(After Cavafy)

The sun flattens your vision
   to a wavering point.
      You search for a different sun.
         There is no other.


The wind stymies your breathing
   to an asthmatic wheeze.
      You search for a different wind.
         There is no other.


The sea shortens your journey
   to an anonymous port.
      You search for a different sea.
          There is no other.


The sky opens its vistas,
   vast, beyond your reach.
      You search for a different sky.
         There is no other.


The city blots your horizon
   with soot, smoke and ash.
      You search for a different city.
         There is no other.
 
The day dissolves in hours
   without number or name.
      You search for a different day.
         There is no other.


Beauty upholds its ideal
   like a statue without wings.
      You search for a different Beauty.
         There is no other.


The word pollinates the page
   with a frail, feeble sense.
      You search for a different word.
          There is no other.


The self mirrors the cosmos,
   a contracting black hole.
      You search for a different self.
          There is no other.


The poem laughs at your yearning
   for Art’s Eternal Form.
      You search for a different poem.
          There is no other.


So you write the same poem
   from the same shrinking self,
      with the same weakling words,
         seeking the same ideal Beauty,
 
On the same day after day,
    in the same ***** city,
      under the same endless sky,
         beside the same aimless sea,


Into the same stifling wind,
   blinded by the same soulless sun.
      And you call it a different life.
          But there is no other.

Circling the ominous, luminous source,
Rotating, oscillating endlessly.
This invisible force,
Maintaining our course,
All the while it's just you and me.

As we dwarf the weeping clouds,
Reeling through the treacherous peaks,
The rains parallel the sounds,
Of the friction between our cheeks.

On every coast beneath the trees
Exists my lover and me.
I am the wind that carries the leaves,
She is the sand that stymies the seas.

And when the surf washed in steep,
Swishing backwards in tender sweep -
Imprinted in the sand
Were our footprints collided,
Thus the elements decided
The world was ours to keep.

An apple lying two small divots
from the base of a tree,
I inherit inertia.
The son of a son of a son of a son of a farmer -
harvest, market,
settle up, rest.
Success is an even account.
Await the herald of spring.
Repeat.

In youth
I ran to knowledge
like a sponge at a spill.
Everything I wanted
was in the course
not at the goal.

After thirteen years of
trying to make Her happy,
my cup was long past empty.
A vacuum ******* in dregs
discarded on a back room floor.

After twenty years of
trying to make Him happy,
I float on a buoyancy
that stymies the sunrise
by flirting with sunset.

Now past greenhorn salad days,
a compass flutters.
The poles deconstructed,
magnets refute desire.

Comrades say their differences
make them Beautiful.
I am Beautiful because I survived.
If I am different,
that requires an entirely new stanza.

I rest this pole on my shoulder.
Tied in an orange bandana :
an apple, a sponge,
a compass,
a vacuum, a jar of buoyant air.
I am Weary Willie
setting course
on open path.

my soul shrouded with mist
clouds of dust covers clips
coils of hope lost from the cliff
Solitude my aging soul dies with
bespoken words I stolidly observed
stymies of sky break the silence
as it boils in yolk of steams
Reed of psychoactive breaks the hallucinations
as I walk into the gangway of illusions
Imagination of insensitive days
I fade like a sunset sun
Falling gently as Satan from the sky
I am a soul being made from clay
Wrapped with casement that belongs to the earth
And the energy to a being I solely don't known
in this I gave my breath to gods that quest for me

Written by
Martin Ijir

Entrapment videre licet fiendish
gnarly hustling scheme erector -
sent me to the poor house, where alms
not forthcoming to ease financial affliction,
where yours truly money matters still stymies
ways and means to relocate
to a two bedroom apartment
courtesy low income housing.

Eleven months ago to date,
I fell prey to the wiles of a scam artist,
who initially managed
to hack way into the Macbook Pro
rendering same computer I use now
such that impossible mission
to allow, enable, and provide
any process to be completed.

A gofundme page
once again set up courtesy yours truly,
which honest to goodness attempt
to bolster substantial forsaken funds
(essentially thieving joint
nest egg of mine and the missus)
deftly hawked pack of lies

blindsiding me to surrender
hook, line and sinker
practically snagged and bled out
these lovely bones mine every red cent
squirreled away as a quite paltry
monetary security net.

The spectre and haunting existence
of Harvey Specter
(the alias cyber spatial highway robber)
still riddles the psyche of this joker,
who continues to chide himself,
particularly when realizing
combined lost assets
lock, stock, and barrel meant that though
poor as a Unitarian church mouse,
I can not provide succor

(in the form of American currency)
which penury disallows us
to dole out for our second born
and youngest daughter,
(who at age twenty five
shares an accommodation
in Bend, Oregon -
with another twenty something gal
a bajillion miles
from dear her ole papa and mama -
located in southeastern Pennsylvania)
paternal nor maternal capital to ease
her own woebegone challenged situation.

Said unnamed progeny, and her oldest sister
(by about twenty six months difference)
feel shortchanged by parents,
whose bereft checking and savings accounts,
plus truckload of
mental health issues contributed
to a dysfunctional heartache

living poisoned ten year decade of misery.
I admit unintentional grief
heaped upon the souls of deux innocent lives
which two offspring begat
courtesy a virile birth father and fecund mother,
whose joint home economic pennilessness
(even prior to letting the pang of procreation
run to sow wild oats)
set at least one figurative strike against us
when embarking to journey
(as a super tramping foreigner)
upon the family way.

Utopia for wretched wordsmith
would constitute enough disposable income
to relocate within a place like Lake Wobegon
"Where the women are strong,
the men are good looking,
and all the children are above average."

Its city motto is "Sumus Quod Sumus"
("We are what we are").