms, that which always promised you a safe place to stay. You left.

And it hurt at first.

But then I was angry. My fire flared, knowing you told others that my crumbing bricks weren't really breaking, that I was an insult to those that truly needed help, even when you knew that the bombardments of my crisis shattered my walls, broke my throne. You would have people look at my cracked stone and jagged wood and think it a ploy for pity, even as I struggled to keep myself standing in the vicious storm that raged on.

I allow close friends to wander my halls after you left, and they help rebuild. Place mortar between the cracks of my walls, clean the cobwebs away from my corners.

I will not allow them to enter my throne room. Not yet. It will take time. I will rebuild my broken throne, my hands will bleed from the splinters, but I will prove you wrong.

I will be the King I was meant to be, I will show you how wrong you were about me.

I want you to know what treasure you left behind. What you took for granted.

My walls are fortified, my dear friends maintain it for me, and I hold them by the warmth of my hearth. I will support them as I did you, for they are grateful and help keep me standing.

Not like you.

"Days without you are torturing, nights without you are grievous.
I look for the comfort that I used to find in your lap. Where will I get you mumma? Where?", a scream lashed in despair echoed.
"I'll be the gallop to **** the dormant twilight,
I'll be the golden rays to snog your sleepy eyes,
I'll be the stretch of vitality,
I'll be the aroma of your morning coffee,
I'll be the shower of sprightliness to drench you with new zeal,
I'll be the savour of your breakfast and joy of a full square meal,
I'll be your steps towards glory,
I'll be the sigh after your every failed story,
I'll be the hop of excitement,
Acquainting a flunk, I'll be the screech of your lament,
I'll be the bliss you find seeing the sun going down,
I'll be in the sloth dispelling plangent words of azan,
I'll be the spectator of your big bright smile,
I'll be the witness to the every tear you wipe,
Never in your life you're alone,
Be it your hearty gale or saddening mourn,
Walking by you like your shadow,
Even beyond the eternity I'll follow", whispered her mother. :')
-Aparajita Tripathi

By Arcassin Burnham

To a box filled with rocks you are nothing
More than just a loose human being,
You pray to your false idols,
everything Goes down hill ,
it's just not what it seems,
Filled with all of the rage that you got from your
Past but you can not stomach dreams,
When life hands you lemons just take a breather
And **** back the gun and just squeeze,
Slang and suicide mixes but life will go on like
Ghost of the Titanic,
There are so many questions,
When will we see our end?
When will we see each other panic?
Blazing with fire and acquainting the seasons of
Summer and fall,
Learning where all your conditions will end up
With suffering through it all,
In faith.


/


This is a beautiful hell,
I wonder what it wants,
I wonder If it'll prevail,
have I done something wrong and is pretending right
Now not to remember cause it's kind of hard to tell,
This is a beautiful hell,
Filled with blue and purple roses,
The smell is like a Sunday afternoon just cleaning
The dishes and embracing the soap,
Thinking all your sins could be forgiven,
But your mind moves in parallel,
This is a beautiful hell,
Get me out of this dream cause it's certainly
Not a night terror,
Can't compare,
The useless things to the more worthy things
But I'm here,
In this loop garden where everything happens
The same way it was meant to,
No outcome to the issue,
just let them forget you.


/


Somethings coming my way
if its beautiful and full of love i'll let it stay
onging sessions have me in daze
today i'd say its not my day

Hate to be the bear of bad news but
I have to let you know that I got someone
To protect,
In my care,
I won't bare to see them hurt,
Their skin is cold like a blizzard,
Id do anything for them besides to leave and
Cross the earth,

somethings coming my way
facing dues without the pay
starting off on a clean slate
to do right by someone else is like a dream
of eating cake.

I guess we can consider this a toxic relationship

Where you have you the power to bless me with your shadows

Every so often

Because i allow you to re-enter the cherry blossomed gates of my universe without apology

For each and every time you’ve left me wondering

If you even still exist

I feel the stings of your inconsistency

The moment you decide to reappear

Upon my flesh

With sweet kisses of memoriam

Of that dreaded night of our introduction
Where gulps of Easy Jesus, whispered “take it Easy, Jesus,”

Yet i still chose to drown in my sins anyway

That beautiful brown clouded my vision
Led me to the scent of freshly cleansed white sheets

And four white walls

That reflect the violence that attacked my privacy
Acquainting me to the silent monster
That’s never present

Yet readily shows up for our quarterly meetings

Reminding me of

You

if i were to lie down by the foam-kissed shoreline
turn my face to the soft blackness of a dewy night
close my eyes
concentrate on the stars dancing on my eyelids
i can almost imagine
the gentle kiss of the lapping waves
as your hand acquainting my waist.

