"scheherazade" poems
you said i was exotic,
and i said ooo
what do you mean?
exotic like a fruit?, like
i don’t know what tropics
you think i came from, was
imported from, but you read
my skin like the label
on a flavour of coca-cola
you had never been
offered before and i
was refreshing, and
different. and you liked
the way my coke-bottle
curves felt beneath your
fingertips, said you’d never
tasted caramel
like me before,
you said i was exotic.
like i was a work
of west african art,
even though my mother’s
from the east, like
i was from a storybook like
1001 african nights, like,
you saw my cover and you were
hooked, never did think to
look beneath the jacket,
just wanted stories like the
ones scheherazade sold,
i was your sheba
and you my solomon.
we rode lions across
the sands, your kiss
was salt on my lips,
i needed to quench
my thirst and you offered
me the brand new flavour
of coca-cola.
you said i was exotic,
like a pretty foreign thing,
some mail-order thing,
special delivery
just for you,
a flavour of coca-cola that you
had never tasted before.
Nov 19, 2016
Nov 19, 2016 at 8:09 AM UTC
Sinbad’s sea-battered ship was
poised on the edge of annihilation,
The Sultan's brow furrowed with curiosity,
then without warning
Scheherazade stilled her narrative
and lived to see the morning sun.
When the moon and stars next owned the sky,
Sinbad was snatched from the jaws of death
then the saga of Prince Kalandar
seized the king's soul with wonder
but Scheherazade left the tale unfinished
and sang with the birds at dawn.
Rimsky-Korsakoff turned the pages at his desk -
consumed by Scheherazade’s charms
then etched his pen across the waiting staves:
The violin must weave her spell once more
and bassoon and oboe take the prince’s part.
Trombone and trumpet led the martial call
and all the rest enlisted for the cause.
Russian bravura fused with the seductive allure
of exotic tunes born of the dust on the silken road.
A sonic whirlwind filled Saint Paul Church,
as winds and tremolos grew to cyclonic force.
A wall of brass completed Kalandar’s tale.
capped by an exuberant clash of cymbal plates.
The silence yielded to tender violins
chanting a hymn to the princess in all her grace.
Tambourine and winds wove a tapestry
of her debonaire and most virtuous prince.
As the final pizzicato chord faded, the Sultan
turned to Scheherazade with tear-filled eyes
and beheld his immortal princess
and she her valiant and eternal prince
and so it would be as long as night preceded dawn.
She kissed away his tears of joy and whispered in his ear,
“My beloved husband, I will tell you stories forever.
Tomorrow you shall learn of the Feast at Baghdad.”
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 11:27 PM UTC
Oh Desert Prince!
Your existance is like the wandering golden sand of your fascinating desert;
Light enought to flow through every chambers of my heart,
Gorgeous enough to be the life of the caravan's artistic mirage;
Your love embrace me with sheer darkness and chills of starry nights,
But warm enough to captivate me to stay within your sight;
You are the desert Prince,
You flow like poetry,
Amaze like magic
Priceless unlike jewelries,
And your love seems like a beautiful tragic,
Awakening my deepest desires that I didn't know even exist;
Loving you is like enjoying a never ending magic carpet ride,
That keeps me on edge whenever passed by a strong tide;
Oh desert prince!
You keep me mesmerized how Scheherazade did to Shahryar with every story she brew,
Not Arabian nights though but there's always an unfulfilled thrill in every word you sew;
Oh wondrous prince!
Now when you have played the most melodious echo with my heartstrings
that'd shy away the Qanun,
I'll never let go of you,
Though I don't know if I'll ever have your heart as a miraculous boon;
Oct 18, 2020
Oct 18, 2020 at 5:55 AM UTC
Six oh six a.m.
Saturday the thirteenth.
Today came in through twilight
When last year it came through dusk
Through a different man’s musk
A different moon’s scent
And I prevent myself in wavering for favoring others
Because how can you decide
if you can’t compare another brother?
Don’t call me Jezebel, *******
I’m Scheherazade on these snitches
Hippolyta—A lover and a fighter
Ariel--a forest nymph, bound
Sappho and Joan of Arc—United
Call me the Queen on the ******
But I own that ****
As I am.
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 8:40 AM UTC
Her face was eye catching,
A round face smiling at him.
Her lips curved beautifully,
Like arched bows aimed to release,
But he couldn't help but wonder where he'd seen her before.
For he knew that smile,
He did,
He knew he'd seen her before,
Somewhere,
Somehow.
It was Elena
The love of his life,
His soulmate.
His Pretty Woman, Sabrina and Allie.
A woman who surpassed both Athena and Scheherazade in wit and beauty.
He flashed a smile.
Her face was eye catching,
A round face smiling at him.
Her lips curved beautifully,
Like arched bows aimed to release,
But he couldn't help but wonder where he'd seen her before.
