Flicker Shimmer Glow

The brightest star can shine even with thick black velvet draped over it.  
Quartz, lime and salt crystals formed a glass ball.
The dark womb held me, warm and soft.  
My mom called my cries when I was born the most sorrowful sound she had ever heard.  
She said she’d never heard a baby make a sound like that.    
I’d open my eyes in low light until the world’s light healed rather than hurt.  
The summer before eighth grade, July 1992,
I watched a shooting star burn by at 100,000 miles per hour as I stood on the balcony  
while my family celebrated my birthday inside.  
It made it into the earth’s atmosphere
but it didn’t look like it was coming down;
I know it didn’t hit the ground but it burned something in the time it was here.  
The glass ball of my life cracked inside.  
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks.  
I saw the beauty of the light within.  
Nacre from my shell kept those cracks from getting worse,
a wild pearl as defense mechanism.  
In 2001, I quit my job after they melted and poured tar all over my life.  
All summer literature class bathtubs filled with rose hip oil cleaned the tar.  
That fall logic and epistemology classes spewed black ink all over my philosophy
written over ten years then.  
Tar turned to asphalt when I met someone from my old job for a drink in November
and it paved a road for my life that went to the hospital I was in that December
where it sealed the roof on my life
when I was almost murdered there
and in February after meeting her for another drink.  
They lit a fire at the top of the glacier and pushed the burning pile of black coal off the edge,
burnt red, looking like flames falling into the valley.  
While that blazed the side of the cliff something lit an incandescent light.  
The electricity from the metal lightbulb ***** went through wires and heated the filament between until it glowed.  
I began putting more work into emotional balance from things I learned at AA meetings.  
In Spring 2003, the damage that the doctors at the hospital in 2001 had done
made it harder for light to reflect from the cracks in the glass ball.
I’d been eating healthy and trying to get regular exercises since 1994
but in Spring 2003 I began swimming for an hour every morning .  
The water washed the pollution from the burning coals off
And then I escaped in July.  
I moved to London to study English Language and Linguistics.  
I would’ve studied English Language and Literature.  
I did well until Spring 2004 when I thought I was being stalked.  
I thought I was manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I went home and didn’t go back for my exams after spring holiday.  
Because I felt traumatized and couldn’t write poetry anymore,
I used black ink to write my notes for my book on trauma and the Russian Revolution.
I started teaching myself German.  
I stayed healthy.  
In 2005, my parents went to visit my mom’s family in Malaysia for two weeks.
I thought I was being stalked.  
I knew I wasn’t manic.  
I thought I was being stalked.  
I told my parents when they came home.  
They thought I was manic.  
I showed them the shoe prints in the snow of different sizes from the woods to the windows.  
They thought I was manic.  
I was outside of my comfort zone.  
I moved to California. I found light.  
I made light,
the light reflected off the salt crystals I used to heal the violence inflicted on me from then on.  
The light turned the traffic lights to not just green from red
but amber and blue.  
The light turned the car signals left and right.  
The light reflected off of salt crystals, light emitting diodes,
electrical energy turned directly to light,
electroluminescence.  
The electrical currents flowed through,
illuminating.  
Alone in the world, I moved to California in July 2005
but in August  I called the person I escaped in 2003,
the sulfur and nitrogen that I hated.  
He didn’t think I was manic but I never said anything.
I never told him why I asked him to move out to California.  
When his coal seemed like only pollution,
I asked him to leave.  
He threatened me.  
I called the authorities.  
They left me there.
He laughed.  
Then the violence came.  
****:  stabbed and punched, my ****** bruised, purple and swollen.  
The light barely reflected from the glass ball wIth cracks through all the acid rain, smoke and haze.
It would take me half an hour to get my body to do what my mind told it to after.  
My dad told me my mom had her cancer removed.
The next day, the coal said if I wanted him to leave he’d leave.  
I booked his ticket.
I drove him to the airport.  
Black clouds gushed the night before for the first time in months,
the sky clear after the rain.  
He was gone and I was free,
melted glass, heated up and poured—
looked like fire,
looked like the Snow Moon in February
with Mercury in the morning sky.  
I worked through ****.  
I worked to overcome trauma.  
Electricity between touch and love caused acid rain, smoke, haze, and mercury
to light the discharge lamps, streetlights and parking lot lights.
Then I changed the direction of the light waves.  
Like lead glass breaks up the light,
lead from the coal, cleaned and replaced by potassium,
glass cut clearly, refracting the light,
electrolytes,
electrical signals lit through my body,
thick black velvet drapes gone.  





















Lava

I think that someone wrote into some palm leaf a manuscript, a gift, a contract.  
After my parents wedding, while they were still in India,
they found out that my dad’s father and my mom’s grandfather worked for kings administering temples and collecting money for their king from the farmers that worked the rice paddies each king owned.  They both left their homes before they left for college.  
My dad, a son of a brahmin’s son,
grew up in his grandmother’s house.  
His mother was not a Brahmin.  
My mother grew up in Malaysia where she saw the children from the rubber plantation
when she walked to school.  
She doesn’t say what caste she is.  
He went to his father’s house, then college.  
He worked, then went to England, then Canada.  
She went to India then Canada.  
They moved to the United States around Christmas 1978
with my brother while she was pregnant with me.  
My father signed a contract with my mother.  
My parents took ashes and formed rock,
the residue left in brass pots in India,
the rocks, so hot, they turned back to lava miles away before turning back to ash again,
then back to rock,
the lava from a super volcano,
the ash purple and red.  


















Circles on a Moss Covered Volcano

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My mom was born on the grass
on a lawn
in a moss covered canyon at the top of a volcanic island.  
My grandfather lived in Malaysia before the Japanese occupied.  
When the volcano erupted,
the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.  
The British allied with the Communist Party of Malaysia—
after they organized.  
After the Americans defeated the Japanese at Pearl Harbor,
the British took over Malaysia again.  
They kept different groups apart claiming they were helping them.  
The black sand had smooth pebbles and sharp rocks.  
Ethnic Malay farmers lived in Kampongs, villages.  
Indians lived on plantations.  
The Chinese lived in towns and urban areas.  
Ethnic Malays wanted independence.
In 1946, after strikes, demonstrations, and boycotts
the British agreed to work with them.  
The predominantly Chinese Communist Party of Malaysia went underground,
guerrilla warfare against the British,
claiming their fight was for independence.  
For the British, that emergency required vast powers
of arrest, detention without trial and deportation to defeat terrorism.  
The Emergency became less unpopular as the terrorism became worse.  
The British were the iron that brought oxygen through my mom’s body.  
She loved riding on her father’s motorcycle with him
by the plantations,
through the Kampongs
and to the city, half an hour away.  
The British left Malaysia independent in 1957
with Malaysian nationalists holding most state and federal government offices.  
As the black sand stretches towards the ocean,
it becomes big stones of dried lava, flat and smooth.  

My mom thought her father and her uncle were subservient to the British.  
She thought all things, all people were equal.  
When her father died when she was 16, 1965,
they moved to India,
my mother,
a foreigner in India, though she’s Indian.  
She loved rock and roll and mini skirts
and didn’t speak the local language.  
On the dried black lava,
it can be hard to know the molten lava flickers underneath there.  
Before the Korean War,
though Britain and the United States wanted
an aggressive resolution
condemning North Korea,
they were happy
that India supported a draft resolution
condemning North Korea
for breach of the peace.  
During the Korean War,
India, supported by Third World and other Commonwealth nations,
opposed United States’ proposals.
They were able to change the U.S. resolution
to include the proposals they wanted
and helped end the war.  
China wanted the respect of Third World nations
and saw the United States as imperialist.  
China thought India was a threat to the Third World
by taking aid from the United States and the Soviets.  
Pakistan could help with that and a seat at the United Nations.  
China wanted Taiwan’s seat at the UN.
My mother went to live with her uncle,
a communist negotiator for a corporation,
in India.  
A poet,
he threw parties and invited other artists, musicians and writers.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation at my joints that he had.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.  
In 1965, Pakistani forces went into Jammu and Kashmir with China’s support.  
China threatened India after India sent its troops in.  
Then they threatened again before sending their troops to the Indian border.  
The United States stopped aid to Pakistan and India.
Pakistan agreed to the UN ceasefire agreement.  
Pakistan helped China get a seat at the UN
and tried to keep the west from escalating in Vietnam.  
The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
When West Pakistan refused to allow East Pakistan independence,
violence between Bengalis and Biharis developed into upheaval.  
Bengalis moved to India
and India went into East Pakistan.  
Pakistan surrendered in December 1971.  
East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh

The warm light of the melted lava radiates underneath but burns.  
In 1974, India tested the Smiling Buddha,
a nuclear bomb.  
After Indira Gandhi’s conviction for election fraud in 1973,
Marxist Professor Narayan called for total revolution
and students protested all over India.  
With food shortages, inflation and regional disputes
like Sikh separatists training in Pakistan for an independent Punjab,
peasants and laborers joined the protests.  
Railway strikes stopped the economy.  
In 1975, Indira Gandhi, the Iron Lady,
declared an Emergency,
imprisoning political opponents, restricting freedoms and restricting the press,
claiming threats to national security
because the war with Pakistan had just ended.  
The federal government took over Kerala’s communist dominated government and others.  

