1
Backwater nymph,
queen of serpentine black tresses
flaunting its coconut oil gleam;
envy of  leggy girls from the Western ghat mountains,
and lissome  maidens from the plains,
who can never eat as much fish, even if they wish.
Wearing hibiscus flowers,
on coiffure like hood of a king cobra,
your coral lips  silently speak
of hot peppery kisses,
waiting for me at shaded corners.
Your sultry body in me arouses desires,
that could only be whispered in your ears.
2
On a coconut lagoon when we met,
for the first time and spoke,
non stop, as if we knew each other life long,
I heard music in your words.
Oh! in the tongue you spoke,
I heard the cadence of a nightingale
ecstatic, on its wings above the clouds,
love had prompted us to fly above the storms.
Your  gleaming coal black eyes,
like silver hooks, tug at my heart strings,
that makes music, only I can hear,
you are a free flying lark,
above Kerala's lush coconut coast,
that extends from sea shore to the mountains.
3
*When we relished steaming brown rice,
mixed with clarified butter,
with spicy tuna curry, tasting so dainty,
cooked in bubbling sweet coconut milk,
my eyes like two crazy butterflies
circled your face, a blossomed Champak.

Mashed cassava and roasted squid,
melted on our tongues,
in a perfect culinary language
any one would understand without effort.
4
Your lips had cinnamon scent,
spice land's boons,
when we kissed we touched heaven
of scents and spicy tastes.
When our eyes fell on each other,
near the ancient synagogue,
the hay days of which is over,
a long jasmine garland coiling your hair,
    marked you different,
from the  the ladies of your neighborhood,
                                          surroundi­ng you.
How well you did pretend
that you have never seen my face before!

You have mastered love's cunning,
and all the wily tricks to cheat
the enemies of our fiery love
my Freudian mind perfectly understood.
Just imagine the brouhaha we would invite,
when we elope, in the last boat,
to *Alappuzha, stealthily at midnight.

Ramadan 2017 in Sarajevo, Bosnia                      

The first day and the second

What a blessing!!!

Brothers and Sisters in the Old Town speaking the words Salamu Alaikum

Sisters wearing veils with colors like in the bright rainbow appearing before me and my two new friends from Bosnia in a sky above a bussling bazaar, there a smaller group of humans watching and a larger group of tourists capturing a rare moment in Sarajevo on photo

Many brothers wearing kufis and many brothers with trendy hair styles paired with Western outfits gathering in the courtyard of Gazi Husrev-Bey Mosque, the largest in Bosnia and sixteen centuries old. Tourists from Africa, America, Europe, and other landscapes and many locals exchanging words and gestures in a month better than a thousand

Families spending time together at the Grand Mosque and at smaller mosques and in other places surrounded by picturesque hills and green plush trees

A father, a mother, their toddler son...he practicing walking on a masjid's cobblestone, and their young daughter...she smiling at her father as he walks by. Each family member physically at a distance from each other. Each family member at a cell's distance in communion with each other.

In the mid afternoon on a Ramadan's day, a sister from Munich and I having met for the first time at Bey Mosque ride together in a taxi up a steep hill to see a guest house she knows

A smell of lingering cigarette smoke permeating the air within the house so thick beckons me to leave politely and quickly. Unaware of the smell's degree, the owner learns of its' offensiveness as I disclose my sensitivity to & the dislike of the smell of cigarette smoke, both acutely heightened while fasting

Careful steps back down the steep hill to the city center, me avoiding stumbling on a large rock or being runover by a speeding automobile, interestingly instead I stumble upon a beautiful grave yard of uniquely shaped white gravestones and a charming mosque with a high minaret

At the bottom of the hill sits a crafts and artistry shop, one of many in Sarajevo's Old Town. Upon entering and a brief conversation with the owner, a piece of generosity is handed to me, a square shape piece of wood with Ayat tul Kursi in hand calligraphy

During the late afternoon hours, a time for reading Quran by many at mosques in the city. Sisters and brothers sitting on carpeted floors, some with backs supported by mosque walls, some with bodies sitting in chairs, fasters occupied with the most perfected Divine Scripture

A brief leisurely stroll with my two new friends Dzenita and her sister Amina through part of the Bazaar, they sharing opinions of their favorite restaurants, best eating experiences, and other things

In the early evening, a time to buy food to prepare for the Iftar meal. Showing me how it's done in Sarajevo, Dzenita and Amina invite me to join them on an excursion up a hill to buy Somun, a Bosnian flatbread topped with black seeds from the city's famous bread maker. Standing in a line longer than Georgetown Cupcake, Dzenita surprises me with a gift of Somun for myself

Two dates, one cube of Bosnian delight, and one cup of water to break our fast with at the Bey Mosque. A canon bomb sounds off to announce the time for Magrib prayer and Iftar, customary in Sarajevo during Ramadan

Startled and alerted by the bomb's depth and volume, I stand up to join the congregation for communion with God, The God Most Gracious, Most High

Out of nowhere I'm invited to Iftar at a shop nearby the Grand Mosque, about 8 of us guests being served by the warm owner, she offering a meal for Iftar at her shop every night during Ramadan, a big-hearted tradition of hers

Cevapi, Cevapi, Cevapi...I'll say it once more, Cevapi -- sold in Bosnian restaurants, cafes, bazaars, and made in many homes, eaten happily by many fasters at Iftar. Served with freshly chopped onions, some served with a soft white cheese, some with a red peppery sauce, many served with Somun, all ways tried by me and tasting as scrumptious as my first experience with Cevapi in Germany, then falling in love with it

