Inside-out the world turns its being Blank-eyed moon seeing Fragrant shampoo wine weaving air-mesh Melting night flesh Quiet, darkness makes creation reach salvation Listening walls, drumbeat pulsation from Secret portals locked in shadows Opened in slanting streetlight from windows that watch Blank-eyed moon seeing melting night flesh reach salvation.
30th April/ (11/30)/ Ovillejo
Tonight the night does not seem as poetic
Tonight words feel like bile in my throat
The air stings like acid reflux in my nose
Today's one a.m. is not
a 'frenzy of poetish thoughts'
like that week-old note in my phone
yet to be turned into a poem
Tonight I turn on the light instead.
Tonight feels strange,
that strange taste of water melted from ice
Caged
oppressive heat despite the air conditioner
brain crouched in a low growl
as if a stomach empty despite dinner.
Tonight there are eyebrows knit, teeth grit
hunched over trusty 'poem notebook'
in the itchy light shadowing scratchy Pierre Cardin strokes
irking insomniac incomprehension
into trying to untangle itself, not helping,
Like a concerned mother interrupting her weirdo kid in the middle of a midnight poem.
Tonight there is scribbled squiggly squeaky-cleaning
of midnight-tinted rose-rimmed glasses—
Look at it, it's just a quiet time of the day,
Nothing inherently artistic
Nothing, in fact, is inherently anything—
Our mere existence warps their realities,
we're people-shaped gravity-toting holes
in the space where air should be
Air, heavy feather, with its ticklish brain sneeze,
Cannot oppress the lifeless, at least, into breathing;
so tonight the night does not breathe.
Though somehow hammers away, black-
smith incessant at the forge of a sleepless head
Confusing about confusion about confusion—
Tonight the night is a dead thing
merely playing at being alive.
19th April/ (9/30)/ Free verse
Sometimes in the middle of the night This sleeping house wakes up, sudden and tragic like a death in the newspaper or whispers at a wake Wake at the hour it's supposed to sleep and this house, in the middle of the night when it does not even know the time (or time, for that matter) its ton of bricks crush down on it like a sense of despair. Solitary, calm, poetic midnight transforms into loneliness cold as concrete hollow as the foundation, eaten away by rats now through the years and this house, it cannot cry now. It is too old and too empty or perhaps it is the fact that it does not have floorboards to hide secrets underneath to be pried open by fingernails and put back in place at will, it does not have wood that can heave and settle with a sigh; Only cool (cold?) white tile pockmarked fixed unmoving— It would have to be broken to see what lies underneath. and this house, with its vast structure feels small, so incredibly small like a blue dot in a space painting barely visible, with an arrow pointing 'You are here' And all that you have ever known And all that you will ever be— it knows it is solid, the world, whatever it is, sees it is solid, and knowing but the truth is it does not know anything apart from... well, nothing. and this house is a bastet it changes shape in the night or perhaps it is merely casting off its clothes in the sundown's privacy but it is afraid of its naked self that hides during the day; this house does not like the sun. But neither does it like the moon or the romanticized notions it carries for all it sees is white tile, pockmarked fixed moving it to tears But never further, always choking on tidal brine because it is that vast, you see, and this house wants to scream not for love, not for mercy, not for help, but to make the particles of its very skeleton resonate with shrill emptiness until it implodes like a bomb shelter, perhaps, clattering furniture, falling bricks, gaping holes that existed before it fell apart Because it had never been together, really, only now it might collapse and let its weariness radiate in tidal waves breaking on the shore white pockmarked unmoving finally uncovering its underbelly finding, perhaps, some stillborn child blood of this very house gone quietly, loudly into the black embrace of night.
Sunsets in the city aren't the most romantic affair— you see, there's no sun-dipping-into-the-horizon (because there is no horizon) no distant crash of waves or the chirping of unknown birds, (Though you might just get a nice breeze if you're lucky) there's no fire in the hearth slowly going out. But leaning here against the balcony's railing Gazing at the sky you just know you just feel the sun setting And a slight smile creeps up your lips and you feel the railing's warmth which has had time to heat up the entire day, but also its strangely soothing metallic cool. You just know you're watching a sunset without watching the sun set— In the gradient of the sky blue, then a hint of thunderstorm grey, soft lamplight orange, then lovely, lovely pink before finally descending into the grey-blue of the oncoming night. The oncoming night, which does not fall, but rises Though not before that flock of birds stops tracing figures-of-eight in the dusk then zeroes, and gets thinner and thinner as each bird alights on the 'chosen one' tree, Not before that lone kite stops floating in the swirls and eddies of the streetlight wind, Not before you finally notice the mosquitoes in your feet and wish those powerlines in front of your house cutting through every view would just disappear forever, Not before you still heave a contented sigh and go back inside, missing it already.
