O queen

thy black body
defying the whole history
of anthropology.

oh, look! um, a mind muse-

ENTRANCE

ladies and gentlemen, gather around!
and please be careful: children should
stick to the group
in case of a fire.

...

on your left, you see a couple copulating
eternally in a frozen moment;
is it a Keats poem gone wrong,
or his parents gung-ho?

...

let us proceed.

on your right, in the elegant canvas,
two trembling feces try their luck
at clawing their eyes out.
one of them looks like a fake Blake,
though it is probably his best friend;
and the other, resembling the madonna of the rocks,
is definitely his girl friend.

...

sure, sure;
we'll definitely do a retour!

now, let's move on to the carving
with the ambition to depict
the smell of his moan
escaping the lips in the dead of the night
with one hand on his luck,
the other on his big, uh, erm, duck,

right kids??

...

err, please comes this way:

oh, yes, ladies and gentlemen;

here comes the pièce de résistance:

before your eyes is a poem,
one which we may well call a pseudo one
trying to imitate the psychic wanderings of a muse,
fake the unreachable heights of poetic music,
and simulate that ancient cliche of a museum.

unfathomable, wouldn't you say?

...

now, as you turn le-

excuse me?
oh...
yes, the smoke...

huh, the fire exit?

please calm down;
it'll be blossoming in a moment,
right after you all burn
down
to crisp
for the poet
to eat.


EXIT.

The Tears of Acanthas

(in courtesy of Mr. McNulty)

The vast swathe of empty spaces
in the visitors' section,
well before the final whistle,
told the story
of another day
of dreary disappointment
for their half of north London.

are you looking for a poorly (hidden) device? have you tried our pun service?

we were having fight after fight;
in the end though,
i treated her
as i should have and she should have
been,
in the first place
in the last place
in the middle place;
i came
to all these places, to make peace
which is
an - in the end, though - awesome thing,
by itself.
oh, look up here now:
see?
a milky, murky white suits her the best.

Man is Immortal

...And you dare to dream of dying in your room,
Taking a puff after a heavy meal without knowing they are your last,
Then, suddenly! grabbing your left arm
Hitting your head first to your desk and then to your hard floor,
Your arms twitching for a second and in a disturbing position frozen
Your eyes looking ad infinitum…
And people from every officiality
Will come looking in that fort of yours,
Scrutinizing everything and
Finding evidence for your cause of collapse;
And people who know you will come too,
Aiming for something else though:
Their memories will start to wilt into a morbid lump of goodwill –
Your being will be butchered down to a perfect doll;
Your figure will be etched on heavens,
Shining like a sedated golden bull.
You were a good man.
A perfect one.
It will be the first and the last time your name will be
Uttered literally and mentally
This well and this many.

Savor it.

Come on!

Die already!..

a small metaphor

when I am sad
I get mad, and I crack
the earth around me;
I become an island,
of only two feet, a land
and across I watch
the world passing by
very slowly.

Simple Past, Present and Future

For E.

It is so good to see you;
You and your hair flowing freely with the wind,
As the sun strokes behind it create a contrast right out of a movie,
And you hold my hand.

Then, that inimitable smile ebbing out of your lips
Takes over both of us
For an infinite moment, we forget all, but
A serenity like one you feel in a story
Your friend has written, you had dreamed of writing
When you idly watched the posts and the brooks passing by slowly
When you were going to a place where you wanted to be.

There, stretching the words to its utmost limits,
Your tiny laugh twinkles in my ears;
Your cheek touches my heart;
I dream of this moment,
Lying next to you, the white of my hair caressing the crease of your eye...
And I hold your hand.

It is so good to see you.
Again, after all this time.
The needless will not be told,
Our hands know that.

I love you.

Death Afraid

The street is silence.
No mistake there.
Is it dark?
It is.
It is dark.
Actually, it’s pitch black;
The evening and the night led this huge assault,
And left the daylight lying in her own pool of blood.
As usual.

And the cats crawl and brawl,
Waiting for the curtain call.

In an old house in the corner, a sickly bulb is on:
Under it, a young man, a student is there;
His head hurts,
As his brain is covered with a thick mist of lust.
But he doesn’t know that.
He longs for the night, though he dreads it at the same time;
Leave him there, he won’t know for a while.
Let’s go out:

The gaze scatters the cats around –
They are pissed off;
You could tell from the eyes…
Whatever.
Hear?
The anxious steps of a lone girl
comes hurrying down the street.
She throws a quick, trembling glance
Up at the bulb, but then goes on her way,
Behind her, leaving footmarks dipped in red
Disappearing around the corner.
Red?
Oh, yes, by the way, where is the body of light?
Where is the corpse of the day?