Cold winds at night from the surrounding mountains, a refreshing air yet taking my breath and power away from the chill of it, completely disappearing with my start of Isha prayer with other Muslims and the declaration "Allah hu Akbar"

9 Muftis with impeccable Tajweed each taking turns to recite the words of our Grand Lord before sunrise, me weeping from God's messages, the reality of His greatness, my servitude to Him, and a recognition of sounds similar to that of my Mumin Father's, those familiar to me since birth

Three dear sisters, university students from Turkey and I journey together on foot after Fajr from the Old Mosque to a street train, along the way stopping by a community center, our destination - their home an hour or so away to rest, the four of us coming to know each other and each others' thoughts with every step. Contempleting my desire to spend more time in the city over sleep, the three sisters showing great generosity and I embrace and exchange Salams at a stop near the main station, the three walking with me to an open place before continuing on

In the land of a marriage between the East and the West and where newspaper is used to clean a cafe window, on the list of to-dos -- shopping for gifts for family and for souvenirs, window shopping done along the way, asking myself Shall I buy a Dzezva, a hand-made Bosnian coffee set, or a vintage wood Sarajevo box, or a woven wallet, or Bosnian sweets.

In a bazaar walkway, Maher Zain's song "Ramadan" playing loudly. At another moment, lyrics about a month of devotion and sacrifice from Sami Yusuf echoeing. Shop owners in Old Town with dispositions of calm and quiet grace greeting me and others cordially and respectfully. Shopping a few hours more until near sunset for post cards with a real version of the Grand Mosque, finding only less than satisfactory versions. Time running out for shopping, another reason now to return to Bosnia, God-Willing

Magrib prayer a second night at the Gazi Husrev-Bey Mosque. Observing the crowd, a striking occurrence taking place, a teenage boy walking a small length behind a man on to the mosque carpet. There the boy approaches an older man giving him a respectful hand shake. After prayer, a native of Sarajevo shares with me in wholesome conversation, "You are known in the town not by what you have. You are known by how well you behave."

Another invitation, this time for a cup of a tea at a cafe. Overflowing with people mostly young adults, men and women sitting at tightly packed small tables inside and a few outside, conversations merging into each other with a loud volume flowing throughout, Shisha being smoked by some, cigarettes by some, smoke in the air and the temperature inside melting away heavy make-up on sisters' faces. "This is Ramadan in Sarajevo." Madia says. "One aspect of it." says I. Not having a good feeling right away when walking in and not wanting to stay, the two of us leave quickly.

My two new friends Dzenita and Amina aka angels of hospitality and kindness reciprocating my gift to them of Milka chocolate give me a gift before departing the next day. "Tespih!!" A burnt red and yellow colored set with sparkingly gold thinly cut wrapping paper looking stripes purchased at the Gazi Husrev-Bey Mosque gift shop. Not knowing then I collect Tesbih, their gift is now my most favorite of my Tesbih collection

Husbands and wives, men and women both young and old, well-groomed and well-dressed, some holding hands as they stroll through narrow pathways in the Old Town on a Ramadan's night. Families talking and eating at restaurants, friends in groups sharing laughs, so much to see, so much to experience. At a cafe where baked goods, ice cream, and other sweets are sold, a lady sitting with a group of others initiates speaking to me, stopping me in my tracks. Bidding me farewell, she extends me a gracious compliment

Ramadan 2017 in Sarajevo, Bosnia to Remember

The first day and the second

What a blessing!!!

by Najwa Kareem

When the baker bakes the baked bakery bakes,
Do they also bake the recipe required?
What's the recipe for a poem?
Does the poet pen the poetical poem poetically to pen their pretty poems?
What temperature do you bake ink-
To make it a bestseller?
How much baking powder do you bake into a page
To perfect its pagey turny pageiness?
What kinda poem crust does a poem become encrusted in?
Should it crumble?
Should it rhyme?
Should it cry a melodrama so dramatic that drama llamas like “that too much drama!”?
Wait,
Where did drama llama come into this?
Who else is in the kitchen cooking this poem pie?
Is the poem pie perfectly pied in its drama crust?
WAIT-
we forgot about the filling…
What do you put in a poetical poem pie?
Should I peach the pied poem?
The peaches plumpy peachy smile?
(i’m not sure how the drama llama feels about that)
Should I fill the peachy pied poem with orange and lemon citrus ?
A little bit of snazz to the snazzy apple pie.
Crap, I forgot the apples as well.
Well now my peachy pied lemony apple-orange poem is too long!
And i still don’t know what temperature to torch these thoughts at!
Well the pied piper pipes in that maybe my peachy pied poem needs some pepper
To pipe the spice to pied poem levels!
But lemony apple-orange peachy pied poems with pepper seems a touch peppery for simple pied poems to be.
But who ever said a poem pied can’t have spice and everything nice WITH lemon and apple and orange and peachy fuzzy smiles?
So,
My peachy peppered pied lemony appley orangy poemy is piping hot to boot.
Now i just need to figure out whos gonna eat the **** thing.

