"locusts" poems
i’ll say it again. this is the only
time i write with music. listen now and i’ll spin
the wheel again, an ocean is no excuse for a tipped balance. trace
origins back to சாதம், வீடு, பறவை. tip-toe to reach the top half of the
stove, where the stories and the music are, but hand on head, not quite there yet. in the meantime, i hope my hands become as fire-glazed as yours one day. listen now and i’ll tell you how to live a life in compromises. here, come help me with my சாறி, no, i don’t have flowers for your hair, because there are are two different languages
in this house. inhale savory vowels and lives rolled into the sun, exhale தயிர் without salt, a theoretical childhood, heart with
half the guilt. listen now for something i told my அம்மா:
travel eight thousand miles by foot and open one eye,
make a phone call and taste dew- glittering நெய்
தோசை. listen now for a final time. when
there are not enough unfurled petals of
this world, look up and find the
பௌர்ணமி in a hidden
corner of your heart.
blink once to skip time
zones, twice to remember the
promise of a thousand locusts and monsoon rain.
Jul 28, 2018
Jul 28, 2018 at 1:28 PM UTC
Home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place.
I hate
how loud I must barely scream so that people can see my face:
I am dark
and this is a time of shadows.
Sometimes what worries me most about us
is not that we are forced to carry guns and **** our own mothers
is not that we are pulled from our classrooms back into our homesteads
is not that some of our leaders feast while we become skinny UNICEF models
is not that if only one molecule of my DNA was different I could have lived without ever knowing how to read even a single word
is not even that the smallest of things can wipe out entire villages in an instant-
mosquitoes, viruses, locusts; slave ships.
Sometimes what worries me most is that
my headphones carry more sounds of strange places
than my heart will ever know- that not even my brothers and sisters
sold off to those strange places ever knew, as their children are hung off
the trees of Jim Crow and we call them strange fruit, and that
maybe our first president didn't marry a white lady; the white lady might have married him.
Sometimes what worries me most is that for just over eighteen years
of seeing thinking feeling breathing being I couldn't
have ever told you what Africa meant to me past the occasional 'dumela'
to my mother's mother but never, never did I know or now know or will know my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother
because
she can't fit inside the cellular America that I hold in my palm.
And this is why they call us lost.
Because home is where the heart is but the heart is a broken place.
One time, my five year old cousin said matter-of-factly
that black is ugly. In my Primary School days
everyone said I should stay out of the sun lest I get darker.
But
I'm here to tell you that I don't even bother wearing a sun-hat anymore.
I'm here to tell you that I don't cut my hair because to do so would feel like oppression.
I'm here to tell you how vivid and lovely and blessed I do feel to have been born in broken-heart home because at least it has soul.
I'm here to tell you that, yes, I do remember
that time when the whole world knew what to do about ****** and Bin Laden but never could get round to talking about Cecil John Rhodes.
I'm here to tell you that
Today, that conversation starts with a toppled statue.
Today, that conversation starts with my voice.
Today, this conversation starts with a poem which proclaims-
child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am, child I am-
that this is my day. This is my day.
The Day of the African Child.
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 1:38 PM UTC
the dark approaches as if it is an ineluctable storm
created by thoughts falling like dominoes
or explodes into existence in a breath
detonated by a word innocently spoken
an eclipse constructed of your fears
like locusts eating all the light
with hooks and claws they grasp the air
pulling it up from your lungs
fighting blind against attacks from every side
weapons fall from your trembling grasp
I still see you dimly, enveloped in despair
you no longer see me at all
I have become a phantom, intangible
dispersed into powerless anguish by your terror
my voice is only a murmur to you
a far-off echo, indistinct
defenses and barriers you have labored on
transform into spun glass latticework
shattering through them without knowing
shards left embedded in your skin
stumbling blindly in the darkness
you are swallowed whole into the void
once more you are ripped away
imprisoned in the Stygian, pitiless hole
the emptiness turns its gaze to me
mocking laughter blisters my flesh
I can only wait and call to you
how long till you return
to me
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 10:36 PM UTC
Only in the best season,
The forgotten gateway opens up a field of bell flowers in two colours,
White, the colour of light and love, as pure as it sounds like,
Golden, alike the majestic rising sun in the early morning,
They never cross the road, but are seperated by it, I wonder why...
