"renovated" poems
the sophiatown i live in:
is a place i call home
is where i come to from work
is a place riddled with crime
is where i'm proud to be from
is a place being renovated
is where i'm not far from means
is a place that gets frustrated
by the westbury fiends
the sophiatown i read about:
is a place void of silence
is where bra hugh got his trumpet
is a place full of vibrance
is where miriam caught hold of it
is a place that was razed
is where a new place was born
is a place that couldn't be fazed
by the lines that were drawn
the sophiatown i love:
is a place that i live in
is where i've chosen to stay
is a place that i read about
is where that won't go away
is a place that's still here
is where apartheid escaped
is a place made austere
by the forces it shaped
the sophiatown that inspires me:
is very triumphant
is very intact
so what was your reason
for doing that
Dec 8, 2015
Dec 8, 2015 at 6:26 PM UTC
Barn
A graveyard of empty whiskey bottles,
curled, browned labels coated with dust.
A farmer drank in this dirt basement, alone,
wind chapped face illuminated by a kerosene lantern,
swollen fingers forever clutching the
glass neck of his half drained bottles.
I drink ***** in the renovated kitchen,
lit by dimmed lights, gentle shadows
dancing across the glossy hardwood floor.
I look out at the dark bodies of trees
swaying, uneasy in the night breeze.
Sometime after midnight,
the farmer’s ghost
stumbles up the creaking staircase behind me,
to our bed.
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 4:39 PM UTC
On the first day, he was pushed
robust in his stance, the other forced,
this boy down the spiral staircase
of the Catholic church, the school
had renovated, the Spring before
Isaac had begun his studies,
at the high school.
Ballet was his passion, Latin was the
language that so effortlessly, fluently
was spoken from his lips in class
as he smiled at his Professor, another
victory accomplished in academia
so proud were his parents, of their
blue eyed boy.
Jonah was the reject, the older brother
he had been kicked out of school,
not once, but twice, and was often
found with a joint, his unshaven face
wrapped around one of the girls,
from the all girls school that ran
alongside Isaacs all boys.
Issac was hurt, a further blow to his
stomach, rendered him broken
as a waterfall of tears ran down his
bruised and cut face, so ashamed
as other pupils laughed, staring, pointing
until the final bell rang as they fled from
the high ceilings and narrow corridors.
Wrapped in a ball, he waited for all
halls and students to clear, and as
he rolled over, picking himself up
he took to the washroom, knowing he
needed to be presentable for his mother
waiting for him at the school gate
brimming with pride, at her boys scholarship.
All his dreams, mystical and serene, Romeo and Juliet
fluid streams of poetry of Elliot, Poe, Hughes
and of course Wilde and those love letters of Beethoven
math, biology, all paled into insignificance
he was born a writer, a dancer, a drawer,
sketching and typing his heart to a page,
prose a future love would read.
Johan saw his mother's car pull up
as he raced and giggled with Saskia
leading her astray, he promised her all
the things those boys always did, and of course
not to break her sweet sixteen heart, unlike other boys
as his mother smoked another Camel, the two lovers
jumped into his truck, Johnny Cash blaring from speakers
laughing hysterically, the world at their feet.
By 4pm, Isaac was ready to leave school,
tentatively walking out the main door, down
concrete slabs as steps, no predators in sight
he couldn't hide the dark circles under his eyes
that formed as bruises, knowing he was fortunate
to have not been damaged further
by the haunting before last period.
Walking to the gates, he listened through
headphones; Tchaikovsky
his release
his home
his saving grace.
© Sia Jane
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
Black & Yellow
– for Wiz Khalifa ✌
*“Stay high like I’m supposed to do, that crown
underneath them clouds, can’t get close to you.”*
On the first day, he was pushed.
Robust in stance, the other forced,
this boy down the marble stairs
of the Catholic church, the school
renovated the Summer before
Khalifa began his studies,
in junior high.