i just don't some things,
i don't understand that under the pretense
of writing very little
being able to write a rhyme is enough
to suggest that you're toying with
an art-form...
   personally? i don't know how i got here,
but right now that doesn't really matter.
the whiskey is cold and a cigarette is
only 10 minutes away, gone is the macho
strive to impersonate the Kray twins,
or in that line of thought: blue for boys
pink for girls,
why is the transgender movement happening?
erm... could it be because of
gender stereotyping?
   it probably has nothing to do with
annexing the words from St. Thomas' gospel,
it could really be a rebellion against
                 gender stereotyping...
out comes a woman dressed as a nun,
then out comes a woman dressed in a niqab....
  curtain-sellers! i knew it!
                 what's pajamas in punjabi?
     chuckles?    chack'ah chuck chittering?
**** me and a throng of sparrows, land ahoy!
what i don't get is that there's a science in poetry,
poetry for its lack of volume gets this leechy
science of itemisation, this vague anatomy...
i don't think i write for an anatomy,
i ****** well hope i don't write something
worth an anatomy... i basically write to give people
a feeling of eating sushi, or raw red meat...
    i entrust them with the notion that it's a narrative
that needs to be there between having a glass
of whiskey... i don't write with the hope of being
itemised and stripped bare by some English students
equating a metaphor with liver...
******* bog-standards... i really do not understand
this whole concern for a hussle-and-bussle
that surrounds poetry: you have a ******* pelican
taming the skies, why invite a Mongolian beehive
to fill in the blanks intended with "notes"?
     it's to do with the fact that you don't need to
strain your eyes, *******, it's not:
i write sparingly so you have to comment...
           why note the ****** crap from four words
when you're intended to sorta spread them out,
and feel them over a spectrum of a few days,
so that there's no synonymous-amgiguity ascribed
to them, which means you can act upon
deviating from the idealism of words thought,
and antonym them within the realism of words acted
upon...
        i just can't stand people mutilating poetry,
they're not even performing a postmortem surgery,
they're hacking at a stump of wood
    in a forest, when there are so many trees to be
looted...
               again the point... maybe the transgender
movement is due to the fact of gender-stereotyping?
blue boy, pink girl, salmon fading pink of shirts on
metrosexuals? hey, Sherlock! i'm not the answer!
   what i'm bothered about it the fact that
poetry attracts bothersome flies...
who feel a need to make poetry into prose:
economically speaking, yes prosaic literature is
worth the money, with more words in a chapter than
in a poetry collection.. how's your eyesight though?
    then there's this girl, a Joe Pachelbel (sorta),
and she does the worst thing imaginable to poetry,
the educated norm...
              the bothersome fly bit...
              it's just narration girl, it's just narration
too lazy to invent characters fake schizophrenia
          and say too many words that don't appear in
urban conversations about a ****** or a juicy mango...
and that's why i think people are put off poetry,
the fact that poetry is like this magical artefact that
might give you eternal youth... that you have to
scrutinise it so much that you almost get sick of it...
you couldn't even if you tried put a question of metaphor
into a journalistic entry...
                      so why put so much science into
an area of the humanities?
            where's the feeling part, and the part where you
have to create volume from poetry for it to compete
for an existence alongside prose?
    most prose works these days don't even deserve
a campfire anyway... in the same way that poetry shouldn't
really accept all this excess of narrative,
it's like people who read poetry are characters in
    a prose novel, they're asking for the part of
lynching the narrator into suggesting less ambiguity...
   in prose the narrator is almost too easily discredited
from playing chess, in poetry the chess pieces gain
consciousness that they're being moved and subsequently
rebel and ask too many questions...
          what the **** dragged me into this realm?
the question serves itself...
   and even donning a cravat or a boutique corset you
suggest not talking *****...
   then off the donning attire gets ripped,
   and it's heathen sprechen in onomatopoeia of
knocking on a door to open, a flower to open in spring,
a ***** to get juicy, and de Sade coming home.
                i say fiddle with the idea of a river...
  end this bogus fly-trap of people playing surgeons
with poems like they might play doctor with dolls...
                 it's getting annoying:
it's written sparingly for a reason, the blank spaces between
the words is not a prompt to comment and vandalise
the poem, which they do; pristine bourgeois? you'd
think, wouldn't you... graffiti on some urban slum wall,
a comment in a poetry book: same ****, different cover.
i never understood why they needed to say
so much about poetry in order to make it
economically viable to compete with prose custard,
     i just thought: poetry and photography are akin...
say much more than the photograph endorses
and you've just started blinking...
         which to the photograph in-itself means:
  look at another if your eyes are watering with
            peppery tears that itch; and another... and another...
and another.

"It will be like learning to eat without pepper, but slowly. As pepper adds flavor to each dish, so does love to each moment. In marriage, the love will inevitably become a forsaken understood; an uncommon commonality that, through the years, loses it's luster. But, if I cut pepper wholly out of my diet I would notice. Each dish I tasted it in would revel in splendor, no matter the meat or vegetable on which it dances. So, I vow to never cut out love because of the commonality of love that marriage will ensue. I will never give in to taking it, her, for granted. Spontaneous mountain getaway weekends with lots of Merlot and unashamed whiskeys and even the occasional smokes on our porch out our bedroom window, celebrating my wife with little poems and sunny side up eggs on an idle Tuesday morning, dancing and getting drunk in the living room at 2am when the kids are asleep. This is how I will keep love biting, burning, peppered.

My art
is the way
I re-establish
the bonds that unite me
to the universe. -A.M.

Before she fell
They were
Hated
She, for her sudden rise
And he
in turn
for his shaggy, loping omnipotence
The sure-footed authority
marked by silver squares heading nowhere.

She was the little Visionary
and he, the Blue Chip
So very messy
The Tall and The Small

If you were sitting at the bar
Somewhere around Mercer Street
And those two came in
“Ugh”
Went off inside all the heads
in their line of sight
A palpable mental groan
As they hung up their coats
And waved at various tables
Making their way like penguins through
recalcitrant faces
eyes focused on a glass of beer.

