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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Solitude Amidst the Maddening Crowd
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.
Read Full Post »