He just couldn't remember.
Apr 7, 2015
Apr 7, 2015 at 10:53 PM UTC
The
Dublin
strand
is papered
in wind,
my old
book
renewed
into
romance.
I love her.
Pen
scratches
the
whole
page
black,
& variant
sprawls
of my
name
repeat
until I
own a
house.
Sister
& I
in dad's
old car
head
up to
Petworth,
& walk
back
under
a sky
that
rolls
& folds,
a bolt
of cloth.
Break
new trees
on the
prison
island,
handcuffs
of ivy,
jump
the fence
& escape
to the
highway.
In
Georgetown,
lush reeds
wave from
the canal
bottom,
easting
in the
chartreuse.
Then cross
to Dupont,
thronged
with
day-enders
and students
shifting
from
coffee to
*****
as the
hour rises.
Scheherazade
cancels,
but I make
the best
of it,
writing at
the bar
next to
the girl
in leatherette.
The day
ends
with me
fighting
the pharmacy
of my
sleepy
blood
while I
break
the bed
I always
hated
and
throw it
into the
orange.
Day's done.
Another
year to
come.
Thinking
of her -
sleep.
Apr 12, 2019
Apr 12, 2019 at 2:58 AM UTC
The lady in violet waits
by Arab candle light for the sounding
of twenty-one silver bells.
Seven white divisions led
by four black stars.
Her stories feed the drowsy
like a stoppered angel
in the axe-man's hands.
Mar 1, 2010
Mar 1, 2010 at 6:03 PM UTC
In the city
it constantly feels as if there are rabid dogs snapping at my heels,
I snapped back anyway to come apart which is just how it was when Scheherazade broke into my heart as we walked to the prom, when she told me a tale of the nights she had seen in the budget hotels marking milestones of dreams.
Somehow though it's different now, this pain behind these windows eases off and slowly goes.
The dogs remain and growl but they've thrown in the towel.
The Scheherazade I knew then is just a story for old men,
In time to change for a change of my luck where the nights still smile sweetly but who gives a ****
Not the dancer who makes points with the tip of his knife or the ramblings of a senile old man where his wife waits on tables,
not the leopard who once changed his spots for a date or the tigers aware of their new life as rugs.
Shrugs in the background where Cohen and Simone moan a tune into tune and
soon it's my go to go and to go is always the option.
To stay are the dreams that we own.
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 9:49 AM UTC
don't ask how I am
I might confess with riven words
I am trying out dances for
one thousand and one nights
like a Scheherazade of unforseen
whispers
Sep 10, 2023
Sep 10, 2023 at 4:26 PM UTC
Another day and things are the same.
The sun shines through lace,
Obscuring my view to the chaos outside.
In here, it’s serene, no pressure
To perform or produce,
Although I do.
No expectations of talk
During the day.
Everything I need is around me:
Books and notes and discs
With the record of my thoughts
And flash drives with feelings.
I have filled my rooms with
Things that fascinate and inspire,
Even after many years.
A red chair with printed pillows,
A prayer rug from Iran
On the wall above Buddha,
Brought a century ago by a lady
On her Grand Tour of the world.
My little, golden friend
Laughs at this excess.
Her photos of Florence and Venice
Cause feelings of nostalgia,
As if I was there in 1910,
When duster-clad ladies bought them
In Saint Mark's square,
Hand-colored by poor artists.
And on the other wall,
My young father gazes at me,
From the distance of sixty-seven years.
There are other houses from the past
And streets in my town
That almost look like now.
There are dark-finished tables,
Gracing the space between
The walls and the world and me.
Brass lamps glint out
Like beacons in the shadows
That trail the creeping evening,
For I am a mental traveler,
As Karen Blixen said.
She told her tales to Finch-Hatton
And Berkeley Cole,
On fire-lit evenings,
Like Scheherazade on her carpet.
I have no adventurers as my guests,
But instead, send my stories to a virtual world,
Hoping someone will listen and be inspired.
But even if the words remain unread, unseen,
I am content to write, to spin my tales
For my own ears and the future.
Dec 8, 2019
Dec 8, 2019 at 11:14 AM UTC
Scheherazade always stopped
In the middle of her stories
Not just because she wanted to live
In spite of the Pharaoh’s nature
But because stories never really end
They just transition to a new beginning
One to another
Stories begin from some other stories end
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
The history—you and me—
it's carved in sandstone
*I've taken to asking
Scheherazade myself*
As though capital-T time cones
into a chisel of wind with which
to strike its flattest face
*There was a time I thought
you had taken to the idea
of leaving me and there
is naught to blame for
that but myself*
There is little evidence to believe
in history on loop until you've again
been consumed by blindness and
fear and utterly sick of yourself
*The one person you're with
every waking second*
Just thinking can—at ***** times—
be an act of self-negation
You told me you loved me and
I felt it in your breath
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 9:43 PM UTC
Stories are to Scheherazade—protection from a looming King, as love is to all beneath the deepest sorrows of life.
