Day: November 3, 2021

151. You Know Me

They tell me I can be what I want
Not who I was born as or am,
So I tell you now, just as forewarning,
To know it all beforehand.
You call me boy, but that’s not I;
Last time I checked, I’m a man.
I ain’t no dude, what is that even?
We’re not related, so I can’t be your fam
Or your bro, or bruv, or whatever.
And am I your friend? Oh, no, not I;
Not your pal, your bud, your chum.
And I’m no chap in the heat of May
Or dead cold December.
You can guess that I’m American,
But any halfwit knows that score –
My name is Connor, get it right,
Since I’m none you’ve met before.

103. That Day in November

I will always remember
The Day the world ended:
snowy sheep were bleating
all through the night before
and the biggest fear
was what would happen
the next day.
And then
You know –
You know what?
The sun rose
with problems more
intimate
and less
imaginary
than the sheep
bleated for.
And I laughed
with the Dawn –
a new world beginning.

85. For Your Consolation

Why did I receive this prize
For coming next-to-last?
Are you saying I would win
If I run half as fast?

The trail was harder than it looked,
So boost the spoils next time!
A little extra without the work –
Sounds like a perfect crime.

And while we’re speaking of the work,
Why not cut the course?
A hypothetical competition
Would require little force.

I may play that game with you,
But I know not its name;
If everyone will win a prize,
How am I to blame?

Competition grows quickly stale
Without the choice for one to fail.

26. A Dream of Foreboding

Embezzled in gold, with heart of emerald,
An ancient Palace stood fast –
The family within played and thrived and loved
As their ancestors had done past.

Then, without warning, without rhyme, without reason,
The sky exhaled vehement breath –
Cavernous spheres of Fire and Rock, Ice and Steel,
Prompted land and life to death.

Witnessing horrors. Seeing nothing.
Fire burning, Feeling not.
I walked through that Palace, crumbling to cinders all around
And felt Wonder.

55. I’m Just Her Student

Here I am, at five and ten,
No more a boy, not quite of men,
Now a chick without a hen
Lost amidst a wolfish den.

Alone, abandoned, and confused,
Seeking comfort that be loosed
To aid my trust at once abused
And yield the love I’ve been refused.

Each plodding day within my school
I feel as though I play the fool
Who, deep across the kiddie pool,
Drowns from mommy’s cruel misrule.

Up to my frantic wading
Sails Miss Mercia Kaeding –
Philosophy teacher waiting
For me to take her baiting.

A kind word far extended
A lonely pain soon mended
Though I try see her offended,
My anger her compassion ended.

Forsaken by one she adored,
I soon found myself stored
In apartment cleaning abhorred
As roommate reliant on her board.

Nine and twenty, healthy skin,
Affable, diligent, urban bumpkin
Sleeping near beer and violin –
In laughable sorrow, we are akin.

I simply drink, she gets drunk –
I wear cologne, she smells of skunk –
I listen to classical, she only to punk –
I eat fresh fish, her diet is junk.

She’ll confide in me her darkest wish,
Assist me with the daily dish,
Teach me how to sing Swedish,
Convince me she is stylish.

I keep silent, she laughs rather loud –
I have no self-esteem, she bids me be proud –
I tend to get bored, she tends to be wowed –
My feelings fall flat, hers oddly endowed.

Two of a kind, despite disparity,
Relieved by each other’s gentle company
With weeks and months drowned in sake
I believe that I can be truly happy.

When darkness falls, sinking night,
She clings to me and holds me tight
As I abate the urge to fight
Her velvet breasts’ lulling delight.

Then her smile does melt away
As tears slip down in icy spray
Her lip quick-quiver and betray
The heart within that ever sway.

Seeking to amend amiss,
My judgment I do now remiss
Leaning in for warming kiss
Flush of flesh in fleeting bliss.

She cradles me within her arms,
Glittering gaze always disarms;
Powerless under her feminine charms
I courageously challenge social alarms.

But, then, one day, our home bereft
Of whom my heart is lost in theft
From sad fates that so solidly weft
Have snapped in twain with she who left.

Mercia, love, my soul desire,
All I clutched dear to admire –
How could I believe you would tire
While kindly kindling my funeral pyre?

I do not care what you think of we,
You hardened hearts of society
Who before would shrug us off brusquely
Because dead eyes we cared not see.

My teacher taught me trust no one
Because, on Earth and under Sun,
Humans love ‘til they ache to run
And leave you with your soul undone.

