"geographies" poems
As a child, I used to cut
apart maps of America,
separate the states and
put them back together
in strange geographies:
Kansas against Maine,
fling the Dakotas as far
away from each other
as they could go, press
New Mexico against the
breast of South Carolina.
I tucked tiny Rhode Island
into the palm of Michigan,
gave Nebraska a seaside.
I realize now the folly
in these stately migrations:
I never thought I’d wish
I could drive across the
border of Alabama into
Oregon’s deep woods.
Jan 13, 2012
Jan 13, 2012 at 2:37 PM UTC
They are silent and beautiful,
gorgeous in in the white halo,
cemented in a beautiful terrazzo,
baring the names of fallen soldiers,
the European soldiers that fell in Wars;
second and first and the heinous silent wars,
i hope this is why they have a proverb; white sepulchre,
only baring the white dead, only chiefs but no dead Indian.
Common wealth graveyards are all over in Africa,
in India , panama , Latin America and europe,
the active fronts in which the allies fought ******
they are beautifully placed in silently posh areas,
in langata when in Nairobi, in Mbaraki when in Mombasa,
in Matisi when in Kenya, In Namusungui when in Lodwar,
They bear horizontal silence with white names engraved
on their beautiful face shouting the glory of European empires,
which provoked the evil sense in the heart of the king's horseman
in Kenya, in the city of Nairobi, to steal the graveyard lands,
he made them his urban home with an uppish courtyard,
for him the dead white neighbours are better than in-corruption.
I walk around the commonwealth graveyards,
in the all quarters of erstwhile British empire,
looking for the names of African soldiers ,
who died in thousands fighting for the queen
the royal bloodied woman of England;Elizabeth,
Looking for the sons of Ethiopia who stood with
the second duce Benito son of Mussolini,
fighting for Hitler,for Shintos in the European war,
i have seen no name of any African,
I have not seen Wandabwa wa masibo,
who was conscripted into the first world war,
Along with his father Biket wa Khayongo,
Biket back after seven years in 1918,
carrying Wandabwa's Belt,
Wandabwa died in the field,
Where was he buried, he is nowhere
Not anywhere among the soldiers in cemeteries,
I have not seen Nasong'o wa Khayongo,
who was conscripted in 1940,
to fight against ******
he was conscripted on his nuptial evening,
even before he had had the first ***
with his new wife, he went away crying,
he never came back, his name is nowhere in the graves
the commonwealth graves that bare names of the fallen,
Fallen soldiers, but they all bare white names in the black world.
you come to Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Malagasy,Egypt,
whatever the geographies of Africa, and you keep keen,
you hear someone is called Mr. Keya, or Madam Keya,
or you come to Bungoma county of Kenya,
you meet a man that is of the circumcision age group,
Known as Bakikwameti Keya, Bakinyikewi Musolini,
Keya is subverted sound for Kings african rivals; KAR
the African sound for KAR is Keya,
in reference to mass conscription of Africans
into the KAR, to fight ******
A child born during that time is Keya,
A man circumcised during the time
is in the age group of Keya,
A simple lesson in regard to our people,
taken away to fight the colonial power
and left to died and rot away in the bush
with a simple courtesy for ceremonial burial,
that come along with the death of soldiers,
who passed away in the battle field.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC
I happen to live in Central Indian-
Forests, I collect wood and honey
And have no idea about English woods
And Manchester clothes, I belong
To the soil, I’m anti national?
I live on concessions, subsidies
And support, And You call me-
‘Dark skinned untouchable’; today
I don’t have bells over my neck
I’m proud of me, I’m anti national?
I always spoke of empowerment,
Marx and Che run my blood and
I’m a utopian reality to you
But you cannot ignore my voice
I’m not outdated, I’m anti national?
I believe in ‘being human’ above all-
Traits, I live beyond geographies
And I cannot stand war and bloodshed
You brand me as an activist, I’m
Just humane, I’m anti national?
I do not belong to the 80% of our
Country’s population, but I’m as
Much a patriot as you, My God
Is same as yours, How am I an
Alien? I’m anti national?
I don’t believe in the power and safety
You claim with a nuclear reaction.
I see only explosions and devastation
I want my children to be safe, I love
The world, I’m anti national?
