AT FORTY YOU DIE
At forty two moons start throbbing
like bright eyes of your own children.
At forty two people you dream of
most frequently, two people who dreamt
of you and your eyes all their lives.
At forty in the early
dawn of your desperate decades
you start dreaming of your mother first.
She comes limping
like a wounded cockroach
from the other world
to clasp your sweaty palms
to kiss your eyebrows
withering under the blind stare
of a merciless sun,
to complains of the tulips that faded
under the blind stare of a merciless sun.
At forty you dream
of your father frequently,
a Buddha or an exhausted god,
a lion repentant of a lifetime,
a familiar stranger who made you
what you are in your dreams
and left you alone,
bleeding on the mule paths of life.
At forty you see him everywhere,
in the creases of your skin,
in the puffed out eyelids,
in the fluffy temples
where two crescent moons appear,
silvery and savage like ensuing life’s itinerary.
At forty he lusts in the crazed
fields of your blood vessels.
He escorts you to
the open spaces of his cherished riverbanks
pavilions of tantric priests
ashrams of ascetics before bonfires of annihilation.
He guides you to the bog lands
of his fond memories where once
his beloved women lived and
then left him, one by one,
“Forgot the old chums, fell in the trap of new ones”
.
She comes limping
like a wounded cockroach
from the other world
to clasp your sweaty palms
to kiss your eyebrows
withering under the blind stare
of a merciless sun
to complain of the tulips that faded
under the blind stare of a merciless sun.
At forty your own woman's mouth
starts smelling of deceit,
a Bhairab's mask,
a masculine leer along
the canyons of her body.
At forty you start
questioning questions
and decide to die
like one dies in poetry or books.
Or proverbs that proved false--
People above forty should be shot dead.
You resolve what you didn't all life long--
to reach out to touch
the rim of unheard horizons
elusive Shangri-la from where no return
to exquisite valleys of life is possible.
But your children's eyes start
shining like burning stars
along the moons of your secret lusts.
At forty you die to be born again
and again in the theatre of your children's eyes.
Yuyutsu RD Sharma
I'M MET WITH A LIKE CONTRIBUTION
There is someone I need to contact who I've described before as a deep feeler and a deep considerer. I really want our plans to work out to visit next weekend. If destiny permits we may have a bonfire in the first week of the New Year by the river in the old moon. I wish for the best and for meaningfulness in our celebrations. I have not been able to reach anyone. Maybe they have gone out for visits. I've called twice. I will call again. In time. Most of the time I don't want to go anywhere, but I end up enjoying myself when I'm out by the river. In the summer we took the little boat onto the water and we heard the invisible waterfall in the distance. In the country there are the people who have chosen a rural life and those who have always been there. I prefer things in the city for so many reasons. There was a swamp fire on the outskirts of town last summer and we went out to watch it from the highway. A fire that massive is beautiful to watch. The other elements appear everywhere in great quantities but fire is more elusive. My mother's youngest brother lives in the house by the river. He's a person who seems to know that he is lucky and just how lucky he is. He's the black sheep, and he is married to a woman, the black sheep. My mother is dead. When she was alive she was her own black sheep in her heart. She was a white sheep in her family. I am like my own mother. I am my own black sheep. I am not like other people.
Rielly Stares
BECAUSE HER NAME WAS TO BE ZENOBIA; ZEN FOR SHORT
Artemis between thigh of sky the void comes bending thru sliver empty between kneecap & shit stink
commencing with plop-plop goes the feet on marching street
dead-end goes the girl looking for mother
in eternal pool of stranger & tree come upon a mouse
who fiddles with stones thinking them cheese
and what ankles does he see galloping
from stalled cars & smoke over evergreen
here come the fire truck called out of coital licks
inside his woman left behind must warm the burn
jerking around with handle and no one trapped inside yet the screams
knotting in his throat as the father behind door rams & punches
lynch mob waiting in between for sound of CLICK
and wheeze the body moans watching its splatter cleaned for weeks
from white wall neither one thought would stop smelling of creosote
or cerebrum once the bucket put away, cars pull up driveway
wishing such things as
"please don't hesitate to pop over anytime - we're here to help"
quiet the sobs muffled in pillow & hands smoothing hip do nothing but make revolting the kisses wanna laid on neck and feel between legs
such living wants & desires left after smoke settles on bedsheets & becomes threads of grandmother's knitting she held in moonlight
thinking too thin the undulation, no body kept warm by this quilt,
it startles at its own sight of Victrola
her father smoked cigars listening to faint harps and warped violins
while porcelain dolls gripped in daughter's hands and razor blades
in the mind X/X'ing out her eyes making long the tongue
and breath such yr own bleats out the nose
and Clara Bow spins hiking her skirt past garter on zoetrope
blinking through the dust.
Paul Skyrm
