Three men
sit in front
of a shop
shuffling whistling
dreaming in the sum
three men
I don’t remember faces
simply three whispering
shuffling shutting
sitting
as the milling crowds
swaying heavily under
weight of traffic
three who are constant
only in numbers.
Some said he was a hero
with bulletproof chest,
defused mines with a foot.
Others said he was a wife
beater, giving her cheeks bruises
like they were a knot in wood.
Others said he treated his
kids as if they were made
of eggshells.
Some said he beat his
neighbours until their bodies
were like jam inside.
Others said he’s buried without
fault. Some said the soil refused
to cover him up, such was his bile.
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Around here they all like to say, “it’s spitting snow,”
as if they had somehow invented the concept,
even the weatherman says it, but they fail to run
with the idea, “it’s spitting snow” suggests a figure
this large indelicate being, the “it” in the phrase,
hovering over the day, spitting down on us, perhaps
out of disgust with us, or perhaps just playing with us,
his mouth partially full of flakes, he puckers up
and gives us this weather and a saying we like to say
surrounded, as we are, by his baggy grey clothes
and this bitter cold, his cold shoulder to us as he
tries to think of what else he can get away with next.
Sometimes I speak in figment
allowing the simulacrum of life
splashes of image, hints
of rumor ruin my day.
I move as if in the fight
of my life when I am alone
with my surging thoughts.
Real life, what is actually going
on around me, sits back, shaking
its head, marveling that I always
fall for imaginations.
Choose to perish
when I love you the most.
Other moments won’t be
quite favorable
and all moments aren’t ‘moments’
for humans
who know how to hate.
I will either forget your death
or remember it
to the extent of isolation.
I will cage you in glass
and claim, I have preserved you.
You will smile
the most handsome smile,
even more than the one
when you were alive.
How can I let live
and how can you expect
to prolong your stay
when you had me make you
so fragile.
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spring break
on leafless branches
fallen snow
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I called you from
Where I was sure
You could listen to me
To tell me if
You would grant me
My desire about the colour
And character of which
You are aware even now
Though it is a different matter
That you have made up your mind
To leave me to my lot
And to my efforts to secure for me
My rescue and relief
Since like always
Even this time
My succour you’re aware
Shall brand your help
As redundant and clueless.
The day closes down, hangs out this sign
The season slams the door, this is winter’s
Discontent, disconnect, our yard is buried
Windows secure, lawn furniture stowed
Away, everything is put away, stacked up
In the garage, in the cellar, holding, waiting
In our cloistered world of forced hot air and
Early dark we pace, we wander, bide our
Time as best we can, like old time shut-ins
Outcasts cast in, looking out at this snow
This cold, the wind still whispering, but it’s
No longer whispering our names.
As they decided to dismiss
Everything I seemed to hold
That they sensed would be odd
For their strict motivated purposes
They idolized me
At every forum they knew
I am accepted for a value
They are confident of never eroding
At their very ablest of efforts
Elevating me to pedestals
Where gods to be worshiped
Are placed with tight lips
And telling one and all
I am best left
To myself in my true state
Of a philosopher
Free to engage geniuses
And mad lots
In discourses that the high
And the saintly
May find absorbing
To wordless states.
I wish I had handled things better. They
wouldn’t have walked all over me. I burn
with regret, recycling the ways I didn’t act
and the ways I should’ve. But this is wrong
thinking, I decide, as my ego sits in the dock
awaiting my ex officio ruling. I rise in my
judicial robes, pajamas and slippers beneath,
and read the verdict: I find you were not weak.
You should get off your own case. Stop beating
up on yourself. Rejoice that you are a poet whose
weapons are words. (I point at felons in orange
jumpsuits outside). You’re not one of them.