The ballet was his passion,
Latin was the language that so
fluently was spoken from
his lips. The Professor smiled,
another victory accomplished.
Khalifa’s mom was so proud of
her blue eyed boy.
Rapped in a ball, he waited
for all students & halls to clear.
Rolled over, picked himself up
took to the washroom, knowing
he needed to be presentable
for his mom stood at the school gate,
brimming with pride.
All of his dreams, mystical.
Don Quixote & The Nutcracker,
fluid streams of poetry;
Elliot, Poe, Wilde. The love
letters of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Born to dance all Principal roles,
a lovers’ prose.
By four, he was ready to
leave school. Tentatively walking,
no predators in sight, out
the main door. Leaving behind
a haunting first day. Listening to
Tchaikovsky; his release, his home,
his saving grace.
© Sia Jane
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 10:38 PM UTC
Strange times. When I speak of caressing your mantic lungs
I don’t know what I mean, but I know
I would hurl you under proper circumstances.
Darling, one whisper falls from a tree silently
so as not to wake the ghosts from their siestas.
Your robe has holes I can’t write of. I can fathom
getting there, what that might entail, wrapping,
as I am prone to, my fingers around your furry pincers
while I wait for you to read my rights to the ceiling fan
who whirls above our renovated combustions like the glowering
eye of our Lord upon the teary-eyed wicked.
I am not looking to escape through the window, darling.
I am diving for your diamond-in-the-rough, peeling off barnacles,
making moustaches of seaweed. You threw it into that ocean-
sized trough in which you drown lizards as way of
stress-release. I don’t know what I’ll do next.
The poor man. You give me your hand,
darling, and your robe, your robe is shiny like a pubescent star,
and it shimmies like a wagon piecing itself apart, as you
piece yourself apart, starting with your smile, which was always more
like a photograph of a dune in a textbook.
You give me your hand. It is a blue egg
dusted with microorganisms. I sprinkle it with our fragrance,
what’s left of it. I wish happiness upon your sleep-life, doldrums
upon your late-night haunting. I am tired and these
machines are so convenient, bringing me on all-expenses-
paid visits to the site of your burial. Or is it your sister’s?
I quote, my heart is like a walled onion.
The poor man is tired. It is not 1904 anymore.
You are not smiling anymore, darling, but you give me your hand.
You give it in a basket with parsley and cheese
and cut-outs from The Waterlogged God.
You give it almost grudgingly but I will keep it.
You tell me you’ve been dreaming again of train stations.
I wonder what that means.
I wonder about your eyes.
There are many spiders inside the wall, and along it,
and on the chandelier’s fingers, and inside the spiders.
I quote, a dream is worth a thousand dustpans, but you,
darling, are worth so much more than dustpans.
But I grow weepy, as stated. What do those dark blue lines mean?
Your fingers, darling, smell of a dark cloud in an electrical storm.
Your palm is a circus. Your nails ticket stubs.
That one’s from the alligator show. You dislocated your
throat. I had a plan. If you stare into someone’s eyes for
more than six seconds, you’ll want to lick them.
May 25, 2010
May 25, 2010 at 8:20 PM UTC
We shall have our little day.
Take my hand and travel still
Round and round the little way,
Up and down the little hill.
It is good to love again;
Scan the renovated skies,
Dip and drive the idling pen,
Sweetly tint the paling lies.
Trace the dripping, pierced heart,
Speak the fair, insistent verse,
Vow to God, and slip apart,
Little better, Little worse.
Would we need not know before
How shall end this prettiness;
One of us must love the more,
One of us shall love the less.
Thus it is, and so it goes;
We shall have our day, my dear.
Where, unwilling, dies the rose
Buds the new, another year.
1.9k
We have a family tomb. Elder brother bought it for dad. I renovated it when mom slept for the last time. It is pleasant to go there and stay for a while.
I have never seen dad and mom in bed together. Now, it’s nice to watch them do so. A tranquil feeling.
