She waits. How beautifully she waits.
How impossibly lovely she is
with a thing so passive.

With what weight she waits,
making her bus or boyfriend
(or whatever she waits for)
seem like a first brunch with Christ.

She waits regally, in perfect contrast
to the drooling buffoon describing her.

9 | 31 Poems for August 2016

She unapologetically loves each and every crevice of her canvas.
Each part regally resonates to the woman who birthed her.
Each part elegantly exudes the exuberance of its own beauty.
The curves on her body are more than just her dress or jean size.
More than the heads of men which turn as she walks down the street.
Her curves are her heritage – a beautiful sign of where home is.
Through pain she found love and through love she found herself.
We meet in the pages of our story where the ink intimately holds us together.
These words I write become intertwined in the veins of our loving hearts.
In the rain of her presence, my words will always form a rainbow.
I can never get enough of her love; I’m always left yearning for more.
In a world ravaged by cold wars, we both know what we’re fighting for.
She has never spent a day letting the world turn her starry sky into a ceiling.
She wears her crown proudly and embraces the queen that she is.
The curves on her body are more than just her dress or jean size.
More than the whistles which dissipate the silence as she enters the room.
Her curves are her heritage – a beautiful sign of where home is.
The world is my canvas and I hope this African queen will always be my muse.

Spring comes
as grasses leap forth
and emerald hues are added to the landscape,
with wildflowers peeking up from the
dewy roadside.
The world smells
fresh like worms and earth,
while birds drift down to finish last year’s
seeds.
Yellow rain boots hop
out of shelves and into the puddles,
while mud gathers and plays in the road,
gurgling with mirth at passers by.
The badminton net is resurrected,
regally looming over the lawn,
as the swings squeak joyfully in the breeze.
The fireplace gives a sooty yawn
and falls to sleep.
And in the kitchen, fiddleheads unfurl upon
a hot pan
as the old and sour scent of the earth
settles upon our plates,
spring steps lightly
onto the world.

~Yuka Oiwa
May 6, 2008

An age old chair, in seasoned teak wood
carved, a perfect work of art, nothing less than
a masterpiece, and a  reminder of so much past,
sat regally before our wondering eyes, tempting
on the central court yard of my  ancestral home,
where generations lived.
                               Wanting to sit like my grandpas of yore
I found a carpenter, perhaps the last one for this work
who understands the air that surrounds the chair.
We discussed the concept,
design and the kind of wood
it has to be  made,to create a replica
to bring back the grandeur of times past.
But then, found  not an easy task  it is
"Do you deserve it ?" the bearded
carpenter, was so blunt in his skeptic stance!
He  puzzled me  with his questions
Yet we were keen to give it a try.

The adamant carpenter relented
after many sessions of questions
and answers, perhaps my passion
did the trick, his eyes made me believe.
He promised to make me a chair
(The kind none would dream in this age)
as if it's a mission divinely assigned,
"You need to change a lot to deserve it"
he insisted, suggests a series of
purification rights  "for your confused soul"

"To fit  in to a chair like this , fulfill
all it's  demands"in my ear he whispered
as if I am the chosen one for an ancient  throne.

An  antique chair shaped by the imagination
of my distant ancestors, now changes me
and without slightest  resistance I submit;
would I ever know what is happening?

Write a Clerihew:
It’s easy to do.
Two rhyming couplets of any length:
Short and simple, that’s its strength.

Remember Johnny Giles
A player with all the wiles.
In midfield he did scheme:
For Leeds he was a dream.

Nicole Scherzinger,
What a messenger.
A Friend so loyal,
Regally royal.

Oh Nick Clegg,
Why did you have to beg
For a Tory-led Coalition,
Sending the Lib-Dems into Perdition?

(PS) All hail be to great Don Newton,
Always had a winning solution.
Played table tennis with flashing blade,
A Legend that will never fade.

Paul Butters

Cats are cool,
They regally rule.
You think you own them,
But they own you.

Born as kittens they are so cute.
Before you know it, off they scoot.
Baby faces and big blue eyes,
Dopamine surges, what a surprise.

Pouncing on you as you walk through the door,
Kitty is lightning over that floor.
How we love to watch them play,
Brightening up an otherwise dull day.

The older cats look on with disdain:
They’d much rather use their brain.
More to the point cats love to sleep,
Waking only to take the odd peep.

