Five Poems by DAH

 

existential trauma

 

in broad daylight \ it pushes

and pulls towards distress

\ whirling about as it pleases

: ill-fated lungs

, the massacre prolongs

 

…  to see the setting sorrow

, there , in the depth of

tremors , fevers , to parish

from it : metamorphose ?

oh trauma , oh human

 

…  of these lifeless bodies

, unraveled from the inside

–– slow illness , crippled breath

, viral crown

: the orange king’s legacy  

 

one day , maybe , yes , maybe

, one day , yes , to end this

critical body attack  

, to end this stealth invader  

, to end this serial killer

 

to end this burden placed

on humanity

–– persistent death toll

engraved in stone

: another life , missing

Saying All There Is To Say

 

There’s beauty in the strangeness , as in

night moths flying under icy fog

, or the dull moon , like a dying birthmark

, or a flock of snow geese , illuminated

as white teeth : that static charge

from your dark eyes ; your voice

, like words from a frosted pane .

 

A red dawn’s collected crows , flocks

of black monsoons , songs of wood

and whisky ; autumn’s paper leaves

, a tainted stream of wind : barefoot

, your toes in the mud , the water

echoed your mouth : a nocturne 

, requiem , cathedral of clouds  …

 

our bodies , cloth bags : we carried

the other , lovers groping for

the past . I untangled your hair

: your eyes , empty shells .  

I tried to remember the positions

of your kisses , the spiced sugar

of your watery tongue .  

 

Winter came , a web spun from

chimney smoke and dead skin

, a droopy sky’s guttural cadence

; you gathered your wants

, the many scrapes of heaviness .

A crater cracked , then opened

, what remained fell in   …  

 

your Punk lipstick stained my sheets

,  I lifted you to taste the corpse inside

your heart : a field of dark holes

, marble stones , a nest of cold roots

: that electric dawn shocked me .

I woke up

and placed you at the curbside .

Invention Of A New Meaning

 

Humans are in the wrong place

, we don’t belong here

, this is not our home , we must

disengage from gravity .

We’ve been tricked into believing

otherwise

, we don’t belong here : disengage .

We are in the wrong place

: recharge your imagination , let go .

The truth has been lying to us

, take comfort in knowing this .

If we stay here

we’ll lose our sense of logic .

The truth has lied   

, we don’t belong here . This is

not our home .

We need a new truth : use your

imagination .

We need to silence language  

––use your imagination

: the truth is lying .    

The Uncertainty Of Glass Locks

 

Ten-minutes to noon from one-o’clock

, even humans look ancient and childish

, simple and ignorant : always moving

forward , never getting anywhere . To

take religion seriously , as if just having

been born yesterday . Then , suddenly

a sky filled with dry pigeons and thirsty

brass bells : all of humanity is hungry

, and there’s a chunk of soul in each

of us that belongs to this old modern

world because the distance from here

to the kingdom is driving madness to

rear its drunken head . Here , now , is

reality , a mixture of blessedness and

bitterness , when the hour before noon

is nearing ten-minutes to one , and the

threshold of inner-darkness , the revel

– ation , the shady Paradise , Space with

its cold pain , motions for us to stop

breathing , to lie down , unmoving and

silent . Life is an emptiness that cannot

be filled . Earth is a stranger , the love

– liest of strangers . Dogs are the most

loyal of all . Cats will betray you . Roses

draw blood . Behold , the dangerous sun

, the sour sky , hope nailed to the walls

of the infinite , nailed to the cross , nailed

to the remains of illusions . Oh , such dra

– ma , such magnificent drama : the erratic

key in the unsound glass lock : fragile life .

Let the future never come to pass , let it

be forgotten how wrong all of us were.

An Eye Is Seen , And Still Another

 

 

The sky’s big mouth : from a distance

, fingers of clouds in spent light

, the wings of crows closing , a day ends

, dusted with hours

 

…  in a church , a man on his knees

tries to lift his prayers to the sky

, but down to the floor the words fall

, the church custodian sweeps them up

 

A woman with dark eyes lights a candle

, shadows pass in plain sight , alone

the woman faces emptiness , the world

closes in , her fingers are nervous

 

…  outside , there’s a woman singing

with sad eyes toward the infinite , her voice

, so human , is hard to listen to , clouds

darken , her fingers are calm  

 

There’s this feeling of higher up that

they don’t understand: no one can say

what watches from behind the sky . Perhaps

some prayers have made it that far

 

…  what they can’t see is more attractive than

what they can see : something moves in the air

, a breath from further on  , the wind is nothing

, a hollowness in front of them

 

Life dies across eternity : somebody on a knee

, somebody lights a candle , somebody’s sad song

, somebody sweeps up sorrow : an eye is seen

behind flashes of lightening , and still another

 

                                                       Author foto by Juliet Menrae, 2019

DAH’s ninth poetry collection is SPHERICAL (Argotist Press), and his poems have been published by editors from the US, UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Canada, Spain, Poland, Philippines, Singapore, Australia, Africa, Japan and India. He is a multiple Pushcart nominee, Best Of The Net nominee, and the founding editor for the poetry critique group, The Lounge.

DAH lives in Berkeley, California where he is working on the manuscript for his tenth poetry collection, and his poems have recently appeared in Poetry Now!, Straylight Magazine, Otoliths, The Cape Rock, Acumen Journal, Sandy River Review, Indian River Review, Junto Magazine, Mad Swirl Magazine, New Mexico Review, Setu Journal, and Fishbowl Press.

DAH is also working on his first collection of short fiction.

 

Visit: http://www.dahlusion.wordpress.com