Be quiet, Metaphor

The romance is dead

At the end of its rope

A fading flower

Its rock has sunk

Twisted into knots

Numb, without meaning, defunct.

My parade is rained on,

Just a grey cloudy sky.

Trying to be here now

Was the winter of my discontent

I couldn't see the forest

For the trees were dancing

Blowing in the wind...
So I had to leave you.

Why?

The romance is dead,

I don't love you anymore,

Metaphor,

You former key 

That unlocked an imaginary soul.

You were a line

To some sort of God, 

To wings, to dreams, to a new world,

To everything anyone ever wanted.

But you're just a word, sometimes you're a few,

And you disappoint,

Just like all the other words,

Full of false promise, then hope, now despair

I want you to go now, Metaphor,

And leave me alone

To a silence beyond hope, beyond fear

Beyond flowery words

Beyond comparison and analogy

Beyond, Before, Between, Beneath

Be quiet.

Wedding Day

Self Portrait - Wedding Day Valentine's Day 1980

A nervous smile paints her face

Her hand grabs the folds

Of satin and lace

Dreams

Dreams

Of unicorns and white steeds

How much you thought you knew

Once upon a time

Dusted, rusted and yellowed

A photo in a box

Claire Claire Claire de lune

Fall Away

Headless Buddha with Birthday Orchid
Digitally altered watercolor

If only I were a statue
I would sit all day and watch the clouds
Until my head fell away.
Then, still, I would sit
With my hand in my lap
Knowing it is not me
That makes the orchid grow.
The water flows so perfectly
While I am still.

Paper Candy

Spring rolls into summer
On thunderheads that wear your face

You appear,
Wrapped in paper candy,
A ray of opiate dreams in distant lands

I long,
To touch your skin

I cry,
Torrents, as the rain cries,
Washing a promise of you
Into yesterday

A War of Thoughts

On the battlefield
Neutron explosions
Of planted mines
In neuron tunnels
Leave gaping holes
Where roses and lilies
Once grew, and thrived.
Alas, even icy waters
Of a glacier stream
Will not cool the fire.

A Song from the Sea

On the shore,
I stared, facing west
As you erased the sand
Away from under my heals
And I lost my balance
Falling backwards
To the ground

I jumped rope
With seaweed grass
You spat out to dry upon
The shore, and yelled, yee hah!
Whipping and whirling the strand
Snapping in the air, it wrapped
My ankle, black and blue
Bruised, I fell, laughing,
Your mouth cooled

For an eternity
You came and went
Raging against the rocks
Sending your frothing spittle
High into the air, mist covering
My face, I smiled as the sun
Burned colors in clouds
Pink, orange, golden
Sunk away now

I’d take you
Willingly watch your
Rages, comings and goings
If you’d soften my hard edges
Make me forget the ground
Winds caressing once
Rocks now sand
I’d take you

A Jewel in the Rubble

This marks my 100th post.

Yesterday my friend Daniel Martini posted his latest round of photos on his blog DMartini's Photoblog. Daniel shoots in black and white film, an art that is almost lost to this world. Since I first started visiting his blogs last October, I have been touched deeply by his ability to capture the light and soul of his subjects. He is currently living and working near Mumbai, India. I highly recommend a thorough viewing of the photoblog, and also of his other blog, Faces, Lives, where he writes in depth stories about his amazing experiences and the people he has had the fortune to connect with. The following photo really affected me, and Daniel has graciously allowed me to repost it here, along with this poem:

Run, child, run
Run into your life,
Your playground
Is the stuff of yesterday’s dreams
Now crumbled and turned to dust
In the heat of a melting earth.
You will dance to the music
Banged on tin cans left
In rotting heaps,
You will find the jewels
On the mounds of forgotten hope,
In the smile of a mother’s love
You will dance into tomorrow.

Unraveling Dreams

You painted my face
In shining beams
I dressed you in silks
of schemes and dreams,

(And not just any kind of dreams,
Forever, ever, always, dreams).

Unraveling now
In shades upon shades
Tendrils have ripped
The garden gates,
Facades have crumbled
The rain’s washed clean
You stand there, naked
(In a pile of dreams).

You disappear into the mist
A glance behind,
A silken kiss,
The single thread
Left in my grasp
Leaves shadows of
A wily Asp.

(It seems I’ve dreamed
This dream before
Must I dream it o’r?
And o’r and o’r?)

First Flush of Spring

In the Spring when the weather warms
Kamela is wandering naked again
Amongst the tea plants
Grown on steep slopes
Under the shadow of Kanchenjuenga.
The sisters surround her
With bright red shawls
And together they inch down
The steep muddy goat trail
Past the broom reeds and cardamom shoots
Onto a small terrace
Where the rain collects
And a tethered goat
Stands guard on a rock
Bleating its hungered cry.

Kamela and the sisters
Enter a ramshackle hut
With no windows or doors
And three coughing babies
Tended by the oldest boy
Who will leave school at 10
If she can find him a job.
They look to see if Kamela
Brought a package of biscuits
To satiate the gnawing empty pit
“Not now my babies, maybe tomorrow.”
Her heart is filled with shame.