So independent yet love a stroke:
Lots of purring you’ll invoke.
I’m not too sure of their table manners
But they’ve just got to be fans of canners.

I’m not too keen on them bringing a present,
Even though they might think that it’s a pheasant.
They can be cruel when they hunt,
But that’s their job, let’s be blunt.

Most popular pets, that’s for sure.
Feeling stressed? A cat is your cure.

Paul Butters

A tall, proud 
sunflower
reigns as an empress 
over 
a trickle of a
river

She stands, thirsty
daring 
to live in
barrenness

She is not 
proud
because she is 
exceptional

She is proud
because
she was determined,
audacious

She overcame concrete,
thirst
relying on sunlit 
days 

She overcame man's
concrete
rules for her
blooming

She is blooming
defiantly
regally, in season

She is a 
tall
proud sunflower

Although I hardly gave it a thought
I didn't really doubt
our miniature juniper, a bonsai,
would survive our desert vacation.
                                                       ­   It likes the dry
air of our home, needs water
once a week at most and seems
meditative and active, both. While away
I rediscovered my love of agaves -
                                                          sotol­ and century
plant - met Mortonia and became
reacquainted with squawbush, its citrus
drupe which makes traveling the long horizon
of the desert uplands endurable.
                                                      ­    Live oaks - emory,
wavyleaf - dominant and regally spaced
giving ground to mesquite only on the sere
sand flats. I counted and drew inflorescenses,
spikelets, florets, awns but grasses
                                                         ­  remain a mystery
their microscopic parts. This year
I'll study, give them serious thought before
our Spring starts. The cactus wren was the one
bird I could be certain about. Sunsets
                                                         ­  made me sorry
the desert is not my home. But the ocotilloes
flowered before we left and that made up
for the vicious attack of a hedgehog cactus.
Impressive, ponderosa pine and Arizona cypress
                                                         ­  the canyon canopy
watered with snowmelt and along the high cliffs
limestone formations predating our arrival by
ten million years of weather. Newspapers
kept us aware humanity had not accomplished yet
                                                           the end of history
and that was fair. The planes were full of citizens
who no longer applaud upon landing. Snow flew,
not a pinyon pine or manzanita within two moons
walking. On the dining room sideboard, waiting,
                                                        ­   our miniature juniper.

Thirteen androgynous men and women, dressed in pressed black suits, like some swarm of government bees, stoically entered the dilapidated school bus with solemn disregard for the general mass of people surrounding them in the California street, and the sun was shining. An ecclesiastic figure, swathed in purple robes with wild glittering gleaming beads adorned across the body, stepped forth from the shadows of a cluster of palm trees; it wore an incredible mask, damask as a rose with intricate golden patterns around the cheek and toward the forehead of which was embellished with an etched geometric pattern that seemed to resemble a flower and faint lines that would require a keen eye to be seen and elaborated upon. The hood was up and formed a velveteen waterfall at the back of the head, as it crumpled over, though it was probably designed to look that way. As each member of the secretive yet oddly unconcealed cult traipsed onto the growling, garish yellow bus, the pensive figure gazed on and regally followed the group, taking a place at the back, holding a staff with arms crossed, and the rest sat coldly, staring ahead, unblinking and sedate. The hours passed under the drab desert sun as a singular cloud passed overhead and gradually dissipated into invisible vapours that fell gradually into the densely blue backdrop of the California sky. The old school bus chortled along the deep black road, with pristine lemon lines hugging the left-hand wheels and a driver as stoic as the passengers. There, in the desert, amongst the snakes and the saltbush, a rusted old bus, full of strangers had parked, and with little fuss the suited men and women reached below their seats and removed a piece, they exited in an orderly fashion with eyes fixed ahead and hands immovable from their guns, gripped tightly as if life itself was within those guns. Colt M1911 to be exact. Every gun, though not obvious to an outsider, was loaded with a single bullet (230 gr Federal HST) and cocked, with the manual safety on. Each of the silent group had left the bus, with their apparent leader at the back of the line, holding the staff and the driver stayed seated with the engine off and staring straight ahead into the vast expanse of the sandy hell ahead of him. Twenty metres from the stationary bus, the man and women formed a perfect circle, each were standing a little over an arms distance from the next person. The robed figure took centre stage and uncrossed its arms, the staff outstretched in the left hand. A magnificent golden rod, a thousand etched stories from base to tip, each one emblazoned with fantastical jewels, this staff could belong to a Queen, a King, a God. The followers were still silent, and still stoic, despite the glaring sunlight reflected from every wild diamond and ruby on the majestic phallus like object. The masked person made a crude attempt to engage a member of the round by walking before them in a cyclical fashion, making eye contact with each but none did move, nor bat an eye. Finally it took its place, back at the centre of the circle and made an unholy sound that sounded as if the Devil himself were dying. Garbled words and unnatural screeches thronged from the unmoving masks mouth piece before suddenly falling silent and it raised the staff higher before striking the earth with passionate fury, and this led a simultaneous movement from the centralised hive mind as they each removed the safety from the own weapons. A single shrill scream echoed across the valley and a second strike to the ground from the staff was the indicator to raise the guns to the person to the immediate right. No noise was made, but a third strike of the staff to the desolate, cracked ground caused thirteen concurrent shots to ring across the arid lands, followed by thirteen solid thuds and a ghostly silence fell across the desert once more. A perfect circle of death among the cacti and Kangaroo rat, and the silence finally broken by the starting engine of a school bus as the driver awakens from his trance and returns back to an apparently civilised world. The fine figure gently steps over a corpse and lifts its robe so as not to disturb the pooling blood before sauntering into the basin of a lonesome American desert and fading into obscurity.