Perhaps it is the harmony, created by the untouched nature,
Or is it the order they chose to grow in, while the warm weather can be felt through body and soul, through emotions and the mind,
Only the chirping of the locusts, hopping from bell to bellflower,
The road is frankly short, leading to a near forest, yet the sensation, brought to the optic nerve and to the nose through the sweet smell,
This is what makes it something which cannot be truly conveyed in words, because, the untouched nature is art in its very own way,
Until the greed of humanity destroys its gift with their toxity,
What remains are the memories of harmony and grace.
~ Umi
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 8:44 PM UTC
I've got a grasp on my black telephone
Holding it tight to my ear
No fear. He'll pick up
It's like 3AM or later
I'm ****** up
Dropped my wallet in the elevator
Now I've stumbled into bed
Living dead and seeing red
Ring
Ring
Ring
"We're sorry..."
Thoughts swarm like locusts
Bug-buzzing in the phone
Sweating my spray tan on the bed sheets
Left alone with a dial tone.
Nightstand pill bottle Jesus
I'm reaching out for you
It's been ringing for a few minutes now
I've rolled up in the coiled phone cord
'I think the room is spinning'
Tilt-a-whirl bed taunts my stomach
'I'm home at least'
'I need to tell him how I feel'
Ring
Ring -
"We're sorry, the number you have called
Is not in service at this time
Please check the number
Or try your call again."
Jun 23, 2012
Jun 23, 2012 at 2:24 AM UTC
Breeze bellows,
leaves echo in
quivering psithurism,
dithering like
unbroken smoke,
this approaching omen goads.
Dozing crows
slumbering in rows,
droves of locusts'
silenced drone,
almost comatose in repose;
nighttime overtones
choir of toads'
raspy croaks
answered by alto
of crickets' orchestral strokes.
Gust encroaches;
robed boughs
cloven open,
bring into
scope and focus
me juxtaposed,
suspended apropos.
Although motionless
and petrified in stone,
provoked by zephyr
coaxing to and fro;
swaying pendulous
and no longer frozen,
locus gently thrown.
Death rattle moan
evoked from throat,
reflex can't say no
to rigor rigidly posed,
final sigh in silence,
awoken vocal,
expelled and disposed.
Smote by
morose emotion,
gun loaded then exploded
by neurosis,
now bloated
necrosis decomposes
into gross ochre.
This trophy
and this ode
both an opus to
my inability to cope;
romanced i proposed,
eloped and betrothed to
my own
inappropriate composure.
Pocket full of posies
plucked when luck bestowed
and tears in a cup, a toast;
crying copiously,
tempest runneth overflowed,
eyes swollen and soaked.
Dipped my toes
in the coast
of this ocean's
amorphous folds,
gripped by undertow
holding control of my soul;
swiftly shipwrecked in
shallow shoal,
an old atoll.
On sandy floor,
water burrows roads;
digging, carving, roams
through unmarrowed
silica and sandstone
eroding into a cove.
A host for
opal geode trove,
enclosing a
technicolor rose,
from the depths
a glowing mosaic shone
Unopened lotus floats
on foam
of lapping waves,
a boat;
prone to no
grandiose notion
or motive,
adrift as wind stokes.
I suppose
this only shows
the total corrosion
into which I dove,
the only foes to oppose
are those of burdens, so
only weightless can I atone-
I must let go.
Mar 11, 2024
Mar 11, 2024 at 11:02 AM UTC
Swift swallows sailing from the Spanish main,
O rain-birds racing merrily away
From hill-tops parched with heat and sultry plain
Of wilting plants and fainting flowers, say--
When at the noon-hour from the chapel school
The children dash and scamper down the dale,
Scornful of teacher's rod and binding rule
Forever broken and without avail,
Do they still stop beneath the giant tree
To gather locusts in their childish greed,
And chuckle when they break the pods to see
The golden powder clustered round the seed?
