Goodbye Star

the black stretches on

                   reaches out

in this pitch of silence

      this never-ending note of dark;

                upon bended knee

                     I bow to the night.

                 
                                 (August, 2016)

.

by the river
where the water spoke
I heard your name
       uttered as if a greeting
       a word used for summoning

like the earth
you are home-soil;
       natural, in abundance,
       rich with remembering
     
       you house the ground
       beneath my feet
     
       .

       when you go
       to whom will I answer?
     

sea of you II

If Silence were to betray me,  

spill my confidence to the winds;

           I would be bare

For all that I harbour

           my tethered soul

           my lettered heart

           this fettered love—

all will unravel into rivers of words,

return to the rapturous sea;

             where an image of you reside

             as pearls I hid in the sand

             beneath leagues of saltwater.

             

sea of you

There is an ocean of love in my heart

of a dark, depthless, conviction 

that no light shall come

to relieve me 

       of my pearls of silence;

buried in the sand

buried beneath leagues and leagues

of saltwater

whose rioting blues and grays

sing of my cerulean rapture.

the moon is a crescent

The moon is a crescent tonight,
    amidst the tremolo of the singing crickets
                the human warmth of the dark
                the laments of my worn soul
       I embrace you in my thoughts

The shadow upon the moon
is a mirror of my quaking heart
      and you, Star,
      are the Sun of my eclipse.
   

Sceneries

Occasionally, the things you've buried unearth themselves; like ghoulish things they haunt the recesses of your mind. . . occupy your very soul. So much so that you become blind to reality and find yourself in a space of pure sentiment—sacred, scarred and scared.

I admit this for I know the time will come when all I have to keep this ancient ache at bay, is my own resilient soul.

Not to worry though, I have learned to not constantly dwell on things. I have my poetry, I have my heart, together they keep me alive.

What is a journey without experiences? Even if it was but a mirage; to it, nothing compares.

Cognizance

I'm beginning to learn to acknowledge, to respect the fact that the distance between the stars above and I, an earth-bound soul, is very real.

This distance is a boundary. This separation is both definite and infinite. 

On one hand I want to be unrelenting in my devotion and on the other... I also want it to fade into oblivion. Why does it feel like defeat? Why does this cognizance feels like surrender?

As if I am a warrior bloody and torn. Armour that used to protect now weighs me down, cutting into flesh and soul. The enemy is but smoke in the distance, wraiths of burnt up flags blowing lazily in the wind. 

There is no enemy, this is not a battlefield. My nemesis is not without, but within. A creation of my own, nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Why must the heart deceive us so?

.

Dark do not enter this garden
grown wild,
Decay do not touch
its rampant green,
Death do not dare—
               only life
               only day
               only light

This breathing memento
            breathes 
this bleeding poem
            bleeds
these binding words
           bind.

           

.

Nothing, nothing will sunder you from me;

Not the horizon that cleaves the Sky and Sea

Not the space between two heartbeats

Not the very edge of reason,

              What is a mind dispossessed of you?

               What is poetry bereft of you?

               What am I without you?

I am tethered to starlight

I am tethered to remembering

I am tethered

.

I will let this howling silence overcome me, 
I will deny myself my words;

          — Let my flowers wilt

                    my letters burn

                    my soul yearn.

                  

            

You shine brighter still

The Sun continues to blind, yet I gaze forward as if its radiance does not agonize me, as if its warmth could penetrate my skin, as if I, a being of only mortal capacity, could harness some of her fiery power and hold it like a torch to warm my soul for all eternity.

Do I expire with such a burning? Or do I thrive off it, and wear its branding like a mark of glory?

Ever-after

I will miss this freedom; your singularity,
your black banner, your elusive mystery.
I will miss dreaming of you in red,
of you as an inviolable image,
                 my ever-flower.

I will stand in this metaphorical field,
      where the Poet waits for the Beloved.
I will gaze at you, my Star as I always have and I will be here,
     at the meeting of our minds;
this field of prose and poetry,
where you are at once mine and never mine.

Lawless one, darling mine,

none shall pluck you from my heart.

Let the night sky be my witness, let it

speak for me in its ageless voice;

       This one is a bystander

       this one waits

              for its other.

(You) As A Radiant Sun

Roots have grown where my feet used to be

Vines have crept over my limbs and made a home of me

My fingers now clawed branches

ever reaching, for that vital light—

       Earth-bound, this one 

       Ever a subordinate (to you)—

                    the smiling Sun

Beneath this aged bark beats my red heart

Its hollow drums, solitary and echoing

This ancient love, alone yet growing—

         Expansive like the universe

         A love turned celestial

Time shall not uproot this divine tree

Only death shall hinder its basking eternity

              

Etched upon the skin of my mind

are memories of—

          That radiant mind,

          Warm, effusive and silent

           Once known

               never, never forgotten.

SS Revisited

I carefully pull my copy of Spring Snow from its place on my desk; wedged tightly between Kundera's Life is Elsewhere and The Decay of The Angel (The last book in Mishima's Sea of Fertility Tetratology -which I still have not yet read).

I open the book and the scents of various perfumes; faint now but present still, greets me softly. I had stuck about twenty strips of paper all saturated with different perfumes between the pages. This I did back in Melbourne, and now the book smells as enchanting as its content. Deceivingly so perhaps.

What is love anyway? An affection for another. In my case perhaps, it feels like a fixed point in time; my affection for M. Like a derelict fortress built within the confines of my heart, secluded from the currents of Time. A garden surrounds it, now barren where it used to flower. My words have mostly shrivelled where it used to bloom.

I can say though that when I usually perceive this fantastical, infinitely precious place as if it is nighttime where it is, now I perceive it in daylight. The walls are lit by an afternoon sun, its broken windows letting various slants of sunlight spilling onto its cracked marble floor. Dust motes everywhere, broken things everywhere. What was waterlogged now dry and crisp like the yellowed pages of aged books.

This fortress. It truly is invincible. It is mine. Built for another yet it is completely and utterly mine. It is quiet here, and I am uninterrupted where I set foot in it. Loss is the soft winds stirring the dusty ground. My friend the wind; sole companion, witness of me.

These words its very walls. Each visitation feels like an astringent to an open wound. Sharp, and then; just numb.

I shall write candidly, for it doesn't matter anymore. A relic of old I can now examine like faded photographs.

How keen. How vapourous. How dark.

.

Lay scourge to the past

Lay to rest its promises

The eye looking to the Sun

Is blinded by its light

Day becomes night

This willing plight;

         I am become abandon

Dear Star VI

You've abandoned me.

       Turned your light 

       And fled with the dark.

Stillness

How much longer will this quiet last? I am not surrendering to this decay, I can't. 

Did Rumi feel this way when his Shams left and never returned? A kind of gaping, bloodless wound. An immolation of the heart. No wind, no breath, no song. 

Merely routine and a kind of supine rage.

.

What used to burn
        now expires
What used to want
        no longer desires

Night sky,
        you who hid my star
        what use have you of Starlight?
     
What was bright, my loyal might
          now buried,
          too far, too deep

The ashes fall, it settles
       nothing stirs
       no more

Plato

I said, "I think I like (you)". Once, a long time ago when things were simpler but I was young, & uncertain of myself.

What a thing to divulge to anyone. It's easy to be confused when half the world is baffling & you don't even know yourself, let alone what Love for another even is. 

That Love is diverse. That there is more. That affection could run deep & pure. 

Furor: Red

In a field of red,

flowered breaths escape 

with the perfumed wind 

Skimming the world over,

this long-drawn gaze

rides the bare-backed wind

Darker, wilder, louder,

this rouge call

roars your bruising name.