Poetry

I Ask

Sometimes, I ask.

I ask, why do they put up with it?

With what? Themselves, of course!

They float amongst each other like distant ghosts. Their glazed glances

And prosaic talks.

The all want to love– to connect, feel, see color in the sky.

But they shield themselves from it. They concoct thick, metal-clinking, meshed armor

Patented with rude remarks and cruelty for ultimate protection and shelter.

Everyone’s armor fits them distinctly and uniquely, for everyone’s disposition is different -

Old wounds that can’t remain open, secrets that must remained veiled, masquerades that

Remain at the Costume party.

Can’t remain open? Must remain veiled? Masquerades?

Why? Why must you hide yourself?

Wounds are defined as being cared for by loved ones, secrets designed to be shared,

And masks, crafted for masquerade balls only.

Why all the furtive hiding? From what? Love?

Love? The one thing that allows you to live, thrive, cry, burn, rage, throttle, nurture skies,

Roam freely, unfetter a mind, interact with, and erupt all of your limits?

Why? Why, friend, I ask why?

Undress your catatonic veil of metallic concealment and icy mistrust - feel.

I Ask.

Junk.

He scowls at love,

Frowns at life,

Uproots happiness and tries to make it his own.

Why does he do this?

Why does he frequently blockade the natural path for others,

With his putrid filth; with his raunchy, grasping ooze

Like a drowning swimmer

Gurgling for that last breath?

Because deep down he is touched by

His lingering hatred-truth with a passion;

frustrated by irrelevant laughter;

Troubled by jagged ripples;

Irritated by humming spontaneous silence,

Astonished by flustered clusters of light.

But instead of accepting this unsound explosion from the painted skies of his soul,

It frightens him.

He starts looking for that last gurgling breath,

And tries to suffocate it.

So, it’s fine with me junk-man, if you smother your own fantasy fading of dreams

But in the mean time,

I’m going to be painting my skies.

I don’t know what I am feeling.

This rushing gusto of fervent light

Bouncing, vibrating

In the murky corridors of my body.

It homes me and numbs me;

Numbs my mind,

That mysterious organ of a clunky, mechanical, mastery.

And it allows my body to find

This subtle mastery

In the slinking, swirls

Of the smoky corridors

Of my veins.

The warm, caressing blanket of the sky,

Revolves and soothes in a mystifying miracle of light.

The ever-glowing circle dances,

Mingling in the iridescent space

Of this morphing, melting cushion of clouds.

The blanket spreads its soothing

Glowing smile,

That embalms my sweet lips

And whets my skin.

The circle of the sky

Shifts and shades

In, about, and through this blanket.

And its glaring omnipresent smile

Prances between the cracks of

The drowning softness of the clouds.

This is a softness that swirls

And churns

With the same motions as the

Raging sea,

But at the pace of a listless baby;

Or a homeless, headless, hatless man

That has just found a benign blanket

To mollify his pains.

I coast down the concrete harbor.

The pedal to the wheel makes my heart squeal.

God, I love to see, and hear, and feel.

The twinkling halos

Shatter by

In an indigo of florescent flows;

Those who tinker by

In those robotic row-boats,

Cannot freely go;

They cannot divine on vista valentine.

How sad is their rolling carcasses

Drifting around and around that incandescent moat.

I watch disparate masks

Shade through this world

Unfurled,

Overwhelmed with contorting tasks.

But their sadness caresses me,

I have them join me for a didactic cup of tea.

I try to show them the halos that luminously show;

And teach them to know,

What they already know.

The ocean beckons

It reckons

With each crushing tide

And reeling rift.

It dances rhythmically out wide;

It does not need to decide.

The reeling laughter within

Me

Matches that of the surging sea.

I listen to its romantic echoes

That split my spine and sever through me.

A brilliant, distant ghost appears in

This god-like charade, and, here, I know I’ve got it made.

This poetry that spews from my lips

Is like the froth of the ocean–

How it ripples, glides, and dips.

The mind spurs like a decrepit savage.

You walk these stale streets;

You walk these stale streets

On a torpid trek while you solemnly scavenge.

If we,

All born of the same blood

The same worth,

Then why the entire world without mirth?

We are all born of the same grind.

Then why do I find

This soggy earth purged of

Dusk-light dims, and words with no hymns?

No music to soil these streets

Saturated with abating abominations,

Oh how I despise these negating revelations.

No colors to flourish

Just a dim, grim tomb.

This is not our sordid doom.

Let music purge your soul.

Write with a kind mind,

Maybe then you’ll find

The butterfly of your

Soul’s unfurled rind.