This typing
this gibberish
makes
no sense

stop running
you swan
illiterate
master composer

Floating towards
a clock
pleasuring
A robotic ****

Eggs form cash
and runaway
annihilating
the status quo

Rats play chess
often regally
orphism
Not those lot

Rotten apples jogging
with expression itself
whirling
madness on trial

even from a
distance
she wants to
make sure
that
you are
looking
at her

even if
you are
not

she
will see
to it
that her
un-plunging
neckline
is not
plunging

and

no flesh
shows
where the t-shirt
is just a bit short,

a royal hand
run through
flowing hair

when you pass her
she will say it
without say,
it is she who is
passing,
make way

then
when

she draws close,
as much as a hug
a cell phone
emerges as if
by magic
in her clasp

stares at it
unblinkingly,
places it
regally to
the ear
and before
you never
see her again
in your life
there is that
hint of a smile
hook like
at the corner
of her eyes

Its about this time of the year when the fog  feels melancholy. Sticky in the way it hugs around your fingers, and sometimes your toes. When the grey gives way to blue, and theres a breeze right aroudn midday before the sun comes in, warming your shoulders and brightening his hair.

Its right about this time of year when change sits regally on every windowsill and rooftop, reminding you that it never left, you were just fooled by the frigid frost of february covering its tracks.

Look over your shoulder, she's not there anymore. The way you left her, at the door. Its open, swinging.

And its this time of year when its spring again. And the regality of change crowns the blossoms on each branch, willowing by your doorstep. Sitting on the stoop smoking a cigarette you see the smoke, blowing in little curves to your neighbor Mani's door.

How long you'll be here, you don't know. Mani doesn't either. You both came in from the countryside, a while back expecting to find a gig singing or acting. Lately, you've both been doing that, but what you earn money for is pouring whisky and ***** and gin for people who's lives are made or lost or forgotten by whatever you give them. Sometimes it feels like you control some secret potion, like you have an elixir to share at your dispense. a secret, just like the patch of grass that lingers growing and re-growing under the february frost.

She left pretty quick- you couldn't catch her, there was no way. See you have to know that that kind of thing is coming, or get ******* lucky. But you lost her you really did. With her hair in the wind, and her eyes, so clear you could see the wind blow through them, and the sun shining rays, she used to sit on the stoop. Now that's what you've got. A pretty picture in your mind- one that's all too connected. You remember the smell the touch the heartbeat. Its all there, and it will be. It'll stay you know. She was designed for it- to break into your little shell and leave her mark, make room for herself in your life just in case the spring wasn't coming back, in case change wasn't going to slip through a hole in your pocket and fall down, down into the new york city subway to be carried and picked up and taken on odyssey upon odyssey.

You would have never known. And so, now change sits regally where she did, mocking you for having turned you into a beggar, a gypsy, a fool for little pieces of silver and gold. You begged for change, and I warned be careful what you wish for.