My mom could’ve been a dandelion, but she’s more like thistle.  
She has the center that dries and flutters in the wind,
beautiful and silky,
spiny and prickly,
but still fluffy, downy,
A daisy.
They say thistle saved Scotland from the Norse.  
Magma from the volcano explodes
and the streams of magma fly into the air.  
In the late 60s,
the civil rights movement rose
against the state in Northern Ireland
for depriving Catholics
of influence and opportunity.
The Northern Irish police,
Protestant and unionist, anti-catholic,
responded violently to the protests and it got worse.  
In 1969, the British placed Arthur Young,
who had worked at the Federation of Malaya
at the time of their Emergency
at the head of the British military in Northern Ireland.
The British military took control over the police,
a counter insurgency rather than a police force,
crowd control, house searches, interrogation, and street patrols,
use of force against suspects and uncooperative citizens.  
Political crimes were tolerated by Protestants but not Catholics.  
The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.  

On January 30, 1972, ****** Sunday,  
British Army policing killed 13 unarmed protesters
fighting for their rights over their neighborhood,
protesting the internment of suspected nationalists.
That led to protests across Ireland.  
When banana leaves are warmed,
oil from the banana leaves flavors the food.  
My dad flew from Canada to India in February 1972.  
On February 4, my dad met my mom.  
On February 11, 1972,
my dad married my mom.  
They went to Canada,
a quartz singing bowl and a wooden mallet wrapped in suede.  
The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.  
In March 1972, the British government took over
because they considered the Royal Ulster Police and the Ulster Special Constabulary
to be causing most of the violence.  
The lava blocks and reroutes streams,
melts snow and ice,
flooding.  
Days later, there’s still smoke, red.  
My mom could wear the clothes she liked
without being judged
with my dad in Canada.  
She didn’t like asking my dad for money.
My dad, the copper helping my mother use that iron,
wanted her to go to college and finish her bachelors degree.
She got a job.  
In 1976, the police took over again in Northern Ireland
but they were a paramilitary force—
armored SUVs, bullet proof jackets, combat ready
with the largest computerized surveillance system in the UK,
high powered weapons,
trained in counter insurgency.  
Many people were murdered by the police
and few were held accountable.  
Most of the murdered people were not involved in violence or crime.  
People were arrested under special emergency powers
for interrogation and intelligence gathering.  
People tried were tried in non-jury courts.  
My mom learned Malayalam in India
but didn’t speak well until living with my dad.  
She also learned to cook after getting married.  
Her mother sent her recipes; my dad cooked for her—
turmeric, cumin, coriander, cayenne and green chiles.  
Having lived in different countries,
my mom’s food was exposed to many cultures,
Chinese and French.
Ground rock, minerals and glass
covered the ground
from the ash plume.  
She liked working.  

A volcano erupted for 192 years,
an ice age,
disordered ices, deformed under pressure
and ordered ice crystals, brittle in the ice core records.  
My mother liked working.  
Though Khomeini was in exile by the 1970s in Iran,
more people, working and poor,
turned to him and the ****-i-Ulama for help.
My mom didn’t want kids though my dad did.
She agreed and in 1978 my brother was born.
Iran modernized but agriculture and industry changed so quickly.  
In January 1978, students protested—
censorship, surveillance, harassment, illegal detention and torture.  
Young people and the unemployed joined.  
My parents moved to the United States in December 1978.  
The regime used a lot of violence against the protesters,
and in September 1978 declared martial law in Iran.  
Troops were shooting demonstrators.
In January 1979, the Shah and his family fled.  
On February 11, 1979, my parents’ anniversary,
the Iranian army declared neutrality.  
I was born in July 1979.
The chromium in emeralds and rubies colors them.
My brother was born in May and I was born in July.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.  





Warm Light Shatters

The eruption beatifies the magma.  
It becomes obsidian,
only breaks with a fracture,
smooth circles where it breaks.  

My dad was born on a large flat rock on the edge of the top
of a hill,
Molasses, sweet and dark, the potent flavor dominates,
His father, the son of a Brahmin,
His mother from a lower caste.
His father’s family wouldn’t touch him,
He grew up in his mother’s mother’s house on a farm.  
I have the same brown hyperpigmentation spot on my right hand that he has.

In 1901, D’Arcy bought a 60 year concession for oil exploration In Iran.
The Iranian government extended it for another 32 years in 1933.
At that time oil was Iran’s “main source of income.”
In 1917’s Balfour Declaration, the British government proclaimed that they favored a national home for the Jews in Palestine and their “best endeavors to facilitate the achievement” of that.

The British police were in charge of policing in the mandate of Palestine.  A lot of the policemen they hired were people who had served in the British army before, during the Irish War for Independence.  
The army tried to stop how violent the police were, police used torture and brutality, some that had been used during the Irish War for Independence, like having prisoners tied to armored cars and locomotives and razing the homes of people in prison or people they thought were related to people thought to be rebels.
The police hired Arab police and Jewish police for lower level policing,
Making local people part of the management.
“Let Arab police beat up Arabs and Jewish police beat up Jews.”

The lava blocks and reroutes streams, melts snow and ice, flooding.
In 1922, there were 83,000 Jews, 71,000 Christians, and 589,000 Muslims.
The League If Nations endorsed the British Mandate.
During an emergency, in the 1930s, British regulations allowed collective punishment, punishing villages for incidents.
Local officers in riots often deserted and also shared intelligence with their own people.
The police often stole, destroyed property, tortured and killed people.  
Arab revolts sapped the police power over Palestinians by 1939.

My father’s mother was from a matrilineal family.
My dad remembers tall men lining up on pay day to respectfully wait for her, 5 feet tall.  
She married again after her husband died.
A manager from a tile factory,
He spoke English so he supervised finances and correspondence.
My dad, a sunflower, loved her: she scared all the workers but exuded warmth to the people she loved.

Obsidian shields people from negative energy.
David Cargill founded the Burmah Oil Co. in 1886.
If there were problems with oil exploration in Burma and Indian government licenses, Persian oil would protect the company.  
In July 1906, many European oil companies, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others, allied to protect against the American oil company, Standard Oil.
D’Arcy needed money because “Persian oil took three times as long to come on stream as anticipated.”
Burmah Oil Co. began the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. as a subsidiary.
Ninety-seven percent of British Petroleum was owned by Burmah Oil Co.
By 1914, the British government owned 51% of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co.  
Anglo-Persian acquired independence from Burmah Oil and Royal Dutch Shell with two million pounds from the British government.

The lava burns the rock off the edge of the volcano.
In 1942, after the Japanese took Burma,
the British destroyed their refineries before leaving.
The United Nations had to find other sources of oil.
In 1943, Japan built the Burma-Thailand Railroad with forced labor from the Malay peninsula who were mostly from the rubber plantations.

The rock goes down with the lava, breaking through the rocks as it goes down.
In 1945. Japan destroyed their refineries before leaving Burma.
Cargill, Watson and Whigham were on the Burmah Oil Co. Board and then the Anglo Iranian Oil Co. Board.  

In 1936 Palestine, boycotts, work stoppages, and violence against British police officials and soldiers compelled the government to appoint an investigatory commission.  
Leaders of Egypt, Trans Jordan, Syria and Iraq helped end the work stoppages.
The British government had the Peel Commission read letters, memoranda, and petitions and speak with British officials, Jews and Arabs.  
The Commission didn’t believe that Arabs and Jews could live together in a single Jewish state.
Because of administrative and financial difficulties the Colonial Secretary stated that to split Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was impracticable.  
The Commission recommended transitioning 250,000 Arabs and 1500 Jews with British control over their oil pipeline, their naval base and Jerusalem.  
The League of Nations approved.
“It will not remove the grievance nor prevent the recurrence,” Lord Peel stated after.
The Arab uprising was much more militant after Peel.  Thousands of Arabs were wounded, ten thousand were detained.  
In Sykes-Picot and the Husain McMahon agreements, the British promised the Arabs an independent state but they did not keep that promise.  
Representatives from the Arab states rejected the Peel recommendations.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution181 partitioned Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with an international regime for the city of Jerusalem backed by the United States and the Soviet Union.  

The Israeli Yishuv had strong military and intelligence organization —-  
the British recognized that their interest was with the Arabs and abstained from the vote.  
In 1948, Israel declared the establishment of its state.  
Ground rock, minerals, and gas covered the ground from the ash plume.
The Palestinian police force was disbanded and the British gave officers the option of serving in Malaya.

Though Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy supported snd tried to get Israel to offer the Arabs concessions, it wasn’t a major priority and didn’t always approve of Israel’s plans.
Arabs that had supported the British to end Turkish rule stopped supporting the West.  
Many Palestinians joined left wing groups and violent third world movements.  
Seventy-eight percent of the territory of former Palestine was under Israel’s control.  

My dad left for college in 1957 and lived in an apartment above the United States Information services office.
Because he graduated at the top of his class, he was given a job with the public works department of the government on the electricity board.  
“Once in, you’ll never leave.”
When he wanted a job where he could do real work, his father was upset.
He broke the chains with bells for vespers.
He got a job in Calcutta at Kusum Products and left the government, though it was prestigious to work there.
In the chemical engineering division, one of the projects he worked on was to design a *** distillery, bells controlled by hammers, hammers controlled by a keyboard.
His boss worked in the United Kingdom for. 20 years before the company he worked at, part of Power Gas Corporation, asked him to open a branch in Calcutta.
He opened the branch and convinced an Industrialist to open a company doing the same work with him.  The branch he opened closed after that.  
My dad applied for labor certification to work abroad and was selected.  
His boss wrote a reference letter for my him to the company he left in the UK.  My dad sent it telling the company when he was leaving for the UK.  
The day he left for London, he got the letter they sent in the mail telling him to take the train to Sheffield the next day and someone from the firm would meet him at the station.  
His dad didn’t know he left, he didn’t tell him.
He broke the chains with chimes for schisms.