If I do not die in a distant land I too will sleep in this tomb. Gives me a nice kick to think so. Also a sick feeling that I cannot be there to watch myself.
I picked up a candle and lit it on my tomb. Gathered some flowers from the ground and strew them on it. Stuck incense sticks all around, Knelt down before the dead me.
Then, The familiar ones in the cemetery rose up To ask me when I had come over. Someone from among us got up and left without answering.
Behold, a girl runs along the alley in front of the cemetery.
Jan 20, 2018
Jan 20, 2018 at 9:22 PM UTC
The church we visited
Today for pastor's round table
Was set like the scene
Of a Grant Wood painting.
The fields were stretched
For miles upon miles,
The view enhanced
By gently rolling hills.
The tin-roofed-and-sided church,
Once a barn, now renovated,
Sits in the middle of a farmers field.
A treasure once hidden, now found.
In that building we discussed
The move of God across
Our nation and our state,
Building unity amongst us,
Those who till the earth
And spread the seed,
Waiting for God to
Bring the increase.
For as the rain falls
Down from the sky,
It waters the earth
And causes our seed
To sprout and produce fruit.
So we must be patient now,
Being faithful farmers waiting
For the seed we've sown
To receive the nutrition
It needs to spring forth
And yield the harvest
We have always desired.
May 10, 2016
May 10, 2016 at 4:11 PM UTC
in my mother's basement
once upon a time she tied up a clothes line
though most of the time
the line
was used to hang up
hangers
precariously hooked to a rope becoming less taut
as the years go on
the paradox of garage sale hand-me-downs of broken homes
as bodies for clothes become subtracted they make room for memories
we grow heavier by
as the hangers continue to multiply unused
clothes hangers are sacred
they are ghost as zygotes
back then there were days
I would wear my woven leather belt for an inverted neck tie
on those days
tie the other end to the wooden cross supports in the basement ceiling
then tip-toeing up
on a beat-up old stool
play chicken
a game of chicken with nobody
a side of extra mc chicken sauce for the soul
I wonder now
how if anyone would've wondered
if I had died never really learning how to wear a belt
or how to properly tie a neck-tie
kids today wear their pants too low
and parents back then were way too given to involuntary penance
to up the ante
I would write a list on the wooden beams in the ceiling
each time I got up there
for all the reasons I got up there
in attempt to embellish the exit sign
singing ugly duckling swan song echo
sedated by the attempt
training wheels for Icarus syndrome
it wasn't that my youth was in disillusion
I just never really learned how to measure distance properly
a pair of breaking parents
an unwanted pregnancy
"What's with in arms' reach?"
a game of catch
a game of release
a flight of stairs in one step
"it's not your fault kid
but you're gonna have to get hurt anyway"
funny how when you are teetering on stoic infinity
balanced like an idle pendulum
a noose becomes a life-support system
dance like no one is watching
I don't play those games anymore
my bones have gotten too heavy to bet against
memories I still wish to change
knees too weighted to two-step the precipice
on weekends
and since practicing how to use my legs again
and again
I now prefer walking this earth
wearing my belt around my equator
over drawstrings around my neck
the basement has since been renovated
no more wooden crosses
exposed in the ceiling
I don't play childish games anymore
I just do my laundry there
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 3:32 PM UTC
desperate for a break in loneliness
longing to be devoured
heart once removed
prey versus predator
gentle, lays the Beast
slowly fueled by crowds of vacant eyes
primal feasts of flesh
no bearing on the soul
no past
no future
momentarily sated
a life of pretense
constructs of reality morph with mood
crushed and renovated by perception
the soul eats trusting hearts
unable to quench the thirst
it spits out bare bones
and goes on its way
living for the bliss of escape
oblivious to consequences no one else can see
Sep 28, 2013
Sep 28, 2013 at 12:27 PM UTC
Oil
Exhaust
Handstand theatre
In the back of a van
Underground avenue
Has the scent of
Stale black licorice
Melted into the sidewalk
The familiar odor of traffic
Is a pedestrian substitute
For the Old World charm
This renovated place
Paved over
Long