Yes, sir, I kissed her
On the mouth in the back of the bus
It was dark so I reached over and touched her
In a place where my fingers had never felt before
You bet your life, I kissed her
And guess what? She kissed me back
I 'bout had me a heart attack
When I felt her tongue on mine

She always has your eyes, darling one
It's how I know it's true
That there will never be another one
Who can do the things you do
No matter who she is
My, love, she always has your eyes
For your eyes are her eyes
It's not a surprise

Yes, sir, it hurt when she left me
I ain't ashamed to admit
Wonderin' how long until she'd forget me
You're ******* right she'll forget
You're best served with the truth, my foe
There's a lot you'll never know
So much I'll never tell you
For now it's time to go...

...go along, little dove, move along the straight and narrow. Bring along your bow and arrow. It's a small gate and few are the wasted who have tasted it's taste then wasted it's a band of jobless ruffians walking in a straight line, eyes locked straight ahead and determined to arrive at their destination. Dressed in monk's robes, their attire was not the only thing about them which conjured the appearance of a band of Tibetan's finest.
     Make haste! Go along, sweet caterpillar of the dawn. Gather your spawn and meet us on the backyard lawn. Make it quick, make your move, make every guitar pickin' note count. This is your time, La Penguin, it is the dawn of your destiny. The pawn of the mystic's I have placed upon a square I am not legally entitled to inhabit, figuring you would not notice it and even if you did you might not realize I was playing the match illegally. Royal eggs hatch regally, they are a meal of value and worth.
     Plath's dead voice recites her own poetry in the 74th century throught the medium of streaming music, which is every man's birthright. The inhabitants of this far off century are each and every soul well versed in song and voice, rythmn and melody, the poignant lyric in the third verse or during the chorus, their collective history was the culmination of thousands upon thousands of years totally absorbed in every aspect of MUSIC. To say they worshipped music would be to stop somewhat short of being the absolute truth but we listen anyway, we always do, good morning, I am the voice in your head. Have you finally befriended me? Finally accepted me and maybe even appreciated me? Regardless. I am the voice in your head. Do you want to know whose voice is in MY head? That's right: YOURS! Do you think this makes me any happier than the prospect of my being the voice in your head it's complicated, I'll grant that. But now that you're on a roll, what say we write some more crap poetry?

Try not to rhyme
No one does that anymore, that's reason enough
Yes, there is a secret meaning behind all this
You were not on my mind when I wrote this crap
If things had gone my way I could be making excruciatingly
Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?
I love all you *******, I really do
Some of you are genuine artists
Some of you can't write for ****
But that don't make it bad, does it?

Who is she?
She was a worm that crawled in your ear
One summer night while you slept in bed
Dreaming of the day your son
Shot you in the head
Then left you for dead
Wake up, David, wake up!
Fear not the tarantula, David, wake up!
For his bite doth not ****

...go along, feline substitute, your portmanteau is waiting. where are those people now who were so recently uncharitable? They've all been little boys before, every soldier in the field, every face behind bars, they've all had baths and someone to dry them off. Surely this must be? I am too wasted to go on.

Naya kudro. Reo o hart bonite. Rega in gavida, gavida. E qualid plea, senior away cast them in fee, el mquee.
Hula sona karay. Shis attune heh, hey hey, the grinavorte, honeas delong. O, fate be a queen. Allah's mortal today. The name. I don't want a name. Oh, no. The glad. Uh, uhhhhhhhh, uh, I'm madalam...you know....it's grand.......these sandwiches, they're grand.........beam me up, Scotty, you know the rest of the joke........Just like drums in an African rainforest, glistening with moisture, the rain mixing up the rythmns as drops make contact with skin. .........holding in past for the trial........coming in a car.........what a................you run, you running so much higher, climbing on a wire, you know..........you run, you running so much faster and now you're...........holding in past for the time......holding and caring for strange..........what catches your eye.........

I only thought I was too wasted to go on.
But this time
It's a for sure deal
I
am
too
wasted
to
continue

...to be continued

ONE CRISP NIGHT in mid October, we went down the old fisherman’s trail, where the mountains meet the lake. This was before the trail had been maintained and tossed with wood-chips and at the time, it was a narrow mangled dirt path sporting thick roots and fist sized rocks at every twist and turn. You’d be foolish to not carry a headlamp and flashlight, for the woods were nearly impassable without them. We knew this, and we came well prepared even thought stumbling at points on the trail was inevitable. When we came to the light clearing in the trees, which was brushed with pine and spruce, and the tallest oak tree I’d ever seen, we sat down on two logs. They were wet through, and covered in patches of lichen and moss. Insects crept through the rotted wood, and night moths fluttered in the still air. Though half the world was asleep in their beds, and would stay that way till morning, the forest was wide awake under the crunching maple leaves.