I don’t like vegetables, I eat meat-
Since birth. I will not force-feed you,
I respect your choice and I expect you
To be tolerant to what I cook-
At my home, I’m anti national?
I’m not Pakistani but I love them
As much I love an American or an
European. After all, we share
Our borders. I want to settle all
Disputes, I’m anti national?
I married a man outside my tribe,
Love didn’t notice his 'official tribe',
Our children are a mixed tribe
And we celebrate life as it is,
We’re human-tribe, I’m anti national?
I stand with them with rainbow flags,
They deserve justice as much as you
And me. Give me one valid reason to
Call them unnatural? I want S377
To be scrapped, I’m anti national?
I celebrate my country’s diversity,
I don’t need your certificate to prove
My patriotism! This is India, I stand
With my constitution and its democracy
And I give a **** about what you think!
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 9:21 AM UTC
*i was eating a pepperoni pizza today,
and took a salty tongue into the night,
£270 on my bank account - great stuff -
took five quid out, felt like buying four
oranjeboom reds at 8.5% each,
instead bought two, and
perrier carbonated glass-bottled water...
god the thirst in this cement sahara...*
the best transition accompanying drinking
and listening to music comes
from the heights of reggae to creedence clearwater
revival... no, not the eagle, not Leonard the skin-head
with an 'ard on... creedence... lebowski who
was bukowski's posthumous alter-ego...
so i did a galileo while drinking,
the light on my side-table by the bed light
glowed, put my sunglasses on...
the stars disappeared and the planets appeared...
oddly enough, as is usual the case of
counter-intuitive matters when looking
at astronomical geographies...
mars far left... venus in the middle,
and jupiter the biggest and therefore the brightest
far right...
i worked it out against linear tactics...
the distance of the earth from venus doesn't
make a difference with the distance from mars,
but the distance of mars from jupiter is greater,
see you in 100 years to prove the point
and whether it matches up to HARD, NECESSARY,
PROOFS... LIKE MAINTENANCE ***
******* a girl with a really really exaggerated
libido, having to wear a ****** while she was
on her period, in the toilet and she bewildered
saying: 'most guys don't dig the female bits...'
hell... i'd do necrophilia...
shame the relationship turned to a sour toast with her,
shame, really... really really.
oh yeah, after smashing that £600 martin & co.
guitar to celebrate valentines day
(chłopiec z gitarą był by dla mnie parą
my grandmother used to sing...
well... sorry to disappoint,
i had her rastafarian shoelaces for
a pin-up belt to walk and play, or simply
stand still and note string twangs...
była giiitara... ni ma giiitary...)
and bought myself a drum-kit:
well... just my finger-drumming antics
on my legs;
or as a wise man said: **** her, leave the rest
for a backward trek into life
without maps but only premonitions.
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 8:27 PM UTC
I had a dream once
Circular in reason
Teasing me
Bruised and beaten
Sleeping
I wandered angelic
Dorothy and Alice
Through nightmare geographies
Landscapes cruel, beautiful
And strange
Talking crows
Enveloped my eyes
A crown of pearlescent feathers
Obscuring my vision and yet
I saw
A waterfall of tears
A guru on a lotus
He whispered
Whiskey breath and sleepy eyed
A hep cat hipster in hemp cap
Gin and tonic gripped
Like a life preserver
“All you need is love”
And I wandered
Lost
Aug 22, 2014
Aug 22, 2014 at 11:38 PM UTC
I want you
to be
the only
one
I’ll
ever
fall in love with.
The only one
to know
my
latitudes
and longitudes.
To memorize
my degrees
and geographies.
To
bask near
my
equator.
To
mark
courses
and
journeys
across
my skin
like ships
with sails
made of
your hopes – my love – our dreams.
I want you to
be my North star.
My guiding
force
to see me
safely to
your shores.
I want you
to never
let go.
Like the moon
as the
sun rises
in the
East.
I want
to be
your
Compass Rose.
To be there
when
you loose
direction.
To be
your
anchor.
Your
starting point.
To be something
beautiful
when
the world
has gone
dark and ugly.
Because
you are
all
that
matters.
You are my
Earth.
My map of my world.
