Poems for Her : Episode X

say i'm doing it wrong getting my loving on the run

let me just unbend the strings before i sprint

the gods kinda forgot about us, about us

so long i hardly heard from them now

i didn't shift the blame and forget the pen

this time

i did sound your soul and found a home

the Trilarian left a message on my door

when the day breaks, i'll get to uncoding

your astral beauty beams all over the place

at eleven past eleven i mouth your name

Hi, i am  sin

no beacon lights up forever, it flickers on and off

like my poetry

i come at you in breathless fractions

i need you close but not too close

heart's in the cradle and all

he eats, beats and repeats

i try spinning it, that's a good trick

this love has too many parts

in wider scheme of things

the end of a poem is like an orgasm

you wait to cool off and start over

Poems for Her : Episode IX

Image by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

the forty-eight colours of the moon beam at me

i need a shower, a crystal guise and a ticket to Mars

i have dibs on fear, something we kind of share

learn to stay

an urge hits me from behind, damn near knocks me on the ground

i sit back and reminisce, we have no other lifetime but this

what do we really need to make it the one

hearts know

see the light from an open window, feel the weakling god

all the signs, all the roads you might have taken alone

if you could look back, there are silhouettes from the other end

midnight happens

this story has it all; flat calms, asteroids and mistrals

you can dance off a night of frustration and no one will hear

cue the silence, now i'm really aware of the music

vision yellows

it's like the wind is kissing my bare heart and it is glorious

a different kind of eye-clearing thought meets me head-on

how much longer is the blackout till i find you in the moment again

heaven's decided

i wouldn't love any other girl

i wouldn't love

i wouldn't love any

Poems for Her : Episode VIII

black is the gift that keeps giving

with love far and beyond the hills of Tuscany

there's no coming down

i am saved by my far-reaching heart, then her, then nothing

long ripples of her beauty are mirrored in my dream

the prayers are in a bottle. you know, a bottle

everyone knows a bottle!

they are on the empty side of the river, trying to stay alive

well, they can take all the space, the bottom is mine

(i'll keep praying, anyway)

the stab of emotions does not apprise

between the lovers and the strangers (it aches and it aches and it aches)

give me another glance, last night's was a touch too brief

i write and i delete and i read and take my heart to bed

through these lines

i will show you my ways and the run-down cottage they lead to

no number of hitched rides will get me home in one piece

(lo! love cures everything)

I'm always moving downstream aboard grey poetry

there's an ocean between us yet you are so close, so close

i reach out in whispers

call again sometime, i'll write back

love got me here and love will get me out

Poems for Her : Episode VII

we're commonplace here

this is what the movies do

we're four again, alone

in space, you can't hear me falling

there's a long line to May

i'll hold you in my heart

then in the words i'll keep coming back to

then in the comfy hands of the future

there's a long way to eleven

i keep a log of the faux pas

and the anagrams of your name

the rain's dried,

you can come outside with me

this is where you take me higher

my friend, he said something about doing it overtime

just like music, my taste will need time to wear

living in a mirror, it's like 1023, hello

we need new names

my profile exists in an animated mode

we wallow in sad melodies

then the march

then somebody mentions your name

i just hope i have a soulmate tonight

Poems for Her : Episode VI

Image by Karl Magnuson on Unsplash

my cat's dream is premiering tonight

sparks of his fire trickle down to me

all i do is save, save, and save

seats, screams and screenshots

i will no longer watch from the shadows

you know it is real, you know it is the thrill

i was at the gallery today and i missed you

i saw sunflowers growing lush and i missed you

i woke up breathing and i missed you

glee is my name, you said and grinned

i am racing towards the final hour

at eleven two times i was to make a wish

the line keeps breaking

you can be the goddess and the prayer

i want to try again.

add a sticky note to the wall of everything i ever said

if i wasn't so drunk, i'd help sift through the pile

the black halo behind my heart is a work of art

we'll heal and drive home at dawn to sleep it off

a step backwards and i can hear it clearly

the radio silence

the second wave announcing my second death,

while i breathe and miss you

Poems for Her : Episode V

11:38 a.m

nothing.

