Posted in Art Scene, Current Affairs, Literature, Memoirs, Poetry, Relationships, Travel, tagged ache, across, Africa, ageless, almost, along, ambition, Arabia, arms, around, candle, chime, clock, constant, countless, cowboy, cry, devotion, difference, dinner, discover, distance, dream, east, end, exchange, familiar, feet, fireplace, fishermen, flex, forge, forget, grand, grandfather, grow, hands, hour, how, image, intimate, journey, laugh, life, lifelong, light, listen, lofty, love, make, make-believe, man, marvelous, Mediterranean, memory, might, move, mystical, north, old, out, pace, poem, poetry, prayer, quiet, reach, recall, rekindle, remembrance, revolution, romance, sailor, Samarkand, sand, shift, signal, silent, simple, slow, sound, south, spring, stand, steady, story, sundown, sunrise, tears, time, tireless, Travel, twelfth, west, whisper, Wild West, wildlife, wind, winter, within, witness, wobble, woman, year, years on July 9, 2010|
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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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His Past Smells
Posted in Books, Current Affairs, Literature, Memoirs, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Relationships, Social Commentary, Society, tagged above, across, air, all, angel, armpit, ashame, bad, belong, broken, buses, buy, care, cars, childhood, churn, clothesline, complain, cough, cover, cranny, crowd, cruel, detergent, ditch, dreams, dry, dump, earth, else, emanate, empty, every bone, exhale, fart, feeling, fish, flag, flap, fly, fortune, garbage, gift, grease, grime, he, heaven, hill, hope, hopping, hours, images, innocence, life, line, linger, little, locomotion, long, memory, money, mound, mud, neighborhood, nook, nor, occasional, odor, One, past, pavement, perfume, pierce, poem, poetry, poison, poverty, promise, putrid, rag, rice, rise, sanitize, sauce, scavenged, scent, sewer, skin, slow, smear, smell, smog, sniff, someone, sour, squeeze, stale, steam, sting, stink, stomach, street, suds, sun inhale, survival, swarm, tatter, throb, today, trash, turn, urchin, walk, wet, whiff, yesterday on March 11, 2012| 4 Comments »
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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