3.4k
it was the moon that fell through. a lump of gray astronaut
pale acne-blasted, an orphan of the dome, floating in a pond
face down; gasping... green brass minnows surge through diatoms
that have no word for moon; a legion of blind unicorn gall stones -
invisible to naked eyes; uncountable geometries horde the dark waters
they cannot disprove or disobey. large mouth bass inhale calcium polygons
they have never met; that have no word for large mouth bass -
that hasn't always been unknown as september is meaningless
now, even more so, the meaning is less,
without the moon... so
the last tide is false. a satellite has lost it's grip and displaced a placid
jewel of ice cold pause. in the backwoods of these. words. a. moon.
is. breathing. in. a. void. teeming. with. ancient. life.
it is a void, unfamiliar to a native of heaven. this void used to rise and fall
in obedience to the wax and wane. in accord with her orbit.
but now it burns the ocean of serenity with irony's forge.
pounding the stainless steel of unfathomable loss;
even the dross sustains a shape of things to come undone -
when the hammer falls and the blacksmith is a poet
born to ****** fables from mayflies. a natural.
the hammer was in the hand before the moon gained
a face or an ocean to adore it. it was there,
ticking like a season, burgeoning with locusts -
holding off the mob; the moon was long ago, slipping off the roof -
long before firemen met lightning.
the tide was a pious fool.
the measure was not the span of the impending verse, but the hour of it's
callous beauty, assembled. a lunacy, stripped of all moons.
and only the sun remaining -
to behold the uncanny descent of a faithful, vestigial goddess.
a yellow throne. a yellow eye. and the sun's first chill...
as wave after wave of syllables sum succulent sorrows -
savoring sacred symmetries, asymmetrically... summoning -
super luminary strawberry switchblades,
saving sanity for questions with question marks.
this poem fell through. a lung collapsed or not.
and the moon is at the bottom of my heart.
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 11:17 AM UTC
Hail Mary! A pseudo-Buddhist
practices pragmatic paganism
with the guilt of a Catholic,
due to their samaric duties
handed from the true-blue Krishna.
But soft, through yonder window
a star collapses and light
is ****** through and destroyed
in a black hole foretold by
Hawking and, why not, Hubbard.
People are polyamorous
for their mono/poly theistic god(s).
But, how dare they be so bold
as to think they know about
anything about any-fucking-thing.
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 4:26 PM UTC
Melting madness and shimmering isles
The bubble-gum boils in drug pedophiles
Let's teach the East to love Western style
We come in with strap-on's and pillage with smiles
The rest of the world watches their watches
People keep saying we're at hour eleven
We're changing the design on our gold lockets
From a heart to a blackjack, Seven Seven Seven!
The college boys assure you that they know the lyrics
And the meanings behind them for they've been enlightened
They swarm out like locusts and pretentiously parrot
Verbatim the textbooks they read when they're frightened
That they'll die with nothing to show for their efforts
They want everyone else in the world to remember
That they did exist on some scale of importance
Even though we're just spun yarn of grass, dirt and oceans
Intelligence streams the consciousness seeds and conscientious objectors it seems
So pardon me for the fallacy of pardoning tyrannical dictator queens
It seems these days to be discovered you need to cheat on your spouse or your lover
You'd think that with all the war crimes we've seen we would have hung at least one or the other
We've got two parties, so pick one or scram! (Look at them squirm as fast as they can!)
They're starting to think for themselves again! Quick, strangle the market and feed this man
Acid and bath salts and give him some tear gas and send him on in to disarm the smear traps
And **** everyone so we'll jump to conclusion with no where to turn, the final solution!
I'm drunk again and we're falling in, the shoreline is riddled with explosions
We don't speak of the war, we have no comment, we're almost out of original content
We're frantically searching for a brand new contest to prove that our nation is still the best
Whether you're China, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, the U.K., or India, the U.S. or Japan
Let's take all the gangbanging **** out of Oakland and drop them in to the Atlantic Ocean
Or better yet, set them loose in Uganda, let's see how long they last in Rwanda.
