here are a few poems I feel confident about...any comments welcome
1. Dahlia
Did you ever think of what was to be
When you lay there all bright eyed with anticipation
Did you ever think it would end –the pain
That tore you up and left you scarred, changed
Did you ever think that smile would fade
That came when you burped and swayed with intoxication
Did you think the world would change
When you asked it to
Did you laugh when you cried and thought you’d cheat death into living?
2.
Sometimes
My thoughts haunt me
Deep longings, high dreams
Overewhelming compassion
Selfish
My mind lurks in
Evil desires, complicated notions
A whirlpool of ghostlike thoughts
My enemy, my friend
I should turn off
My mind, stop the voices
But then, all of me
Will in the drastic process
Become mute.
3.
Soil twins
Blackness bonds me and you
This strange kin-ness to the soil
Our umbilicals though buried separate
Found their way in the darkness of the soil
Bonding, entwining making us kin
It is the soil’s blackness that has made us
4.
The recovery room
Bloody eyes pleading
Anemic hands reaching out
Paper thin bloodless bodies
Lifeless
Pungent smells of life giving spirits
Putrid smells of death defeated spirits
Old blood on sheets, old wounds on him
Tangerine hair, swollen tummies
The illusion of health and food full bellies
Desperate eyes hungry lips thirsty souls
Starving for replenishment
Still clinging to survival, clamoring for salvation
The smell of death I met miles outside
Inside, the look of death I couldn’t abide
5.
How far does one
Have to run
In order to gain
A better look
At themselves
Sometimes
Its reason enough
Just doing something
Because it makes sense
6.
The long walk to freedom
Leads way up on the narrow hard path
Small feet struggling, panting to climb
The huge hard structure of civilization
Sweat and tears and mist
The end all worth while
Even more rewarding
Than for the sweaty bloody hands
Whose efforts witness the wonder
Of long hard work
Little feet shall forever
Hallow and echo the sentiments of ancient bloody
Sweaty hands.
7.
It wasn’t hard for me to leave
It was okay
But its hard for me to stay
But I will
Same faces same voices
Becoming all the more familiar
I must have space
I must breathe
Before I suffocate
And then I can’t take it anymore
So I try
8.
As lilies, they too thrive
In lush fields not slaves to success
But to the land that sustains
The flag that protects and separates
Making them unique as a people
Everyone, it seems gets by
Together as one but also separate
Through intense heat, humidity
In monsoon winds, cold snow
They just get by
9.
On the tracks of the train
The sides of the mountain
Bursting with green lush
Dotted villages busy with life
Air fresh and pleasant
The rain pelting the land with hope
Right here in a ditch on the side
A man lay awkwardly and died
The train moved and the rain stopped
10.
It’s the dance of life
All must move to
Whether here or there
One and all must move
At the end its unclear
What matters
Will it be how when or why?
Its quite possible the only question
Then would be..if?
11.
If it should be, it will be
For if it shouldn’t, then it won’t
But it may, so don’t assume it won’t
If assuming is hazarding all
In the hopes that it will
Then chance is a healthy investment
What ever is is, you are damned if you do
Damned if you don’t
If you do, you can’t get more vulnerable
Than you already are
The dice has already been cast for you
Accept the verdict, for whatever is, is.
12.
He wasn’t a side show in a circus
He was making a living
There by the brown river
Across from the touristic nightmare
He sat in the shade
Drew in smoke from his handmade cigarette
Till one came by for his wares
He would continue to sit
And predict a good day’s work
13.
Pain is pleasure, in reverse
Pleasure will, usually
Preceed pain
Pleasure, taken not (for granted?)compulsory
Desiring pleasure is
Desiring pain
14.
Seeking His will
I am caught in a crazy confusion
Of human passion and divine direction
I need a pointer in the way he needs me to go
I need to be where he needs me to be
Not where my desires bid me
With a heavy soul and a wondering mind
And my mouth to train and praise , honor you
I am not far behind
My soul is my adversary
Haunting and tormenting me day and night
The heaviness derides all my good intentions
Makes me more bitter, sorrowful
My ineffable excuse to just fade ..away
Not to face all this anxiety, anymore.
15.
Sometimes, when its almost dark
Ant the sun, turning red
Drowns into the gray shroud
And I am captured by
The strange beauty of
a thing or a being
And it hurts to not move
Lest I might lose
Sight of this beauty
Its at theses times
When I am embalmed
By wave after wave
Of everyday, unfamiliar smells
I feel the cool warmth of the night
Caressing the sweat on my lips, nose
My eyes , my hands
Eyes on unseen wonders
Then open up and
From deep within I pine
With yearning of what my
Heart wishes to tell the world.
16.
Beneath the sunless haze
A moonless night, heavy
With hot undulating heat
Equipped with unusual everyday smells
My senses, numbed
I sweat
Easily like blood pumping away for a major artery
I breathe
Quick, unsatisfying heavy reluctant breathing
The heat
Pungency of unfamiliar smells
Becomes so unbearable, I stop noticing