And the cats crawl and brawl,
Waiting for the curtain call.

The piercing sirens of an ambulance
Carrying what’s left of a little life
Reflect on the empty gazes of the apartments.
One sibling shrinks away for a second:
is it possible that she may come back?

“Not in my watch!” cries the student in the room,
Finding a firefly trapped between the hands of the hour and the minute;
And time goes on with the inevitability of a knowing hand
going between two smooth legs around the corner;
a dying bulb in mind, a squeal escapes the lips, bouncing off a sweaty bed,
then hopping out of the open window
To meet the first yawn of dawn…

And the cats crawl and brawl,
Waiting for the curtain call.

The bulb dies in the room;
The smooth legs lay still;
The fire of the fly flickers one last time.
The two siblings know what it is to come:
The dark one knows it is his time to die;
The light one knows it is her time to live.

And the cats come to a standstill,
Eagerly licking their paws,
while their yellow eyes scream:
Life kill death!
Life kill death!
Life kill death!

time well spent

the burst of pain comes through the hole;
a bead of sweat mingled with a tear
escaping its loose prison as you close your eye
falls down on your knee,
sharing a mutual saltiness which remind you
previous night's unrepentant pleasures
and unfulfilled promises
and tell-tale lies told into people's pupils,
without blinking an eye who has witnessed
a life full of ever burning half lives
including its owner's.

something is on fire.
is it your life?
or,
your ass hole?

liarsong

when people lie
there is a physical reaction:
skies hark;
lillies die.

(and walls crumble
and tears fall
and roads twist
and leaves crawl)

when poets lie
there is a physical reaction:
filthy thumbs throb
kinky dead sing
dirty windows wake
and petty loves stink

(and walls crumble
and tears fall
and roads twist
and leaves crawl)

when lovers lie
there is a physical reaction:
the shepherds sing
and minds bawl
and lepers kiss
and poems stall--

hkufavtr

i wish i was a
(fall poet singing leaf and)
tale in ba sing se

the late summer

ah, here it comes:
like an impending heatwave
mentioned on the news, by a friend,
between the sweaty sheets of two lovers
blasting through the skies
albeit with a girlish elegance
showering one body with rays of gold,
as his steps come out of his mind
for the first time in a long time.
and you know what, then he looks around
and sees his body in this world
feels the irrepressible scream of a seagull in his heart
hears the children's careless thoughts wandering in the streets
and yes! yes! he looks around:
as this tender shining beckons him kindly,
he raises his head,
and bows and his brows relax;
he blinks his eyes once, very slowly...
and he says, he says,
- eyes closed, lids covered by bliss -
this is going to be my mind,
at last;
this is going to be my world,
at last;
this is going to be my day,
at last!

monologue?

i won't die, i suppose?
this is my history, after all
i liked looking at the sunshine
and i liked smiling at people
sometimes, i hoped for a good day
once a year, i cried for a friend
and i longed for a long holiday
without any care, at all.

i won't die, i think?
i made people smile?
i made people think?
then again, i made people cry...
insisting my love meant everything.

i won't die, i hope?
still, i've got people to kiss?
and have my lovely dog to pat!
i've got someone's tiny butterflies in my huge tummy
and most importantly,
still haven't read the sound and the fury!

i won't die!
you hear me?
this is my history!
i am the one who writes it,
and i will be the one to end it!
whether you like it or not-
oh, my, god.

daydream

smile interrupted on the stroll?
head looks to a side:

what heartbreak! what fear!
ebbing from
a disconsolate figure
of a man standing there
looking you in the eye
meaning well, maybe?
possibly, possibly.

know him;
about, heard
of, thought and
recalled
retrospectively
constructed
shared
memories
preserved like derided souvenirs
bought nonchalantly
but increasing in value sinisterly
day by day
minute by minute
moment by moment...

