Inside (10)
I wonder if …
If I could bite off a piece
of your flesh.
If I can swallow it make it
a part of me.
If that will ensure our never
being separated.
Hour Nine Autobiography of a face prompt (Untitled)
I won’t do it!
I will not write another woman’s poem
any more than I will wear another woman’s face.
This is my voice,
my words are my person-hood.
Buddha suggests that, in the time before my birth,
I was no one. I merely was.
The Watcher-Behind-My-Eyes,
nameless, thoughtless, full of empty
but then! I tore screaming into the conscious world
on a spume of blood and light.
Since then I have been Sara,
fought for and won,
and this has been my birthright:
to say my own words, tell my own story.
Troubadour
I see in myself a troubadour;
a mute, wandering minstrel.
For though I have not the courage to
read my words to you aloud,
I could write to you until the end of days.
I could write for you all my secret tales –
some real, some imagined; all delicious.
Or scribble my wildest wishes on a note-scrap you
dropped when you left me behind for your day.
My typewriter and I would be in cahoots –
me hiding behind with my whispered words,
it standing bravely forward with its mechanical strength;
each covering the tracks of the other.
We could travel the world this way;
filling in each other’s weak spots –
and eventually, if I am lucky,
end up at a beginning.
Autobiography of a Face
Female, Age 88, Late Stages of Dementia
Fall risk, visual hallucinations
Eyes as blue as night
What if the sky melted into a blanket of blue
And washed all the gray away?
What if the night broke into a thousand pieces,
And the stars became diamonds floating to the earth?
What if all the laugh lines formed together
To build a bridge of memories of happiness?
What if love could tear down the fortress of disease?
What if every breath had meaning?
What if life were an orchestra of experiences?
She mumbles, “Keep the music playing. And play it loud!”
But no one hears
Autobiography of a face
I see her standing in front of the mirror
Striking her hair in fishtail
The moment she puts on a lipstick
She thinks she have just painted
Another story for a brand new day
It adds colors and sassy look
She models her scarlet veil and her crimson doll shoes
She likes the way her cup B sized bras are kept
With tags of memories of battling the battles within her battles
It is like her cry conquers the rhythms of liberty
Garlands of hopes reverberate in back to back trends
Of surviving the daily wars inside and outside
She makes her oncologist feel
She can stand and be back on her mountaineering
Her force is beyond a millionaire’s wish
Just like her, the host of outnumbered dreams
The reward is priceless- LIFE
Another life in joining miracles
When one-roofed litanies of women warriors
Trying to save the clans of goodwill and heralds of compassion
The milestone have just defined the voiceless
From the selfless
Even the yellow and pink ribbons could praise
The wakes of black and white in their deathbeds
That’s how she reflects, that’s how she fights
She displays her flag of courage
Before the billion innocents’ eyes
Autobiography of a Face
Pale and spotted with age,
marked and ragged each passing day.
Perspiration gleens with each new trial.
Brow furrowed while hunting in style.
Teeth gleam white in the light of day
Jaw squared, he sees his prey.
Long dreadlocks flow in the wind.
While beady yellow eyes search for its kin.
Mandible’s part
in a terrifying scene.
He kills his prey
without being seen.
He is a Predator.
Poem #9: Sleep Eyes.
The echo from a touch,
The rippling of your godly frame against mine,
That stirs even the the mountains awake,
And being only twenty-one, we think this is love.
I still feel you in the air conditioned room of that summer house,
And I still feel you in that dark booth with the lights against us,
And I still feel you with the awkward prayers for the departure,
To the changing roads we both went on.
I still feel you even when you don’t want to feel me.
I think, this feeling, being twenty-one is only temporary,
But goddamn, goddamn does it feel like yesterday,
And today, has crept up and forced me down,
Pinned me to you as my only lover, my only friend,
That caused me to give up the romantics of telling someone,
How badly you needed them.
I needed your pale frame,
Here, with my sleepy eyes and drowsy excuses,
To tame this ravaged soul,
I am the poor lover in your rich world,
And I want none of it,
Just you,
Here, these thoughts subdue me,
My sleepy eyes wanting your static frame,
And brown eyes and brown hair.
To smother me again.
Basic Needs
We need more truth in this world.
More truth. Real truth.
Truth that doesn’t hide behind
The spin we have to mind.
We need more love in this world.
More love. Real love.
Love that doesn’t pretend it’s real,
Amid the foghorn’s peal.
We need more trees in this world.
More trees. Real trees.
Trees that don’t get chopped down
For all the paper crowns.
We need to let go of God.
Each God. Real God.
God that doesn’t need our fist
As reason to exist.
We need more life in this world.
Just life. Truly life.
Life that doesn’t imagine death
As means to keep our breadth.
Autobiography of a Face
Her lines had become creases now,
Deep caverns of deeply rooted emotion
Scarring what had once been pristine skin
Each line was a memory,
the painful emotional divorce,
the lost child taken without a chance to fight,
the loss of parents and grandparents that made her
feel like an orphan even in old age
Loneliness across her jowl
Years of unquestioned worry on her brow
The gray hair that fell in deep snowy mountains
when she cut her hair
It was all there
Lost lovers torment
The suicide that never went away
The victimizing and the victim
The deep love, the unrequited crushes
Harsh words that cut her skin
Black memories that became craters
Her eyes sunk low from years of tears
Her smile cultivated but hardly real
Each day longer than the one before
Taking the blood and sweat and turning them
Into pale lips and ghostly skin
She wore it all
Proudly
Without makeup
Her wrinkles were her own
No one could take them
No one could iron them
No one could rearrange them
They told her life’s story
Napping
Recharging my mind.
Warding off doubt and negativity.
I dream in metered verse,
Only to find
my words leave me,
Replaced by visions that do not contribute to my well-being.
Unfit slumber leaves me.
I am awake once more.