Anglo-Persian Oil became Anglo-Iranian Oil in 1935.
The British government used oil and Anglo-Persian oil to fight communism, have a stronger relationship with the United States and make the United Kingdom more powerful.  
The National Secularists, the Tudeh, and the Communists wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil and mobilized the Iranian people.
The British feared nationalization in Iran would incite political parties like the Secular Nationalists all over the world.  
In 1947, the Iranian government passed the Single Article Law that “[increased] investment In welfare benefits, health, housing, education, and implementation of Iranianization through substitution of foreigners” at Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.
“Anglo-Iranian Oil Company made more profit in 1950 than it paid to the Iranian government in royalties over the previous half century.”
The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company tried to negotiate a new concession and claimed they’d hire more Iranian people into jobs held by British and people from other nationalities at the company.
Their hospitals had segregated wards.  
On May 1, 1951, the Iranian government passed a bill that nationalized Anglo- Iranian Oil Co.’s holdings.  
During the day, only the steam from the hot lava can be seen.
In August 1953, the Iranian people elected Mossadegh from the Secular Nationalist Party as prime minister.
The British government with the CIA overthrew Mossadegh using the Iranian military after inducing protests and violent demonstrations.  
Anglo-Iranian Oil changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954.
Iranians believe that America destroyed Iran’s “last chance for democracy” and blamed America for Iran’s autocracy, its human rights abuses, and secret police.

The smoldering sound of the lava sizzles underneath the dried lava.  
In 1946, Executive Yuan wanted control over 4 groups of Islands in the South China Sea to have a stronger presence there:  the Paracels, the Spratlys, Macclesfield Bank, and the Pratas.
The French forces in the South China Sea would have been stronger than the Chinese Navy then.
French Naval forces were in the Gulf of Tonkin, U.S. forces were in the Taiwan Strait, the British were in Hong Kong, and the Portuguese were in Macao.
In the 1950s, British snd U.S. oil companies thought there might be oil in the Spratlys.  
By 1957, French presence in the South China Sea was hardly there.  

When the volcano erupted, the lava dried at the ocean into black sand.
By 1954, the Tudeh Party’s communist movement and  intelligence organization had been destroyed.  
Because of the Shah and his government’s westernization policies and disrespectful treatment of the Ulama, Iranians began identifying with the Ulama and Khomeini rather than their government.  
Those people joined with secular movements to overthrow the Shah.  

In 1966, Ne Win seized power from U Nu in Burma.
“Soldiers ruled Burma as soldiers.”
Ne Win thought that western political
Institutions “encouraged divisions.”
Minority groups found foreign support for their separatist goals.
The Karens and the Mons supported U Nu in Bangkok.  


Rare copper, a heavy metal, no alloys,
a rock in groundwater,
conducts electricity and heat.
In 1965, my Dad’s cousin met him at Heathrow, gave him a coat and £10 and brought him to a bed and breakfast across from Charing Cross Station where he’d get the train to Sheffield the next morning.
He took the train and someone met him at the train station.  
At the interview they asked him to design a grandry girder, the main weight bearing steel girder as a test.
Iron in the inner and outer core of the earth,
He’d designed many of those.  
He was hired and lived at the YMCA for 2 1/2 years.  
He took his mother’s family name, Menon, instead of his father’s, Varma.
In 1967, he left for Canada and interviewed at Bechtel before getting hired at Seagrams.  
Iron enables blood to carry oxygen.
His boss recommended him for Dale Carnegie’s leadership training classes and my dad joined the National Instrument Society and became President.
He designed a still In Jamaica,
Ordered all the parts, nuts and bolts,
Had all the parts shipped to Jamaica and made sure they got there.
His boss supervised the construction, installation and commission in Jamaica.
Quartz, heat and fade resistant, though he was an engineer and did the work of an engineer, my dad only had the title, technician so my dad’s boss thought he wasn’t getting paid enough but couldn’t get his boss to offer more than an extra $100/week or the title of engineer; he told my dad he thought he should leave.
In 1969, he got a job at Celanese, which made rayon.
He quit Celanese to work at McGill University and they allowed him to take classes to earn his MBA while working.  

The United States and Israel’s alliance was strong by 1967.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 at the end of the Third Arab Israeli War didn’t mention the Palestinians but mentioned the refugee problem.
After 1967, the Palestinians weren’t often mentioned and when mentioned only as terrorists.  
Palestinians’ faith in the “American sponsored peace process” diminished, they felt the world community ignored and neglected them also.
Groups like MAN that stopped expecting anything from Arab regimes began hijacking airplanes.
By 1972, the Palestine Liberation Organization had enough international support to get by the United States’ veto in the United Nations Security Council and Arab League recognition as representative of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinians knew the United States stated its support, as the British had, but they weren’t able to accomplish anything.  
The force Israel exerted in Johnson’s United States policy delivered no equilibrium for the Palestinians.  

In 1969, all political parties submitted to the BSPP, Burma Socialist Programme Party.
Ne Win nationalized banks and oil and deprived minorities of opportunities.
Ne Win became U Nu Win, civilian leader of Burma in 1972 and stopped the active role that U Nu defined for Burma internationally
He put military people in power even when they didn’t have experience which triggered “maldistribution of goods and chronic shortages.”  
Resources were located in areas where separatist minorities had control.

The British presence in the South China Sea ended in 1968.  
The United States left Vietnam in 1974 and China went into the Western Paracels.
The U.S. didn’t intervene and Vietnam took the Spratlys.
China wanted to claim the continental shelf In the central part of the South China Sea and needed the Spratlys.
The United States mostly disregarded the Ulama In Iran and bewildered the Iranian people by not supporting their revolution.

Obsidian—
iron, copper and chromium—
isn’t a gas
but it isn’t a crystal;
it’s between the two,
the ordered crystal and the disordered gas.  
They made swords out of obsidian.


Edelweiss

I laid out in my backyard in my bikini.  
I love the feeling of my body in the sun.  
I’d be dark from the end of spring until winter.
The snow froze my bare feet through winter ,
my skin pale.
American towns in 1984,
Free, below glaciers the sunlight melted the snow,
a sea of green and the edelweiss on the edge of the  limestone,
frosted but still strong.    
When the spring warmed the grass,
the grass warmed my feet. 
The whole field looked cold and white from the glacier but in the meadow,
the bright yellow centers of those flowers float free in the center of the white petals.
The bright yellow center of those edelweiss scared the people my parents ran to America from India to get away from.  
On a sidewalk in Queens, New York in 1991, the men stared and yelled comments at me in short shorts and a fitted top in the summer.  
I grabbed my dad’s arm.

























The Bread and Coconut Butter of Aparigraha

Twelve year old flowerhead,
Marigold, yarrow and nettle,
I’d be all emotion
If not for all my work
From the time I was a teenager.
I got depressed a lot.
I related to people I read about
In my weather balloon,
Grasping, ignorant, and desperate,
But couldn’t relate to other twelve year olds.
After school I read Dali’s autobiography,
Young ****** Autosodomized by Her Own Chastity.
Fresh, green nettle with fresh and dried yarrow for purity.
Dead souls enticed to the altar by orange marigolds,
passion and creativity,
Coax sleep and rouse dreams.
Satellites measure indirectly with wave lengths of light.
My weather balloon measures the lower and middle levels of the atmosphere directly,
Fifty thousand feet high,
Metal rod thermometer,
Slide humidity sensor,
Canister for air pressure.

I enjoy rye bread and cold coconut butter in my weather balloon,
But I want Dali, and all the artists and writers.
Rye grows at high altitudes
But papyrus grows in soil and shallow water,
Strips of papyrus pith shucked from their stems.
When an anchor’s weighed, a ship sails,
But when grounded we sail.
Marigolds, yarrow and nettle,
Flowerhead,
I use the marigold for sleep,
The yarrow for endurance and intensity,
toiling for love and truth,
And the nettle for healing.
Strong rye bread needs equally strong flavors.
By the beginning of high school,
I read a lot of Beat literature
And found Buddhism.
I loved what I read
But I didn’t like some things.
I liked attachment.  
I got to the ground.
Mushrooms grow in dry soil.
Attachment to beauty is Buddha activity.
Not being attached to things I don’t find beautiful is Buddha activity.  
I fried mushrooms in a single layer in oil, fleshy.
I roasted mushrooms at high temperatures in the oven, crisp.
I simmered mushrooms in stock with kombu.
Rye bread with cold coconut butter and cremini mushrooms,
raw, soft and firm.  
Life continues, life changes,
Attachments, losses, mourning and suffering,
But change lures growth.
I find stream beds and wet soil.
I lay the strips of papyrus next to each other.
I cross papyrus strips over the first,
Then wet the crossed papyrus strips,
Press and cement them into a sheet.
I hammer it and dry it in the sun,
With no thought of achievement or self,
Flowerhead,
Hands filled with my past,
Head filled with the future,
Dali, artists poets,
Wishes and desires aligned with nature,
Abundance,
Cocoa, caraway, and molasses.

If I ever really like someone,
I’ll be wearing the dress he chooses,
Fresh green nettle and yarrow, the seeds take two years to grow strong,
Lasting love.
Marigolds steer dead souls from the altar to the afterlife,
Antiseptic, healing wounds,
Soothing sore throats and headaches.
Imperturbable, stable flowerhead,
I empty my mind.
When desires are aligned with nature, desire flows.
Papyrus makes paper and cloth.
Papyrus makes sails.
Charcoal from the ash of pulverized papyrus heals wounds.
Without attachment to the fruit of action
There is continuation of life,
Rye bread and melted coconut butter,
The coconut tree in the coconut butter,
The seed comes from the ground out of nothing,
Naturalness.
It has form.
As the seed grows the seed expresses the tree,
The seed expresses the coconut,
The seed expresses the coconut butter.
Rye bread, large open hollows, chambers,
Immersed in melted coconut butter,
Desire for expansion and creation,
No grasping, not desperate.
When the mind is compassion, the mind is boundless.
Every moment,
only that,
Every moment,
a scythe to the papyrus in the stream bed of the past.  

