The sisters know they will be punished
And lose their daily wage
For half empty baskets
They must get back to the plants.
Quickly they help slip on
Kamela’s flower print skirt
Her apron
Her bright red sweater
They wrap the scarf around her head
Help her pull on rubber boots
Attach her basket to her back,
And together ascend the steep trail
Returning to the fields
To pick the first Darjeeling flush,
The finest cup in the world.

__


Plants groomed to perfect round,
Buds picked by crafty fingers
Thrown deftly over the shoulder
Into braided reed baskets
The throngs of giggling women
Pose in smiles for passing tourists
In Maruti vans. The smiles turn to curses
As the drive by shootings
Take the souls of the women
Leaving nothing to offer
To drip into empty coffers.
Kamela coughs and spits up blood
The fever is high today
But there will be no pay
If she goes home to rest.

Kamela is Brahmin, highest caste
Early the next morning,
She asks at the temple
What karma this?
As she takes the blessing,
At least I am not Adivasi, she thinks
Not dark skinned, like the sisters.
She smears red powder on her hair part
The sign of marriage,
Of a husband, yes, who can’t find work
He takes her meager wage
And drinks it away
Leaving bruises on her
Fair Brahmin skin
Now dark and leathered
From years in the sun.

She returns to the garden
To pick the first flush of Spring
One pound of which will bring from
Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly
Enough to pay Kamela
For the rest of her life.

The Dance

Swirling, twirling
Thrumming, drumming
Thrusting, grinding
Skirts are flying
Beads of sweat
Are dripping, slipping
Down my neck
Shirt sticking, wicking
There you are across the room
Your eyes are closed,
You’re praying, swaying
Things that bind
Are fast unfurling
Opened eyes
Now calling, pulling
In my chest
Heart’s beating, heating
Singing, luring, weaving, laughing
Drawn from far across the space
We’re inching, stepping, leaping, flying
Finally we’re face to face and
Flowing, rocking, holding, falling
Trusting, catching, joy unmatching
Rolling, riding, fast unlatching
Locks that formed from rigid stance
Have found their keys inside the dance

Not a Bar Girl Anymore

This photo has nothing to do with the story. And yet, in an abstract and metaphorical way, it really does. This week a dear friend from my first days of traveling the world two years ago found me on Facebook. I met her at the hotel bar where I was staying in Bangkok, she was a bar girl. aka-Thai hooker. We became close and she confided much in me. Although this poem is partially about her, it is also about many of the girls I met there, often sent by their parents into the city to do this work in order to feed their families. Many of them have children, but not husbands. You would never know this unless you asked. Instead you will sit and feel loved and pampered and caressed and cared for. You can pretend that it is all about you when you are in Bangkok, the land of smiles, because these girls and their massage shop counterparts will make you feel amazing. And yet, they are real, with real souls, and real needs. I am happy that my friend is now working as a secretary and is no longer a bar girl. One up, thousands more to go… In the interest of protecting her identity, I am not using her real name, nor her picture.

This is for you, my MIA. Thank you for your words today. You are right, we can’t change the past, so why dwell in it?

Daw walks down Soi 18
Skirting between the changing shifts
Of food cart and hill tribe vendors
A white bag of offerings in her hand.
Arriving at The Rain Hut
She offers two rolls and a flower
Placing them lovingly
Into the birdhouse temple
She bows her head and says a prayer
Then kisses the golden Buddha
Hanging from her neck
Tomorrow, she thinks, will be better
If not this life then next.

She sits with the other girls
Combing mascara onto
Long dark lashes. An hour spent
Adept as Toulouse-Lautrec, they
Transform into their reputation
From village farm girl, to city bar girl
Ready for the long Bangkok night.

The evening shadows grow
As the city starts to cool
The sun and sweat have burned
Holes in the souls of those
Who come and fill the seats.
It’s the 50 baht per Chiang price tag
The cheapest on the Soi
That gets the crowd.

“Sohee, get me a Chiang.”
She brings him a cold beer.
Daw has another treat in store
POP. She slams her hands together
Extracting a cold wet towel
From the plastic enclosure
She dabs it lovingly over
His smelly sweating neck.

“Chokee!” He said, raising his bottle to the sky.
“Chokee!” Said the crowd in response.
They tip back their heads
Draining their bottles
“Another Chiang!” They cry in unison
Sohee doles them out and turns on the stereo
Blasting Thai rap out into the Soi
The crowd starts to dance.

A leering man twirls his fingers
In Daw’s straight black hair.
“Sohee, short time with Daw."
Sohee puts the cup on the table
The man deposits 500 baht
Taking Daw by the arm
They walk through glass doors
Up the stairs, and into a room
Filled with the scent of mold
And screaming with the songs
Of Malaria and the Dengue Fever
He pushes her onto the bed
And lives his fantasies
For half an hour,
Pretending she is there.

Grasping the Buddha between
Long painted nails
Daw closes her eyes
And thinks about the future.

Hours away in a small village
A little girl looks into her
Grandmother’s eyes
And doesn’t question
Why she gets to eat tonight.