Again, it will all end badly, we thought
Nursing our drinks.
Tonight

Piling out of the last bar
brawling on slick cobblestones
under the yellowish streetlights
of Prince or West Broadway
Arguing about nothing and everything
“I will out run you Old Man!”
You could hear it bouncing off the sidewalk like reverb
Whispering around corners
“You will be surpassed!”

Birdgirl, I too look to eternity,
he states full of drink and exasperation.
I step and step again. I am walking there.
I am not a bird and you will see that I need no wings.

“You will be surpassed!”

Blood and more blood
A face planted with busted lips
Flattened
Your body crushed into the earth
Over and over
Having fallen
Waiting for burial, entombed in flora
Welcomed
Reclaimed
To be disappeared
But not just yet.

What had you unleashed Mija?
What did you already know?

I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!
I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!

In editorial spreads
we saw flared American jeans in Rome
You said that they understood you there
And in Cuba too
We understood you very well right here,
you know.
It’s not so hard.

The doorman said he heard someone cry out
And then a soft thud a moment later
From the deli’s rooftop next door
Crusted guano
Broken, forlorn and misguided leaves
Cigarette stubs with pinkish ends
A stray tabloid cover page and that
peppery NYC grit in your eye and nose and under your fingernails all reclaim you to a concrete womb
Welcome back!

“ICARUS DOWN” read The Post

How easily we lost our envy
after those 34 floors
Earthbound
Strait shot

It was all foretold in the telling
Now folded into a history of sorts
That of an earthy primordial Fertility cut short by a ruddy man
rather than a thousand  compulsive chalklines drawn around a singular and knowing corpse
There are ramifications for deals
made in feathers, b lood
puddles and mudlood
A recipe for the
reunion of force fields
Folding you back within its arms
Where you belong
What an excellent day for an exorcism.

I’ve got a devil inside of me! SHE GOT LOVE!

It was a glass of liquid sunshine
If I were to believe the waiter
My senses would be flooded
With essence of vanilla and
Glimpses of the land.
There would notes of citrus,
Faint odor of old leather
And deep berries would overwhelm.
If I shut my eyes
I could relish the peppery finish
And the buttery after taste.
I would be a fool to overlook
The healthy dose of tannin
Balancing the sweet cherry, plum and cassis.
The wine swirled in my glass
The fragrant bouquet filled my nose
I’d be lying if I said
The anticipation didn’t create
A certain aura of arousal.
Not just the sunshine in this glass
But all four seasons inhabited
My crystal goblet,
And the sheltering moonlight
Was in there too.
This wine surely has character
Like Gandhi or Churchill perhaps.
And legs. What legs.
Slender and vibrating
Long and glistening
I could stare at those legs
Until dessert.
Having passed the cork test,
All eyes were upon me
Lifting the bowl of undulating liquid
To my lips.
I sipped.

Amber drips from the 60’s-style lamps
on two end tables.
Brassy-orange and bulbous,
they illuminate the tangled tracks.

The light spills onto the floor
like heavy freight abandoning its car.
It spawns the locomotive shadow
cast by my grandmother’s sunken-in couch.

I nestle myself snug between the pillows,
dense and flattened by years of Sundays.
Sundays that bring my father
close to his brother, not a brother at all.

I peer over the edge
and heave a hushed “all aboard.”
Grandma sleeps to unwind
the day’s knot of exhaustion.

Each bone-bleach white fiber frays
from the chemotherapy that robs
her gnarled hands of their strength.
This one-way ticket marks the end of a journey
of a once well-oiled machine.

The exhales of a CSX
spout its peppery breath out in opaque puffs.
I am a conductor, tearing the ticket
of tonight’s traveler.

Rising to my bare feet now,
I sink into the cushion like wet sand.
The train thrusts and in a single bound,
I leap from the ledge and leave my lone passenger.

The cars whir and hum alongside me.
Deafening metallic wind rusts the edge of the rug.
I’m still waiting for her return,
and in denial that it was her last train.

i found an old picture today of my only grandmother, the one i all but forgot. she was small, but spoke in a mountainous voice and had a laugh like rolling thunder, even after sixty years of smoking. all the women in my family are small, smoke, and have wonderful booming laughs.

she hugged me too tight once when i was six or seven and dislocated my shoulder. she broke out in that seismic laughter when she popped it back in place and i cried for just a second, said i was a tough little bit. that's my last clear memory of her.

my grandmother died after a major stroke when i was nine, or maybe eight. i did not cry at the funeral we held in her nursing home. as an adult, i wonder why. i listened to the tiny assembly, and to my mother breaking down, day drunk and just messy with grief, but i stared at the aviary the entire time and did not shed one tear.

they kept finches for the old ladies to feed and talk to, and i always loved them. my nan did, too. years back, a peppery white society finch got named "little bitty," after me, and when we found out he was actually a he, we laughed our big matching laughs.

i'm in my twenties now and completely forgot about that wonderful woman until i dug out a dusty, stained polaroid of her and my pregnant mother at a christmas party in the nineties. suddenly i'm remembering every little moment i spent with her and crying like a child over a box of forgotten family relics. i realised just then, face a mess of tears and snot and attic dust, that i forgot along with her the only bright parts of my childhood.

i will never be able to tell her how thankful i am for her influence. she alone instilled in me that i am, indeed, a tough little thing. she was more motherly to me than mine ever was or will be, and i didn't even cry at her funeral, which had a grand assembly of six people. my mother and i were the only family members present, the rest were her friends from the home. i suspect most of them are passed by now, they were all upwards of eighty back then, and i know my mom has no space in her *****-pickled brain for her late mother anymore. so, i will think of her instead. her tiny, work weathered hands and her giants laugh, her foul mouth and bright eyes, her wonderful golden heart.

i miss you, nan, and i hope you knew how much i loved you even though i was too socially inept as a child to say it. i am proud to bear your resemblance, proud of my iron grip and sailors vocabulary. i hope with a fierceness that i will have half the fire you did when i leave this world, and i hope to also leave such an imprint on someone who really needed it.

