Wane Like The Moon

Your orbit may find you

in an unending cycle of hiding

and showing up across the sky.

Like a shepherd tethered

to your protection I slip

a chance and probe the map

where you lay all your secrets.

 

The night clouds veil

a silhouette of gloom

while wind chills my heart

and waits until the waning light

travels the length of this room.

Leaving a trace of dewdrops

glistening of little stars

to my skin aching and wanting.

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His Past Smells

His past smells of a ditch

drying up its putrid stink

as stale as the street air.

It belongs to a smoggy neighborhood.

In the memory of tattered rags

flapping like flags on the clothesline.

As if dreams can be scavenged

out of the hilly mounds

of garbage, dumping its gifts

of someone else’s trash turning

into someone else’s fortune.

 

No one cared about armpits

getting wet and sour for hours,

as long as the bad odors

can promise him little money

to buy fish sauce for rice.

Sniffing heaven on earth-

little angel never complaining

about life, about the linger-

of those occasional whiffs

from the broken sewer.

Nor the rising sting of steam

emanating from his broken skin

pierced by the cruel sun.

 

Nor inhaling the dry cough of cars

and buses farted poison.

The way he exhaled yesterday

walking on a pavement slow,

feeling the throbbing locomotion

churn on his empty stomach.

A street urchin squeezing the crowd

like a fly hopping on a hope

above the grease and grime

that smeared a childhood.

 

He won’t cover the past

with today’s perfume

nor sanitize its images

in suds of detergent.

He’s not ashamed

of the scent of his past-

the smell of poverty

that swarmed his innocence

and have walked

the muddy line across

the nook and cranny

of his every bones.

He survived them all.

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Montage From A Stow-away

I can feel it now across this table

in the old diner of this no man’s land,

The sound of shuffling deck of cards.

Or is it the leaves in autumn falling

in September- that he will remember?

 

Do you know what it feels like

to be buried in cans and tins of paint,

blurring away the sun, moon and the stars?

The distance masked from the past

drowned in ebbs and crests of time.

 

He searches his soul among the shambles,

the printed letters fading on the pocketbook.

I sense the mad rhythms and cadences

of cursives and scribbles in melancholy.

The dead poet speaks uneasy like this.

 

He seems to be trapped. A vagabond.

A tyke on his cell who think he’s free.

Swimming away like a salmon

undisturbed by the changing seasons,

lost in migration to the new world.

 

He traded a king of hearts

and settles for a jack of spades.

The wind is rough, blowing in with sand.

This is not the gentle breeze of the prairie.

A tune. Unfamiliar, humming in my ear.

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The Fortune Teller

The sanctum smelled of incense and human sweat.

An airless space reverberating whispers of prayer.

She folded a piece of cloth with the holy verse

dipped in animal blood. This is an amulet.

For someone who is afraid of thieves.

 

She knelt across the table ready with her questions

“Do you need a husband? Do you need a wife?”

“Do you need another? Do you need a child?”

“The lines on your palm says you will be rich.”

“The card says you will find your true love.”

 

Then she brought in her candles, started

to light it with a match. She began to read

from a withered book- in its brittle leaves

filled with strange symbols of spells and magic.

Summoning wisdom from the invisible.

 

“Someone wants to harm you, better beware.”

“Keep this stone in a bottle and hide it in your closet.”

She has seen it all- customers come and go

leaving her money for that token of gratitude.

And accepting them as a way of getting by.

 

She keep on caressing the old crystal ball,

ignoring the signs of her grey and thinning hair.

She believed she has power to prevail death.

But  time slowly creeps like a thief in the night

when she can no longer be speaking about

 

the future.

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Grandfather’s Clock

The clock strikes the twelfth hour.

As the familiar sound of wind chimes signals

another year of moving on,  slow and steady.

Remembering the images of the man

within the constant, shifting revolutions

of sunrise and sundown in this woman’s life.

 

Witnessing how lifelong travels have ended,

forging across countless dinnertime of growing old.

Around the fireplace, rekindling romance.

Recalling the stories of the fishermen,

of sailors down the Mediterranean.

Of cowboys in the Wild West

and the wildlife in Africa.

Of the mystical journeys

from the sands of Arabia

to the sands of Samarkand.

 

Those intimate exchanges of lofty dreams

and grand ambitions traveling marvelous

distances of north going down south.

The eastern spring and the wintry west.

Witnessing how she listened. And almost

forgot the difference, whether it is

the story of this man’s life in the stories.

Or simple make-believe.

 

Witnessing how she wobbled achingly

at her feet standing up and lighting a candle,

whispering a prayer. Memories became

mighty flexing arms reaching out for the years.

Discovering the man who makes her laugh

and who makes her cry the silent tears.

Witnessing a love that will never grow old.

Those quiet devotion as ageless and tireless,

pacing along with the hands of time.

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Ghost Whisperer

Let the slant of light

create the faded shadows

on a misty afternoon

such as this. The cold air

encroaching by my bed,

please sit beside me.

 

Your embrace I dream

feeling your warmth.

See, I am not crying.

I am not afraid anymore

of the dark sky. For I see,

shining in the distance,

a bridge spanning a chasm

between us. Wait no longer.

 

Will you hold my hand

as I kiss death? Will you

listen to the faint beating

of this heart, whispering

it will be soon to join you.

In peace.  Calm now,

please enter by my window.  

 

Soft breeze ruffling

among the curtains,

white noise sweeping

across this dim-lit room.

Your spirit melted into

some silhouetted wafts

from the candle as I

remember you in silence.

Like you never left

a long, long time ago.

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