The sun I revolve around.
My moon and the stars my fingers trace in the night sky.
The one I love.
And will always love.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 2:57 AM UTC
*I own a library of thoughts in my eyes
With your eyes alone.
There is no other way to know you,
But to compile and compress it deep
Within my heart,
To flourish inwardly, to perish,
And to strive for
The academic excellence of greater love
And be the scholarly fool
Of your divine complexities.
What can I say? I love your Astronomies,
Philosophies and Geographies. I love you
To the fact, to the fiction and back,
To the histories and the mysteries.
I can't unstudy your laughter.
I am ignorant to your full allure.
Love, I only love you, your pretty eyes,
Because they close and reopen,
Capture and imagine,
They wander and they wonder,
And such is the way of life.*
© 2015 J.S.P.
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 1:54 PM UTC
autumn comes with drooping arms
promises of stripped branches
shapes confetti & a quilt
rests on a carpet of dewdrops
bubbles melt with the dawn
drifting on currents
air carries leaves
another renewal
rains decompose browns, yellows, reds
winter greens sprout
soil fed & energised
vegetable flowers form
subtler seasons
easier sleeping, slower awakenings
leaves raked & piled
hot gone days disposed.
frost arrives in certain geographies
red replaces white
the tank is full & burners cleaned
warming gas is very close
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 8:34 PM UTC
in this between-time
after the day-work
before a partying-night
outside in the city-street
I window-stand
people pass
a rich-day collecting
the determination of things
that future-spell so
I am replete with possibility
conclusions safely-stored
filed-finally I fill
with you-thoughts
board-pinned your photo
to turn to but I daren’t
eyes-shut instead . . .
and there you are
only more so as this portrait
- an august-glorious day
garden-full with butterflies
the sea-sound distant-sounding
only more so -
this portrait expands
to show all your sudden-self
a pause in twilight-termoil
I grapple – should I
let this brown-inked pen
flow inscribe tell and paper-paint
knowing full-well you favour words
that do not spell out what’s in store
when the bedroom door
closes-shut on poets’ licence?
so being careful not to press
passion’s path beyond the bounds
of touching-tender kissing-close
when once I would barely-break-step
to think of not exposing such
geographies of gracefulness
unclothed revealed to savour-so
the breath-shortening rise
the eye-closing slow-release:
please know to write so
brought you close
when you were not . . .
my dear-joy
I still my pen
hold thoughts in check
trance-like knowing now
(and conscious now)
of other ways
to tell-out spell-out
characters desire-dense
ambiguity-rich
flavoured-full
beyond-beyondness
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 4:44 AM UTC
Some of you make it look
So effortless.
Love, I mean
In all different geographies.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 9:11 PM UTC
a man with his
heaviness weighs the
masculine waters
be like stone
its depth of concentration
wherefore birds lose
sight of their rapt flight
above waters stills a man
whose mirror is not of a mirage
but a man flat against the seductive rose
to hold his breath
and rain's supreme bullet
are but simplistic maze
again the stone cannot reveal
the man in his proud geographies —
such trouble of mortality
begins, a wrest of bones, the volcano defined by such earthenware
whose metaphysics unalphabeted
like fellows going back to god's arms
sitting well with
red roses.
Dec 20, 2015
Dec 20, 2015 at 9:58 AM UTC
says the neon sign gleamed,
refracted on your face
that sullen evening – I do not have
many nights to remember. If from a high
place I imagine you flailing,
what would call you back? What for?
You, coming toward the light – the subservience
of the next face
chauffeurs us. Unfazed, will me to pretend,
if not, then carry on the next meeting.
I will whisper to myself: this is how I sustain beatings
You have no use for poems.
Neither do I. You, dressed in your best,
I, submission refined by sartorial. Notice how my hand
continues to displace geographies. The thinning
horizon of a candle, almost a faultline.
Slumped on your back as if comfort were a burden
to say: keep this time together with its fever. These often times
the last moments seal them shut out of histories.
When we came into,
I had a falling out – there is a straight line we could
run into and this instance might enervate
into a single drop of honey into your mouth. I await that
prophecy like it was the final thing before I resign
to incompleteness. Delicate essence
the neon sign says, glaring through the
glib downpour outside. You laughed at our
unpreparedness, but the readiness that was obligation when
separate had no omen of rain.
