A Tale of Heaven and the Mountain

Photo by Thomas Serer

The Mountain once went over to his friend Heaven for a chat as he customarily did. "Why are you so up high and hard to reach?" He asked. "I don't know," the Heaven replied. "Maybe it is the working of Nature." The Heaven said with a sigh. Yes, she knew she was up high and hard to reach, alright, but she had no part in deciding her dwelling place. Not one she knew of, at least.
"But we are the Nature. I mean, of course we didn't decide where we were to dwell but I can't help wondering what you have up there that is so appealing. Well, you are said to bed the gods and everything but, come off it and tell me what secret you have with you that makes everyone so restless and quite crazed to reach you." The Mountain went on. The question had been burning inside him for longer than he could remember but he wasn't envious whatsoever. He was just curious about why children and adults alike are always eager to climb him thinking that he is the way to Heaven, that they are neighbors. The Heaven paused for one thoughtful moment and then smiled, the smile of sudden realization. "I think I know why." The Heaven said without letting the smile off her lips. "It is because I am invisible and since the beginning of Time, tales of my beauty and me housing the gods in my realm never ceased to bring me fame and neverending attraction. I just hope that they will not be disappointed if ever one day they make it to reach my realm."

#Death

Once or so I think I saw death flashing across my face

Or else it was having a show in the mirror, what do I know

Maybe it was just hanging on the screens I looked at

when they shot me (not dead, not alive either)

On a number of occasions I had to take a second glance

Then I would smile and pat my soul. I was not a dream

I was not a nightmare. Maybe a nightmare, or so life has always seemed

But that does not matter now, that's for the time to lament

Because what haunts a man is more of a settler, a lifetime guest

#Monsters

these are the monsters I write not about
these are the monsters that threaten to unearth the peg
and break free from the tying leashes
these are the monsters I keep trying to tame, to blame
these are the monsters whose roars are unnerving, earthshaking
these are unnamed monsters, unprecedented, one of their kind
these are the monsters I bargained not for

#Pain

and there was pain,
or so it felt at first,
rang throughout eternity
muffling everything else
as it swept through time and being
too careful as not to leave any crevice
unattended, any cell unappalled
such was the pain that proclaimed itself life
and no voice in living memory
ever dared as to state otherwise

Stars Only

Long, sky-like hours drag by

Stars are but all I want to buy

Stars only

Shops ought to be closed, this time of the night

From my window, all I take is their distant light

Shinnin’ faintly

It’s dark-old in here, smell’s of decaying memories

Men whose pride they choked on, lie still in poetries

Like this

I think of my unborn son, and his unattended funeral

Mine is life to grieve, tossed and burnt and non-liberal

Unlike his