It's the smells,
The woody, earthy laden lift in the air.
A scent guilded in memories of twigs breaking under feet,
As I walk to the One Stop with my dad,
Wet, amber leaves stuck to his holey shoes,
The air is damp and unfaded, but lightly coated in the smoke from his roll up.

The smell,
More floral now,
Warm, heavy rain drip dropping onto vast leaves in Mexico,
The floor drier and peppery compared to it's English cousin,
My eyes locked onto the stars through pointed dancing clouds,
As if the sky has been dipped in glitter and laid out to dry in the jungle.

And now its moss,
Moss and pine and your hair.
It's both of us gazing through the foliage to catch the eye of a bird,
Our fingers brushing and clinging,
I can feel my mouth lift,
As you pull me towards your nose,
And whisper 'I love us.',
We walk,
Warm in one another's stories,
With wet socks,
And pink cheeks,
We inhabit the trees.

Waking among the concrete structures
Starting the day running around in earnest
For chores are plenty and time is handful
To begin a new one-hundred-meter-dash
Trying to outdo each other, in an imaginary race
Every stride we take, the concrete takes away our zeal
There is no cushion for the hectic lifestyle
Taking a toll on our mind and body
We seem to have reached somewhere
But end up at the same station, to catch the train
Inadvertently, packing every coach
Few faces we know from our daily commute
Lots of new faces add up to the crowd
We are an individual, but interspersed in the crowd
Waiting to get-off at the daily destination
The concrete pavements and the concrete buildings
Greets us gloomily, although modern architecture
Facades of glass reflecting off the chaos of life outside
Immediately, we are in a grind of the job
Lost in numerous presentations and graphical projections
The pie charts take the sweetness out of our life
Savoring only percentages, with sprinkling of peppery talks
Targets are set and client’s meet are arranged
To strike out a deal and sign-off the nuptials
It’s a marriage of client and service providers
Where brands are hogging the limelight
For us it’s the race to maintain our saneness
As it’s a daily commute through the concrete jungle

herbs new mown send green scent to me
an undertone of pepper - non-explosive -
marks this spot especially

a creole mixture to spice the morning walk

were I the chef of this walk
blandness would prevail
for blanding is safe
and requires no inspiration

I am learning recklessness and wantonness
it is in my eyes, should you peer into them
it is in my heart, should you sound it
it is in my being now and you can smell it on me
like the peppery scent in that spot there

I am become a creole recipe
delicious and warm
fulfilling and comfort to the traveler
in this landscape


Roberta Compton Rainwater
c. 2009/2014

You pulled away my pinky toe

Rolled it like a cigar in your fingers

Daring me to love you



I almost lost my balance then

But I don’t suppose you noticed

I watched it sniff at the smoke in your hand

And I’m quite glad you didn’t give my balance one dog biscuit of your attention

For it quickly ran back to my widespread, flailing arms and licked my beaming face as I listened to your lack-of-depth discussion

I know butterfly band-aids sound *****

And stitches sound weak

So I don’t really blame you all that much for simply puffing up peppery, gray clouds that stung my open wound as you exhaled,

Speaking to no one, instead.



I had, I believe

A peppermint stick I had to use after that, to keep me all upright

[You told me once it smelled of feet

But I don’t think you knew what it was there for]

I never complained about it,

‘Cause I knew you were happy

Smoking my joint and talking to no one

But I knew how much you wanted that peppermint stick as well

So I wrapped it up in a hug one autumn morning,

And as we embraced

[again] there was a whispered dare to love you

By the time we broke away, it was December and our hands were growing cold, yours going numb around the peppermint stripes

And though I’d tried so long to prevent it

I fall anyway that winter

As soon as you walked away with more of my balance to steady you



I was very out of place



I suppose that is why winter is my favorite season

Nothing falls that is winter

Nothing moves that is frozen,

Including your fingers

That I can pretend were too rigid to close around my hand, since they were always wrapped around that peppermint stick so cold, their tips turned blue

But you knew that was my favorite color

And you only like dressing open wounds

So you never paid your bare hands that much attention



We made a snowman that season

There was no fire to be found except that tingling in the small of my back when our lips meet,

So I offered my two favorite bones in my spine as coal for the eyes

I winced as you pulled them out with your bare hands

But I didn’t complain, ‘cause I noticed that the pieces were so hot that your fingertips weren’t so blue anymore,

And that made me happy, though I had to walk much more carefully after that

I knew I’d long since lost my balance

There was no kindling to be found, neither

So you reached for the peppermint stick that we

Split

Down the middle

To serve as our snowman’s arms



We laughed when we realized his hands smelled like feet

But it subsided when you asked

If I loved you



I sat down quickly

Your question was too heavy and caught me off balance

And that is never a good place to be caught

When one has a pinky toe, a peppermint stick, and two spine bones missing

I remember you left suddenly after that

And as soon as you’d gone, I wanted to chase you

But I was finding it difficult to stand

So I looked up at our snowman’s beaming face

And pulled his right arm right out

But it was too thin and broke under my weight



And as I collapsed to the frozen ground for the last time

I wondered how he could be so upright and balanced with an appendage missing

And I wish I’d told you sooner

That as humans

We are constantly falling

But we use the joints of our toes and the muscles in our backs

To keep from doing so.



