There was an old man, mind trapped to dirt he sat there. Suns rise, also fade and stars take its place weeping sticky juice onto his cheeks, crystals his tears emulate as he sits there. He heard that Buddhists reach for nirvana. That life is painful. He planned to go softly like water. So he sat Still. Beetles came to snuggle in his cracks, snakes spiraled his warmth, Delphi had no oracle greater than he. Bamboo grows tall and softly bends into him. He is a stone, chiseled from a Cherokee, he wears his feathers bravely and he drinks his coffee black. Sometimes he listens to rap, but mostly he just sits silently. In the tone of yesterday, the uncompromising hue of darkness fading, whispers wind into the gnarled face. It tells him stories— canyons carved through rock and rain; People fallen in. He sits, no longer seeing. Too far away is God. He has calculated the angles of angels, seen the empty space in the yawns of ghosts. Voices break free. Timshel you, timshel me, Salaam-alekum, wunderbar & God bless thee. He sits lost in loss. And it’s not that he was never free, but never captured. So seldomly smothered. It is what he needs. And yet, all is posing perfect in tranquility. [font=Times New Roman] [/font] Rain once fell on him. Now as he sits, it blows around him. Nymphs and dryads beckoned blossoming, twirling jugs of wine and pulsing feet towards him. Sight unseeing he traces their lines with his palm, curves casual smiles with lips bleached by sun. He sits and lives it. Pure mortal, caught in caves of modernism. Forgotten by Picasso while he toyed with cubism. Forsaken by vagueness. Never mind, he says, It’s not like I really knew him. I touched my toes today, I reached past the milky way and skimmed other galaxies with my tongue. He opens his eyes under the water of the air and it does not burn him. Heavy it pushes on him, he opens his heart to it but blood will always escape north. Captive of Canaan. It is like water, He says. And he sits.
Love it! I usually get bored with long pieces, but this caught me transfixed. Great images, great flow. Rock it, girl!
Thanks guys, I'm glad you liked it. I wrote it as a birthday poem for one of my friends...kinda weird though.
Hey, this is really something, nice job. Good to see a long poem, too. I've been shortening up, influenced by haiku and the quatrain quango thread. Though, you're right, it IS a bit weird for a birthday poem... haha