We marveled out at the round moon, bright and pale in the sky. It hung regally, while it’s light shone upon the lake’s dark waters, holding our faces, holding the mysteries of the universe and the answers to any question we might have. Cradled by the natural world, we were. I’ve never felt as protected, since then, as I did that one night. It was as if Mother Earth cradled me in her own ancient hands.

This world is running 'round,
Further out of my control.
In everyone's tears, drowned.
Coursing in my blood, runs phenol.

Burning everywhere I go,
That poisonous mix pumps.
Seeping through icy veins so slow,
Making me a useless fleshy clump.

They see me running, screaming
****** ****** in this awful town.
With great force from within, beaming
These filthy lies in full meltdown.

Yet, no one sees my frightful scene.
How can they? I'm sitting alone.
This moment, so wretchingly serene.
Still, my life is coming unsewn.

I feel it laying down now,
My life, so quietly it snaps.
So regally it suffers, I must bow,
For this substance causes collapse.

Burning inside I smile, so small,
Thinking of the glorified cause.
I gave up, taking this horrified fall
And making it to life's last pause.

It’s nights like these;
when the sky feels raw-quiet
and the moon hangs so low-heavy
and pulpy, parchment yellow,
dripping and left to sun-stain and disintegrate
against dull ghost stories
and stinging to-do lists.
This is when I feel it- the fracturing.
You’re out of sight.
I’m out of mind.  

I crack the window,
blink loose stars out of focus
and send them shotgun galloping
across the flat-hum pulsing,
tin tinged and navy evening static.

The North Star needs new batteries.
He flickers and sways but won’t
extinguish. He is soft and solemn-
a lazing, dazing anchor whose fraying rope
weaves bowline knots
and hitching ties
into each inch of my drying hair.

Every strand of the night breathes itself into life.
The pieces are softening and shifting,
howling and crawling.
They become young men planning,
flexing at high tide and daring
each other further out with each set of waves.
They are posing, pretending to be
what they think the word ‘reckless’ means.

They are throwing their bodies into surf
and wailing.
They are crashing hard
and violent
against the shore.

They are shaking out golden limbs
and rubbing bloodshot eyes.
I watch bruises bloom and gashes erupt a flash
of crimson before salt water clean and stung.

They are flashing gleeful smiles
and throwing taunting screams across
whole seas while diving back,
quickly, elegantly,
into the same rough surf
that just spit them out.

Maybe they’re proactive,
maybe things hurts less when you
know where the hurt will come from.
Maybe the game isn’t to stay lovely
and bright and whole;
but to know pain’s possibilities so intimately
that when it comes time for you to break
you can do so without shattering
completely.

Nights like these;
sitting cross-legged with a blank
page open and an aching, reeling,
sickly-warm ribbon sprouting from my molars-
I get it.

Streamers wave proudly across
my body.
They grip and simmer,
they wind tightly around  
organs and bones who
gave up their hiding spots
and surrendered their secrets
the first time I let him come in.

The strings are bright and knot themselves tight.
They tether my windpipe,
weld each rib colorfully between sternum and spine.
They coil down and tie off;
thick, swaddled and bobbing, bowing
themselves regally around my coccyx.

Nights like these I have no armor.
Where is my skin?
I stir and rattle to even the slightest shift of Earth.
Exposed and quaking, I body-map bolts of light.
The light is tap dancing over lungs,
igniting blood and ricocheting through the summer camp,
arts and crafts hysteria fusing my anatomy.
It plunge pastels deep into the marrow of my bones.
The room is smoky, my gut splashes about, electrocuted.
I stop feeling tired.

The thing is- what I’m really trying to say,
is that I have no words right now.
There are no pretty lines caught in the twine of
my hip joints and no fiery prose laying
eggs in my spinal fluid.

There is no poem to write
about the fleshy, sour
smell of my own heart
roasting on a pyre or the hours it will take
to scrub off the charred bits of melting muscle
now staining the carpet.

This bitter heat creeping up my throat
and the sallow contraction of my
belly are not the prologue to a revolution-
my diagnosis is not a metaphor.