Ago
Feb 15, 2020
Feb 15, 2020 at 5:48 PM UTC
The city has changed from what it used to be. Old buildings are torn down and new ones take their place. Streets are paved over and torn up. People in suits come and promise to make things better, but nothing ever comes of it. While one neighborhood is lifted up, I can't afford to live there anymore. I am shuffled off to the last place that was renovated. 20 years ago when I was born, This was the new thing, new buildings clean streets and lots of hope, but none for someone like me. I couldn't afford it then as I could not afford the new neighborhood where I used to live now. They talk about urban renewal, but they never do anything to bring change to the people, they only redo the buildings and make more money which none of us ever see. So much for the idea of being renewed. My home is gone and I am back where I was before. In what used to belong to someone else, I now live in their hand me down lives they have been upgraded, but there is no renewal for me.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 12:09 PM UTC
The heavens called the ocean to the sky and released bolts of liquid lightning
With the recently renovated target on my heart, it's no surprise one found its way, colliding with my body in a splash of salinity and electric sparks
The collision ignited my every cell, sending everything into overtime
My heart fluttered rapidly, my blinks keeping tempo
Time pasted in a turn of the head, blurring the scenery into a waterlogged painting
The day the heavens called the ocean to the sky, it released liquid toxins.
With the recent renovations, it's no surprise one found its way to the target on my heart with your name scribbled in salty letters across the bullseye
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 11:27 PM UTC
whisper me to the sea.
salty breaths enlighten me.
let the wind capture my soul
as it passes me, brushing shoulders
with the crowd of tourists and locals
that meander through the clock tower plaza,
a town renovated to appease to the soldiers
and the thousands of Americans who wish to claim
respect and claim their connection to a place
they learned about in a History class,
a few years back.
there must be more.
the salt cleans my nostrils of any hate,
the air filling me up, lifting me away,
and I feel weightless, like I’m about to arrive
in the freshest of places, the greenest of spaces,
and the best chapter in the book of my life.
I am a tourist myself, but my mind is cleaner
—don’t take my comments as hate,
but only distance from their kind—
and it’s this slate that the sea wipes
again and again with each breath,
like each gallop a freed horse makes
in the fields of this same island
a few years back.
a grass blade, a bead of sand, a drop of the ocean’s water
in your hand, seeping between the cracks
of this world’s distaste, and I have begun to wonder how lovely
freedom must taste, particularly on the tongues of those opposed,
denied of the wooden planks that could carry them home,
and whose only solace was in the song
of the ocean kissing their skin, massaging their back, and
letting them float and imagine that there is something more.
for the ocean is the only way we can ever know how to fly,
our feet never land and our hearts beat towards the sky.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 3:00 PM UTC
We’re all alone in our minds.
Don’t be afraid,
There’s plenty of space to move around.
It’s your home, and a home needs to be renovated, maintained, lived in.
Strong foundation.
It’s your universe, your reality.
Take control, tweak the dials, bend gravity.
Starlight illuminates the heart.
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 12, 2015 at 12:59 AM UTC
Eli walked through the exhibition
until he found the female artist's
body soaked through w/ gold paint,
her pores blocked & clogged, she
was dead like the girl in Goldfinger;
Eli thinking it pure genius, bought
the corpse to display on the wall of
his newly renovated finished barn
Aug 1, 2018
Aug 1, 2018 at 2:37 PM UTC
In March of 2005, Dad packed his things
and left the house that he raised me in.
I didn’t notice anything missing, except for
a black and white photo album off the mantle
and the lounge chair he slept on for two years.
His new home, a renovated split-level,
was empty like an abandoned barn:
beautiful in its own tragic way, with
barely enough strength to keep it from
toppling over into a pile of rotted wood.