26th April/ (14/30) / Free verse
Faint feelings flitting Like fireflies in the dark I hardly feel light For the glow is twinkling black A pendulum made of night
6th April/ (6/30) / Tanka
On Friday evening, I took my SOS pill— you know, the Slave Of Suicide one? I picked up my planisphere obscured my phone's torchlight with a finger, And instead of looking down from my balcony, I looked up looked up at him, Orion, the hunter constellation My constellation And held on to his belt. I held on to his triple-star belt And consulted my planisphere— I was going to try and find not myself, but other constellations today like my life depended on it (because it did) after much trial-and-error, I discovered I'd been mirroring him all along. I'd been looking up at my hunter the wrong way all these years His bow is on the opposite end of Betelgeuse, you idiot and that's why you haven't discovered anything else yet. People ground themselves at the north star while stargazing But I say the north star is overrated I won't make a single star my guiding light— my guide is a man made out of stars. And that night, I didn't feel my neck aching (to be slit) from looking up for too long; I was a child, my playground the night sky, I learned the names of stars and found constellations with my Orion— Canis major and minor, Gemini, Auriga (Taurus was concealed by the citylights) I even created my own constellation, I nicknamed stars; I and the Sky shared a lot of inside jokes that night. When I was done frolicking through the sky and sitting back singing Space Oddity, I saw that the most serendipitous of stars had also been the dullest— Very literally, In the darkest of nights, the faintest of stars were the brightest of lights. River Song had said in an episode of Doctor Who that you love the stars, but you don't expect them to love you back— But sitting there in that chair I felt The gusts of life through my hair and I realised, I realised the stars did love me back. On this day, when I was choking on my own brain The day I was relapsing into the empty, The universe embraced me in its galactic arms caught me in its welcoming palm soothed me with a forehead kiss saying, Look, Look here, take out your forgotten planisphere and today I'll uncloud your eyes, so you can see all the patterns in the sequins embroidered in this upturned black bowl that you've been missing. And maybe it was just the SOS pill Or the thrill of finding paintings in the stars, but in that moment, I felt them loving me back filling my hollow body with their supernoval cores, From a million light-years away, I felt loved. Maybe it's temporary, or my hyperactive imagination, but I don't care— I didn't pick up the kitchen's sharpest knife, I didn't need anyone else that day For the stars themselves had begged me to stay.
5th April/ (5/30) / Free verse
As cold water runs over my fingers I look in the mirror and notice the crimson staining my chapped lower lip And a dot of it on the teardrop in the centre of my upper lip it is nothing but a stain from the shredded Beetroot I ate with salt and lemon in the morning. But this beet stain on my lip makes me feel again, the beat of your heart with my lips on your soft neck My mouth feeling (the beat stain) pulse (running, running) of your vitality coursing underneath My fingers Clutching your shoulders (running, running) down your bare arms hot from your rushing blood but cold to me from the gibbous-moon gusts of the night. The beet stain brings your hushed body back Your hair, flying loose, a thin veil before my eyes as your hands squeezed mine and your heart beat fast (the beat stain) lipsticked mouth gaping wide to let out quick breaths (too much for your nose) and a moan echoing in finality with pain as my teeth drowned in your yielding flesh and my tongue tasted the blood (running, running) like a river down my throat your heart pounding out a final grand symphony reverberating in the flamenco through your arteries, your veins collapsing like your dilated pupils into kaleidoscopic irises that were always too reflective Of the beauty of humanity, your humanity to ever comprehend my lack of it Or (the beat stain) secrets concealed in my canines Until your heart stopped (running, running) And the last vestiges of your delicate life kept you from stumbling over forward pushed you into my waiting arms Your fingers still intertwined in mine, though limp I touched your bluing mouth with my (beat stain) lips and laid you down in the tall grass near the stream Gently My fingers no longer (running, running) down your sculpted body but only the mud in the bank embracing you For evermore.
4th April/ (4/30) / Free verse
Holi eve night I can't see any stars in the black canopy of the sky But she's there, beautiful, reduced to a centrepiece For strangers to worship and attach stories to Who look at her, but don't see— they love themselves Too much So they chatter and dance and have fun Somebody I don't know offers me a sweet I decline; My senses are absorbed, For even though the sky is dark She's there, scattering stars of sunset shimmering Out for the night to inhale. A girl films her swaying in slow motion to her own rhythm Oblivious to the loud folk music on the community speakers I have not brought my camera. The girl's phone whites out her beauty Turns her blossoming tongues of magma Into featureless dazzling white This is why I did not bring my camera. But I have brought my heart. So even though I know that all the metaphors About her mercurial magnificence That flood my brain like her anbaric rivulets, All the poems I could write That will white out her beauty Have already been written; I let my words flow and engulf this page Like her flames do the wood I let my words flow because I love the fire. I love the fire so I come closer, Even though I can feel her warmth from afar I Can't help but come closer; My skin cries tears of sweat My brain yells at me to step back— But all I can do is bask in the warmth she radiates Let my pupils dilate with her heat And my blood fill with the divinity of Prometheus's stolen treasure. She is a slice of the Sun on the Earth And a soothing sliver of the moon Expectorating fireflies; All I can do is marvel at her supernova core All I can do is look, and yet. I look at her and I want to burn in her, Dive into her heart and burn I'll just be another log, some more kindling That makes her hiss and sizzle and crackle in glee But I want to feel her sear my bones from within Like she's seared my heart from without. Now the stick pyramid falls but she burns on For she never needed that structure to exist— She's a force of nature, hair flying wild And as the wood falls I want to fall too Fall to my knees in front of her, eyes closed And evaporate; Be the Icarus in her tranquil orange lustre That beautifies the ugliest with her summertime incandescence And fills this empty pitcher with ichor That overflows and splashes these pages With the fiery passion inside.
1st April/ (1/30) / Free verse
I am the moon’s reflection
In a murky night puddle
Do I not want to flit among the fireflies?
But I am not the moon
(Though I could be)
Only its flattened image;
Here comes a shoe
Sending ripples through my body.
With half-closed eyes the sun
Watches the heavenly ink
Spill out of its pot
As if God, like a frustrated poet
Had pushed his inkpot off his writing-desk.
Charlie and the cerebration factory 