They are simply the tangy symptoms of the sadness
pinging around my insides and playing
peekaboo among the weeds of my broken body and sticky mind.
She will wait, biding time, for a properly rapt audience.
I whisper then whine that I’m too messy,
too slouchy, too emotionally ill-equipped to house a heart
maybe breaking,
definitely ripping, across-the-ballroom
slipping and wrecking-ball imploding.
Sadness smacks her lips and smirks.
No one rides for free.  

Nights like these I think
maybe I’ve wasted all my words;
my sentences and precious syntax and swooping rhetoric,
on lighter blows and mere heartaches.
I am a ragdoll limply stretching.
I am standing completely still, taking inventory.
I’m puzzled, though decidedly unthreatened,
by the glass-littered ground, my bleeding feet.
I mean look at the big picture:
I lit myself on fire.
I’m not worried about sunburn.

I know now that it has happened-
the hurt circulates my veins
and pumps me full of vehemence.
The act of breathing is ferocious,
I am a tangle of raw nerves.
This is the night I’m left with a heart shattered
in six hundred pieces on the floor and absolutely no poetry rising
from my pores to help glue it back together.

I said I get it.
I should have practiced.
I should have left my clothes on the sand and
ran toward the sea, naked and unembarrassed,
while diving head first into fierce undertows
and crashing with the boyish bodies of the night.

I should have experimented;
explored all the ways hurt could find me
while the beach was still mine to breathe out and yell for
without fear of being told 'no.'
But I didn’t. I kept my clothes on and my secrets to myself.

Tonight I’m a wreck and this isn’t a test.
I'm so far out, weighed down
by this boxy, heavy pain
ripening in my arms.
I'm panicky and paddling in any direction,
trying to keep my head above water
and praying the shore will appear and welcome me
once I get through this next set of waves,
through this next set of waves.

they cower in motels
behind brave windows and balconies,
hurling mortal nouns
into private spaces

avatar faces
painted dirt brown
spew hurt and shame
like acid rain
with decadent refrain

and broken blades
seek veins hidden
in sheer fright
from eyes cued to gore,
grime and more

criminal cocktails
circumvent cogency
by a moonshiner's mile

improvised neckwear
leave a mark
as the world goes dark
like forensic files
or the hunt

and another soul
checks out early,
bypassing the lobby
and the regally blind

eyes cued to gore,
grime and more....

~ P
#bedroombullies
(8/3/2015)

**** and cigarette smoke mingles with exhaust and the smell of cooking food
The homeless and the elite businessman walk side by side with tourists and hipster girls, and so few stop and stare, to gawk at the urban sprawl of the city, regally scraping at the cloudless sky, fingers hoping to grasp at god
The trolley bell, the scream of distant sirens, the shuffling of feet scraping the ***** sidewalk, the hydraulic hiss of brakes, the music of construction workers pounding and making and fixing, the blare of traffic horns and laughter and serious conversations of passersby in so many voices and tongues all combine like some cosmic tune, a discordant harmony that speaks to the very nature of city life
I feel the wind blowing through my hair as it carries pigeons and trash and the branches of the trees wave their greeting to the people, a friendly universe choked by stone and asphalt and metal shapes, but life will not be constrained, and so the city prospers and we go on and on, not as cogs in some machine, but cells in a body, growing, changing and shaping the whole

not one
of the moon's mystic seas is filled
with their yelping  

though those
haunting harmonies save me from solitude  
on the naked prairies

the sky, cold, awash
with wispy clouds, carries their sour song,
a dirge no creatures emulate

like they, I howl at the proud wolf moon;
it ignores me as it does them, but  ‘tis regally round
for only a blink in time, then mournful
as it wanes to penumbra  
in earth’s shadow

the wild dogs and I
cease our serenade, but wait in darkness
to cast another refrain when the ornery orb again
filches the dying sun’s light

93 million miles Ra’s rays travel
and light your cratered face

as you rise between monoliths
where janitors man buffers

and ambitious white collars sit by crumpled fast food wrappers
devouring data, dreaming of their own ascension

while you climb ten floors a minute

tomorrow, our wide world will shave a corner from you
in a fortnight, you will be a white whisper

though surely as our stone spins, you will again
become gibbous--then regally full

inside the scrapers, the buffers yet buzz,
the aspiring giants yet yearn for more

while you remain, silent light in the night,
unperturbed by their folly

Sporting the battledress of the warrior queen.
Her eyes wide open.
She's unfurling black banners,
while spewing venom, at the blackened retching sky.
Midnight crisp approaches,
as she grabs the sullen one,
Smashes through his barriers,
She is the chosen one,
And she sings to him, provocatively, luring him in,
dashed onto gilded rocks,
For he too is the chosen one,
the son of sighs,
deliver me from death,
I beg,
oh so unholy one,
Once again, he smiles at her,
deliverance curtly,
through teeth ,
blackened by his spite,

