Month: July 2023

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
– Ernest Hemingway

They say it’s penned by Hemingway.
It may not be for all we care.
It shouldn’t matter anyway.
What matters is the story there.

Of course, we have the lump in throat:
A baby, dead. Its parent(s), poor.
Though not a word the author wrote
Allows us to be fully sure.

Perhaps, it’s one of hundred gifts
They got but couldn’t use in time.
Perhaps, they buy in bulk at thrift
And eBay it at premium dime.

Perhaps, they found it on a train,
Or nicked it from another’s bags,
Or had to buy, on shop’s complaint,
When doggy ate its seller’s tags.

Perhaps, they fell for “iPhone sale”
And got it in that pristine box.
Perhaps, they found the voodoo nail
Before they pulled the baby’s socks.

A million other stories fit
So snugly in this Six-word line.
Then why, then why go kill a kid,
When our imagination’s fine?

Because it’s not a “Six-word” tale.
It has two more that make it work.
The “Ernest Hemingway” detail
Is making all our tears jerk.

The man is god of brevity.
He wouldn’t write some frivolous prose.
Of course, it has more gravity
Than any that we can propose.

And so it matters if he wrote,
Or if it’s from another’s pen.
For they must have our louder vote
Applauding at their magic, then.

Who goes?
Who knows!

A spy?
No! Why?

Then name yourself.
To frame myself?

You are to blame?
No, no. For shame!

Then why?
I’m shy.

You want something?
To see you sing.

I do not croon.
You speak too soon.

Away, away!
If so you say.

---

Again, you freak?
It’s been a week.

I still don’t sing.
Or so you think.

Go on, get out!
No need to shout.

Your nerve!
I serve.

Away!
Okay.

---

Why haunt me so?
I think you know.

It’s gone. Forgot.
I’m sure it’s not.

And risk all this?
Is this to miss?

It’s everything!
Or so you think.

Who are you, man?
I’m just a fan.

A ghost?
Almost.

Undead?
Not yet.

A voice?
A choice.

I will not croon.
Hmn. See you soon.

---

You here?
I hear.

Okay.
Okay.

---

You here?
I hear.

Okay.
Okay.

---

Hello?
…

You here?
…

---

I’ll sing.
…

You’ll hear?
…

I’ll sing.
…

The underdressed are overclothed
In either insecurities
Or blissful, misplaced confidence
Or manifold preponderance
Of things to deeply ponder on.
It seldom is a poverty
Of means, but meaning, that prevents
The underdressed from arguments
In favour of being favoured by
The ones who dress for favouring
Themselves than those are neighboring.
And so, I won’t go shopping. No!

It’s best I do not know her well.
Just Lust. No whistle, nor no bell.
No see you later, call me, text.
No need to answer what is next.
Just breakfast – coffee, loneliness.
Just loathing self – I’m such a mess.
It’s best she doesn’t know me well.
It keeps intact her private hell.

I wake up to her fevered lips.
The nape? The neck? No, shoulder curve.
No other touch. No other place.
A kiss of Love that’s only Love.
No other string. No other name.
I say her name. The lips depart.
I turn and see her be the dawn
Intruding on my Sunday sleep.

When Socrates “apologised”
With hemlock pints at seventy,
His Plato was but thirty years
As I was when my Socrates
“Apologised” at seventy.
As Rumi whitened silently
At setting of his solar Shams,
I daily whiten violently
In self-inflicted choler tongues.

They suffered as I suffer now
From painful knowledge of the truth,
Of knowing that our sheltered lives
Have taught us nothing worth a tooth.
We suffer knowing we don’t know,
And just repeat what we have heard,
With no originality,
Except in eloquence of words.

But then, the two didn’t give all up.
Accepting their deficiency
They humbled into writing down
The wisdom of their gurujis.
And through the years of writing them
And much mythologizing them,
The older Plato, Rumi shone
With brighter wisdoms of their own.

And this is why I am not them.
My eyes are still on my own fame.
I want to write my father’s words
To piggyback upon his name.
No Plato, Rumi fate for me.
Just fatal anonymity.

I claim that prose is easier.
And yet I hardly prove my claim.
The form is brutal in essence.
The cleverness of turns of phrase
Is met with lower tolerance
Than poetry of equal grace
And equal lack of meatiness.
(Is poetry just vegan prose?)
It’s easier to disappoint.
It’s easier to get it wrong.
For there are clear rights and wrongs
In prose that poetry escapes.
Is this a poem plain as prose?
Or prose in gait of poetry?
It walks a craven middle path.
It does not put its neck on lines.
It fills the time like nine-to-fives.
It kills the time like five-to-nines.
As meaningful as blurry days.
And guarded just as preciously.

The journal of an emperor,
The letters of a statesman doomed,
The lectures of a former slave,
Are all the works that come to us
From half a century of thoughts
Sojourning on a painted porch.
And yet, in every century
They find a champion of their cause,
And many strong practitioners,
And many weak pretenders too,
And many who appropriate
This way of life into their own:

Remember that you too will die.
Embrace your fate, though good or bad.
You don’t control what falls on you,
But do control how you respond.
Do not lament. Do not revel.
Just focus on what’s in your hand.
The obstacle becomes the way
When actions come from virtues four
Of Justice, Courage, Temperance,
And Wisdom showing which is what.
Your self is all there is to rule,
But don’t remain within yourself.
Participate responsibly
To shoulder everything you can.
And when you can’t, rebuild yourself.
Make every moment worth the while.
Remember that you too will die.

My Read-It-Later bookmark apps
Are full of isolated Its.
No Later ever comes to Read.

What comes is simply FOMO, Guilt
When every time I hit that Save,
That Pocket, Raindrop, Ribbon, Heart.

And then there are the Paperbacks.
They overflow all tables, beds.
My Kindle scroll is infinite.

Two other words soon rescue me:
“Tsundoku” of the Japanese,
And Eco’s “Anti-Library”.

They both remind humility:
There’s more, much more, to read, to know.
The Unread are our talismans.