Hold Me
Hold me close don't let me fall. I don’t need much but I want it all. Don’t turn away when I reach for you. Don’t close your heart To a love that’s true. Inside your world Is where I want to be. So open up your arms and just hold me.
3. THE HAND OF GOD
3. The hand of God.
Looking for the local beggar
on the street corner
to hand to him, some leftover food
that was wholesome, nourishing and good.
But he was not there!
Were could he be O’ were!
What would I now with the food do
Before it turns to a messy goo!
Up and down, I drive on the street.
My eyes searching in the heat.
I am now for work, late.
Were would the beggar be hiding, I berate!
I’m almost at my office 30 minutes later.
Forgotten is the parcel for the beggar
On my window , a sharp rap rap.
Startled, I stare at this disheveled chap.
” Sorry Sir! I am very hungry,
do you have any food or money”
The food I hand over
as he nods, smiles and saunter.
I think this is profound.
There was a reason why the beggar on my street was not around.
Because God destined that this food for that particular person be found.
The Gentle Art of Death Cleaning
I am surrounded by stuff
particular to me
with my present likes more prominent
and which no one around me wants
The spines of my books and folders
rest waiting like
the red eyed green dragon candle on my cabinet
for something I cannot fathom
Their wisdom remains cryptic
and elusive yet comforting
as the unknown origin of
“reality lies invisible in all this”
How does one organize
and tidy up
the decay in my teeth,
bones, and cells?
Walking Perception (Hour 3)
The raining sun shore green
Lazy sex floating in the sunlight
cobwebs stretched between swaying stalks of hay grass
where the wind softly touches each spikelet and flag leaf
pulling, pushing, tossing life about
like some random sailing vessel on an ocean
flooding with rainbows.
The voluminous clouds above
gray and purple, bowing behind my shoulder
a bending arch of light, multi-colored, streaking
as the crown of the trees shower voices from long ago
calling, I hear it, but I don’t know what it is–
some feeling ready to explode from
inside me or something I’ve forgotten and
it’s waiting for me to find her.
Twinkling light on the underplay of leaves
bustling, rippling like a multitude
of insects feeding, chittering.
In the distance songbirds singing
rejoice for the rising day
somewhere between where the blue sky meets
curving horizon, the clouds swiftly pour
over an unknown edge. My footsteps crunching
upon the gravel beneath them
the grain, the green upon green,
speckled with golden Sun
I smell you
I taste you in the fluids behind my eyes
I bathe in you.
My spirit is an ascending orb of light
Bringing life to the primeval toils of earthen homeostasis
Genetic Reponse to an Interview Request
We see you reached out a while back
– TEN DAYS –
and we wanted to follow up
and see if you are a good fit.
(I can see him drumming his fingers if we were sitting across from one another.)
We have had time to weigh your consideration, or we wouldn’t be here.
I look at my screen and try to craft a reply
that barks my lack of hesitancy.
Between the lines of his spare reply:
I’m the guy with the name you see in my Email.
I have a fair amount of downward-inflected responses
to let you know I’m caring, I care, I’m listening,
(I know how to care).
It will take me all day to grapple with the nonchalant reply
and even longer before I answer myself:
Do you really want to hit SEND?
Hour Three
I moved garden furniture on a Friday
So I could write all day today
And watch dogs float by on paddle boards
Owners stroking slowly
Ancestry! All 23 of Me…
Those
confused
souls
refused
(I wonder why)
to say who I am.
Lamborghini visions?
The best of the call troupe?
Bosoms out to… there?
And bare?
Such emptiness confuses
who I AM!
My laugh is pity
and almost scorn,
for I am torn
between sorrow and dismay
that they,
who know
WHOSE I AM,
refuse to say.
OY VEY!
So, kill me once,
shame on you.
Kill me twice?
Thrice?
I am your vice!
Be nice…
What joy is truth?
A tranquil peace!
So, cease
with this tomfoolery,
you…
who know who I am.
All the Why’s (Hour 2)
You want magic where there is none.
In humanity, whose spark is only meant to betray.
In God, who is not a genie –
no matter how many times you rub his belly with your prayers.
In psychics and mediums, who tell you everything you’ve already told them –
with your body, your eyes, and your social media vomiting.
In movies, where you escape the disappointment of your life,
only to blink two hours later, even more deflated.
Life is never what we see on the silver screen.
In music, that makes you smile, that makes you cry,
the love songs that make you remember all the why’s –
until you fall to your knees.
In your lover’s eyes, until the fire within them dies.
Humanity has failed humanity
and love has waxed cold.
And that’s why magic has gone away.
Three
You filled a hole for her when he was gone, a giant, babysized hole.
You filled a hole again for her when her only other he was gone, a lifesize, sinking hole of infinite silence.
But, when the shot came, and it was you who was gone, no sized replacement, no volume of fill in the stillness could ease her wringing ears, her tremorhands. No amount of anything elseness could steady her tattered, waning footsteps.
You were her fill in all the blanks, her rejoice over spilled milk soaking up the cracks. You were the sounds in the house, the warm little body that snuck into her bed at night for snuggles, the reminder that for all she has lost, she was still findable, she was found.
She shutters now, alone in her chair, in the new silence you left. She closes her eyes for the eternal fall into the last hole she will know… without you.
Backyard Blues
I open the creaky porch door and march outside with vigor
A warm, humid wind bursts onto face and tiring times await
The long and coarse grass hails my arrival
Its spiny ends prickle my heels and brush my toes
I feel the dew on each individual grassy leaf
And press down on the dampness with my 10.5 feet
The ground has much to offer and all, I take
Clay deposits harbor worms and choke all growth
Shovels dig deep and into the Earth we go
To plant an artificial tree, a metallic TV satellite
– Utkarsh Sharma (ManuDrama)