I am watching myself again. Everything was slanted
by rain as the living err me. Even when together,
feels like emancipation. Going disparate places.
Outside it continues to rain. You asked if this rain washed
this city whole and gave it a new name, would I still remember.
It is June from time since then, the skies still attentive.
I will not come out until it rains.
Jun 1, 2016
Jun 1, 2016 at 5:03 AM UTC
treading masterfully this autumn-long road where
at the end of first light so begins your fragile darkness.
i know not where you wait for me as birds in all geographies
land without further recall; as though by saying that the Summer
has dealt its cards and the serrated grass folds when it thinks
the rain to be everywhere descending, falling as lithely as a lover
whose cockeyed miracle first has meted out a singular trapping fate
of hands that interlock to no retreat.
i know not the silence of the Earth when all is caliginously
intact without knowing. but then should you return, your eyes
will light all the lamps awaiting your shuddering step and fruition
us both the ineffable rendering me forever the life of roses.
( i do not know which gravitates me back to where we
first saw each other; only something in me does not think
but is constantly supremed by feelingfulness when it is not
the wind but your breath not in the garden of joys but in the exuberance
of all that is made immense in me by your eyes,
when it is not the taut clamp of the sea at bay
but the island of your hands clutching the penumbra of my heart,
shattering the shadow and letting loose a sprightly dove
here and a hummingbird there)
Jan 16, 2016
Jan 16, 2016 at 3:57 AM UTC
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Jan 11, 2017
Jan 11, 2017 at 9:33 PM UTC
After the last cottage receded I pulled out from the green grasses
Nothing was bothering my coffee Only getting colder like my heart’s paces
The one sight pricking the back of my eyes
Was of the person waving byes
Who wasn’t a friend of mine but someone else’s
They destined me the business You bolstered me then
Said just regularly get mounted On the commissioned rails
We’ll always be your men
If only you were now to witness Me when I have ran insane
As the flanging and clanking Enough of it I've had
Is only commuting me Into a division alien
And still looking out Through a misty and blue shaded pane
About to lose the bout I don’t like being alone in the journey, Ben.
Should we buy this book Ben? Jack you should read diaries and biographies
Momentarily I was with my colleagues Back in those cubic topographies
But Jack and Ben were just their namesakes Passengers as I crossed these depressive geographies
Only till pulling me where don’t know a four year old voiced Uncle will you please give me those toffees?
I candidly kept smiling as went back the kid
Of course kids don’t understand what I hid
They don’t see whether it’s December or May
They just see the tree in a different way
Anyway had to be at the corporation Couldn’t get offstage
Reaching the concerned documentation I saw the cover page
All true but my valid recognition It read I had chores of a big sage
It was beyond my cerebration Oh! Or my compatriots gave the proposition
And let me have the advantage!
You are letting me perform at a higher rank You set me sail to a farther bank
It seems I am not alone on this voyage You are with me as a special entourage
I was only being disjunctive
For I was looking with a different perspective
Knowing friends are with you in any of your tourney
I am certainly not alone in this journey
Mar 13, 2017
Mar 13, 2017 at 3:16 AM UTC
You hold my hand
like a cartographer;
latitude and longitude,
coordinates of our life,
discrete geographies
mapped together—
discrete geographies,
coordinates of our life,
latitude and longitude:
like a cartographer
you hold my hand.
Nov 10, 2016
Nov 10, 2016 at 9:13 AM UTC
I.
I trace you against
the skull
with the old photograph of
age 8 and 7
aloft and angling down some stage, or performance
in
this perforated dome I call home
trace you against
the map impaled to the wall
and locate you amongst the
geographies and heed
its brash distance
shake out its potency
like how my grandfather murders
the brief matchlight
I trace the trajectory
will not pivot to return
or scope rescue
none like this force,
the insufficiency of maps,
the harsh terror of adoration when
like a fruit ripened
will fall to the hand waiting
underneath
II.