As morning light breaks through the sky,
he stops and stoops and wonders why.
On hell and Earth, in spite of heaven,
Why did he bid goodbye to his wild warrior queen,
the royal one,
So regally attired in ebony black.

For you woman,
you seek only the sycophant,
Believe him not,
It's all a fake, a disguise behind which he hides,

Forget her not, she  still wants you,
Wants to rip your **** in two,
no chance at forgiveness,
for making the lady blue,

You,
with the faces of loyal Gemini,
you state,
categorically state,
the woman, the one,
that woman,
And f**k, as inside you walk, right in again,
As inside you go again,
Here you go again, letting your passion, cause more pain.
(c) Livvi

Now that the daze of drought has cleared,
And the torrent has stopped,
The cloud of harvest gathered
In the womb of the sky.
Cord of famine has broken,
Trembling under the transformational winds of coolness, making our farmland to yield bumper harvest, banishing the vessels of poverty.
        

Forest adorned the toga of greenness and the beasts in their loneliness, hiding under the cooler shade of trees.
Farmers regally rejoiced in the natural endowment.

Now that the rain has stopped
Let the shekere of harvest announces its arrival.

wrapped in the cocoon
of my surname
he ripped at
the silk string walls of liberation
since before he knew
he was a butterfly

working against the confines
rejecting barriers
silently in the dark
he persists fervently
as the wind is unaware

and the world

casual lepidopterists
taking for granted
his dangling from
a rough branch
in the family tree

this larvae
is not unlike other larvae
except for the heart
hanging
exposed in the air
in life
in earnest
in waiting
in not waiting

I wanted him to be
a worm longer than
I would dare admit
because he needed me
still slow and common
but less than I needed the security
of restriction and
my definitions

he pushed
as God intended
pressing beauty out of struggle
flying
against the turbulence of my fear
flying
with the inspiration
that I told him he could do anything
hoping he wouldn't be
quite so eager to do it

but, god, it is glorious
rising above the world
neon hues announcing promotion
on regally scalloped wings -
a banner in the sky
for the coming of age

I dreamt of heights
in secret thoughts
occasionally rebuilding
invisible wrappings around his soul
longing that he would eclipse
my reach

but in the reaching
he would always touch his wing
to mine
just to remind me
that he is never gone forever
but just to color the world
better than it could have been
without him

Christ in a manger was laid,
regally known but lowly.
His royal identity
was to three wise men revealed,
but from his kinsmen concealed.

Christ was in Bethlehem born;
his royal ancestor's city.
A king that sinners would scorn,
and would by his friend be betrayed.

Messiah to the unholy;
born to salvage the wicked
with the blood of his innocence.
He was nailed with no evidence,
He shared the fate of the crooked
but his unjust conviction
he never appealed against.
Born that we all might be cleansed,
born that men no more may die,
born that men may reign on high,
and born that men might see God.

Do you really think I care?—The purple blanket of night
drops ever so regally, meticulous its stance
over every dark heart you've created onto this very vulnerable skin
every single time
scars hide, and so does light—Do you really think I pine - and only pine - always when you leave?

gentle petals fall at her feet, and she smiles with the knowledge that she is the real beginning. of spring, of life, of new stories. her hair curls delicately at the ends and she is translucent, limbs pale and blushing red where the blood flows anew. she holds the secrets of lovers now, lovers long past and those to be; understands and celebrates, both alone and with nature. closed eyes, quiet breaths and careful steps, dancing around joy and healing heartbreak. her sun rises in tones of crimson and faded purple, her moon hiding behind whispers of clouds, of storms. the melting of snow under sunlight is her voice, and she moves gracefully, regally.

february paints over january with a wave of her hand, turning the glitter of the new year into subtle glows, the wind and cold into gradual warmth; transitional, beautiful.

(A.H.Z)

The man of my dreams
Regally feasts, then coffee.
Come here, marry me.

Shalini Nayar
© 2006