24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
1:22 PM Smoke
Smoke’s smell is rising from unknown sources
Have already run out of tracking resources
It’s no where near, that is clear
Yet into my lungs and taste it courses.
There is no need to fear
Since the fire Is nowhere near
And yet something’s burning it’s very clear
To smell it and taste it feels rather queer.
I guess I’ll relax and have a beer!
Have you ever read a poem
that rang so true
it punched you in the gut
and twisted the knife too?
Bosselaar did this to me once.
Her poem which I read off a pixelated screen
cracked me into two
unraveled my intestine
until it was a single string,
it was the tightrope I walked,
until the imagery of the poem
left me dangling in the air with my two bare hands,
and even when my arms grew weak,
I didn’t feel fear of death
because finally this poem
had spoken for me a truth
I’d never realized
was hiding just beneath my skin.
Or maybe I had buried it there and burned it from my memory,
but even as I faced the horrors of this poem
as it wrote me inside out,
I wanted nothing more than to drag myself toward it,
take two of its lines in my hands,
spread them apart, and drag myself into the spot between the lines of the poem
so I could feel
a way I’d never felt before.
These are the chinchilla days
Clenching and releasing
Chewing and perceiving.
This would most respectably be called
Disquiet
But why play that game
Designed by those who do not
Sympathise
This is called vicious by me
Vicious at the unknown sources
At the unravelled
At carboots loaded full of petals
Of being trapped in the folding space
Where the elegant utilities
Indifferently crush
In the way
In the way
You don’t want to think about
Your finger jammed in a pine door
You don’t want to think about, even moreso
Your whole body
In starving
In flame
In trauma at the gunshot.
These free standing pegs
These pitiless moments
Lavish consumption
When your memory is cold bug
These are automaton days
In minutes’ dawn and wink,
Insipient to all living things
Cherish the .
When you don’t know what to do.
When the platitudes make you angry.
When prayers go unanswered.
When the phone call is mostly silence.
When you wake up too early and stay awake too late.
When all that is inside of you is dying.
When you would trade your life for his.
Dissolve your heart’s intentions with the cruel ramblings of brave love.
No one else will know its glory, but everyone will fall in its wake.
Standing bold enough to erase the face of a watching god,
I declare a black out upon the Sun!
For I am the fleeing nightmare of the fields on fire,
And I’ve come to bring a message from the dead.
Grave destinations immersed in emotions,
bleed the life from your aching soul,
hide beneath the penance of hunger,
a name for this torment, is yet to be spoke.
Behold a hollow monument of all my failing inventions.
I am a cemetery of ill-fated dreams.
Where love had dared to know my sin.
I rest my weary thoughts upon her cold breast,
and the life I seek has been drained of all its energy
The greatest confusion of all is staring right back into me,
still trying to hold onto a moment that has already passed me.
Upon the moment of recognition,
when I was realizing the value of my own worth,
I began to buckle under the weight of who I had been.
Break down the door to misery inviting,
further into the fall of mankind’s dormant city life,
I have come to know these empty ruins well,
I have found a way back into the light.
I was walking through town
when something caught my eye.
A bouquet of roses
sat lonely on a trash can.
Left out in the frigid air,
a few petals had been browned.
But wrapped so neatly,
arranged with such care,
I couldn’t help but wonder,
“Why would someone leave them?”
Perhaps the owner came
to see a sweetheart true,
only to find a world of heartbreak
and fled in pitiful sorrow.
Perhaps it was a meeting spot
and I was only there
in the middle of a story
not there to see the end.
That woman in black heels,
the one across the street,
may have wandered over
after I had left in thought.
Perhaps that boy with shades
had placed them on the bin
to wait for her and sing
her praises when she came.
I do not know their fate.
I do not know their tale.
But I can make up stories
about the roses I saw in town.
Inside out
How shall that be
Like wearing all your organs
On the sleeve
Or putting all your pots and pans
On the street
Inside out
Slice it open neatly
In one swift stroke
Turn it out and wear again
This bloody coat
Watch all your innards
Pulsating throbbing
Moving in sync
Tangled up in blood nd gore
Your inside is so busy
Keeping you alive
And all you did uptill now
Was keep the outside white.
Give your insides a thought
Some tender loving care.
Dont just save your skin
Give your guts and brain a chance.
Every nerve and every cell
Is the genuine you.
Keep yourself
Inside out
And always be true.
_ narinder.
inside
it’s very quiet
in fact it’s quite content.
outside
there are deadlines
and everyone wants their money
on time.
inside
it’s very cocoon-esque
outside
there’s a lot of dishes
and cleaning and paperwork
to sort through.
inside there is peace
outside there is war
after daily meditation
I do my best to carry the
inside out,
kind conversations at each doorstep.
sometimes we are very lucky
and experience the inside
outside, but it usually takes
cooperation,
Harmony, beauty and balance
wait in the wings every day
give them good lines, costumes
and fair roles and
you just might have the theater
of your fondest dreams.
What would I look like if
you turned me inside out,
wrapped sharp fingers around my intestines,
drank the salty-sweet cocktail
of blood and bile,
chewed my wagging tongue,
poked and picked at
the gristle of my heart?
Would you write
shiny, red stanzas
with each pump of my heart
while sipping the unspoken words
clogging my throat?
Boil my bones in crockpots
with parsley and onion?
Would you crack brittle ribs
and gnaw through cartilage,
only to find my name
etched across my breastbone?
And would you say it,
or pretend you forgot
how to read?
Would your face grow greasy,
your knuckles red,
your knees bruised,
your tongue sated?
Would you use my finger bones
to pick your teeth?
Am I a feast before you?
A salty afternoon snack?
A sticky, steaming bath?
A bouquet of tangy odors?
A rainbow of fleshy indulgence?
And would the squish of my innards
finally silence the glittering
judgment that
shines and slices from scissored lips,
a scalpel against buttery skin?
There is pain inside
That I don’t let out.
Pain that I hide,
That I do not flout.
It’s not secret pain,
It’s just buried well
It isn’t a strain
To not share my hell.
If I release it
And unleash the grief
Emancipate it,
There is no relief.
Inside my being
Pain is intent,
Nobody seeing
The cost of it’s rent.