Propel me to where it counts
into the masses transit-worn,
shorn out of the flyblown-dry in amazement
or immense performance of breaking
outside the window
when it rains forever
to Icarus in his blunder,
from the dilated pupil of my father while
watching television
from point-break of time
and sense when nothing made one kind word
as salvation
out of the tangle of clouds,
the skytilt angle where heaven might topple
at one point to scatter my reckoning of a god
from your place of interval
III.
space – where you will it,
when the night shining in,
far are the noctilucent skies
place me in the soft ease of beds when
burial is ideal
make me ****** than light at first glance
or water upon initial drop
and then in space, where you will it,
promise-tender, drunk in shy altitudes,
this most biddable machine will spread to make way
for weight giving in
to assume so small a drop of the pin in the ocean
or to cannonball – fitting chamber of a gun,
swimming in a mess of no restrictions,
prepared, contained to carve deep
in the night writhing in with him
with no need of hands to break point.
May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016 at 12:54 AM UTC
A poet's mind
is a whole different world
An ocean of myriad philosophies
A door to world's unseen geographies
This door is sometimes better left locked
For the things you might discover
are bound to leave you shocked.
But for the ones who dare
the key is the heart,
And mind you, they are rare,
For they understand;
To get the key
One must be as crazy as the poet,
If not more.
Jan 23, 2020
Jan 23, 2020 at 9:54 AM UTC
The majestic days of Czars and Sultans
with their immaculate royalty
and those of Barons and Khans
brimming with stainless primacy
have long since gone.
All their embellished repositories
of capital, jewelry and gallant armies
stand looted, ravaged and plundered.
The struggling proletariat of those times
with their humdrum lives, rife with strife
have also bitten the dust
expired, forgotten, crumbled
since days beyond recall.
Now we, the successors and heirlooms
live on with kindred joys and glooms
as communities, creeds and nationalities
recklessly defending close-held foxy illusions
of defunct oneness or mythical deities.
The more tolerant among us even feel dignity
in misplaced, romantic nationalism(s)
and mostly off-the-mark, drifting democracies.
❋
But this time or that
summate a few more gimmicks or subtract,
all we have gifted ourselves
are some arbitrary lines on the map
slashing the earth to pieces
then claiming its wiggly, volcanic geographies
as slices of ever-dodging Elysium
enshrined in fragile master-bluffs
of precarious, cut-throat politics.
Feb 7, 2020
Feb 7, 2020 at 10:30 AM UTC
The wind knows
the rustle of the oak boughs,
the susurrus of the prairie grass,
the fragrance of the wildflowers,
the stillness at the edge of the lagoon.
The wind knows
the trilling of the warblers flitting through the tallgrass,
this flat and endless expanse of verdant, sun-bathed flora,
this kingdom of wide-open spaces, the big empty,
these geographies that define us, within and without.
Sep 5, 2019
Sep 5, 2019 at 1:25 AM UTC
just as a painted landscape, dimension and depth disappear
before my eyes, and like the slide of turpentine,
movement slowly ceases 'till the fragrant bead dissolves
into the tightly woven weaves. visible no more,
the aroma remains profound, as though there shall be no end.
i can't seem to find the mark where preservation placed its hold,
a naive attempt at keeping age so young.
a barrier between the world of quickly passing glances
with ever changing tastes, and eyes of failing foresight
which cannot find their pace.
composed of sacred balance, aesthetics defined
by what we can not know, sable and squirrel,
or some other mammalian hair, delicately define the strokes
that hold impossibly stable forms. they remain nothing more
than the anticipation of change.
i hold dearly their ideals set before me.
worlds not yet conceived, sonnets of they eye.
immaculate conception of material, geographies of a mind;
i know to kneel and weep. i know their end is near,
while framed and draped in hammered sheets of gold.
unfurling cracks appear, sounding cries for renewed youth.
howling dearly to hide their hidden truths.
i listen within earshot, the call of dying lies
and feel no remorse. no guilt. no sympathy. their backgrounds protrude abruptly, like mountains from the sea.
although, their time is not like mountains or
the falling and rising seas. they remain only for our pleasure
and contemplation, when money and interest build into cacophony. confusing onlookers to believe a misplaced value, not an artists intention, to become only what man makes their purpose.
Nov 22, 2017
Nov 22, 2017 at 11:19 AM UTC