I'm done with religion and socialized medicine, this aristocracy of pull and deception
So for once in our lifetimes, let's seek a vision, because God knows people can't make ******* decisions.
Jan 7, 2013
Jan 7, 2013 at 4:20 AM UTC
As the locusts sang in the twilight heat
The Sun no longer baked the city-street,
The lonely last was her to repeat.
August.
Her lonely soul ready to bare
Trying to hide her utter despair,
She wouldn't mind if there were someone to share,
August.
Seeing lovers in the park
Who would hold hands without a care,
She would cry inside, 'It just isn't fair."
In August.
May never comes too soon
June is the month to spoon
July just right for a honeymoon
But August?
July 16 1963
2.6k
#
*She's gone
And all the years
of holding in
Of denying my truth
in order to protect her
from-
the truth ..
Of the horrors that she has done
Of the horrors
they both have done.
They are both gone now
No longer inhabitants
of this earth
No longer here
to bring the risk
of making little
what it was
that was not so very little
Even if they owned it
who could find the words?
There are not words
to describe the horrors
Are there left enough years
to make up for the ones
the locusts have eaten?
There are no words
to ever be able to describe
just how much
the locusts have eaten*
#
Jan 3, 2024
Jan 3, 2024 at 8:43 AM UTC
*I reached safely where you sent us
It's a lovely place for any traveller
Problem is the people who came along
Those you said should be my brothers
They're bad & insert tubes in the heart
To **** out every little bit of our blood
We'd be brothers if only we connected
God you believe we're Hoppers and locusts
We should be but some became crows
These people have hearts of scorpions
And ache to fight and spread their poisons
Their loathing is deep and their hearts hard
They laugh by face and frown inside
There's one with joy filled to the brim
Simply because my pockets are empty
His heart finds peace when we're troubled
And end up clamoring for their assistance
They set traps everywhere, up and down
They rip us and are hungry,yearning to bite
It excites when you're helpless and despair
It's comic to them watching your struggles
They never remember when you helped
They celebrate when they see you dying
They already have me painfully manacled
My pains are flooding their hearts with bliss
These guys have hearts of scorpions
Which ache to bite and spread poisons
Their loathing is deep, hearts hard
They only laugh with their teeth
Yet they are frowning deep inside
They are worms inside the gullet
Slowly ******* and ******* pretty hard
Forgetting if their host dies they also die
Those are the people we live with
They have machetes in their cloaks
Hidden,so we think they're carrying babies
And get our ignorant necks real close
They are out here ready to betray us
That friend of yours you truly love
One you're breaking a piece of bread for
Is responsible for rumors that all you eat
Is stolen, and the one craving your defeat
These guys have hearts of scorpions
(I'm scared)
And ache to bite and spread poisons
Their loathing is deep, hearts are hard
They just laugh with their teeth
But they are frowning inside*
Jun 26, 2015
Jun 26, 2015 at 9:17 AM UTC
#
*This place. I don't know.
so many people / want to block..
their words--
they climb all over me.
one's in particular:
Heart-expressed words bringing down
the healing light of relationship to the parts of me
who up until now
have known little or no relationship of its kind;
and there is conflict within me as I fight it..
years the locusts have eaten; and the opportunity of restoration;
often squandered. in vanity.
none of that mattered much;
until now--
When the unredeemed heart-parts of myself
reveal to me their dormancy: left detached
from community with one another--
an internal community necessary
to withstand the brilliant light and glory
brought down by those here who write as she does.
but she;
through her unfiltered heart-writes
brings down the very magic and beauty and fullness of the
relational dance of the godhead.
And it's raw beauty is ****** slayin me.
I so want to block her for the conflict she creates in me
.
but I will press on
and allow her supremely-smithed words--
(words not even written to me)
to have their beautiful way,
in
and through..
the help that has been all around me;
(each and every one of us)
waiting...
all along
**--as if they were cleaning my soul,
re-integrating my fragmented, heart-parts.***
#
Apr 11, 2021
Apr 11, 2021 at 8:21 PM UTC
The frost is always the whitest
On the corn-crib and the barn,
The house is always the quietest
When folks are asleep on the farm,
The locusts and crickets the chirpiest
Though they may not stay in tune,
The darkness is the nightiest
When there is no moon.