It was vacant, despite all the possessions
and bodies that lay lifeless inside the walls.
Years of silent dinners amplified by echoes
of awkward tiptoeing and closing doors
to hide the things nobody knew how to say.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 4:45 AM UTC
Houses are built to be homes, so consider my clavicle your door frame.
These arms are slowly hardening to brick.
You see, dry wall has the tendency to give in to the weight of your knuckles and the press of your skin so the arms that so eagerly work to surround you in safety needed renovation.
One day you decided my rib cage staircase squeaked too much and the rooms you've filled where too small.
I could have Renovated, but you Doused me in gasoline and started a fire searching for flames of answer.
I hope my blanket of ashes brings you the warmth you needed.
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 10:51 PM UTC
the theatre has fallen,
the great black box is no longer a home away from hell
it is a soundscape of fear and hunger
where I can't feel accepted
and no longer respected
it is a nest of inferiority
and a longing for conformity
lonliness eats my heart away
though exactly why, I cannot say.
It used to be my home
my kingdom,
but on return from summer
it was as if the house had been renovated,
a new family moved in
and I'm not even a guest,
I'm a ghost, unseen by all
drifting through walls that used to be
stuck in the past
desperate to breath with the living.
But instead I stay in back,
haunting all I see,
under the realization,
that the only one being haunted,
is me.
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 8:31 PM UTC
as complex as a net of themes
metaphors are living things
language of self-minded brains
interwoven with a world thought sane
but deluded by senses and sense
cooperating just by chance
you can’t deny those alien parts
that hide within your twisted self
nor cannot face just what they are
just like you can’t escape their hollow spell
that you can’t shelve
though it’s no use to delve
chaotic like each world of thoughts
worlds are nested in each word
concepts of our looped up minds
rooted in something that we can’t find
cause we change with it and through each guess
coevolving law or mess
we can’t deny these shady parts
that constitute our very self
nor cannot guess just who we are
just like we can’t escape that fuzzy spell
that we can’t shelve
though it’s no use to delve
there is no ground to stand upon
as soon as we look what’s beneath
but in the moment we go on
a way’s rebuilt under our feet
so going on works as a ground
and there’s no way of standing still
we better swim or we will drown
we are a process at its will
only in motion we are real
so out of reach for static thoughts
there’s a dynamic self that feels
why understanding is a fitting word
since our points of view are fixed
unable to reflect the complex loop
changing within its feedbacked tricks
that chase our circling selves right through
constantly renovated tubes
we can’t deny these foreign parts
that constitute our very world
nor cannot guess where we should start
to rearrange our mental world of words
that guide our thoughts
in which we just occur
systematically blurred
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 9:21 AM UTC
Clouds shift across rearview windows
Of ten million untouched cars.
Hesitant steps over uneven asphalt,
And the deep drone of interstate
Spanning the continent.
Dilapidated city centers,
Abandoned buildings and frayed neighborhoods
With all those chemicals still inside,
So birth defects are on the rise:
Another casualty of industry.
While there's shiny new shoes,
Couture wardrobe and golden rings
With a wood floor in the renovated loft,
And a computer that knows your face.
This view of the city is nothing new,
Though the price says otherwise.
Rain sweeps carcasses off oil black streets.
Excrement piles in the gutters.
Billboards like clawing monoliths.
The senseless beat of trekking tire,
And a really ******* big American flag.
Endless parking lots,
Suburban sprawl,
Incandescent spires,
Nonchalant death,
Distant eyes,
Mass demise,
Corporate ties,
Institutionalized,
No integrity,
No empathy:
A quiet suicide.
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
She invited me into her home
apologizing for the lack of things there.
I could tell that she had renovated recently,
getting rid of the things that no longer
served purpose.
I thought of her as timely,
a perfect harmony of sage & mint candles
burning on a black glass coffee table.
about halfway through,
I realized how much I loved her home.
while she apologized in the beginning
less is more & it showed by way of her smile.