take raw bits of hope off the menu

i just can't cry even if i wanted to

eyes will not dry, life ahead is a blur

06:20 p.m

i think it is going to rain tonight

i got a mind full of stars, God bless me

now, i trace you back to cloudland, Ursa Minor,

with all the majestic cracks in your twelfth night

the space between two ticks is silent

12:30 a.m

these songs will not be put into notes

the refrains invite me in and out of time

whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half; C Major

dot, dash, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot, dash, dot

09:14 a.m

for whom this love exists,

i write in hopes of getting to the bottom of it

everyone is a little tense, on the lookout for an exit

but i'll stick around until dawn falls, when you can't sleep

the space between two texts is silent,

a love note

Poems for Her : Episode IV

Image by SOCIAL CUT on Unsplash

i'll write, all right

i'll flash the torchlight in search of Jupiter

twenty-nine days and still no sign

I'll write, all right

just a crumb chance and i wonder

how my wits would hold up

oh, i'll write, all right

my last ego decimation trick up my sleeve

i'll write until i'm twenty-three

somehow the counting gets to me

it don't matter how many chords yet to stroke

the notes are everywhere, just like stardust

for the briefest moment there i thought i had me fooled

words, numbers and music will save me; sweepstakes

(wish it wasn't my last card minding the steps; checkmate)

it could be a brook or a river i have to ford

if i don't make it across, i'll build me a palace

at the bottom, with a stuffed fireplace and a winery

i'll write about heaven and the smell of vanilla

how the race to the mountaintop is not unfamiliar

so these poems will be all that's left when i'm done

i'll write, all night

till i've used up all my dry runs and the batteries

Poems for Her : Episode III

Footing to the tune

the moves are ecstatic

Raise the voice

I'm sweating out back

counting and connecting dots

the curtain gives way to the abstract

Outside her realm

she comes pay me a visit

I write to keep her alive

I feel to give myself a jumpstart

something like a dead bell

still plays out that late-night chat

There's a crack in her letter

that's how many ways there are to heaven

I took a step backwards, a crash dive

of some sort. Say, I have missed my mark

how can I live with myself if she's not here

and the obvious is going nowhere, cul-de-sack

Just a messenger gave me something to muse over

tonight, unlike last time, I'll hold back the wailing

it doesn't add up trying to relay the damage across.

A cluster of her worlds is still out there, awaiting my wording

I'm part of the void, I can't play fool

\O_o/

Poems for Her : Episode II

Image by Javier Peñas on Unsplash

enough about the living

enough treading on eggshells, bleeding

one word leads to another

like musical notes at the opera

i picked up a fight, she picked up a plane ticket

the script puts her somewhere above the skies of Venus

cruising and crashing with her stellar coevals

the goddess in her slumber dreamed of this tale

the grit to see through the days is especially sketchy

everywhere is a buzz about what to put on for the occasion

a smile, silence or some flirting to balance the equation

nineteen lives ago i could have sworn i was with her

twentieth is cursed, i'll wait for twenty three or, er...twenty nine

one of these days i am going to stray out of my shell

she'll read about it somewhere among the stars, between the lines

my lies, they are saved as pdf or 'shut-the-f-up'

hello darkness my old friend, a relapse into despair. that's clichéd, i know

in this house we deal in words and numbers

in this house we feel and flee to stay hydrated

come, come, come, go, go, go, left, left, left

a dash here, a dot there; standby for transmission

she tests the waters with both personae

i text and wait, life will resurface

Poems for Her : Episode I

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the internet says she's just a text away, but

that might as well be webverses away

blimey, i can't even log into her heart

what with captchas & two-factor authentication

i have found a new voice in the sound of pain

when the night comes, i'll take to the stage

the dream i had was of a woman and the salt

she listened and nodded some sense

the salt does not mean to upset the cult

she's got a lover in a diary she planes smoothly every sunset

you could see me if you looked closely

the pattern growing thick, the rationale clogging up

my virtual presence pervading her space

but she does not know me

she does not know

she does

[Untitled]

Look here, I mean here

there's you and your shadow

there's light and no sugar

you can't blame me for having your best interest

at heart

but, how can you be sure

monsters don't have lead behind their sternum

surtout the kind of monsters you like

i am a man trying to love a woman

there's another man on the other face of the map she wants

i am not that man, déjà vu

a dread within a dream within a drink

this should be the last one down my system

home is waiting

at least read my eye movement, Morse code

pay-per-view, the foxy tone.

you here implies you, unlike in my book of tropes

'cause come tomorrow, i'll find you and i'll love you.