2.4k
it was the moon that fell through. a lump of gray astronaut
pale acne-blasted, an orphan of the dome, floating in a pond
face down; gasping... green brass minnows surge through diatoms
that have no word for moon; a legion of blind unicorn gall stones -
invisible to naked eyes; uncountable geometries horde the dark waters
they cannot disprove or disobey. large mouth bass inhale calcium polygons
they have never met; that have no word for large mouth bass -
that hasn't always been unknown as september is meaningless
now, even more so, the meaning is less,
without the moon... so
the last tide is false. a satellite has lost it's grip and displaced a placid
jewel of ice cold pause. in the backwoods of these. words. a. moon.
is. breathing. in. a. void. teeming. with. ancient. life.
it is a void, unfamiliar to a native of heaven. this void used to rise and fall
in obedience to the wax and wane. in accord with her orbit.
but now it burns the ocean of serenity with irony's forge.
pounding the stainless steel of unfathomable loss;
even the dross sustains a shape of things to come undone -
when the hammer falls and the blacksmith is a poet
born to ****** fables from mayflies. a natural.
the hammer was in the hand before the moon gained
a face or an ocean to adore it. it was there,
ticking like a season, burgeoning with locusts -
holding off the mob; the moon was long ago, slipping off the roof -
long before firemen met lightning.
the tide was a pious fool.
the measure was not the span of the impending verse, but the hour of it's
callous beauty, assembled. a lunacy, stripped of all moons.
and only the sun remaining -
to behold the uncanny descent of a faithful, vestigial goddess.
a yellow throne. a yellow eye. and the sun's first chill...
as wave after wave of syllables sum succulent sorrows -
savoring sacred symmetries, asymmetrically... summoning -
super luminary strawberry switchblades,
saving sanity for questions with question marks.
this poem fell through. a lung collapsed or not.
and the moon is at the bottom of my heart.
Feb 12, 2012
Feb 12, 2012 at 11:07 AM UTC
Growing up was not in the spoken word of the country of origin,
parental choice was the language of the country of birth,
lost were the years when learned idiomatic expressions would
now be automatic,
as growing would have it,
one language was enough,
and was lavished,
while the parents,
moved and moved,
to a hockey town,
with a mountain named,
after the color of blood,
and another mountain,
like Granite.
All that has been lost,
drags behind, pulling
toward home,
tongues and time,
both lost on this life,
cities and memories
out of reach, the pity.
travelling home alone,
with only strangers to
greet you,
treating you,
like a visitor,
who knows better,
once you say your
last name,
flames of memory
lit and rekindled,
the smile
either stays
or vanishes
as they embrace
or banish,
who your Ancestors
were to them,
lost on the city history,
tongue spoken a foreign exchange,
eyes down cast
never focussing,
like you did locusts bring
and they carried a little of
the past, each one a story
with as many exaggerated,
laughs as honest chuckles,
and your will buckles and
you admit, this place is my home
Mar 29, 2014
Mar 29, 2014 at 4:08 PM UTC
O, for thy love O God, for I who knew
the Beginning; how love rings far and true,
saved for the mighty! Yet thou o’erthrew
the splendid and far powerful, in lieu
Of ash and bones, all particles hence scarred,
how flawed, thrice ****** which no mercy should spare!
Yet thou chose locusts o'r the Morning Star,
and thus remain in Hell did I declare:
Wage war on heaven, tear apart the ‘verse!
Look hard, O God, at love misplaced. To prove
thee wrong, come see thy love in the perverse.
Apologise and I shall yield forsooth.
Despair doth drive me far gone honour’s binds,
so past the calm begins all horrors' kinds.
