.Kafka
08-10-2010, 05:56 PM
The Vista of Veins
I
Reels scented, dreams mingled to her veins, hands
like mourning nights, wound to steel musical stands.
Walking alone in the rains
whispering distantly, vehemently,
in the illicit desert sands.
Words frail yet but delicate
passion past stale but hesitant –
Arteries encouraged, but destructive.
On the first day of autumn
my grandmother told me
how much she loved the sea.
II
Slow strokes and grandmother’s seasonal knife.
On an objective bedstead rests a dreadful head
NO! a glass, a mirror, a glass instead, indeed!
Why this wretched thread?
Daily am I to be threatened by squalid treads...
miserable marble floors to fluorescent walls
misty milk to ascending corporeal falls,
and an intoxicating door, as it corrodes,
as it erodes my grandmother
hastens to fasten her loose hair together;
I have lived days dazed in ether
and bathed in the impregnable aroma of ammonia.
For every frame
I have not a name
but remember only Rose petals
breaking to embrace the gentle rain.
People like to come and go
but both you and I know
how quickly tears and gutters overflow.
Amnesiac portraits plastered
on memory’s halls,
a shredded armchair for all
Her latest last daughters.
III
A falcon called Merlin is but a concrete thing, and love
flies, does it not, filmy feet heated by sickle light
in tonight’s prolonged deadly delight, in tune
with a june afternoon; a Swan’s song that belongs truly
to the confines of a medicine spoon
gazing longingly at the recesses of a wizard’s moon.
Miles and smiles and croquet mosques away, a heart rattles its hinges
as it cringes in forgetful, intentful hind sight.
IV
Hands of mine
grapple words of lamenting pantomimes.
I have observed Alexandrine Parakeets and Crested Kingfishers
and have caught sketches of exquisite
arabic prerequisites, precursors to kisses like mimes
frightened by silent crimes, but in spare time, in bare time
in her hissing kitchen sink sinking,
Onions peeled by stammering anagrams
Tomatoes chiming signs as do paradigms –
the world before names unfurled
earlier than the smells of tastes,
I was brought Coriander
and led through this, whirling corridor.
People like to come and go
both you and I know.
V
On the first day of winter,
or was it the last of summer
when the final leaves fall
and the humble flowers crumble
and the tinkling of my toes crawl to a stall,
stirred by a croaky Koel’s call
I think of my grandmother,
before the turning
crumpling
the burning
of a secret.
I
Reels scented, dreams mingled to her veins, hands
like mourning nights, wound to steel musical stands.
Walking alone in the rains
whispering distantly, vehemently,
in the illicit desert sands.
Words frail yet but delicate
passion past stale but hesitant –
Arteries encouraged, but destructive.
On the first day of autumn
my grandmother told me
how much she loved the sea.
II
Slow strokes and grandmother’s seasonal knife.
On an objective bedstead rests a dreadful head
NO! a glass, a mirror, a glass instead, indeed!
Why this wretched thread?
Daily am I to be threatened by squalid treads...
miserable marble floors to fluorescent walls
misty milk to ascending corporeal falls,
and an intoxicating door, as it corrodes,
as it erodes my grandmother
hastens to fasten her loose hair together;
I have lived days dazed in ether
and bathed in the impregnable aroma of ammonia.
For every frame
I have not a name
but remember only Rose petals
breaking to embrace the gentle rain.
People like to come and go
but both you and I know
how quickly tears and gutters overflow.
Amnesiac portraits plastered
on memory’s halls,
a shredded armchair for all
Her latest last daughters.
III
A falcon called Merlin is but a concrete thing, and love
flies, does it not, filmy feet heated by sickle light
in tonight’s prolonged deadly delight, in tune
with a june afternoon; a Swan’s song that belongs truly
to the confines of a medicine spoon
gazing longingly at the recesses of a wizard’s moon.
Miles and smiles and croquet mosques away, a heart rattles its hinges
as it cringes in forgetful, intentful hind sight.
IV
Hands of mine
grapple words of lamenting pantomimes.
I have observed Alexandrine Parakeets and Crested Kingfishers
and have caught sketches of exquisite
arabic prerequisites, precursors to kisses like mimes
frightened by silent crimes, but in spare time, in bare time
in her hissing kitchen sink sinking,
Onions peeled by stammering anagrams
Tomatoes chiming signs as do paradigms –
the world before names unfurled
earlier than the smells of tastes,
I was brought Coriander
and led through this, whirling corridor.
People like to come and go
both you and I know.
V
On the first day of winter,
or was it the last of summer
when the final leaves fall
and the humble flowers crumble
and the tinkling of my toes crawl to a stall,
stirred by a croaky Koel’s call
I think of my grandmother,
before the turning
crumpling
the burning
of a secret.