I enjoyed how everything was laid out,
from the brochures of comfort to the cushion
of where I sat.
the greatest intimacy between us two.
laughing at everything yet nothing at the same time.
but still I thought, how much she inspired me to do
the same when I got home.
everything that I thought was beautiful before
no longer had that same appeal.
when i extended the same invitation,
I too found myself apologizing for things
that needed no explanation.
my biggest source of inspiration,
I was glad to see her growth
& in turn stopped chasing the wrong things,
I learned from her
That everything is going to be alright
Nov 17, 2021
Nov 17, 2021 at 8:41 AM UTC
I see a mountain
High as it should always be,
I look down and face I did
A faceless valley
Clean, it so seemed
With no faces as I leaned,
I did not twitch nor did I fear
Look upon I did on a blue sky so clear
As I set ready for my rest
I had gazed upon a flower which knows no zest
Slowly it withers
As the sun slowly sets and as I start to shiver
Closely I looked, and sighed
This land was surely once pure,
But indulged in hatred and false desire
Left to decay and endure
Full it is in my eyes
Full of grief and lies
Full of thorns to embrace
Mother nature then renovated this place
-Our hearts may be pure for now but never forget our past on which has lead us to this second.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 6:34 AM UTC
Forty white birds ask us to be over forty,
Thirty-three wide, 40 long...
More space to see the sky from the earth...
Live time we are alive hearing pass the time.
Forty spread God's word behind us,
And 33 distributed to our entire main front...
Forty long by 33 wide...
It is the crypt of our dreams waiting Reborn.
Tracks 40 and 33 also,
We are told flies through the world and exclaims before the creation
Your experiences,
However it is measurable only those who drag us,
In our range of life 40 x 33 ... we remain trapped and limited...
Jesus has its coordinated laptop,
We walk exponentially multiplying our life within the limits,
And their word will continue to walk with his Gospel, larger crypt which deserves a mortal on earth.
Jesumani and not Getsemani,
Crimping Christian temples...
Via Crucis Vialucis and No Viacrucis...
Generosity and no Privacy,
All the world's forests exceeding your shoulders,
It will be waiting for your return, you release your body breathe
And consecrate the spirit of all over 40 long and 33 wide.
Jesumani is more to think about to be reborn...
Is coming with handfuls of experience back the changes gives us eternity...
Life is eternal,
Eternal is dreaming,
Eternal is glistening,
Eternal is eternal,
Eternal life is hyper,
Hyper dream,
Hyper heal,
Hyper revive,
Hyper resurrect...
Hyper the gentle voice of a child,
Hyper the voice of one or more,
Hyper oxidant and execration Dream,
Forty enough the magnitude of our crypt in Heaven,
So as being take a path,
So I'll get my hands icy missing 33 to gather the meditations I dare tell me, something lost in life not knowing what else I have to live and let me do it.
Thunderclap and thunders and lightning sound come,
Big thing altogether deafening even today not having ears...
As I said, every Easter to come hear me the white birds and I sing psalms growth of my crypt, my great all inclusive resort for all to visit me in my large crypt, in my renovated say ...
Declaim to stand without getting tired, just hearing 40 and 33.
Easter, World Holy, Holy Word ...holy Eternity...
Jose Luis, Easter 2018.
Majoris Hebdomadae Mundus Deo
Apr 3, 2018
Apr 3, 2018 at 12:53 PM UTC
My heart,
a mansion made of straw:
Complex and
beautiful
but lit ablaze
by a single spark.
Intricate and
intimate
but bound to
collapse.
Spacious and
accommodating
but thin-walled,
colder in the nights.
Furnished and
ready for use
but over-staged,
exaggerated potential.
Do me a favor:
tear down the walls
burn it all, scatter ashes
that I may be an empty lot
to be renovated by an Architect.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 9:58 AM UTC