I had always loved you.

I was breathing in the beauty of  Scala dei Turchi,
as I sat atop pure white marlstone crescendo,
etched by the winds and the rains of time;
the view emphatically embracing the coast of Agrigento.

‘Twas along those balbutient banks of the Mediterranean sea
I saw him silently standing there,
his hands resting in white linen pockets,
the salt wind blowing through his peppery hair.
Serenely somber in quiescent stillness,
he was dashingly debonair,
his form earnestly beseeching, a wish
delicately wrapped in the guise of a prayer.

He peeled his stare away from crystal waters clear,
I was transfixed by eyes that gallantly gazed at  me;
eyes that emerged from pools of a deep sorrow,
eyes as transparent as the turquoise blue sea.

Deftly ascending those limestone cliffs,
he was reminiscent of Saracen pirates penetrating;
with such determination of gait and surety of purpose,
he approached me with palpable power emanating.

His drawing near sent my heart swiftly a-pounding,
a halo of light behind his sun-kissed face –
I imagined I saw a  shadowed smile emerge
as he nonchalantly quickened his pace.

He took his place beside me
atop the pure white marlstone crescendo;
and we waited for the sun to descend,
against the skies of beautiful Agrigento.

and now you're singing karaoke... so ha ha and Kyoto.

and this is the part where i tell you i love you?
it sounds like it's the part where i **** your dog off
and laugh; or maybe that's the part where
i say i'm scooch-peppery-ish!
tangy! mm hmm!
solid gold worth's an advert! aha,
Elvis just rolled up his sleeves!
while Shoon can-can the worthy,
sire nigh nigh the knighted made
speeches at a royal funeral that made 20 kings
abdicate, we all thought of Monaco
and Senna... lipstick Helsinki...
crisscross Albania and: Waterloo...
when Napoleon sniffed glue... oh Waterloo!
i too built Stockholm in a day, based on
the pop culture of Europe casually so.
but indeed Sean, the flowery basin of all
that's Essex, Sussex and Kent,
i.e. Scottish, show... i'm ashoored it'sh
Shcandinavian cartoon or at least halfwit Belgian
with the moustache, dumb-flicked *Hercules Poirot...
authored by a nagging Agatha Christensen.

reading book with the same title by Stephenie Meyer ...*

There you stood in
the pouring downpour
each raindrop dressed
in the scent of
your damp feral being


I gaze long and hard
at those hands
how beautiful they looked!
maybe they were those
of a sculptors
having sculpted
a thousand deaths before
with sheer perfection


Every time
lightening struck
the night would morph from
gray to black to ocher
just like…
those eyes
of yours (?)


those strides promised ecstasy
as they advanced towards me


only when the fangs
dug deep into my fevered flesh
could I Smell blood for the first time
crunchy…salty and peppery


I never wanted the rain to end

Hello, Pauline...?
Turns of the century
Question's of only and seem
Turn on the light's, for the curious...

Suspense has a drool...
Snores and faery feet
Is a living testimony to a finger pulled
With a meager smirk, the time has it to meet

The season of suicide
Where with all, in a momentary pause
Frankly, is my favorite ride...
Hello, with me, its always the odds

In another shame...
Set to prodigious music
Let a little more, than a fury's name?
Only a care to tell the truth, is intrusic?

Swallowed pride
And a peppery smile, to rage:
When beauty eats a stare, for snide?
Stars above, the price of wonder is, page for page...

I snapped my fingers so we could comfortably hold hands
Every time you squeeze the peppery heat pirouettes across my skin

In the jungle,
on the islands.
In my bedroom,
on my dumb ****.

I get a text.
I need a tattoo.

A real tattoo;
a Lola's wrinkled hands slapping my thigh,
laying me over banana leaf,
then hammering long needles in my chest-
maneuvering a horn, a bone, a citrus thorn,
tap, tap, tap, tap,
sketching wounds to fill with soot.

A muted barb,
a slight prickling of skin,
then sinking, stamping, slipping-
through blood,
through muscle,
through bone.
Staining, stripping, splitting-
scraping at my inside-sun.

That’s what my grace has been feeling like.
That’s what my shame has been reeling like.

I deleted the poems.
I deleted the messages,
I tried to delete the flutter.
I want to cry but nothing comes out
my tongue is so big,
I have too many teeth.

My lungs feels the way mercury looks
pouring into a petri-dish.
Kind of trippy. I didn't even trip.
My surface is all salt and peppery,
numb, infinite,
and so, so stringy.

A man told me secrets and I didn’t flinch.
Then he got mad,
Maybe because I didn’t flinch.
Maybe because he can’t not wreck things.
I didn't flinch, so he threw ** at the wall;
a bowl of puttanesca, cute frosted cakes,
oily tabouli, slippery tteokkbokki.

We watch it drip, drip down,
until scraps and broken plates tye-dye the baseboard.
I didn’t move to clean it up,
he didn’t move to explain.
We didn’t groove to call it art.
This is, of course, a metaphor;
we don't share a wall,
I haven’t made tabouli in years.

okay. okay. okay. okay.
It’s almost funny but not there yet.
Should we laugh about this or catalog it in our dark days?
but to catalog, you'd have to stay.

You said you weren’t scared.
I said I was glad.
I said you’re big and I’m small and we might fit perfectly.
You agreed. That was before you got mad.