Apr 29, 2015
Apr 29, 2015 at 5:59 AM UTC
Like starving locusts
they swarm the streets
looking for instant gratification
they'll never afford
Bodies akimbo
****** shaking from AIDS
old men withered and plain
children starved and bemused
all with their palms out
hoping to catch
a little glimpse
of hope
they are the most beautiful people
on Earth.
Oct 30, 2011
Oct 30, 2011 at 6:38 PM UTC
First Contact
"How did I get here,I can't remember,
my brains burning out like a dwindling ember,
are those tears in my eyes?-no its pourin' rain,
I'm lying on my back in the bottom of a stormdrain,
hunted like an animal,but still I'm deadly,
like a wounded lion,you better bet ye,
will lose more men than I've already taken(taken sample),
the hunter hunted? I think you're mistaken,
I'm a one man army,armed or not,
you didn't bring enough manpower,have you forgot?,
that the sandman(badman,phantoms in the dark)
has more in his bite than you do in your bark,
it's getting dark now,tables turning,
tyger,tyger,my eyes are burning,
better keep your guard up,I've been confronted...
but how can you tell who's hunter or hunted? 16.
Riposte
Better count your sentries,I think ones missin,
when you see his blood glistenin your pants your ****** in,
should have been listenin,I gave you a chance,
now its time for the Sandman to do his dance,
like a praying Mantis I move so swiftly,
bullet's fly like locusts,but each one missed me,
the Locus and Focus of my 3rd eyes movin,
got your sentries rifle,but I won't even use it,
taunt you haunt you,flaunt skills I honed,
from a broken home,to the streets to battlezones,
catch you alone,smash your skull with a hanbo,
appear behind you from the mud like Rambo,
bodies placed like hannibal,a deadly scene,
you're a ****** housecat and I'm wolverine,
told your boss you could get me now you know you fronted,
cat and mouse reversed-YOU'RE the one who's hunted.
Denoument
Now I know who you are,and I know where you live,
and in this line of work I can't forget or forgive.
We were partners once now you've betrayed my trust,
taught you everything you know,now it's ashes and dust
your bodyguards are good,but they know I'll get ya,
more ghost than man,a modern day ninja,
leave you injured,begging for mercy,
but you know the concept is alien to me,
grabbed the bull by the horns,my hand you forced,
you're a moveable object,I'm unstoppable force,
force feed your limbs til you beg for death,
line your family up and slowly take their heads,
then I'm in the wind,gone like keyser sozey,
the word is spread,don't try to **** me,
you were my friend,but you crossed the line,
try to hunt the Sandman,"you're all ****** dyin"
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 3:36 PM UTC
1.
friday morning at the beach, you've got a pocket full of change and a stone in each fist, a mood ring on your middle finger, wind-brushed all purple, la la la. slowly now i drift across a world of all-blue and even from here i can read you right through and through: i know you and i know you want to pull me up from beneath the waves and cut me open, crawl inside my sea-weathered carcass and sail my skin out to god knows where, crooning to the heavens, la la la, la la la.
2.
gathering rain in the stoup of my cupped palms, carving your name at the base of every tree, you are a hymn, you are a prayer, you're in my garden dressed all in grey and you wont let go; i'm running and running, bruised to the bone, struggling to breathe. summer is here—the locusts are singing. the sky's pure gold. wont you say hello?
3.
its a papercut day, a hairs-breadth day, and i'm perched on the back of your bike like a splash of young love—a raincoat and a red-shirt and a pretty mouth and nothing more. i put my arms around you and squint up into the sun, watching an august shower find its bearings, and we hit a bump in the road as the rain hits us and you swear and you swear and i breathe into your ear and we keep on going, bird-calls in your mouth and clouds in mine: la la la, la la la…
Apr 5, 2013
Apr 5, 2013 at 2:25 PM UTC
I first saw the wheat in the morning,
smelled the wind blustering forth--
Wondered that it must taste like
that very morning, in what complex way crops do.
And when the bear-locusts eat them,
what they would say
if they bled pans of gold to romance their amber,
if only then
would they be jubilant
if only on their death beds!
"Don't admire the fields," says Agricoltore.
Why?
"Because they like--they don't change."
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 6:17 PM UTC