Sound on Powdery Blue

Potter’s clay, nymph, plum unplumbed, 1993.
Dahlia, ice, powder, musk and rose,
my source of life emerged in darkness, blackness.
Seashell fragments in the sand,
The glass ball of my life cracked inside,
Light reflected off the salt crystal cracks,
Nacre kept those cracks from getting worse.
Young ****** Autosodomized By Her Own Chastity,
Nymph, I didn’t want to give my body,
Torn, *****, ballgown,
To people who wouldn’t understand me,
Piquant.

Outside on the salt flats,
Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, pleasure and fertility and
Asexual Artemis, goddess of animals, and the hunt,
Mistress of nymphs,
Punish with ruthless savagery.

In my bedroom, blue caribou moss covered rocks, pine, and yew trees,
The heartwood writhes as hurricane gales, twisters and whirlwinds
Contort their bark,
Roots strong in the soil.
Orris root dried in the sun, bulbs like wood.
Dahlia runs to baritone soundbath radio waves.
Light has frequencies,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet,
Flame, slate and flint.
Every night is cold.

Torii gates, pain secured as sacred.
An assignation, frost hardy dahlia and a plangent resonant echo.
High frequency sound waves convert to electrical signals,
Breathe from someone I want,
Silt.
Beam, radiate, ensorcel.
I break the bark,
Sap flows and dries,
Resin seals over the tear.
I distill pine,
Resin and oil for turpentine, a solvent.
Quiver, bemired,
I lead sound into my darkness,
Orris butter resin, sweet and warm,
Hot jam drops on snow drops,
Orange ash on smoke,
Balm on lava,
The problem with cotton candy.

Electrical signals give off radiation or light waves,
The narrow frequency range where
The crest of a radio wave and the crest of a light wave overlap,
Infrared.
Glaciers flow, sunlight melts the upper layers of the snow when strong,
A wet snow avalanche,
A torrent, healing.
Brown sugar and whiskey,
Undulant, lavender.
Pine pitch, crystalline, sticky, rich and golden,
And dried pine rosin polishes glass smooth
Like the smell of powdery orris after years.
Softness, flush, worthy/not worthy,
Rich rays thunder,
Intensify my pulse,
Frenzied red,
Violet between blue and invisible ultraviolet.
Babylon—flutter, glow.
Unquenchable cathartic orris.  

















Pink Graphite

Camellias, winter shrubs,
Their shallow roots grow beneath the spongy caribou moss,
Robins egg blue.
After writing a play with my gifted students program in 1991,
I stopped spending all my free time writing short stories,
But the caribou moss was still soft.

In the cold Arctic of that town,
The evergreen protected the camellias from the afternoon sun and storms.
They branded hardy camellias with a brass molded embossing iron;
I had paper and graphite for my pencils.

After my ninth grade honors English teacher asked us to write poems in 1994,
It began raining.
We lived on an overhang.
A vertical rise to the top of the rock.
The rainstorm caused a metamorphic change in the snowpack,
A wet snow avalanche drifted slowly down the moss covered rock,
The snow already destabilized by exposure to the sunlight.

The avalanche formed lakes,
rock basins washed away with rainwater and melted snow,
Streams dammed by the rocks.  
My pencils washed away in the avalanche,
My clothes heavy and cold.
I wove one side of each warp fiber through the eye of the needle and one side through each slot,
Salves, ointments, serums and tinctures.
I was mining for graphite.
They were mining me,
The only winch, the sound through the water.

A steep staircase to the red Torii gates,
I broke the chains with bells for vespers
And chimes for schisms,
And wove the weft across at right angles to the warp.  

On a rocky ledge at the end of winter,
The pink moon, bitters and body butter,
They tried to get  me to want absinthe,
Wormwood for bitterness and regret.
Heat and pressure formed carbon for flakes of graphite.
Heat and pressure,
I made bitters,
Brandy, grapefruit, chocolate, mandarin rind, tamarind and sugar.
I grounded my feet in the pink moss,
paper dried in one hand,
and graphite for my pencils in the other.  



































Flakes

I don’t let people that put me down be part of my life.  
Gardens and trees,
My shadow sunk in the grass in my yard
As I ate bread, turmeric and lemon.
Carbon crystallizes into graphite flakes.
I write to see well,
Graphite on paper.  
A shadow on rock tiles with a shield, a diamond and a bell
Had me ***** to humiliate me.
Though I don’t let people that put me down near me,
A lot of people putting me down seemed like they were following me,
A platform to jump from
While she had her temple.  

There was a pink door to the platform.
I ate bread with caramelized crusts and
Drank turmeric lemonade
Before I opened that door,
Jumped and
Descended into blankets and feathers.
I found matches and rosin
For turpentine to clean,
Dried plums and licorice.  

In the temple,
In diamonds, leather, wool and silk,
She had her shield and bells,
Drugs and technology,
Thermovision 210 and Minox,
And an offering box where people believed
That if their coins went in
Their wishes would come true.

Hollyhock and smudging charcoal for work,  
Belled,
I ground grain in the mill for the bread I baked for breakfast.
The bells are now communal bells
With a watchtower and a prison,
Her shield, a blowtorch and flux,
Her ex rays, my makeshift records
Because Stalin didn’t like people dancing,
He liked them divebombing.
Impurities in the carbon prevent diamonds from forming,
Measured,
The most hard, the most expensive,
But graphite’s soft delocalized electrons move.  






































OCEAN BED

The loneliness of going to sleep by myself.  
I want a bed that’s high off the ground,
a mattress, an ocean.
I want a crush and that  person in my bed.  
Only that,
a crush in my bed,
an ocean in my bed.  
Just love.  
But I sleep with my thumbs sealed.  
I sleep with my hands, palms up.  
I sleep with my hands at my heart.  
They sear my compassion with their noise.  
They hold their iron over their fire and try to carve their noise into my love,
scored by the violence of voices, dark and lurid,  
but not burned.  
I want a man in my bed.  
When I wake up in an earthquake
I want to be held through the aftershocks.  
I like men,
the waves come in and go out
but the ocean was part of my every day.  
I don’t mind being fetishized in the ocean.  
I ran by the ocean every morning.  
I surfed in the ocean.  
I should’ve gone into the ocean that afternoon at Trestles,
holding my water jugs, kneeling at the edge.  














Morning

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  

Morning—the molten lava in the outer core of the earth embeds the iron from the inner core into the earth’s magnetic field.  
The magnetic field flips.  
The sun, so strong, where it gets through the trees it burns everything but the pine.  
The winds change direction.  
Storms cast lightening and rain.  
Iron conducts solar flares and the heavy wind.  
In that pine forest, I shudder every time I see a speck of light for fear of neon and fluorescents.  The eucalyptus cleanses congestion.  
And Kerouac’s stream ululates, crystal bowl sound baths.  
I follow the sound to the water.  
The stream ends at a bluff with a thin rocky beach below.  
The green water turns black not far from the shore.  
Before diving into the ocean, I eat globe mallow from the trees, stems and leaves, the viscous flesh, red, soft and nutty.  
I distill the pine from one of the tree’s bark and smudge the charcoal over my skin.  

Death, the palo santo’s lit, cleansing negative energy.  
It’s been so long since I’ve smelled a man, woodsmoke, citrus and tobacco.  
Jasmine, plum, lime and tuberose oil on the base of my neck comforts.  
Parabolic chambers heal, sound waves through water travel four times faster.  
The sound of the open sea recalibrates.  
I dissolve into the midnight blue of the ocean.  

I want to fall asleep in the warm arms of a fireman.  
I want to wake up to the smell of coffee in my kitchen.  
I want hot water with coconut oil when I get up.  
We’d lay out on the lawn, surrounded by high trees that block the wind.  
Embers flying through the air won’t land in my yard, on my grass, or near my trees.  





Blue Paper

Haze scatters blue light on a planet.  
Frought women, livid, made into peonies by Aphrodites that caught their men flirting and blamed the women, flushed red.
and blamed the women, flushed red.
Frought women, livid, chrysanthemums, dimmed until the end of the season, exchanged and retained like property.  
Blue women enter along the sides of her red Torii gates, belayed, branded and belled, a plangent sound.  
By candles, colored lights and dried flowers she’s sitting inside on a concrete floor, punctures and ruin burnished with paper, making burnt lime from lime mortar.  
Glass ***** on the ceiling, she moves the beads of a Palestinian glass bead bracelet she holds in her hands.  
She bends light to make shadows against  thin wooden slats curbed along the wall, and straight across the ceiling.
A metier, she makes tinctures, juniper berries and cotton *****.
Loamy soil in the center of the room,
A hawthorn tree stands alone,
A gateway for fairies.
large stones at the base protecting,
It’s branches a barrier.  
It’s leaves and shoots make bread and cheese.
It’s berries, red skin and yellow flesh, make jam.
Green bamboo stakes for the peonies when they whither from the weight of their petals.
And lime in the soil.  
She adds wood chips to the burnt lime in the kiln,
Unrolled paper, spools, and wire hanging.
Wood prayer beads connect her to the earth,
The tassels on the end of the beads connect her to spirit, to higher truth.
Minerals, marine mud and warm basins of seawater on a flower covered desk.  
She adds slaked lime to the burnt lime and wood chips.  
The lime converts to paper,
Trauma victims speak,
Light through butterfly wings.  
She’s plumeria with curved petals, thick, holding water

Some last spams
from those muscles
I haven't used in a while,
makes me feel alive.