Something inside you is reigning rabid-
We knew this.
I am rascally and rare.
We knew this too.
My feelings are so, so big.
Can you see them in shop-windows while you walk your city?
Can you hear them while you shower, or
smell them in your coffee grounds?

That feeling again-
That Old-World ink.
That heavy-heart sink.
The static slander of my skin,
the catty condensation of my brain.
Everything inside is lava lamp-holographic,
and everything outside is pin pin pin pin.
Lola, please keep hammering.
I still feel tacky but your needles
gather up the strings.

It's not decorative:
I'm hoping it's erosive.
I'll bow down deep;
elbows up, eyes down;
an apology for not flinching
when you thought I should have.
Eros bowed out, you're not staying.
I'll bow again- it's twice for the dead.

On this island,
it's just me, that Lola,
her long needles, and my big feelings.
She can hammer them back into me
And I won't flinch.

We followed the road for six hundred miles, there were no turnings off except one in all that length . The South Australian desert seemed endless.
We eventually landed at Maralinga on a newly constructed runway with new buildings and workshops, we were impressed to see it all, but we were not allowed to hang about, a peppery little sergeant directed us  to a waiting vehicle, and we were driven to the camp, there were quite a few buildings, offices and stores mostly. But there were three messes, an officers mess, a seargeants mess and an airmans mess, all of the buildings were temporary- corrugated iron roofs and walls, which could get hot enough to burn any unprotected skin. We reported for duty and were allocated a small two man tent each. My tent was located at the end of a long row, there were about three hundred tents I believe, Gordon's tent was located at the opposite side to mine, he was required to work in the decontamination unit, I was to work in the cookhouse- a humble cook's assistant. I grew to love cooking and still do! At that time all national sevice men were only allotted assistant trades, that was ok by me, I loved to eat as well as the next man! Working in the mess was unbearably hot during the day, but pleasant enough at night. The Australian food was excellent, and there was plenty of it. One thing that surprised me was the size of the potatoes, you only got about thirty to a hundred weight, and they were often hollow, caused by the rapid growing season and the sudden start of the dry season. I had the tent to myself. Almost! During the night, a large Iguana-which lived under the duckboards in my tent- would come out of his hole and climb up the side of my tent, between the actual tent and the fly sheet, then it would slide down the other side. this was repeated half a dozen times every night! Some times I used to drop pieces of meat down for it. Then I discovered that there were other less welcome guests! So I stopped feeding them. The first night that I slept there I was puzzled to see a great pile of blankets on the bed, thirteen in all, I thought that must be for two beds. That night when I lay down  to sleep, I only used one blanket, the night was reasonably warm at that time, I woke up later feeling cold, and added another blanket.  This process continued until I had all of the blankets on my bed. The night time temperature plummetted almost to freezing!  One morning when we were off duty after working all night, I and my friends climbed the one hundred foot high water tower to sunbathe. Big mistake, the silver painted tank grew hotter until by ten 'oclock it was too hot to touch, fortunately we had a blanket each, but decending a one hundred foot tower when all the metalwork, including the steel ladder is too hot to touch is a tricky and dangerous pastime!  More anon.

You said this place
     would grind down on tired hearts
I towed my line, now I'll die on the sidewalk
the second the snow thaws.
So bury me salted, so I season the runoff.

Your hands claw, climbing
tear at skin and the topsoil,
grinding teeth down on pay dirt
then back-fill the screaming blanks

This city's swelling up
it's growing livid with stories
left untold beneath street lights,
so sharp-footed walkers
drain its veins after midnight.

And you're filled up--had enough
of the graphite sky.

             but my
2 cents, flung into the Clark Fork
say I'm still zipped up
   in the peppery cold and the dark

Still socked in,
write your name out in graphite
'til ink-dark clouds bruise the day through the sunlight

The swelling's going down, now
I'll die on the sidewalk
and knocked down pegs
leave the story untold and forgot.

You are feathered butterfly
Armed with mimosas,
Perfumed to perfection,
Dressed delicately, purely, with only
The most diaphanous of colours,
Of your simplistic silhouettes
And your ever-glow, the peppery yellow,
And gold, and emerald and silver.
You govern my little empire.

I come like a deer bowed before you
In integrity,
For you are royalty,
A gift of nature.
You wear the therapeutic tiara,
The morning of mornings, my rest,
My hope, my sweet.
You are the princess and the panacea,
The kiss I long longed for,
And I'm your squire,
Your only,
Only dreaming.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

up at your regularly scheduled night sky patrol,
the colorful clock says 2:47 and
dark skies confirm which 2:47 it is,
for flecks of blackened peppery light exude at this hour,
a time period for former lovers, those old writes enfolded, enveloped,
hiding an active poem volcano spewing bare feet words in clouds of
kidskin soft velveteen cumulus, fleece-comforting slippers of poems

there are half started poems waiting, more than one, triplets in fact,
waiting to be born in the time of pandemic, thinking quietly,
will they emerge healthy and living and grow up to be adults
contributing to society, additives to the engine oil of human living

but the old familiar, dissatisfaction with quality control leaves them
unfinished, poet lurches from dead roses head hanging, a new blues,
disease as an economic and societal differentiation, that you hope,
believe, poems that in due course, all will emerge, for better or for worse,

poetry birthed in the time of pandemic

the city of new york, where I was birthed and will die, a city of
tall buildings, tall tales, short attention spans there is but one nighttime moving automobile observed in a city that never sleeps but now hides blanketed in weariness of trepidation of what are the

