Four Poems by Nattie O'Sheggzy

 

PROGRESS IS A SEMINAL SHADE

Between colours and lackluster 

Laughter held in place by animated glue

Like time's tendons limping on tiptoes.

              My daughter's sculpted paper butterfly 

              A helpless helicopter without helium

Billows in her vast pewter sky burnishing bright

She grins and grinds away in innocent happiness 

A bumbling face unfurling in smile

              While the day ochres on to night 

              I laugh at the promise with awe 

Of manure planted in the roots of Iroko 

I listen to what I see in her big, brown eyes

A lass who says she wants to turn Einstein 

               Blossoms to an engineering giant

               Winging through the history's firmament 

A SILKEN CONNECTION

 

But the both of us can, if we can.

When you give me your hand, thunderstorm flares

Through the blood-red gulf that holds the distance 

Between the mountains and the valleys we

Cannot move. In the midsummer's dreams,

Memories have died, we say. And I know the sun

Baying for your breath. We know where the sound

Fades. Not a hundred words. Not a note of silence

Unfreezes your heart against the gathering ghosts.

Not a thousand moons bear the shafts 

To shine like these tiny scars in your quiet silk.

But when you give me your hand, breakable as calcium,

You remember to hide and seek me like the sun 

Sinks a hook into the snow, the storm and

All the strange stragglers prowling the pavements.

I cup your tears— this urn's brew spills over.

RIGHT TO BE REMEMBERED IN GLOSSOLALIA

 

In the end I am tired of words,

tussling down the cliff,

as they hit the sides of the ears 

with footsteps of Cat

wanting to nimble at the paws of Rat.

From the beginning of the earth,

before I break the velocity of sentences, 

or count the broken glasses left behind,

I pay my respects to ambulation. I give hope.

To the masticated sermon in the mouth

of the unfed I give all. Give a remembrace 

polished in imaginations, not machinations.

The way my mouth plucks into the scars,

in the end words are born to tender,

to scrub clean the wall where my wounds 

become the second flesh. The second skin.

When the curtains are rent apart

by the science of dying before my demons 

I learn to bind my mouth like the Chinese feet

pint-sized, pointedly carrying a thousand words

before the nighmare. I'm afraid of the last thing 

I will say to the recurrent laughter we shared.

But I keep forgetting to open the floodgates 

For I am tired of speaking in another's tongue.

WHEN I GROW OLD TO BECOME A PAPER IDOL

Paper kite is sailing,

pink wings fading, 

a speck in the torrid air

like my life's dream.

I jerk the tethers 

and the adamancy

is nothing forgettable. 

Paper plane lost in the trees, 

if you saunter back to me

or you lay on a midden,

let the shadow in the window 

whisper in my pillow 

the language of a child.

Now lean with flying,

kite, why did you endure 

the mooning of love?

Kite, why are you innocent

like a plastic doll

to a child's tears?

 

Nattie O'Sheggzy is a poet who, often accompanied by his loyal dog, Exhale, finds inspiration in the complexities of simple things. He is the author of two poetry collections: Random Imaginations and Sounds of the Wooden Gong. Nattie's work has been featured in various literary publications, including Literary Yard, Sandy River Review, Everscribe, Ultramarine Review, Heroin Love Song, Agape Review, SweetSmell Journal, Smoky Quartz, Feed The Holy, and LiteZine. He is currently working on publishing his third poetry collection.