Mar 23, 2019
Mar 23, 2019 at 3:22 PM UTC
It appeared as if
the very air were
asleep.
Even the dark was
asleep.
An harmonica stained
the night with itself.
An ache that stole
into the soul.
Snowflakes fell
in slow slow-motion
as if they were
sleep walking.
Time seemed to so-
lid-if-y
congeal about
the moment
frozen like a rabbit
in the headlights of life.
"Why me!"
the moment seemed to say
"Why me?"
"Awww shut up!"
I told it.
It shut up.
An obese moon
like a stray dog
tried to follow me
home but home
was the other side
of an ocean.
Still, it dogged
my every step.
The blind man kept on playing
as if
he were the soundtrack
to the film I
had become.
NYC was nothing like
its movies.
Only the cold
was real.
I dropped change
into the blind man's tin cup.
It made a music
all of its own.
He looked at me
with both his ears.
He smiled with
all of his self.
TALES OF THE KALENDER PRINCE
got lost
in the ensuing silence.
He mumbled a thanks
in an unknown tongue
maybe
Klingon.
The moment kept on
trying to find meaning
like an unsure actor
asking what's its motivation.
There was none
to be found.
My footsteps walked away
almost leaving me
behind.
TALES OF THE KALENDER PRINCE
started up again
as if the night had
pressed PLAY.
"Well....I'll be
Rimsky Korsakov'd!"
I attempted a smile.
It hurt.
The harmonica's voice
eclipsed by the police
siren.
Aug 17, 2015
Aug 17, 2015 at 12:53 PM UTC
late at night
the sun has gone
the moon a sliver
I lie awake
I've stared
at the ceiling
so many times before
where's Scheherazade?
to whisk my over-fraught mind
into the life of another
into restful sleep
too many years
with no sleep
only the spot
on my ceiling
I know it well
familiar
yet I do not
love it
Oct 14, 2011
Oct 14, 2011 at 5:44 PM UTC
By: David W. Clare
I drove her home, to her secret couchet
Across the mountains to the valley of splendor...
Adventure was in store!
Late night lonely struck
I noticed her in the crowd
Deafening Silence ensued
I pursued her slowly...
She appeared to be the Scheherazade
I must applaud her now!
I asked her name she told me..
Brandy
Telepathy played sexually
We walked away...
...to her love nest to play!
We arrived at dusk...
We both knew we must explore in lust!
I was thirsty for some Brandy...
(C) In perpetuity all rights reserved
(P) FilmNoirWorks
Dec 11, 2016
Dec 11, 2016 at 5:21 AM UTC
A click of a lock at curfew cut off the chaos of the day,
The last pulse in the longest piece we’d had to play,
Stillness and silence until tomorrow’s dawn.
Until a string broke in the room,
A final sigh before the creak of drying wood,
The trio rocked and murmured ‘til my tears subsided.
The Sultan would spare the enchantress,
But I still wept, because I knew
That ten doors down, in her own prison,
Scheherazade was weeping too.
Aug 4, 2019
Aug 4, 2019 at 1:05 PM UTC
Some days hang in the sky like gems
Or encase me inside, quite still.
Above, the light is crystalline
And on the horizon, filtered soft
I sit, like Scheherazade and gaze
At the oscillating leaves
And wandering clouds,
Letting them create a hum inside me.
Senses turn to water and slide down
Beneath my skull, draining tension
And even careful thought,
Until all that’s left is the mind,
The vibrating Paradis,
The enclosed garden of antiquity,
Yet boundless tending of awareness
That is unaware,
And the long, slow drift of Life.
…
I could stop there
But near-erotic sensations
Through all my nerves and skin
Lead me on,
As if sinking down into a pool,
Inside a liquid chalice of energy.
Eyelids half-closed,
Viscera descending
As the being relaxes.
Limbs flex and let energy flow
Until there is no barrier
Between myself and the earth.
Like Prufrock, I come to rest,
Not ragged claws but a thoughtless droplet
Or ancient sea lily that waves
And, we have seen, walks daintily
On tip-toes across the sea floor!
In the currents I send out tendrils
Of light and vague curiosity,
The only human thing left,
As it once was, before consciousness
Trespassed, before anything was named,
Before judgment was passed.
It is mind without thought:
The brilliant void that changes not
From sunrise to sunset.
I could remain like this forever,
Simply being;
All is a luxury of torpor,
Serenity and certainty.
And if one psyche plaintively asked,
If this is all,
I should reply that for these
Several moments,
“This is just what I mean,
this is all.”
Oct 19, 2018
Oct 19, 2018 at 8:31 AM UTC
Asleep on your belly, or, alternately,
on your side, on me; the first night -
the first full night - with the promise of coffee
in the morning and not only allusions to it.