well known unknown possibilities in the time of pandemic

and you wonder in this new, different quietude if poems can be born
with birth defects and survive, breathing on a ventilator till they can
breathe by their own lungs, or were they perma-infected on a supermarket trip, a walk by the East River, a pizza delivery man, even

if inspired by a decade-lover, next, in bed, in the time of pandemic

waving to grandchildren in their second story window, you on the street, keeping them safe from you, a modern Auschwitz train station where they separated, the we-useless out, children and their parents, safe in a barbed wire atmosphere, a demarcated world, where some billion of brimming droplets of tears are stillborn

stillborn poems, or perhaps just poems-in-waiting, to still be

born in a time of pandemic


3:29am Sunday March 22, Twenty Twenty
New York City, the epicenter, crossroads

She stood
thus, I wrapped fleshy
tendrils about scratchy
bark and consoled her
for all the trees I imagined,
rightly or wrongly,
were sacrificed to rusty
notions of progress
neatly packaged in
emporium form;
the saffron leaves
and peppery roots
lost to dusty
reverberations.

That's when
the crow came,
glowing eyes above
fierce wings, his caw
hinting at mockery:
"Don't flinch,
I'm here to help,
and you'll not get far
imposing such
improper intentions."

"The trick," he went on
reassuring me,
"is to always
stand apart.

"Yesterday's sigh becomes
tomorrow's squall
unless today's kept
at a distance.

"Fly up,
but not too fast, or
the only thing you'll feel
is dizzy."

And that,
without another word,
is just what
he did.

crusty crispy crabby shrimpy scallopsy
meaty cheesy peppery greeny reddy
mushroomy creamy saucey
yummy tummy fully full
--- now sleepy

and how many times did a drag of a
cigarette after a few drinks
make the drinks more potent?
countless times, each time i got
hit by a carousel.

i started smoking cigarettes after all
the joints of half tobacco half
marijuana, that was when i was 21,
now i'm 29 pushing two months into
30, and i'm suddenly quitting...
no, not the nicotine addict, or
the prime active ingredient (carbon monoxide)
ingredient addict, as sold by big pharma
companies that give quitting smokers
the rattling tick itch, ready to pop
a synthetic analogue of the thing you once
did... yes, *did, because what's missing
with that therapy of quitting is the actual
aesthetic of blowing out smoke,
my hands weren't ready to quit the
'the devil makes work for idle hands'
popping a nicotine pill or chewing a nicotine
gum will not work, you might as well
compare smoking a cigarette to injecting
a needle & syringe into your hand,
the cold turkey aesthetic of chewing gum,
patch of "cough nicotinemint" will really
bother you, i tried the chewing gum once,
very peppery, itched my tongue...
now i'm the bishop's fat (that's φατ),
because i'm drinking whiskey, carrying
a portable hookah pipe and the auburn whiskey
the amber whiskey flavour, cutting through
with chocolate mint, i ordered more flavours,
10ml bottles of coconut, tobacco, apple, strawberry,
you name it! but i needed a time frame,
smoke my last cigarette by throwing imaginary dice
(putting felt-tip dots on a napkin), drew:
                    .           .               .            
                          .
                    .       ­    .                           .      (5, 2)
and
                    .           .                            
                          .­                           .
                    .           .                                   (5, 1),
that's thirteen drags of a cigarette,
clocked it with my last one, under 5 minutes,
roughly four and a bit, after all, the cigarette
burns automatically once lit, so you have to hurry,
and the flavoursome vapour 13 drags?
well into 15 minutes... apart from the aesthetics
of the whole experience... no coughing,
no phlegmatic residue in the throat,
no tar numbing of the palette...
and economically speaking, i'm going to be
saving in a range of £30 - 50 a week not
buying cigarettes.

I’ve been cursed to watch the days wash away,
One by one,
Waiting for you.
The pain of relentless time turned my heart
Black.
Though encrusted in peppery ashes it still
Beats,
Never forgetting
What I am waiting for.

One autumn evening,
You and I will sit together,
Embracing the quiescence of the outdoors,
Reclining on a plush blanket,
Feeling the wind gently brush against our backs,
Content to languor peacefully,
As the sun dips under the horizon.
Runaway rays of light will illuminate your face,
And as you turn to look at me
The sparkle of your alluring eyes will
Spark effervescence in my heart,
And suddenly,
I will remember what I waited so long
To see.

Perhaps the waiting is just a punishment,
An atonement for sins
Of a past life.
Or perhaps my dream
Is just too beautiful
To share with just anyone,
Anyone but you.

Perhaps the lost hours
Will redeem themselves
And blossom into bliss.
Perhaps one must venture through
Hell
Before they can reach
Heaven.

Perhaps I’ll find you soon.

Until then,
I’ll soak myself in sweet reverie,
Watching the sun set,
And the night drape itself over the sky,
Like a curtain covering a stage,
Signaling the end of this act
Of my life,
And the start of something new;
Together with you.

It will be during moments like these,
In the shadow of the starlight,
When you’ll look me at endearingly
As I tenderly touch your cheek,
And pull you close to me,
When I will realize
The wait was worth it.

Find a Daisy and pick it up
From garden fronts
The gathering begins
A few leaves on a stem, fluttering,
Snap!
And in a pocket lays
Side by side
To a thread of black eyed germanium
And thé peppery seeds of aquilegias
Falling into seam corners,
Creeping up pathways
Hollyhock rings put in
And then take a chance
With stem of pink pearly,
Ceanothus.
Collection complete for Monday
Trot home to find compost
Then *** up in the sun.
My little treasures from
The free world .

Love Mary **