Category: Poems

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.

My mother balks at West in East,
As if there is no East in West.

As if the arbitrary line
That separates the East from West
Is more unmoving than the land
And sea and those inhuman climes
That put some hundred years between
What people thought this side, that side.

As if unearthing ancient ties
Between the words that cast a light
On culture (that is, stuff of being)
Is just an academic trite.

Like, Wine and Venus – tempting twines
For men in need of tempered minds –
Arise from same Sanskritic root:
The “vêna” or “beloved”. Nice!
Or, Video and Idea –
Two words that make you say, “I see…”
Arise from Sanskrit vision word:
The “vidyā” that is “wisdom”. Gee!

And all she has to say to this?
“I see! They stole our words from us!”

To walk through cobwebbed stale perfume
Of biscuits stood up on their dates,
And hear the ghosted furniture
Complaining to refugee rats.

To strain against the stubbornness
Of flaking bolts on shuttered storms,
Secure in rusted couplings hinged
On termite-eaten memory.

To strum again forgotten strings
In corners of undusted hearts
And watch the whirling Sufi motes
Ascend the grace of filtered dawn.

(After Portia Nelson)

1.
I walk into the local store,
The only one that sells my stuff.
I pick my stuff and say my Hi,
He smiles and prints me out a bill.
The price has gone up yet again.
I show the price on packaging.
He shrugs and says, “It’s up to you.”
I stuff the stuff into my bag.
Then pull it out and shelf it back.
Then push it back into the bag.
Then push the bag on to the shelf.
I walk out empty-handed. Fast.

2.
I walk into the local store,
The only one that sells my stuff.
I pick my stuff and say my Hi,
He smiles and prints me out a bill.
The price has gone up yet again.
I pay it, walk out with my bag.

3.
I walk into the local store,
The only one that sells my stuff.
I pick my stuff and say my Hi,
He smiles and prints me out a bill.
The price has gone up yet again.
I quote the price from yesterday.
He shrugs and says, “It’s up to you.”
I walk out empty-handed. Slow.

4.
I walk into the local store,
The only one that sells my stuff.
I pick my stuff and say my Hi,
He smiles and prints me out a bill.
The price has gone up yet again.
I walk out, hear, “It’s up to you.”

5.
I walk into the local store,
The only one that sells my stuff.
I pick my stuff and say my Hi,
He smiles and prints me out a bill.
The price has gone up yet again.
I empty out my stolen gun,
Erase the CCTV files,
And wake up from my fantasy.

6.
I walk into another store.

We dream to do the things in sleep
That wakefulness prevents us here.
The unsaid cheers, the unshed tears,
The unkept promise, unswept fears.
We dream to start forgiving us
The unforgiving souvenirs
Of deep regrets, their daily threats,
That continue to cost us dear.

I don’t know why I started this.
A mad dog must have bitten me.
A worm inside my brain, for sure.
At least before I started this
I only had wishful regrets.
I saw myself in better light.
As someone who can pull this off
If only he can somehow start.
Now, look at me. I started. Failed.
I see myself in clearer light.
As someone who can’t pull this off.
I could pretend another day
As someone who can pull this off.
But what about tomorrow, hunh?
Again, Reality will knock.
Again, I’ll look inside and weep.
At least, today there’s gratitude.
At least, today I see a spark.
But what about tomorrow, hunh?
Resentments will replace this spark.
I don’t know why I started this.
A mad dog must have bitten me.
A worm inside my brain, for sure.

Uneasiness of questioned love.
Unanswered calls for clarity.
Unmasked emotions motioning
Unmetered immorality.

The puff of pride.
The bluff of sloth.
Enough. Enough.
Enough of wrath.

Unconscionably conscious.
Unmoving. Inarticulate.
Undressed desertions darkening
Unbitten breasts immaculate.

The snuff of dreams.
The stuff of strife.
Enough. Enough.
Enough of life.

The more I read, the less I am.
And that’s a good thing, btw.
The more I am, the more I’m stuck
In guarding that which makes me me.
The less I am, the less I grieve
Ideas that I have to change.
I now am simply consciousness
Rebooting every time I wake
Into evolving memory.
No wonder reading frightens me.