Sunday, 8 May 2022

Five Poems by DAH

 


traced , wet sand

 

your dark hair

, luminous feathers

 

: anxious heart

, unsettled .   

 

city’s edge 

, low tide

, you danced , the wind

lifted you , wild bird

 

: traced in wet sand   

, your arms

crossed

summer’s light  

 

: outstretched , turning , far away 

––  distance : a metaphor

for leaving

\ always 

 

 

fragmented no. 39

 

listening to infinity

, which is

neither here nor there .

 

in the land of fear

or thoughts

, the voices are repetitive .

 

i see time passing

, feeling its dead weight

in my hands

, mocking my bones .

 

i’ve heard this before

: nothing remains

lit up

 

 

everything took on its proper shape

 

under a dull metaphorical sky

\ a broken-down man leans forward

in his walk \ life is deserting 

his declining shadow .

 

soon there is another , broken

man \ whose future

\ like thread slipped from a needle’s eye

, has forgotten him .

 

in the desperate years of hard light

, of drunken sorrow

, everything but their whole bodies

lifted , like anomalous travellers 

 

, vanishing : they had been nothing

, day after day \ now , everything

took on its proper shape : the light

, more of an ingredient than a dream

 

 

the gutters of theology

 

a nexus of endless choices , bru

– ises , glacial emotions , scars re

– flecting history . activity , like

a trinity : tormenting , tormen

– ted , torah . soul or no soul ?

when you pick through and

listen to the archaic deceit , th

– e expired gutters of theolo

– gy , unconvincing in their cl

– aims . the  disquiet \ a rusted

junction , an ambiguous crossro

– ad , near the dissolved distance

of truth : your truth . my truth .

their truth . the truth-maze 

\ like absurd lattice \ souls

rising . souls falling . fallen 

failed . along the isthmus of

light \ souls dying , together

, an immense hollow binding

: the geometry of death . a final

transmission . the fatal trans–

mission : fade . fading . faded .

life is a hoax . the uncertainty

of transcendental mantras , of

prayers , of transmigration to

, or from , the beginning or end .

 

 

fragmented no. 35

 

angular cliff \ spine-like

, its bony weld

cryptic , deserted \ i wander

each surface

like a psychic through minds .

 

massive , booming waves

breaking in succession

, into escalated explosions

 

: an off-shore oil rig

pumps its dismal arm . 

a kite’s high-wire act

, like a circus freak .   

 

looking at the wet sand  

i see

your exaggerated face

in burning climaxes 

 

, and you : spread out 

like naked butter , a cigarette

burned the soiled carpet

 

, and the motel’s neon buzzed , like 

suffering cicadas , and the cleavage-heavy

night clerk , irritated , always .

 

across the street \ the ocean paused

, for a second  …

 


 

 Author foto by Juliet Menrae, 2019


These six poems are from DAH's forthcoming 10th poetry book titled, "Broken , poems"

which is due for publication in May 2022 from Transcendent Zero Press, Houston, Texas.

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  

 

 

 

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