My heart,
naive,
believes it can still love
like it used to.
It is just that ****
muscle memory.

Your words hit me.
Hurt me.
But no longer
pierce me.
Short range
now they are.

My denatured  enzymes,
possessed by salt,
just want to drown.

Anything that stops
the aftershocks in my body
that follow the earthquake
our love once was.

The aftershocks
Ripple rash anger consuming my frame.

****** duels with metal swords of rage
That slice innocence in half.

Irrational self-destruction,
Showing signs of weak malfunction.
Boiling blood gurgling through my veins.

How do I dare let such a horror rule my weak blackened hands?

Snarling fangs,
Foaming rabid with distain, puncture my brain.
Ripping pride and ego to bloodied shreds.

Failure, weakness, defeat,
Their sharp clawed feet incessantly transfix me.  

Agonizing.
Inflicting purposeful pain,
The need to destroy shall grind me to a pulp.

Evil is ruling a twisted game.
Queen of Hearts.  
King of Spades.

Gnawing at my bones, my tendons snap.
Eyes of fire that could torch one’s soul, encase a beastly rage.
I roar,
Thrashing and afraid.

Another night staring skyward where
          Every creaking shift fills the world
                    And the ink-black sky's toothless maw,
Shocks and aftershocks of sound
          Where a moment's discomfort swells
                    To a frenzied crescendo, incessant,
Pressing against skin from within
          Until a saint's patience would break
                    Like lips parting for a stifled sigh.
Midnight falters and fades to dawn,
          Surrenders to the unconquered sun
                    Who, grinning wide as the horizon,
Watches the twisting, turning world
          Tear away from night's dreamless womb
                    Sleepless, stumbling away in a daze.

The waves hit


Aftershocks

Crying, screaming
Then still waters.
Silent cold freezes our perceptions.
We walk on the water hand in hand.

Alone,
Mapless, clueless,

Now a year.5 later,
I am, not yet, more than I imagine.
What I do Is all that must be done,

no less, but only
my part, my talent which I have not,
if the parable is taken literal,
those talents in the tale,
those were money,

not charisma.

Deify, make a god
de-ify, make a truth. Yep. That, de-ifing,
I do that,
think of the oil in an engine,
slippery, slick, smooth fluid
resisting nothing,
rolling with the explosive ****** of life.

I breathe, being metaphorically,
Solomonically wise,
I feared God and kept his commandments,

and thought sure I saw a wink, but
that coulda been a gleam, a reflection taken
by my eye
to my hindbrain, a single quanta
of leavenish light from what the seer saw,

a gleam glistens, I think I see what Mercury,
the message, the medium, flowing twixt yen and yank,
reflects,
flexing,
shaking,
Vibrant un abrading wave bearing grains
of matter smattering to the shore,
immaterial to the wave,
where the power's
drawn, pulled,
not pushed,
listing not lusting,

air-ish heirily, heir of the wind, I go...

winds list whither they will, always
the path of least resistance,
no lie.
Any thing that refuses to fall,
whether it bends or not,
it stands,
under the push of the pull,
the dam
destructive
imbalance of heat, twixt air and sea and land,
the circuits of the wind, ventilator of life,
****** into hated vacuums
over physics forced channels,
down canyons
dammed by mountain titans eruptioned,
fractures in the firmament, formed
back in Peleg's day,
as the turmoil settled,
aftershocks, still, winding
currents formed chaotic energy cells,
swirls to hold
lower pressure pushed by high,
the life force of a planet, broken and frozen
and fried crisp,
if it weren't for air.
And water.

It works,
the biosphere,
but surely, as my friend Ben said,
"we live on the wreck of a world."

Life adapts to living, medium message.

Desert dry silicon
dust rides winds pushing its owned way
into places where...

There's the rub.
That's my part, at the moment,
Here, right here,
is how I know.

This moment is real. You dear reader
make it so.

Imagining there is no hell,
that's personal,
but on earth, as in heaven,
as a man thinks...
you know, I think that part never broke.

Don't lie, don't fret. Wait and see.
or watch and see, if you are the proactive type,
either way, don't lie about the seen and done.
And don't believe lies, about things you've seen and done.

I collapsed the seats of my Rav4
You watched my *** the whole time
And saw an opportunity
As I bent over between the front seats
One, two, then three fingers
While fumbling to turn off the hazards
Biting a seat to keep quiet
Accidentally turned the music back on
"Stay In My Memory" by Bim
The song from Him
**** him, I'll ******* instead
The hazards were off
The music still on
Your fingers making my body quake
From the inside
Twice
Strong enough to throw me around
Like I was someone cuter and smaller
And put me on my back
With a hand around my throat
Kissing at me like a dog
Making me submit like a *****
Three, four, five
"On your knees"
And you threw me there, too
Six
Around we spun
Getting rug burn
Lost count of the quakes
They started to blend
With the aftershocks
"Are marks okay?"
And then you left one
A hickey on a weeknight
And a Monday, no less
Next time, we need a bed
Rug burn is a *****

Virginity
My virginity was bang, a brain against a glass-tinted window. It was child-locked doors and ax cologne. It was too much muscle and a 13 year old body to weak to tussle.

My virginity was a man who made **** seem like an art, the same systematic way the mortician dissects the cadaver. Striped from a name like i was nothing but a corpse

It was the bruises left for weeks. The ****** teeth marks left upon my once sacred body. It that deep voice with Alcohol on its breath.

Yes. My virginity was a ******* earthquake. It was 7 minutes of the worst kind of hell. 7. Where I stopped believing in heaven. Trust became the law, fear my bible. I watched as my foundations crumble. and I knew that this Earth was no longer safe to walk on. It was the aftershocks running down my spine and me, a vacant building constantly about to tumble

So here I am. 3 years later, standing in his rubble. mistaking a kiss for his fist. It's been panic attacks in grocery stores. It's been 3 years of hating myself more than anyone else possibly could. It's been 3 years of
Self blame
And the shadow of a girl I became
Unworthy is a word that takes up so much space

It was the carrying the scars of my last binge.
The night I convinced myself if it burned going down it must be holy water.
Finally Salvation
drinking so much I couldn't stand.
Drinking so much I could no longer stand myself.

I familiarized myself with the taste of concrete and forgot the smell of old books.
constantly looking for a new hook.
Blowing halos of smoking trying to make death look beautiful.
I found myself in a deep dark hole
Oblivion.. My only goal

Lately, It's been learning my body isn't an apology.  
It's been learning that bravery  cannot be measured my a lack of fear;
some times it takes a ******* soldier to look your demons in the eye and say.
This is my body.
I am the beautiful owner of busy breath.
I'm that  shadow girl with a storm inside
No I am not that bruised soul in the empty bottle.
It's been 3 year of convincing myself that This world, it needs my voice.
It's been learning I am a miraculous dance floor of glittering molecules.

It's been learning that You will never have a greater opportunity to learn to love thy enemy, when your enemy is own holy, holy self.

with predatory instinct found
under siege, underground
Birch II, my ward, my home
before I leave pages turn to tome

with rehashed food and smuggled items of variety
cigarettes, chew, and paper clips, decaffeinated life

suicide attempt
breeding contempt
smash at walls
scream at captors
claws of raptors

manic I was, manic I remain, new rage, I am insane

line by line by line
empty words of horror’s sound
with LSD’s aftershocks ringing my ears
and feeding my eyes that hate your normalcy
with all the confused dread I can muster

one word, madness
shaking fool, lost cool
tremolo-plastic-breakfast-spoon
lifting bits of sanity to my mouth parts

Freshly-washed ****-head desires the woman
I left in the real anti-world called home

close my eyes and see my last trip
bathroom tiles explode and cover sink, tub, garbage can, mirror, telephone, and leg-arms
bad trip, but it was better than your unreal world

take your meds now

two-******, bipolar, mixed-manic, one-eyed, living, breathing, copulating monster under eternity’s bed

anger pounding at my ******* coming out as a giant, stinking ****

the them that sit behind the desk
regulate lives of poor inmate crazies
eat their meals and take my soul
others play cards, I write, **** time, **** tension, **** myself, with treatment plans, unreasonable demands in ******-babble B. S. words like suicidal ideation, that doesn’t apply to me, does it?