The Catalyst

The catalyst’s eye
Forges a burning cleft
As the raptor feeds
On carrion lies

The crystalline gaze
Breaks placid serenity
Sinking through the battlegrounds
And blood stained festering scars

It falls

And falls

And falls

And lands

Smack into the middle of everything

The dam cannot keep the crows back

Rippling
From the center
Gentle waves become a tsunami
Forging rivers
In the long dried
Ancient cracks
That lie
Beneath the stone

When Moons Fall Out of Orbit

(Image of Eagle Nebula from Hubble Space Telescope)

Adrift
A moon in a nebulae sea

Cast off
From a thousand suns

Revolves
No more around dark matter forces

Pulled
To the black hole’s edge

Vacuumed
Into a field of opposing gravitations

Reduced
To elemental atoms

Ejected
Into vast ethers of undefined space

Carried
By the waves
Of a massive
Galactic radio
Jet
Far
Into
The

F
l
o
a
t
i
n
g

N
o
t
h
i
n
g

Fission
Ignition of a virgin
Protosun glows in soft brown
Eyes of an almost stranger
Vision of unseen magnetic
Forces captive a binary system
Of glowing singularities
In a random universe
That doesn’t know
What orbit
Is

A Forest Walk

With steps of a bear
I enter
Arboreal gates open
I walk, honored
By mycelium carpets
Laid under my feet

You breathe in my darkness
Through fallen leaves and branches
I rise upon your breath
And emerge
On the wings of a bird

____

Note on the painting: I have been trying out different techniques to mask out the trees while I paint the background. On the last painting, I used tape, whereas in this painting I used masking fluid. The result is different, and I'm not yet sure which effect I like better.

The Separation Illusion

From the bottom of the glass
The bubbles surround you in a sea of illusion,
And then you see the contents,
Joy! Connection!
And reach out to touch them.
But from within their world, there is only pain
And yet,
Hands push against the barrier,
And give you hope!
But the weave of the cloth is thick
And black,
It reeks of smoke and ash.
In fear, their hands retreat,
Only their eyes are visible now,
Empty and lost, they do not seek to find you.

In the Boneyard

Artwork "New Places" by Christopher Lem, www.jankywino.blogspot.com

In the Boneyard

Come dance with me in the boneyard,
On a wild and stormy night.
The wind will be our song
As we dance with the dead,
The trees will swirl,
The stars will twinkle,
And the full moon and passing clouds,
Will be our ball and strobe.

Come dance with me in the boneyard,
Where the world is stripped away
With your memory of flesh.
Take this boney hand, and follow,
Step into the yard with boney toe,
And with our boney faces we will laugh
As we sing with our fleshless throats,
Becoming the whistling wind.

Come dance with me in the boneyard
We’ll paint walls of shimmering light,
With a timeless portal into anywhere.
We’ll come and go as we please,
Zipping skin on as we leave,
And only we will know,
In our magical realm,
Where we dance,
and why.


This poem is dedicated to Bunni S, an even older friend than Face who just happened to pop into my life for the first time in 35 years, just a couple of days ago. Bunni is another friend who could create magical worlds with me in childhood. Divine timing?

Blood of my veins

From the roots began
The quest to thrive
Long fingers reached down
searching in vein for a place to drink
But all was dry, no water could be found
Wilted, defeated, dying...
In her final hours she cried out!
Her face beaming red in the heated blood of passion
Her shout so loud the whole world stopped,
Becoming utterly still...

Slowly, a leaf fell from its branch and fluttered to the ground.

One by one the tears began to fall
And the oceans rose
And the streams rose
And everything that was living drank from the waters
And returned to the depleted Earth
Nourishing her soils to receive
The seeds of tomorrow's children
The roots of my ground,
the blood of my veins.

A New Era Dawns

Good Night! I say to the setting sun
Adieu to the seasons gone by.
With you, oh past, deep wrinkles have formed
Hairs are grayed, Bones swelled,
And even the wind aches with pain,
Yes age has drawn its etchings
As we watched helplessly with furrowed brow,
The transgressions of yesterday.

Perhaps a part of the natural order,
or so a wise sage would speak.

And how can I speak ill of you, oh wretched past
For you have brought profound meaning to the music
Which shall ring out in the new morn
As a thousand million peacocks trumpeting across the desert
"Behold! A Brand New Day"

On the historic win of President Elect Barack Obama.

Forest Walk

As summer has fled, and chill sets in,
Gone with the warm lazy days, my languid moods,
My bones, they ache, I need to move.
My spirit longs for you and I obey
Wandering through your stately groves.

Once, in a moment not too long ago
You were young, green, and your leaves airy and bright
Now, fire has crept into your veins
Growing darker by day, yet rich in splendor
Your blood rescinds, back into the earth
Shedding your colors to the forest floor
To feed your feet in the coming storm.

Freedom

In the fenced in field in which we live,
we presume to be free.
We will run quickly and kick our heels high,
and though the late shadows chase us,
we will not see them.

In the end, the night will fall,
and we will sleep deeply,
even through the howling wind,
we will not awaken.