Poet's Whispers

Ran into Death recently.

It was a beautiful day

The sun was shining, the sky was blue,

Picture book perfect.

She was sitting on a wall smoking a cheroot,

It suited her. Big C was with her

He looked gross so no change there.

Seeing me he nodded, pointed his finger,

“Watching you”, I nodded back.

Bad news travels fast.

Death grinned and looked me up and down:

“Not ready for you yet but you’re up the list”.

I know.

The sun was shining, the breeze was warm

Ice cream still tasted nice.

But now 

I know

Everything is temporary.

Or craft any kiss, prolonged

Your mouth reeks of blood and rum

And mine with lusty disgust

Crack me no beer can

Or hold me no longer in any hug

Neither your wife, nor your girlfriend

I'm just a hobo on tangent

Latex on my lips and in mouth

Been just feasting on cosmic dust

And on my regular diet

I have the memories of universe

Don't be a dick, don't be a jerk

I've had all of it enough

It's so prickly dry inside my throat

Ride through it on a rollercoaster ride

A bunch of lavender, and an army of despair

My memories of elephants

Hid widely in my bedroom carcass

A seashell, a deathbed and

A nameless bastard

Sleep in my arm

Dance in the fallow of mustard

Sun is our closest star

And on hearts are our dearest scars

Making merry and mining melanchoy

Screeching loudly our cimmerian wishpers

Into the wild where no spectre trespass

Only marfa lights dance in distance

On those sides where thrive the greener grass

There we were, missing my Oliver

Northern Italian tragedy

You dry hump me, behind the bush forever

I'm gross, I'm Wilde

But nothing you can ever understand

Find Me, there I'm

Go green my capillary carnation strands

not

* in the infinite continuum between way back when & an unfolding forever future,

bodies - in particular, this body - seem to need, perhaps even crave a nudge every now & then.

there are lentils in the existential stew brewing

that have not one whit to do with a heart-healthy milieu for proteins

like you, me - stealthy grooving, dancing the old soft-shoe

while the world is burning, or drowning in its own goo, turning slowly, ever more slowly…

without that nudge to keep its flow.

the nudge is love - deep dark & elemental like good fudge over brownies, yellow cake

or steaming in a mug - the kind of love, so smooth & delicious you try to lap it all up

if you could, like a hug; does a body just fine in good measure unfortunately too rarely found by the pound, it seems;

elusive like good daydreams, sunny weather ( here ‘round ), as precious 

I’ve been here before, wanting something more. The ground unsteady in ways I’m not ready to face.

How can I believe in something that’s only ever showed me judgement?

Whose beholder’s eyes see me tainted for not yelling into an abyss that’s never replied?

I believe in kindness. I believe in love. I believe in being a decent fucking person. But that’s not enough for you.

I’ll be held out of your life on earth and an apparent ever after because I didn’t get on my knees and clear the sins I’ve already forgiven myself and the world for.

When does the Abyss apologize back? Why does it excuse a rapist on their knees but attack the child who grew up feeling alone and abandoned, who gave up screaming to the heavens?

This is what you breed. With the brand of faith you throw in my face. You make me feel sick and ashamed in more ways than one.

I did not want a life of opportunity

I wanted mornings, drinking coffee, in the sun

I wanted just a life of easy certitude

Beginning with the knowledge, you were the one

But in truth we’ve had a life of many changes

Some good, some bad, like rain in sudden squalls

Times when life has had the beauty of a sunset  

Bloody knuckles when we beat against the walls

I know now that life is like those chocolates

Some good, some bad, some still lying in the tin

I wonder sometimes what is the point in living

Then you smile at me and I love the life I’m in

Everyone wants to watch the vivid hurtful red of the sun

until their eyes feel like they are shriveling in their sockets (and popping out their brains)

and if they have to die, they want it to be while driving fast, late at night (stars blurry), stereo

cranked up so all they can hear is hey, hey, hey, Bobby McGee, before they drive

straight on into the trees. Scramble out their brains.

Maybe someone will hear the music in the morning. Follow it like a thread tugging their hair, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose

maybe for that someone to take a little walk into the trees, just to see what all the freedom’s about,

trip on the black tar tyre that crumpled off the back

catch their eyes on the crisp green-apple sun that illuminates everybody’s splendid crooked body

because everybody’s body is splendid and crooked, even splashed with fern-green and red like

that, even with the splashed-out brains on the dashboard.

The first I remember, I was two years old. I lay in my stroller and watched the light come through

the black fabric of the hood in pinpricks like I was seeing my own wild, starry night, and

the second night I remember, I remember because of the dark bitter wine I snuck from my

grandfather’s glass, just the dregs, five years old—the wine, and me.

I remember more, of course, I remember thinking at age ten that I wanted to be someone, a

teenager who drove cars that blasted down roads after sunset, surrounded by all the dark

evergreens, going so fast that the stars would be blurry

but somehow I can never remember anything other than the dreams. I can never remember the

weave of the sun-bleached cotton over my head or the occasion where the wine was drunk or

which road, which road would I take that mythical car down, the 1994 Hyundai that I had to push-

start before we got to school like it was a recalcitrant asteroid—

Oh, I feel jagged now. Memory ripping me like sun-softened cotton, because

I remember the first time I saw Dan Gurney’s Eagle car win the Indianapolis 500. The Eagle,

black and white under the whispery static of the television, shone and shone for me, even though

with all my dreams I couldn’t imagine the feel of the wheel under my sticky palms.

sing the twittering birds to sleep

i can bury the chest down deep

in the ready earth below my feet

and my former lover will sigh away

forlorn beneath a moon-washed night

bewitched by my silent unmoving lips

aghast at the stillness within my eyes

and so the river can bear me aloft

i ask the leaves to teach me to be

floating down a time-worn stream

the cold creaking floorboards create a path treaded by something not there following the sounds of sleeping and all the breaths lead it closer something from beyond is stalking the night birds stay quiet hung by the broken-neck tree even the wind hangs behind this thing as it silently screams at the foot of your bed don’t sleep without locking your soul away

the season is pregnant with                       turtles leaving    the lake to nest, heavybodied,  with red-blue-iridescent dragonflies                                         flitting across the surface            in search of something,     with wildflowers unfolding,                         fanning out from puckered buds     into terse displays.  

love is perched where thoughts of you                          linger. scattered like cast runes. among the fronds,                with sunk, glistening pebbles.      along the sun-fed veins   of flowing water.

        like crinkled paper-glass inside pockets of moss                        that cling to the earth.

        like congealed nectar                     of floating algal blooms                           that are beginning to flourish.

———

C. A. Singh • Blue