In her dreams, every night
Saw a shadow with a kite
Runs a very long way
Following the shadow's ray
Feeling herself weak
Playing hide and seek
Never want to see her pale
Shadow turns out to a male
With a flow of happy tears
Following a smile of cheers
Locking him in a bunny hug
Acquainting her Ratang !

I want the kind of peace
that doesn't take me back to the island
but instead allow me to look at the ocean
that is gazing at the sky with adoration and respect.

Still, not far away, I see fear sitting in a rock, waiting for me.
Its eyes say there are still things left to burn—
last night it was as if some kind of monster
ordered me to set my house on fire
so it would not expose how many times I mourned
not for a person
but for the time wasted acquainting them
with the sea I carry within.
I was afraid burning the whole thing
would left me empty again,
so I stopped admiring the flames.

Now a wave sprouts where I am
and does not tremble when it presses its body to mine,
like a lover unafraid—I want the kind of peace that does the same way.
The kind that swims
and truly
sets
me
free.

I am on a road to learning , to be thankful for those that were in my life.
A great Joy for those that are still in my life, I do appreciate each of you.
I am laying down my will , for God knows my life much better then I.
So when he says no, I need to respect it and be grateful to him for it.
For some people were not meant ever to be in my life, never to be.
While some were meant to be in my life from an distance for a reason.
So that I shall work hard in re acquainting, some awesome Friends.
While getting to know some for the very first time in my life here.
For getting to know one through the net, give us both an stronger bond.
One that is built on Love, Trust, Hope of meeting someday as well.

Like a pair of sun & clouds above the sky
They do not goodbye to each other, rather they walk aside
Along all the cliffs, all the oceans they beautify the nature
Tiny shrubs, weak slurbs are influenced and begin to mature

This world seems so huge, endless going on along all the side
It's sunshine that makes morning like summer and its dark that makes the night
It's the pair together that witness the autumn season
It's the pair again that blossoms in spring with trillion of reason

Entwined sun and sky are saviors of low and high tides
And after the tiring night, it's their pair together to make things alright
Acquainting one and other they merge as they are the one
And the calm with they walk together leaves no work be undone

The stuffed up sun and idle sky whisper walk all the time
They never realize how time passes by and its dawn on the other side
Every word they murmur goes to galaxy high
And this the magic night turns fear to shy

When the sun takes the rise going high against valleys and hills
it lightens up's the city, the structure of glass begin to shrill
And its a fleet of clouds in a heaven-like sky
That silence the thirst of land with soil rough and dry

the two men shared a
kindred connection
though each one was very
different in perception  

they both had a love
for water colour painting
oft they'd sit at an
easel's acquainting  

one of the artists being
a most evil man
whilst the other artist
showed a far gentler pan

yet an abiding affection
of visual art
tied them together
and not apart

Many nights I spent
Acquainting myself with the speed of my ceiling fan
While I tried not to think of you.
Your sounds,
Your smell,
How my insides felt heavier when you were not around.
As I look at my fan,
Lying on my back quietly,
Its only job is to keep me cool,
As you keep me warm.

Hours into days
Scenery as we accelerate astray
Downtown along with towns
America’s bus
Leave the driving and don’t forget about us
The beauty of reclining and relaxing back
Communicating with all passengers in acquainting chat
That stretched out racing hound knows the way
But it is the skillful driver who does this every day
Routes recorded into miles
But this is surrounds the Greyhound bus style
The bus wheels turning in schedules precise
Noon Day into sunrise the next day with arrival nice
Covered state after state
I have seen America and that is no hesitate
Nothing but time
The getaway being genuine
The hound took me away
I have my Hotel when I arrive that I will stay
I am picturing Banjos, Trumpets and any other musical instrument that I can think of as I ride
It’s excitement in what America provides
The feeling of welcome
It’s the hound’s way in illustrating
Hound ward bound
The name says it all, the Greyhound blend
Travel until the end