Category: Poetry and Prose

Letter

chérie,

It is so difficult to love you.
When you need me to hold you, you want me to stand in distance.
When I fade too far away, your eyes are filled with sadness.
I can’t touch your face to wipe off your tears.
Because you won’t let me be close to you.

It is so difficult to stop loving you.
I read all your unspoken words like the love I were not allowed to confess.
Why do we understand each other so much with so little contact?
I wish I don’t feel or experience your emotions like my own.
Because I can’t separate myself from you.

It is so difficult to know what to do,
except write to you chérie, knowing you will never let our hearts be whole.

Goodnight chérie!

Your heartbroken fool

Thoughts on Old Photos II

The world is safe
for a curious feline
hiding behind
a voiceless screen.

 

Photographed by Joe Femia

Mood Swings

I decided to go for a walk cos I couldn’t walk out of my own thoughts.

How my own mind choked up creativity like a still born without making it to the light.

Nature’s colours force fed my dull mind. The yellow, green and purple stimulus evoked the greys behind my eyes.

The wind and rain whispered delight to the bleakness of my heart.

The enthusiasm of children and dogs infected me. I sneezed out a smile before I could catch myself, another spell dripped right after.

 

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Thoughts on Old Photos I

Girl!
Why do you love
wandering along the beach?
Don’t you fear
the harsh wind
and blistering sun
rob you off your youth?

No.
I hide
in the sea shells by day
and wear
the stars by night.
The ocean
keeps me vigourous
and she leads me
to wondrous bliss.

Photographed by Joe Femia

Bonfire

she was
the bonfire
flushed his cheeks
toasted warm
in the cold nights
of all the wasted youth
too stoned
to recollect all the laughs
only her cherry lips
stained on
his pea sized remain

over the years
he has searched for
the same sensation
of her dim heat
caressing his shyness
to blossom
he lost the words
to write her
into his poetry

there are memories
he cannot articulate
he cannot shake
he can only
let them be
torturous
treacherous
guity of
being young
and naive
once

The Becoming of Storm

You have been exceedingly silent
for the whole Summer
I am not sure why
but you really scare me
I have tiptoed around you
just to keep the peace
And yet the awkwardness is so apparent
even the blowfish in the tank
gives me that ‘You are in trouble, lady!’ look

Falling asleep has become
more and more labouring
Those rolling grunts is fast approaching
I am trying to meditate it away
but my heartbeat betrays me
by increasing frantic waves of convulsion

Eventually
I am violently woken in pain
induced by the whipping
of holy thorns
on my vulnerable flesh
my blood is lightning silver
perfect for the charging storm

Wordsmith Apprentices

A collaboration with Benjamin Grossman

This daily script interferes
with any royal mood
leaving abstract smiles
upon the observer’s space

Each piece reaches the other
with startling ponder
shaking up their normality
signaling the writer’s psyche
demanding a daily dose of encouragement

The bond sparked small
a distant curiosity sated by the choreography of words
a budding denial received confirmation in plain sight
an uncultivated heart given wings to ascend
an untamed mind flew over the boundary beyond the intellectual elasticity

Disturbing Event

That Summer was so hot.
Grass in the backyard choked
our footsteps.

Lying in bed next to you,
the loud crickets relentlessly
held me off of sleep.

I remembered
the panic in your voice,
‘Did you hear that?
They are coming for us.
Stay still!
They won’t find us.’
You struggled with the locust plague.
We hid underneath the blanket
on a 30 degree night.

Your panic
and the cricket midnight party
went on and on.
My brain shut down
and I slumbered into sleep.

‘Did you smell that?
They are cooking opium again
next door.’
The smell of smoke
stang my eyes to wake.

I sprang up from bed
to rush out to the garden.
The backyard was like
an abandoned camp site
in the daybreak.

You went in the ambulance
laughing in exhilaration,
‘I burned the fuckers.
Don’t you fucking mess with me.
No fucking plague under my watch.
I’m gonna get you,
you piece of shit
reincarnated
opium dealer,
undercover
fucking neighbour.’

That’s how that hot summer ended.

Photograph of painting of a man by Aarón Blanco Tejedor