Your full weight on my thigh,
which I’d never tolerate in any night past,
but kept awake by the two scant hours
of partial sleep I had and admiration
of your neckline, the province of your back,
golden boughs embroidered under
thin hair
part umber, part gold itself, cast on the pillow
your left hand
and its short fingers partially unearthed, nested
in a hillock of brown coverlet and blue curlicues,
opening and closing.
Hushed, I sip a drink and read a poem
as you murmur in sleep “yes”
to whatever invitation the one in dreams extends.
The one in dreams; he may be me. Gold from a summer
that has not happened yet, surer with a barbecue,
ready to paint a white thigh emerging from a sheet,
a better rendering than mine
of the one spot you missed shaving.
He may be the husband of Scheherazade, prodding
one more story, one more night at a time.
You’ve a cobra in a willow basket.
It’s not a murmur. It isn’t “yes”.
It’s a gourd flute the land of dream gave you,
and I am not
the servant of the realm, or gold at all,
or worth my silk curtains. One thousand or
one thousand one; I can’t change,
not overnight.
I won’t know, nor ask, but
the snake isn’t transfixed.
It’s only waiting.
One day, I’ll appear in print.
The small merchant in Barataria
with whom Sancho Panza speaks.
You’ll describe those sheets
or some such other linens I have for sale -
an intimate detail of my home, returning the favor
of having appeared here. It will win a prize
you never knew you were competing for and
a dozen men in memory will whistle down “yes”.
Mar 27, 2018
Mar 27, 2018 at 10:25 AM UTC
She said "dear, inspire me", when the truth is that I can't.
It's not that I don't want to, but all I do is rant.
Some ******** here, a comment there, as if I feel I must.
I'm throwing around cynicism like its ****** fairy dust.
The fact is dear, there's nothing inspiring about me.
I'm mediocre when at my best, no reason to ever doubt me.
Oh sure I can tell you all about the mysterious Devils Kettle.
Or talk at length if you will about the Spinxs favorite riddle.
I know the Raven to and fro, but no one wants to hear it.
I can tell you if you crock that roast, it'll be better if you sear it.
I cannot grow you flowers or always make you laugh.
I can't even say you'll be impressed at my version of a staff.
I'm sorry dear I truly am, for my game is truly lacking.
My talents few and far between, I'm not even good at stacking.
I can keep you up for nights on end with what I know of Russia.
Or spit for you a thousand tales just one shy of Scheherazade.
See what I mean? That last verse barely makes any sense.
Kind of like that inferno opera The Pirates of Penzance.
I will tell you if I may, it's not entirely my fault you see.
For once you take up nihilism you may cease to even be.
I will tell you my good friend, that you are indeed my friend.
Someone there to read this **** and maybe smile at the end.
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 9:16 PM UTC
Scheherazade
sneaks into your bed at night
gives you the shake down
for stories
then slips quietly
into the cover of darkness
you wake
without dreams
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 11:10 PM UTC
SO: SCHEHERAZADE ME!
It appeared as if
the very air were
asleep.
Even the dark was
asleep.
An harmonica stained
the night with itself.
An ache that stole
into the soul.
Snowflakes fell
in slow slow-motion
as if they were
sleep walking.
Time seemed to so-
lid-if-y
congeal about
the moment
frozen like a rabbit
in the headlights of life.
"Why me!"
the moment seemed to say
"Why me?"
"Awww shut up!"
I told it.
It shut up.
An obese moon
like a stray dog
tried to follow me
home but home
was the other side
of an ocean.
Still, it dogged
my every step.
The blind man kept on playing
as if
he were the soundtrack
to the film I
had become.
NYC was nothing like
its movies.
Only the cold
was real.
I dropped change
into the blind man's tin cup.
It made a music
all of its own.
He looked at me
with both his ears.
He smiled with
all of his self.
TALES OF THE KALENDER PRINCE
got lost
in the ensuing silence.
He mumbled a thanks
in an unknown tongue
maybe
Klingon.
The moment kept on
trying to find meaning
like an unsure actor
asking what's its motivation.
There was none
to be found.
My footsteps walked away
almost leaving me
behind.
TALES OF THE KALENDER PRINCE
started up again
as if the night had
pressed PLAY.
"Well....I'll be
Rimsky Korsakov'd!"
I attempted a smile.
It hurt.
The harmonica's voice
eclipsed by the police
siren.
Aug 17, 2017
Aug 17, 2017 at 6:48 AM UTC
Scheherazade swims in streams
Of unending disappointment
Her narrative slips from her hands
Like water through a broken bucket
Punctured promises release their longing
I am but an old story waiting to be told
But in the end there is a rhythm
That every child born of a mother
Already knows too well
Oct 8, 2020
Oct 8, 2020 at 1:23 PM UTC