Happiness

Ah, happiness, that elusive state

i surf cyberspace but I cannot locate

i put up huts, thatched of smiles and style

the lady i saw this morning

perched on the far edge of her mind

swallowing life around and getting swallowed back

she got me thinking, of thinking and meditating

of life and its meaning

'i must not fear', the first line in my journal quotes Frank Herbert

i must not fear, huh! sure, death is not scary

i'll tell you what is scary if you will not get scared

i'll drown my worries if you will stay overnight.

now that i have your attention dear, tell me, what makes you happy?

my occult dream told me i could be loved too

but dreamland is way tricky and sure without mirrors

my half-lover needs a star out of Orion

when they are slipping away, they get very close

hearts touching, minds groping for a way out

my boss needs my money, a relapse in despair

my beloved, she knows me better than i know myself

now, that is scary, my friend. she can play me on her accordion

she can make me sing or whine, she can make me love like a runaway lover

she can bend me in folds to fit in her leaking jeans

my hometown has had enough of me, and some extra to give away

my deathbed hasn't seen me since this morning, and that is scary too.

My Dad, a Tailor

Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

In this country, a boss should always be bald and have a big belly. My uncle isn’t bald, he hasn’t got a big belly either, and you don’t realize, the first time you see him, that he is the actual boss of a big office downtown. I didn’t believe him at first, until he invited me in after school. All excited, I deemed it to be cubby, just like our living room or that of Keza’s but it was a whole of the world, with moving chairs and everything. Well, let’s pass that but it was grand and beautiful, I tell you. I wanted my dad to get there, maybe he’d see by himself what I always wanted to tell him long before that no tailor can make a big money. So I asked uncle if ever my dad has been here but quickly judged that I shouldn’t have for if my dad had ever set his feet in this building, he would have left his tailoring machine at our veranda the next morning and went out to search for a job, a paying job.

At the beginning of this academic year, our new teach Immaculé requested us to introduce ourselves. We were asked our names, our parents’ names and their jobs, where we live and so on. When my turn arrived, I said everything as it is and…

”But your father is a tailor, why do you say he’s jobless?”

Teacher having known my dad before time, I was convinced at the end of our arguing, when no one gave in, that she ought to defend him. But when you have a job, you are either a boss like our uncle or you have a boss.

“Yes boy, he’s been here on numerous occasions, why?”

“Well, nothing. I just wanted to know.”

My dad has seen this office himself? I was disappointed and a bit angry that he did nothing to get a job afterwards. But anger shrunk when I remembered that we are never hungry and that we always get new clothes on Christmas and, above all, that we go to school. Though until now I don’t understand where he gets money to pay our school fees. Maybe our uncle pays for us and we are never let to know about it.

Disappointment didn’t go anywhere though. How can a grown-up man feed his family without having a proper job? Do people he sews clothes for pay him? I doubt that because whenever he sends me to take their clothes to them, they don’t give me any money. Maybe he does it all as the Good Community Work we are always told at Sunday school.

“A man should always do good deeds for his community to claim his place in Heaven.” Our Sunday school teacher likes to tell us. Maybe that’s what our father is doing. He just wants heaven not us, but we don’t complain. We get all we need.

World We Call Ours

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We named our world, re-named it in graven panic
our parol hung close
names uncorrelated with inherited tunic
we painted us freeze

In mediaeval formation, ought to be were seers
the expansion of our Mother's Womb
could've carried along poets of unblurred leers
leer on glassed future, unpainted tomb