Tag: ambiguity

Passing

Passing pleasantries
Ignored like roadkill
A plant in a pothole
Drowning in the smallest rainstorm
Living for every bit of sun I can catch
On whatever leaves I have left
Before
A deer eats my head
A car strikes it dead
Crashes into a tree
It collapses onto the street
Where she was about to cross
She now passes
If only she hadn’t ignored
A pleasantry

The sandwich and the sidewalk

I saw God the other day, sitting on the sidewalk outside of the Albert Heijn.
A crown in the form of a worn and weathered grey beanie, I thought
It must be a tad too warm, but
He does work in mysterious ways.

He asked me for some change, and I told him
I used to pray to him, and ask the same.
Dejected, he asked for some food – a soft sandwich, perhaps, as he no longer had his heavenly teeth.
I got him a bacon and egg sandwich
From the bin with all the ‘aged’ produce,
Priced down to celebrate its final ‘best-before day.’
I figured it would be softened, and moistened by age.
The bacon egg combo is a classic combination, like
Man and sin, bacon and egg, man and bacon, and man and egg.

When I walked out with the soggy sandwich, a spark sparkled in God’s eyes,
A few tears on his cheeks, reminding me of the soggy bread I held in my hands.
He said he couldn’t believe I came back and provided him his heavenly lunch,
And he shook my hand, and gave me a hug.

I held him for a moment.

How did you fall so far?
Was your throne,
Your horse,
Your holiness
So high?

The taller they are, the harder they fall, and you
Were on the highest pedestal—my neck would break
If I tried to meet your eyes, your expectations, and now
I see you in your truest form.
You
Wanted so badly to be loved and adored by all,
And in turn you would grant us your conditional love, but
I guess you will have to settle
For a soggy sandwich.

Who knows

Your head found my shoulder,
And we lived conjoined for weeks
On end, side by side, some said
We were more than friends –
One wished, and one knew
We were, but we
Were not –
Would not be what one
Wished we could be
But who knows what,
And these things are still confusing,
As though we split, you
Changed and stayed
The same, and I am someone else
Every other day, though
I could say the same for you,
As though you stay the same,
You’re stuck in perpetual static change –
Unchanging and everchanging,
I loved you, and all your little things –
Your mugs, your painful patience,
Your hair I would find everywhere,
Your eyes when they would stare into mine, so late at night,
Your smile, your lips when they would meet mine, or simply exist –
I would have worshipped every freckle, birthmark, and scar
On your body, and soul, but
You are someone else than the one
I mentioned before,
And in the end who knows
Who is who and what is what and who we are and what we are not

Bishops and Pawns Both Strike on the Diagonal

Frozen pathways, broken bridges, the
Spilling sewers of Rome, the holy excrement rains
From the sky, the smell is putrid
Like a preacher working the corner for days on end,
Working his body, a bible glued to his hand,
There aren’t enough eyes on an angel to truly witness
This state of despair, not enough holy mops
To rid the world of dirty priests, one man once said
“Let the children come to me,” he should have said
“Don’t let the children near a priest,” they should
Call a consistory, make it extraordinary, take it
To the top, to the tip of his white hat—haven’t we learned
That we should stay away from white hats, white masks, white robes, white cloaks, white men that
Disrobed nature and nations, stole from their people, took away their gods
And put them in a museum, hiding behind bulletproof glass, far out of reach
From tax-paying citizens, increasingly depressed denizens, we need more
Destructive dissidents with bottles of gasoline, rags soaked in alcohol,
To light it all aflame, but only at the end of the week, to make it sabbatical.

Blades

tiredness and rain, the feeling of wanting
a breathless escape
from it all and to
watch from a higher place
to the ground below and the wild seas
with waves as high as planes,
green plains of desolation, and grass
that is always greener on the other side
but
what does the colour of the grass matter
maybe i like it damaged and coarse,
and not cutting, separated and divorced

The Two-Headed Calf and the One-Eyed Raven

You look at the ancient stars, shining brightly in the sky. Green grasses wave at you from afar, and you feel them welcome you to Life, as you take your first steps. A stumble, a fall, but your mother by your side, with her caring eyes, willing you to stand tall. You breathe through two sets of nostrils, you see through two pairs of eyes. You are complete. You have with you all that you ever have, and though you will be gone before your first sunset, this night you will experience all that there is in life. The joy of peace, of calmly sleeping at your mother’s side. The tragedy, which is a privilege for others, to have to wake up and face the day. The wonder of hearing the birds sing as they fly through the trees, searching for insects to feed their young. You are not meant for the skies, but as the birds fly, one song meets your ears. Sung with melancholic sincerity, you see the singing raven perched on one leafless tree, watching you with only one eye.

A child has been born, so full of life,
A head too many, here comes the knife,
A slash, a crack, off goes your head,
A mother, alone again,
When she goes to bed.

She’ll watch the sun rise,
She’ll watch the sun set,
She’ll be alone again,
When she goes to bed.

A moment passes, before you hear your mother sing back to the raven, with a desperate dread.

Don’t take my child, lover of the dead,
Don’t make me say goodbye,
Take me with you instead,
Please don’t let me be alone again,
When I go to bed.

green and unknowing

Do you think I couldn’t see us
In the blues and yellows
Of yesteryear, when
I saw you more often than the clouds in the sky,
And we would greet each other more frequently
Than we would say goodbye?

Alas, one essential colour was missing
To create the colours on the rainbow.
The colours on the spectrum
Lacked life – red
Blood that I remember so vividly:
Draining from your face,
Except for your eyes,
Looking into mine, bloodshot
And heartbroken, God,

I see you now
Left behind
Drowning in the blues and yellows
Clinging onto an idealised memory
Fragmented pieces of me
That drag you down
Deep into the sea
Deep into
The blue and yellow fantasy

Birthmarks and Scars in the Spotlight

Check my birthmarks –
My personal spots and signs,
My life scars, too many to count
But they are mine
Either by birthright, or the attempts on my life.
It feels like I have nine lives,
Four chambers, one bullet
And a cocked hammer –
Pulled back by my stress,
Until I snap, and take that one in four chance
To blast myself in the head.
Although I’m not better off dead.
I’m better off red
In the face, with tears on my cheeks,
Till I’m wet, soaked, covered in sadness,
To the point of breathless madness
But it’s fine, it’s all for the sake of saving him,
That child residing on the inside
Of my heart, working the machine
The way he’s worked his whole damned life,
Putting his own desires aside,
All for the sake of peace and mediation,
Another tough pill to swallow,
But facing the truth is his daily medication

As he carries the same marks,
The same scars, given to him by lovers,
Mothers, brothers, friends and absent fathers,
Who were either there to embrace him,
Burn him at the stake, or neglect him
The way I did when I buried him in the dark
Cold hard ground when I was five.

No, I didn’t want to look at him,
Be him, or free him from his despair,
No, that little boy was going nowhere
If it was up to me, till a point in my life
When I realised that little boy never gave up the fight.

poem: we can’t

Hey, can we please start again?
A new sunrise, new
Dewdrops on the flowers outside
Your window where we
Could have lied in the grass, but
Instead we lied to ourselves,
And said:
It was going to be a beautiful day
For us to enjoy together but
This is not our day –
It’s not yours,
nor is it mine.

Of course, it would be nice
To start from the start –
From where it all began, but
Now, we are where we are,
Though at least

We’re still friends.

Even through all the lies –
The goodbyes to the past
And future we never had.
The goodbyes to a sunrise
That would never set on us, together.
The goodbyes to the life
We never had and
Will never have
Because
we can’t start again.