...and now, this man, whose sorrow
your doing,
hears with those broken eyes of his:
what tranquillity... what solace...
what you have, he has not;
what he feels, you do not.

so you still smile,
so miniscule a flinch in your gait
while subtly waking up from this sudden day time slumber
having just felt the soft squeeze on your arm
coming from your sweet new lover.

erratic

i changed my mind,
i gave my old one to someone else;
and i changed my mind.

i changed my mind,
for a dime and a quart:
i changed my mind.

the old one stank and stank,
couldn't get rid of the stink;
so i changed my mind.

i lifted it throbbing,
the aching ooze sticking,
it was hard at the beginning;
but i changed my mind.

telling me i can do anything:
the buyer, bandaged, haphazard,
mistook me for a king lizard,
then took and changed my mind.

now i sit still with a dead pet on my lap.
with a bottle of whiskey and a cent on my eye,
trying to figure out what to do with my new I
and whether i can seal my head
to sit still till the end of time.

the tiny tear

slip through an eye,
trickle down the nose,
tarry for a second:
a taste for the lips...
then slide down the neck
after carressing the chin
and melt on the heart
feeding the pain within.

shivering quintets tend to lie

- realising the milk tray
being toppled by the cat
thru the back of your groggy feet
maybe having woken up from
a nightmare.

- standing up at the bus stop
in the dead of the night
your gaze at the dark glass of a waiting car
starting to go down to reveal a dreadful face
with a silent maniacal laugh.

- beginning continuously
to forget to give the pet's need
making it remember a human past by the delirious hunger
up to the point that in the end
there will be an imminent death.

- cracking open an eye through the mists of dream
not seeing clearly, nor hearing properly
"something's wrong with me, what's this awful smell?"
running sloppy out to the street
waiting for a vehicle from hell.

- putting an animal to sleep
burying it right next to the brothers
due to a mad attack to its owner
whose head's wrapped in bandages
by the grave, betraying a single shed tear.

a sudden change of format

hear! hear!
now i have half an ear,
and just one crippled eye to shed a tiny tear;
my brows! two black crows!
(disfigured by a cracked spear)
and
upside down stands my nose now to smell my brain,
oh yes,
"i have no mouth,
and i must scream."

slimyrhyme

ichabod crane in a bar
looking like a big dubar
drinking beer after beer
with a lecherous leer!

reincarnation - resurrection

i don't have any brothers.
i killed them.
and i live like a cat:
jumping through the nights of the roofs, now,
not like a yellow fog, nor like a smoke;
just like a cat.

does a cat kill brothers?
and am i a cat?
those, i don't know well,
well, yet i live like one,
and i know i don't have any brothers,
though i still think about them,
though time to time,
though i forget now and then,
that i did have brothers,
and i killed them.

ah, yes, yes, it is hard to be a cat,
standing still under a dead lamp light,
and hard not to have
any brothers, any more.

and harder even
just to live like a cat,
pretending to stand still under a dead lamp light,
and not to remember what i once had...

a digression for the sake of greyhawk: the coming of ali

a crack!--
the air burnt with thunder
the sky shook, suffering a mad laughter
bringing warmth to the friend,
for the fiend, death to the end.

a flash!--
of the giant ax he swung making the air wheeze
collecting the heads of the heathens with ease
this was ali, coming up from the ocean of the mountains,
swearing upon his life that he'll avenge his fathers

a crush!--
coming from his iron-shod feet
supported with his steel-like shoulders
what he lacks in height
he covers with fists like monsters!

a grasp!--
under his arms, to make him turn angry in a second,
just to see it's caleb and valost, his old friends to tease him a little.
and following them, ubor with his staff, latron with his bow,
are saluting this great warrior with unprecedented awe!

Desuetude

I was going down’a street

And a woman stopped me down the street

I asked her what street

She told me, very discreet,

I knew all along,

All alone, I was walking back and fro

For years and years in the same street

With a sickenin’ sanctimonious smile

From ma head to feet

Oh my god, can it be true?

I asked myself, lookin’ down ma feet,

Down the dizzyin’ street:

And a someone said

“Yeah, yeah, son,

You fuckin’ should have done unto others

As you would have others do unto you,

But the ignorant fuck you are,

You just passed the warnin’ signs

And your guts filled with lice.”

I raised ma head, to see the someone

But with the discreet woman gone,

what the fuck have I done?

And where’s the guy that spoke and run?

I don’t think I cried

I don’t think I sat down

I don’t think I despaired

I don’t think I won

…But the street continued to hum,

Continued to pass the people afoot,

Without actually getting to know anyone…

Yeah, as I was sayin,

I was walkin down a street

I continued down the street

With nuthin’ guidin’ ma poor feet

I just walked down the street…