The faces we knew
when we were young have faded.
Their photographs have curled
at the edges, their features
scratched out by time.
The old house used to stand,
but first it was broken into,
looted by the family,
then casually burned down.
They took grandmother away, too,
and she passed from earth
like three of her nine sons.
Maybe she is greeted now, in some
great city, but we no longer see
her in this place.
Alas!
I’m NOT free!
‘Dem’ dear chains
still
LINKED to me.
Slavish mindless flaws
imperfections
boost
their
shortcomings
in all.
‘Iz’ there NO relief?
In HEAVEN
on earth,
nor
this hellish
GRIM reapers grief?
Who’d she coo?
Twasn’t me
must’ve
been you???
Tarry till I come?
Naw
I’ll sojourn
WRITE where I’m from
or
pick up your pieces
in motherland’s cove
‘iz’ there NO relief?
you ‘betta’ ask somebody
who knows???
Death’s plea
just DON’T wait
for me
pretty-please???
—–
Dedicated to: Tarry till I Come.
A flapping of ash wings
flashes the image of a familiar face
that draws me closer.
The day she was buried
I remember a three-legged frog jump away
as the casket slowly lowered
random obstacles interrupt life
traffic diverted into unknown dark halls
A faucet drips in a lonely kitchen
missing the light of my mother
unprepared for death
sipping English tea
The backyard’s lost its youthful appeal
cutting through a jungle with a machete,
overwhelming pressure
of unreleased tears
I told her she was getting better
A black cloud hovers over our house
tied with a string
to a life that would rather not
My father grinding his teeth as he adjusts to the dark alone in this empty house together
constructing mechanical things he sleeps on the floor
cups his head in the calloused dirt of a workaholic’s paw
his ancient tool belt
hangs loosely on his waist
one screw driver
and a mind trying to escape
Easier not to remember
it wasn’t always this way
The house on the corner
with its neatly trimmed backyard
she dances in a field of clover
hanging sunshine on the line
dreams of her hardworking handsome man
getting home in time
I was holding her hand
the day she died
Shadows and dust
We are all plagued
By an incessant
Wanting to be alive
Forgetting why
It’s gone
Awaking, feeling alive
Knowing the only
Thing that stalks
Is life; we have it
To use, love, feel
And be staked
By death
Vultures and ravens
dance in anticipation
as they wait for their fruit
they know before we do
of sunken eyes that can
only give a flicker
the pallor of aged paper
parched and thin
is getting closer everyday
a shrinking future drifting
into a billow of clouds
inside the time capsule
of wants and needs
a three dimensional dream
my virtual reality tour
of wasted years
how do you get back
what never was
but should have been
stolen moments of a kiss
I’m still chasing an idea
the pursuit of my own
reinvention
You can never enter a world of
sorrows,
it being just a touching point
trajectory where wind mingles
with rest of the world,
you brush against it
ripples of waves
on seafront,
you touch it and,
you are dead.
why hasn’t anyone ever told me
so many lives passed before me
yet nobody came back to tell me
what it’s going to be like for me
no hints or clues laid out for me
only the uninformed swear to me
the experts in robes promise me
by repeating age-old fables to me
only by dying I’ll know
only by dying I’ll know
As a skeleton
shrouded
in rags
provides its
all-too-familiar
services,
we dance
on graves
of friends
and lovers
to celebrate
their legacies,
and we find
ourselves
choosing
life
despite
the sweeping
blade.
Dig at it,
the graves
you may not find bodies
not human enough
but pests and vermin
flat-footed monkeys
owlish ghouls, remnants of tears, deceased with hollowed skeleton
marks
blood of vampires.