Distance
As we move, we hide ourselves.
Distance, an illusion
our senses take comfort in.
Our lips clench,
sipping wine, cups empty —
sweeping dusty attics
locking up skeletons.
Our prose becomes hyperbole,
and poetry — no space for that.
Drift
for Aylan Kurdi
Are we merely empty lines,
hollow sketches, forgettable fodder,
dejected outlines?
Forgive us as trespassers
as we transgress our own wake —
wave after wave,
our corpses folded into eulogies.
What broken voices lull us to sleep?
What forgiveness?
As we embrace separate shores —
one more silenced voice
drifts up —
between sand and the ocean.
Colour Blind
I.
Where were we?
The cauldron drew us in with passivity –
taking a brisk afternoon walk,
leaving us to turn statues into stones —
handcrafted mantelpieces on handmade shelves;
admiring in dissidence — a half remembered age.
The plantations here were foreign,
much like the allure of a kosher façade
but enchanting to the eyes that saw
only the uprooted stumps of a summer romance
laced in artificial wilderness. A mellow drama.
Orange hues retiring beneath the glowing edifices;
seeking absolution from therapy (this day like any other)
as we waited for the valium fuelled sunrise
to hit a high sometime the following morning.
Sober streets left indignant, slicing abstinence
like synthetic sapphire, conspiring to conquer
the ordained ablutions of a lover and his wine.
Windows sewn together like propaganda.
A widows pyre; crackling backdrop.
Cassandra’s eulogy.
You drew me into the unfinished painting
in a stuttering enunciation of a poet’s capricious space.
II.
Mustard was the colour of the day.
A random, purely coincidental choice.
The dotted outline,
where we with childlike innocence
are taught to colour the gaps in
with the palette of our imagination.
As long as we choose mustard today.
III
The emerald landscape is submerged.
Autonomy spreads its mangrove roots
suckling the temperamental
with inconspicuous wages,
supplementing austerity
with dictatorial bravado.
The conscientious are departed.
The river now dry, speaks no longer
but in absent mutterings,
and prism recollections
made lucid by tempestuous lips
moulting in its dry, crumpled bed;
elucidations of conscripted repertoires
enlightened by its cadaverous eccentricities.
The blind eye is led to surgery.
Thanatos, the all-seeing dog, is my best friend.
Thanatos, the all-seeing dog, is my only friend.
IV
Where the old oak bark lay —
desecrated proclamations.
The gentle fingertips of Myyrah
calls upon her usurped fiefdom
gathering lost excerpts of that forbidden play,
‘Fallacies of an Aromatic dogma’,
which now graces the corks of a fine vintage.
V
The pale shadow follows the dark,
disperses into dispossessed wallets,
radiating warmly therein,
the fusion of subsidized survival.
White light emerges
wrapped in subliminal halos
calling forth the meek
to embrace the saturation of their deposition.
The wailings etched like patented brushstrokes
sabotaging a timeless masterpiece for one reversed breath.
In the embrace of its light,
there is only the residue of the colour blind,
unique to each like snowflakes
meandering towards an open fist.
Postcards
You drove off leaving only oil stains
on the corner of the driveway. I could not remember
the last time gas prices were so low
that you would somehow consider it love
to leave the children and your favourite bag of coffee
behind and drive in zigzags over some bludgeoned sunset.
I woke up the next day at a quarter to sunset
and somehow glanced at a bag of coffee
hanging over the fruit tree. It drooped low
so I fed it with some leftover stains
but even the children could see now that love
was a difficult noun to remember.
I am quite adamant to remember
what exactly it is used for, a sunset
that is. I know that it is used to convey love
but the peculiar pattern of the stains
in the driveway assures me that low
prices for gas will finish soon and you will return home for coffee.
It seems to be a few years now and the coffee
has most definitively gone bad. A new low,
even for this brand. If I remember
your route correctly you should be near Newlove
county by now. Be careful, they have a long sunset
and their laundromats cannot handle stains.
Our son is studying patterns and stains
in college now and our daughter? She is in love
with our gardener’s son who seems to remember
your fruit tree rather fondly. Yesterday over coffee
they both told me they wish to see the sunset
over the ocean. We sail when the tide is low.
I could not help but feeling a bit on the low
side today. I guess it is close to sunset.
Grandchildren are fine and simply love
your old family’s recipe for cookies and coffee
and you simply cannot imagine the milk stains.
Gas prices are now higher than I can ever remember.
Old age, finally, even coffee cannot help me remember
things anymore. The car was returned empty yesterday, at sunset.
The curtains are low now. See you soon. With Much Love…
shehzardoja.com 