I want my trip back, I want to live in another place with another face
I want my trip back darling
I want to watch the words explode, I want to watch the tiles grow up my legs again
to watch as paper becomes pen, to bathe the tiles off of my inhuman skin
I want my trip back baby
I want to breathe in prism air where nothing and eternity collide
in spectacular displays of sonic-boom, emotional madness
incredibly---------------edible-------------sadness

I see the me looking
from inside LSD’s mirror and want to rejoin
the missing-hated-wasted-rain-forest
blackened by man’s desire
with silk-rose-petal-eye-bomb-shell

LEAVE!
leave me, for what I did or did not do or have or think or say or what

style means nothing more nothing less, you know?

it takes confusion to produce effective illusion
to produce base desires feed the fires
smoky the bear at the demon’s lair
with broken feet suckle the ****
of unused, aggressive, possessive MADNESS!!!!!

natural-organic-popcorn-hulls in rotted-bleeding-tooth-socket-decay-pain
elusive means justify idiot ends, so dig the pick into the hole in my jaw
as I scream the insanity away from my ears and into your eye-ball-socket-hole-skull-spot

clipped fingernail
package in the mail
next time I won’t fail

sleep, sleep won’t be my lover tonight, her arms won’t touch my shoulder
I won’t feel her finger-touch-tip or rub my ***** on her ******
I want my trip back
love me, love me, love me
for love or money, for emotions mistaken, for idiot sensation, for all the things you do for me, for my insanity’s sake

my world slowly fills with unbearable ills, chemical need so deep it erases my soul

feet sore from pacing
door to door to door to door

on and on seconds bleed out minutes, bleed the hours, tears bleed out the poison self-inflicted, pen bleeds ink onto paper

thoughts coagulate and scabrous emotions take

On a bed in which I lay
A life I see
A century old path leading
To this moment
No matter the path I took
It all lead to this
At least in this I feel no pain
No sorrow
No regret
Soon I am to meet
All that brought others and me
Heart beat eighty

I can see the glows of the tears
Slowly falling down their cheeks
People I have brought together
By my own hand and the grace of fate
Mothers, daughters, brothers, sisters
People of my past of torn from the battles
United under the pressure of loss
People for the future
Are brought another lesson of life
People of present
Given another relief from inner waterfalls
Heart Beat Seventy

My wive is closest
My daughter is next
Whispering please don't go
The warmth I feel
Is from their breaking hearts
I sing the songs from which we first met
Trying my best not to sound goofy
Managing to ease the pain for only a moment
Lights start dancing around me
Family from what seemed each generation
Come to help me across the line.
Heart Beat Sixty

Her hair lays on my chest, feels like it did when we first met
On that summer day down by the river
The water rushing through our toes as we danced the song of the winds
Laughter filled the air
Fish even decided to join the chorus
The splash of their jumps changes the beat
Our hearts sync to it
The air is filled with love
Even the angel of death paused in admiration.
Chuckling "I guess it will be a while"
Heart Beat Fifty

My sisters all gather in tears while my brothers to stay strong
I whisper to them I was sorry
For not being there in a time of need
I told them what our time apart has caused
I told them in fear I would never see them again
They became ghosts to fill the gaping hole that held in my heart for times too long
Only to dig its depth
The middle and second of youngest sisters granted the forgiveness
The older that is closer to my number still eggs the stubborn head
My brothers never held a grudge
The youngest of eight, never held a love quite like the rest
But still understood the pain
Despite having been born during the aftershocks
Heart Beat thirty

The Lights grew brighter
No sound could move
When this began I could hear the cries of women
Bringing out the next of the world
I hear the shouts of children in pain
I could feel everything
But now there was nothing, but a pressure on my chest
Dogs have gathered on my body, next to my wife and daughter
Smiling at a sight long seen not
My wife's hears their breaths and cries even louder
But no sound could be heard
My daughter knew what was coming, and joined the tears too
I felt the tears like the waters of holy river
Cleansing the filth still clinging to my soul
Heart Beat Fifteen

The voices from the past start to enter
Encouraging words that all will be alright
Everyone around me has changed
From the old that they once were, to youth in which we first met
My grandparents who died in pain appeared by my side
Looked better then I could remember
My wife was once again 16, the year that we met
My children were babies, crawled by the animals that lay on my body
Grandpa tells me that "This is the last look, might as well enjoy,
"The fruits of my labor have grown, but for now I will see the seeds,
"Each breath I take unlocks the cage that my soul was trapped,
"So I may live,
"If there is anything you want to say, say it now"
Heart Beat ten

I lifted my hand to touch my wife, as I would when surprising her with a present
I asked for a pen and paper to write one last message
My time is running out
Heart Beat Nine

The Lights raise their hands to grant me a slice of strength
Enough to help with what was needed
"To my family, to my friends"
Heart Beat Eight
"If you need me and I am gone. Look to the Stars"
Heart Beat Seven
"My mind has always been there, it was only a matter of time..."
Heart Beat Six
"Before my body decided to follow. Remember the words I have said..."
Heart Beat Five
"For each was meant to guide you. Do not allow yourselves to fall apart because of petty..."
Heart Beat Four
"Wars. I taught you all to patch wounds as soon as they are made so that you will never lose touch..."
Heart Beat Three
"of who you are an where you came from. The devil himself tried to take me over, but I fought it by accepting who I was. Do not argue over difference, do not blame any new lives that enter in the place of the lost..."
Heart Beat Two
"And do not stop being a family. Take my words and grow. I love you all with all my heart and I want you all to remember that no matter the trouble. I want you to remember that I will be still be here at your side protecting you every step you take. As will our ancestors. Use your gifts well and use them to help others. Please."
Heart Beat One
"With Love, Dakota. Blessed Be"






Heart



Beat



Zero

I never should have let it go
That far
Even now, I can still feel
The aftershocks of your choices.

my psychiatrist tells me i have holes in me.
she says it as though it is something
i should already know.
and when she says it,
the shift inside me is something i wish i could compare
to the grinding of tectonic plates,
if only i were strong enough to bring about an earthquake.

but since i am a stranger even to aftershocks,
i keep quiet.
my earthquake is stillborn,
expressed instead as a nod,
as a chewing of the lip,
as a silent, compliant “mhm.”
and the urge that nestles itself at the pit of my stomach
is not an urge to disagree;
it is an urge to forget.

because my psychiatrist tells me i have holes in me.
she says it as though it is something i should already know,
and she says it in a way that is not meant to make me feel incomplete,
but it is a way that still does,
and if i can forget this,
even for a moment,
i can forget that i am not okay.

i do not like not being okay;
i do not like having problems,
and my psychiatrist,
she tells me i have holes in me and she says it
as though it is a problem.

and so begins a slow disintegration:
i become but a bearer of problems,
a garden growing only weeds —
something in need of fixing.
i see myself a war-torn landscape,
dry and cracked and lacking life.
i see myself the kind of ground you step on and say,
“remember when things used to grow here?
remember when it used to be green?”

i am still trying to be green,
always trying to be green,
but my psychiatrist tells me
i have holes in me,
and suddenly green becomes a color i will never know how to paint.

outside my psychiatrist’s office,
on the wall of the waiting room,
there is a painting of flowers —
irises and a geranium —
and the leaves, i know, are supposed to be green,
but the paint is old and faded
and they don’t look it.

and for a moment,
i think
that maybe,
whether iris
or geranium
or boy riddled with holes,
maybe it is possible to bloom
even if you are not green.

(a.m.)

It was time.
It was time, and so I read every one of your poems and
Cried.
They were different tears from last time.
Some truer grief fell with these
And they
Were silent.
Silver, like rain reaching its fingers into the soil
Late at night
Ready to grow something
Lovely.
I know you
So much better now.
I loved you- oh, how I loved you
In a complex way
The way that always
Loses me the thing I love.
I shake now, the aftershocks of feeling vibrating my bones
A music too low and too aching
For sound
It murmurs to the earth
And, sleeping beneath the snow, the ground echoes my loss back to me.
I loved you, how I loved you
But I never knew you like I do now.
How you must hate yourself, inside.
People who hate themselves always hate me.
They love me first, and then they loathe me.
If I am lucky, someday they face themselves and forgive me for loving what they hated for so long.
It is all very wearisome and human of them.
Sometimes I see you in the halls.
You refuse to meet my eyes,
As if we were two high school lovers broken up
The week before,
Pretending our lives were not
Altered.
I look at you, though.
I loved you different than that.
There was nothing of owning to it, nothing of flesh,
And so although my heart and mind miss yours
Miss the rise and fall of your low voice,
Miss the thoughts and ideas, so intricate, exquisite
That you would write to me instead of sleeping at night,
To see you doesn't make me angry.
I know seeing me makes you angry.
I see it in your jaw, the way your eyes go dead.
Oh, darling, I know you so well now
So much better than if you'd been kind to me.
Do you forget that as I told you my dreams and my fears
You slowly unveiled your own?
I still feel them, beneath your wax mask of indifference.
They live.
They rule you, as always, more even than before.
They are why
You cannot look at me.
Maybe you loved me. Who knows. And if you did
Who knows how. There are so many ways
To love someone.
There isn't a word for how I loved you.
Now when I dream it is of a little flat with a cat and a curly haired girl in bed beside me
But you never took shape like that in my mind.
You were never a companion, never a lover.
You were never a home for me.
Nor were you a sister, or a friend.
I loved you like I love music, like I love the way rivers surge forward after it has been raining for days, the way I love the sea.
But there was always a difference, I suppose, although I couldn't see it-
For Nature cannot hate. It is, only is,
And my love for you
Was
In much the same way
It was, like a stone is, like the trees are, like the sunlight is.
But you weren't, aren't. You are flesh, and you
Are ruled by feeling and, sometimes, by fear.
I see you now and I know I should hate you
For when you walked away from me
You confirmed every fear I'd ever confided to you.
You took a larger chunk of my soul
Than I had even thought was left, just then,
And I mourned you
Like you had died.
I still remember.
I will always remember.
I sat on Rachel's broken armchair
And I cried for hours
Unable and unwilling to speak.
She stared at me, grief stricken with her own loss
But through it she stared at me as if witnessing a great mountain cave in
Or the sea
Suddenly boil.
She stared and stared, and I shook apart, pieces of me flying into all the dusty corners of that apartment.
I'm sure some are still there, sharp and jagged, ready to cut a foot or tear a hem.
I had thought myself incapable of grief like that anymore
And yet there I was, my soul rejecting itself like a bad transplant.
And yes, I was angry at you, so angry at your cowardice,
So maddened to be left again to try to make sense of a mess somebody else made with no warning
And no
Apology.
Weeks later I asked you why
In a last stand of sudden strength I accused you
And in refusing to tell me you confirmed my suspicions that it was
Your fear and not my wickedness
That lost me your love.
I saw you as such a meld of energies, fierce and delicate all at once
And moons and suns decorated
Some of the most beautiful art I've ever created.
That style died with you. You have the first and last of it.
Sometimes I wonder if you've burned my paintings, or else thrown them away. I don't know. I hope not.
If you ever truly look at me again
You will see that my hands have a white scarlike design of a sun on one thumb and a moon on the other
When I clasp my hands they form a perfect circle.
I couldn't sleep, you see, remembering how you wanted to erase me
Wanted me to erase you.
Everything important in my life leaves a mark
And even if you never speak to me again these hands will make beauty, will spread kindness, will carry loads
And they will bear your mark, for I was so changed by you and your sudden cruelty that for a long time
My own hands looked so... foreign
And would create nothing lovely, nor touch anything gently, nor hold anything fragile.
So much time has passed,
And yet when I saw you again, here, after all the ways my life has changed since then
I knew when you refused to look at me
That you did care
Would always care
Would always hate that you cared
And I gazed at you
Because although I can't say I love you as I did
I would be dishonest to say that I don't. I always will. I always did, really. I chose you. I saw your self loathing and the depth of your beauty and I chose you
To know
And I paid the price I sometimes pay to know people like you.
And I still consider it worth it.
I find I am still partial to your voice
To the lines of your face-
The face I longed to draw, because it reminded me, still does, of some mighty greek heroine.
I still admire how you move, and I still laugh at your jokes when I overhear them, although my face remains unchanged.
Sometimes I am brave enough to search for your gaze,
Sometimes I stumble on it suddenly and it immobilizes us both, and I look away, although I wish I could stare you down and force you to, instead.
Sometimes I think of doing something small and nice for you
Because the desire never really leaves me once I care for someone
But I can never discover something you wouldn't trace back
And I admit I fear your anger.
You told me to leave
And my pride will only let me try so much to give to someone who scorns my kindnesses.
And so there is this odd, unsettled, unresolved feeling I get
Walking these hallways.
I dread and crave
To walk around the corner and see you.
When I do my muscles thrill with fire and ice, ready for a fight, ready for a struggle for my life
And I placidly look your way, force my gaze to slide over you as if you are ordinary.
Know that you are not. That you never will be.
We are so similar, inside.
Reading your poems tonight I cried because I miss your friendship,
But mostly I cried because I understand you
The lost wolf, pretending to be lone
The lonely little girl with fangs.
I understand how much you must loathe yourself, how much feeling you must bury each day to be as you are
And
As all true friends do
I wish you wouldn't.--
I wish you well. I wish you happiness. I wish you all good things. And it makes me sad to see you in the hallways
Because I know that as long as you cannot forgive me for having loved you
You haven't forgiven yourself for being loved.

