Autumn’s Leaving

There’s a suitcase in the hall.

And emptiness will soon occupy it.

Something which kept me immobile,

quite undecided to test the wind

or its aged leafless trees outside

 

where the silent pavement beckons

and my own shadow as a companion.

How should I, in the permanence of seasons

would not be keen to grasp the clues

that promises were never made to last?

 

I thought I could be strong enough.

I thought I would not have a glimpse

of that leathery box which collected

my yesterday’s dust of missed chances

that dried up in the passing of years.

 

I thought I could forget the barrenness

of autumn’s leaving another space

which I tried to fill with the leaves of days.

Un-withered, but soon became faded letters

that I will be keeping in this humble suitcase.

 

Memories of old coming back to me now.

I will turn the knob to open another door,

and walk into another painful journey

of beginnings. Never ending days catching

the falling leaves as remnants of moments.

 

And when the falling snow in the winter comes

and rest on the branches of those leafless trees,

like the way I carry the weight of my suitcase.

I will try picking up the pieces again and slowly

survive another night without the moon nor the stars.

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Decoupage

In the old quarter of the city,

in the nakedness of the cold walls

of this back street. I sit alone, outside.

Here. In the almost empty corner of the café.

Looking beyond many mornings

distant, from the crowd.

 

There is something.

In the stale morning air that reminds me

of one strange midnight.

 

A quiet conversation of two souls

connecting among the silver teaspoons,

teacups and porcelain.

 

Exchanged glimpses of a period

when things are new, young and free.

Reliving a story of the jaded past

within a single stretch of hours

waiting for the sunrise.

 

There is something-

which I failed to grasp

and took hold of.

 

Something in the dust-filled glass windows.

The peeled off paint from the ceiling.

The wallpaper shedding its ancient skin.

The tattered leather and cushions

of these vintage chairs.

 

There is a memory of a voice fading

like the sheen from this worn-out table.

Among the bread crumbs for the pigeons to share.

And this bronzed cup leaving off a tinge-

a certain warmth I could not forget.

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Tryst

The burden of thinking

whether to let it go or stay

is like a paperweight to a page.

 

And there are lines yet

unwritten here-

about the good things

that is not meant to last.

 

Regretting the end of

the fleeting blissful 

moments I had with

 

the wanderer of dreams.

 

Love’s free at last,

drifting away

lighter than feather

out of my grasp.

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Elegy to the Departed

Perhaps, Teofi

the promises of your future withers too soon

like the leaf falling early in the summer

where we frolicked in the fountain of our energies;

and bask in the heat of our freedom;

and in the nest of fermenting dreams with another human.

I can tell Teofi, how sad is the early goodbye

where you breathed your last and let go

without questioning  who deserves to live more

and without crying over your half-empty cup.

So long that I suddenly stop, I remember

your acid- washed litanies and the morbidity

of your soul longing to be understood.

I fail to grasp the hidden images of your words

to the point of harboring steely tears

over the innocence of your chameleon smiles.

Perhaps Leden,

I cannot fathom the depths of your pain

as if the morrow of your life leaking silently

until the thousand roses leave those lips.

I may not hear you scream to the bowels of the night

fighting the demons of what cruel love has.

Let me feel, the inability of you pointing fingers

to a person who has destroyed your world as if

I can paint the sky with hatred and revenge.

Let me hear  you sing in the divine discontent

of your heart seeking to embrace

the fullness of the glorious unfolding

beyond the corners of your abode.

Perhaps Grandpa,

I can cry me a river searching for the clown

of my many Christmasses and Easter Sundays.

Of letting the clouds softly traversing

like the music of the yesteryears

you keep playing on the radio.

I can say that you choose to live the most

but you never have told me that I

will be missing so much a part of the child

that was taken from me since you’ve gone.

Perhaps,

I would have not lived at all since then,

of querrying, of imagining how death

must have snatched me from my mother’s hand.

All along,  I might be carrying this imaginary coffin,

grieving among the countless earthworms swarming

and crowding the earth

in the numbness of our existence.

Forgetful and aimless like a dead man walking.

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