The enzyme churns and flows; hunger
Hurts the one who knows hunger.
In weakness, spent, I lie here staring.
My battle's silent and my foe's hunger.
Pasta, pizza, mozzarella:
On rolling steel balls, temptation shows hunger.
Summer's sun spurs spinal sweat.
As droplets fell, furious arose hunger.
Sameer's brain is on power-saving mode.
This is as far as goes "Hunger".
Cat twists round and round.
The rug beneath him slides.
The floor's one big playground,
The rug some snake that writhes
About and must be slain
Until--O Chaoskampf futile!--
The snake relentless arises again
And our feline hero, agile
And brave of tiny heart
Must tear the rug apart.
Tasty treats taken to the terrifying territory
Under uncomfortably undulating urchins'
Vests vary, viewed vicariously via
Wet warriors walking with wild willfulness.
Xenophobic Xavier's Xmas xylophone:
Zig-zag zinc zones zealously zinging
And aching audibly across acres and avenues
Buried beneath beehives buzzing belligerently behind burnt
Cornices. Cold cobwebs collect cockroaches cunningly
Despite desperate dogflies dealing damage daily. Durable
Elephants escalate ecstatic exultations except
For Fafnir Fulltrunk--fastidious fellow--for
Grazed grace grieves gruesomely. Gentlemen!
Have heavenly hosts hollered "Hallelujah!" hourly?
If it is irksome, insist icily in invocations irrefutable,
"Jumping Jesus! Judiciously jubilate.
Keening kittens killed klutzily
Lament less loudly. Live; let live. Let
Me magically make matters more manageable:
Next November, nine nocturnes--nay, nineteen!--
Of oracular or ornamental oration, officially occasioned on
Paper, printed papally, prepared properly
Qua qualifications quoted quarterly quite
Regrettably remain requested
Sin submissions. So! Sit silently, scatter soon, sing separately. Salud!"
Mermaids hide in eye-shaped pools.
See them as they drift and dart!
In light and shadow, sage and fool,
The mermaids dwell and sometimes start
To sing some silent harmony.
Their music's bright. Each lilting note
Puts miles between all harm and me.
I see them swim in each fleck and mote
That drifts and lingers, or sometimes sinks
In eyes whose darkness blackens blinks
And swallows up the part that thinks
And leaves behind no shining prick
Of light in which the mermaids swim.
Still waters deep spill o'er the rim.
Why is the end so often painted
Violent red and clotted black?
Not with a bang nor with a whimper,
I dream of hearing the peace train's tracks
That Stevens heralded one morn
That broke like gentle eggs of dawn.
When life itself so often dies
With gentle sighs and open eyes,
Why should the universe so vastly differ
That trumpets, wars, and crunches be
The order of the day?
I dream of death in drops and trickles;
No torrent, merely icicles
That lengthen, drip, and wash away
Themselves and mountains in their flow;
The bird that sharply scrapes its beak;
The butterfly across the globe;
I'm waiting on that winding peace train
To come and carry me home.
Now wait with me upon this mountain,
As from the East the first rays shine,
And hold with me my silent vigil;
Shade me with your squinting eyes
As darkness fades and, with it, light
Until the world is bathed in silver--
An ashen grey made sweet and bright;
An ashen grey drawn from the pyre
That sweetly burned my mother's flesh
With milk and coconuts and ghee
And something else...masala? Spice?
We watched the worldwind round her waver--
Heat waves blanched the very sun--
And all who walked with me have fallen;
Their day is done, their souls begun
Their effervescence: light, renewing
The promises of atomic clouds.
And thus we fade; the world fades with us,
Not soft, not silent, never loud.
In sleeping deep, I dream of tendrils
That bloom with blossoms from my brain
That float upon the wind and change
The seasons from fair spring to rain
That washes all my cares away.
A sleepy blanket.
A silent shroud.
Music made for nighttime...