i always said i'd fight to the end for you,
that i would risk it all just to be at your side.
i'd help you achieve anything you wanted to do,
and that in me, you could always confide.
but every time something seems steady,
the ground starts to shake.
when the earth starts to split, i'm never ready
all i do is give, and all you do is take.
one minute you're attached to my hip,
the next i'm lucky if i even hear from you.
you've got me by the lip
and i'm at a loss, i don't know what to do.
i can't take this constant turbulence,
all i want is to know that we're okay.
your silence is merciless,
and fills me to the brim with dismay.
do you want me? do you not?
i wish you'd miss me.
i was everything you wanted, i thought.
is that suddenly not what you want it to be?
i clutch my head, trying to make some sense
but reality seems to run even further away.
all of the muscles in my body start to tense,
and the skies turn to a dismal gray.

Finally,
It happened.
Laying in bed
I can feel the emotional hangover coming on.
Words play on repeat in my head
Words like "one night stand,"
"Guilt," "Pain," "Solitude."
Over and over
Intermingled with the aftershocks
Of Mom's messages.

An emotional hangover.

Guess it's time to start
Picking up the ******* and broken things
Left over from the night before.

the first time you told me you were in love with me,
it was in a letter                                                           ­       (you
and you didn't dare even write the word.                        never were brave                                                                  ­                           enough
                                    ­                                                        to love me
                                                              ­                              openly.)
the first time you told me you were in love with me,
it was when you were leaving me for him.                      (i wasn't worth
                                                           ­                                  the price;
                                                          ­                                   you did a
                                                                ­                             cost-benefit analysis
you never left me, really.                                                   and cut your losses.)
he left and we returned to what we were before
him, as if we'd pressed pause                                                  
if i closed my eyes i could almost believe
                                                            it would be okay
                                                            we were still glowing-gold
                                                                ­                             and perfect.
but instead of the synchronicity,
some unnameable tension, the jarring sensation
that something in us was out of alignment.                     (i asked you to                                                                  ­                            wait:
                                                         ­                                    give me time,
                                                                ­                             some days more to                                                                  ­                            play pretend.)
the first time you told me you weren't in love with me
was just after you told me you would have married me
                                                           would have run away with me
                                                              ­                               (as if i weren't the
                                                                ­                             teenager, here. as if                                                                  ­                            it were my fault
                                                           ­                                  for not being selfish
the heartbreak, the loss of ignorance                                and asking you to.)
was what brought us back in sync. you wrote once
about the end, the devastation that the city of us
was victim to.                                                              ­        (we're finding                                                                  ­                            that the damage is
                                                              ­                               less like an explosion
                                                       ­                                      and more like an
                                                              ­                               earthquake:                                                                  ­                            broken glass,                                                                  ­                            aftershocks, and
the first time i told you i wasn't in love with you             cracks in the
anymore,                                                        ­                     foundation)

i didn't know why, hadn't noticed the cracks in the pavement;
                                                       ­    i had only just started to see
                                                             ­                                the shards of glass.

you kissed me ten days ago, and said you didn't know why
it didn't feel wrong, why it didn't feel like cheating.
it's starting over again, i told you. the glass is being swept up,
our pieces falling back into place.                                    (it's the natural                                                                  ­                           order for us;
                                                             ­                               this, darling, our                                                                  ­                           effortless cohesion,                                                                  ­                           will always
                                                                ­                            rebuild the city.)

He gave me an earthquake
that shook me to the core,
but when he left,
all I had were the aftershocks.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you

I missed the feeling of your **** between

my lips

and your ***

when it drips

down my chest

and my thighs, pressed tight

are still slippery on the inside.

I’m an eel moving

with the pull of your current.

I’m a siren

singing full volume in the desert.

I want your elixir

your kingdom ***

in the bedroom,

but you’re not dreaming.

Late night snacking

on this *****

you’ve got a craving

and my hips

won’t quit

until you’re shaking

reeling

from the thrill of it.

Daddy goes down,

but his last call doesn’t come til’ sun up.

Shape me and mold me

every color of

your ****** deviancy.

I’m not a cure,

but I’m fixing

to explore the furthest reaches of your boundaries

of this bed

of your – flexed fingertips.

I’ll wake you with my mouth

if you put me to bed with yours.

I’m pleased to please you,

sweet release in these sheets,

tangled up inside me.

Your aftershocks got me shook.

To the boy with the eyes,

the color of the sea –

I fell into more than your bed.

Her breath catches. she turns over. it doesn't matter, no matter what she does, she won't sleep. that itch is there.
she lies on the flat of her back, staring at the colours swirling on the ceiling with the shadows dancing with them. she starts thinking about him again. the way his hair curls at the end, the way it moves when the wind blows around, the way his face scrunches up in amusement, the way he holds himself, how he leans in when he speaks, his lips, his face, his eyes...she lets her mind wander...aswell as her hand...
her breath catches again, but for an entirely different reason.
setting a steady pace she drives herself insane, physically with resistance and mentally with reminders of who she can't have.
two years gone and she still can't stop. she loves him. everything about him, the air around him, even. she adores him and it's killing her.
her legs widen to accomadate her rising arousal, a low moan grows in the back of her throat, pushing her forward making her desire vocal, unlike the love that has crushed her heart over and over, again and again, she can't stand it anymore.
her speed increases and she breaks a sweat. she's crying now, thinking about the rehashed fantasy she built in her brain. how she'd loose herself to him, give him eveything, let him take her to places shes never been before. She cries because she knows it'll never be so, all she'll have is her own little bed and her own hand for company, no strong arms to hold her as she falls asleep, no sweet lips to kiss goodnight, no growing passion pushing into her ever so warmly.
suddenly she bucks, screams out in pain and passion, and curls in a ball to live through the aftershocks and the screaming agony her heart holds, she pretends he's holding her and slowly falls asleep.

With an Earthquake,
the deadliest moment is not during.
It's the aftershocks.
Rocking those weakened foundations
to rubble.

The same is said of Love.
No matter how shaky
or rough.
When the motion stops moving
that's when truly life is tough.

A rose of glassblowing transparency...
air-born as the color eyes see
when closed to the sun.
Petals pressed open shatter in place...
as red silk intermingled.
The color of passion and alarm,
that an earth transpires--rose...
occasioned by that transpiration.
Put to amnesiac white wings--
aftershocks of contrast...as blood to
snow, and all its angels.

Every story I write
has a quiet boy who loves words
and a girl he doesn’t quite understand.
She has a laugh that ricochets
and she makes the quiet boy smile.
She looks like algebra but is more like calculus.
She is deceptively hard to solve.
You don’t see her fault lines until you think you already know her,
but her plate tectonics only cause aftershocks,
never full earthquakes.

I always thought she was me,
always thought I wanted to be
that kind of captivating.
Enough to make the quiet boy happy.
But then I met you
and your quarter moon smile.

I always thought the girl was from some coast
but the first time I saw you in a bikini
I realized you don’t have to be from California
to have drops of seawater glow like individual suns on your skin.
I want you to drip dry
on my clothesline arms.
I’ll hold you up to the sunlight,
let your bare legs dangle in the wind.
I want to straddle your fault lines
and hold you through the tremors.