170. A Night from Turkey

Forget the world, forget your home,
But don’t forget the dancers
who dream about their land from far
And mistake our strange dark skies as foreign-
But first they pour the tea, then they pour their souls
Into swirling satin strips of see-through robes,
Their hips beating the techno of the lit Turkish Café.

They will remember every dollar
Strapped close to their core –
Anatolian flowers bloom in deserts most of all.

My puff of hookah filled the sky
And turned the pale white moon bright orange
When a pretty blossom still in bloom
Ensured my tweed suit vanished,
Replaced with a white robe to make up what was missed.
I joined humanity as lavished by the Turks,
While we trod upon the dancers who kept our spaces filled –
The darkness of the dance makes us forget its day outside
And that the coming winter will freeze our party over –

But in the Middle East you know the only white is stone,
And the only snow that fell was the ash of dancers’ hearts.

The Artless Death of Linguistics

All of us love to hear our own voices. And, if we had the choice, our voices might be the only thing we’d like to hear day in and day out, even if it didn’t come from us. I will be the first to admit that I like to listen to people who talk like myself, while risking bloody eardrums from those who don’t, but this has nothing to do with the apparent intellectualism of the individual.

No; manner of speaking is the root of those weeds that secretly strangle linguistics.

If a manner rides along a monotone, hardly seeming invested at all in the conversation, sounding like its staggering attention just shifted itself from the bong to you – that voice is a weed.

If a manner speaks with an elevated dialect and heightened charisma, but laughs when you question its stance and converts to a patronizing lecture – that voice is a weed.

If a manner swears in vulgar terms for no other reason than unnecessary emphasis – that voice is a weed.

Linguistics will die because language has lost its balance. Perhaps it’s a high-tech- reliance, or the “popular persona” of the age, but people are either too manufactured or not at all. I hear no voice ringing with blended truth, interest, mild-manners, and cultivation; all that resounds is one collective “Screw it” of a people that couldn’t be bothered to snip the weeds choking their flowers.

169. Un-Assembly

Hurry through the carnage in the evening of the hour
Where every little property
Condemned by their vision
Cannot help but shatter with the breaking of the light
When the people there grasp fragments of the truth withheld within
Which blow up in their face with blood
And calls jackals with its scent:

“hear the Smoke!
taste the Fire!
feel the Ash!
Still these riots burble through the cracks of history,
Smashing doors of peace that were rotting steadily
Until the land’s deserted, spared for our unbuilding hands”

Muted

In the years of my youth I was acquainted with a boy who could not, or would not, speak. His facial expressions were the closest thing to a language, through which I understood him in flourishing gestures, though even then there were more than two ways to interpret a mere shrug or the slightest smirk. As my familiarity with him became more defined, this boy revealed to me that he possessed a particular passion for writing. I begged him, grant me some transcript to peruse, but was promptly refused. Everything he wrote must first go through his sister, whom he trusted as his editor and sole confidant, that what filled the page may be readable. I searched for his sister, hoping she might be better inclined to satiate my interest.

She was. The girl was less worried about betraying her brother’s confidence; rather she delighted in showing just how incompetent his skill. I read his rough draft thoroughly. It wasn’t bad, a few grammatical errors, wanting some intellectual polishing here and there, but she showed no mercy.

“See, look at that!” she would wail. “I always tell him, you’ve got to stay awake and listening, awake and operating deliberately on codes of better conduct!” I didn’t quite understand what she was saying, but the lamented passage was one I, too, found fault with, but only in a few places; she crossed out the entire block and began scribbling her own trail of thought. I protested, insisting it to no longer her brother’s work, but she ignored me.

“He has to learn to be both well-spoken and well-heard. If he doesn’t pay attention to whom his audience is, no one will read it. Worse, he’ll look insensitive for being so wrong.” I tried to explain that not everyone looked through the same lenses, that there would be people with his same frame of mind, and that she ought to listen to and negotiate with his side before writing the contrary behind his back. I also proposed her to consider writing her own material, but she stopped paying attention by this point, avoiding a response that I would have perceived as angry. This supposed intellectual was not interested in crossing boundaries through “voicing” her complaints, but ignored her brother’s voice to fill in her own when he was powerless to contest. I left her in her brooding irritation.

I found a few of my friend’s papers later on, after they were published. He was congratulated, but soon forgotten, as the steady stream of ideas similar to his sister’s remained unopposed. My guess is, writers of different experiences felt invalidated and remained silent. But that’s no excuse. My friend did not choose to be unable to speak, not at all; but it is no one’s fault but his own that he has remained without a voice.