I always thought I wanted the spotlight
but I’m content
being the quiet one beside you.
I thought I loved the boy who loved words
and I wanted to be enough to inspire him to write
but you make me want to get published just to share you
with the world because
something so beautiful should not be kept secret.
You said you wanted to make the history books
and you will, but for now
I hope my poems are enough.
You are rainy day inspiration.
I thought I was the girl
but it turns out I’m just a quiet boy
who needed someone to
inspire me.

my bedroom carries the headiness of stale captivity. the teeth of a years old trap are gathering debris where they’ve gnashed on my leg. my loved ones come to relieve me of my suffering.

the gentle winds bring me dead leaves in layers of red, yellow, brown and the occasional purple. “look at how they’ve changed,” the winds say. “things can change for you, too.” i brush them away. indignant, the winds whip dust and pebbles that become bullets at the right speed, threatening tornadoes that will never come. i wait until their lungs tire.

the cleansing rains rinse the matted blood from my wound and refresh my hot, mangled skin. “doesn’t that feel great?” the rains say. “you can feel like this all the time if you put in a little effort.” i dry myself down. angered, the rains disease the trap with rust and drench me until my bones attempt to float away, threatening tsunamis that will never come. i wait until the water recedes.

the giving earth sprouts a flower in the corner of my bedroom. “life is still growing, waiting for you,” the earth says. “you just have to come to meet it.” it’s a beautiful reprieve for my senses, i almost go to pluck it. as i come to realize my motions, my heart drops to an unknown place away from my chest. i hesitate. furious, the earth wilts the flower until it blends in with the rest of my bedroom. it shakes the ground violently, deepening the pain of the metal in my flesh. it delivered on earthquakes but threatened no aftershocks.

the lively sun dries me of the failures of the wind and rain and earth. the sun says nothing. i make no effort to repay its warmth. it reciprocates that lack of effort.

i have exhausted the affections of the elements, and in their abandonment now rests a deep stillness that urges me to look around.

over time, i have accumulated the barest of pleasures — some unread books, some unplayed records, some small tokens of loves long gone — that mimic a home, but bring you no closer to what that is supposed to feel like.

the odor in here is disgusting. unsophisticated in my aching, i wish for a sweet-scented breeze, or a balmy rain, or a fragrant flower.

or maybe i will just order a scented candle.

I.
You do not have to speak to your ****** again as long as
time lasts,
probably.

II.
You are
legitimately safe now.

III.
You have never felt so jumpy.

I wonder about the eyes and the lips.
If they would have held a reflection of yours.
Maybe the hair was the same texture,
a replica of your youth
which you have lost.
Would you have changed your mind?
If you had seen the fingers and toes,
a perfect count of ten,
and the cream of it's alabaster hands.
Sometimes I wish there were small words
to call my name,
and sometimes I am glad
for your barren womb
for I know of your temptations and weakness
the dust in your bones
as your young body ages beyond
reasonable years.
For the smoke was toxic in your nostrils,
did a bundle of Jefferson's
burn a hole in your pocket?
Only virgins wear white on their wedding day,
was your a dusty beige
clashing with the grey tux
of a criminal?
A man who has a title branded on his
filthy hands, that he touched that girl with,
til death
do you part?
How much justice did you desire for those fingers
after they were clasped around your thick neck?
So I pray your blood keeps pumping and your
brain still buzzes
after every hit,
and I pray the fog clears before your checks don't
and maybe you will extinguish the flames
before your lungs give out
just like your knees did that day.
They ignore your dodgy glances to the side,
your hands, aftershocks of the quaking nerves inside you.
They see past your sudden skeletal visage
and the grey tint in your cheeks
like you have sat on a shelf, sagging and
collecting particles.
But I taste your abuse,
every flavor of it.
As long as you live through your high,
you wont have face your low.
We are thankful everyday
for your blessing
of infertility.

Piercing sounds like the night howls of red foxes
where do the screams come from
echoing on the rooftops of the ghetto
how do we make them stop.

Where do the screams come from
more stunning than suicidal bombing blasts
how do we make them stop.
Turn tears into children's laughter.

More stunning than suicidal bombing blasts
eyes fixed - stand still. Until realisation hits
Turn tears into children's laughter
it makes more sense.

Eyes fixed - stand still. Until realisation hits
blocks crumbling, bare foot on concrete rubble
it makes no sense.
Fear clings to the air, casts shadows like rain clouds

blocks crumbling - bare foot on concrete rubble
splitting skin on rock, struggling to free them.
Fear clings to the air, casts shadows like rain clouds
Waiting for the raindrops.

The aftershocks.

after tastes like aftershocks,
pineapple lips and papaya tongue.
sunshine sloshing
all over us like liquor and
your hair so like shale
soaking beneath the sun.
Artemis is goddess of the moon:
where did you think lunar witches came from?
xanax bar after xanax bar
laid upon the vanity, crushed
and powdered up, snowdrifts
in blue and white.
oranges and blueberries and mango
in your lap, juice
across your thighs and earth in your mouth.

the lyrics intimate, me inside recognized,
and I find it hard to believe,
not to recall my chest actual
aching from a lost love, a busted
heart,that my family physician told
me not a thing  to be done, and time
the only known cure and that was
only twenty five years,
a just short “long time ago”

but there is no such a thing as time
when the wounded heart is pierced fierce, there is no round the bend visible to tell
you, love will come again; and you’re so
cautious,  won’t trust, to open, but irony it’s
the only way to find it one mo’ time, to
give yourself up in whole, not just parts,
and you “discover” writing poetry helps,
and a new life long habit is forming that is a kind of meds that you disburse to oneself

later be
this song below, Bonnie Raitt
makes you ache with her rendition
keeping no secret she’s been there truly

used to look to ascribe fault, but learned,
t’was a time waster, more accurate, each
of us had our own fault lines, dormant,
till not, and when the lines touched and connect, it was an earthquake off the scale,
and the tremors just keep on coming

but the chest ache was so intense, close
my eyes, and relive it,  and makes me
feel kinder, more human, less angry? more forgiving cause there is no mark of Cain
on someone’s forehead to indicate that
one is suffering the aftermath, the aftershocks, of this loss, so be patient
when encountering a human who sighs
out loud often, as often as as
every breath

listen to the song, it will untie your chords,
maybe making some memories resurface,
for better as it is part of writing
only love poetry

your eyes send signals forecasting a tremor.
so i pull you close and kiss the cracks
on your parting lips tonight.
broken glass and land slides,
tidal waves and ruined city,
you taste like catastrophe
waiting for a trigger.
but no, i am not complaining.
your mood may change like tectonic plates,
drift apart and rearrange
but never will i fear
your unpredictable seismic waves.
for this is a part of you
i have accepted long before
my heart began beating your name.
you may shake my world to pieces,
rive it with aftershocks and sinkholes,
but for now let's turn off the lights.
let me lull your troubled fault lines.

Sun slowly peeps
sunbeams, yet to waken
sleepy eyes, minds

sky is gray this morning
several hours past a tremor

no wind to stir action
bamboos, fruit trees
are stilled

currently
awaiting movements
worse than 5.4
it's crazier,
awaiting aftershocks...



Sally

Copyright May 26, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

Afterthought
Aftershocks
I am not.
Nevermore
Neverever
No I'm not.
Leftovers
Left brained
No more.

Slowly, slowly pull me apart
And put me in a stew.

The shockwave hits your throat
so fierce, it forces your own voice
from your own body.
The momentum it contains, unconstrained
by your silent spectre
rushes forward like thunder
into the levee of your knees, and strikes
the way lightning fells trees.
You're nothing but lymphnodes, flood
and weight, now.
The rest, like last night's dream
washing away the moment before you remember.
The aftershocks ripple like echoes,
capsaicin in the nerves
of all your timber limbs
dismantled and thrown to the horizon.
You hover above
what it felt like
to exist.
It rests on the tip of your tongue, a moment.
Nobody really knows the difference between
a moment and eternity.
Below the folds of water, sweat and skin
the ground is offering whispers
bubbling soggy underfoot.
They might be yours.
They say it comes from the ground up
Channels reaching channels to connect
in a flash
a crack
again
to body
even
if only
a moment.

A chronic disharmony
clutching at the skull inside my flesh and the stomach unfurling in a perfect illusionary storm

sometimes i would wonder if i would see them in the street or what they would say about me and gasp in pain as the tyrants who lived in my belly chuckled at the residual aftershocks from an event that passed , at the height of it's rule , just over a year ago.

slowly with each breath i breathe i bring myself to a place of still resourcefulness
to react to that situation in a way that does not impale my sense of self nor rob me of my right to be
and that is my freeness
that only I can bestow unto me.

i know that i am how i am because of my eyes
and what they are saying.
dark, they are, stretched and translucent --
my blues are pulsing in and out of greens
and greys
my eyes, they droop wistfully, as if
to say "i am alone, all alone here, only i know what this is and will be"

fingertips. to fingertips.
i move my face in closer, so slowly and slowly still,
and i exhale.
my lips are dry and flaking, sliding
over hostile teeth and stinging jaw.
that bone whose vibrations claw back, back into my head, the
sharp hurt, the crash, the dull aftershocks. and i keep moving.
ignoring the animal groan of my heart, my
quickening heart, rattling frantically round my
ribcage, looking for a way
(any way, please, any way at all)
to get outside. it is smothering in
this dank and musty room. my

ribs scream shrilly to my spine, "forget!"
forget all it knows
especially this --

and my eyes. black and cavernous.
my sad eyes.
too weary, too hopeless, to do anything but
wilt
shrivel and
stare in disappointment.