my neighbour was
a linguist, and an
english professor
she taught me
and my brother
eighty five ways -
how to transform
a sentence,
basically eighty
ways to communicate
with a set of words
figures of speech,
tenses, voices,
punctuations, conjunctions,
interjections, pauses,
simple, compound,
and complex
she'd teach us after
our school hours,
and requested us
to stay late,
for homework,
till her husband dozed off
sometimes she'd cook extra
and bribe us to stay,
by a dictation test,
or an 800 word essay
as i grew up, i understood
the daily case of onomatopoeia,
every night across the hall,
a happily married oxymoron
and bruises under her shawl.
it took years for her
to build her stance,
build her voice
i asked my mother
was there more to it
than just a choice?
why she didn't speak up
at any given stage?
and as a kid i wondered
she could have
slammed the door,
and said the
same thing in eighty five
different ways! .
-i have learned to
live some life
in pauses
between moments
and things
in between your
aged books
with bookmarks stained
by the bottoms of
coffee cups;
in the folds of your
dirty duvet
sitting inside a
little laundry basket on a
warm sunny weekend;
in the momentary silences
between the
subtle slaps
of your feet against
cold, hardwood floors;
between the change of
traffic lights
and your
foot, gently pressing
down on the gas;
between all commas
the semicolons, dashes
and ellipses in the
poetry you read
to me every night;
between the rise
and fall of your
chest, each
blissful breath
i hear;
and
between
sentences
when i say
your name
and you say
mine.
A sentence lay before me
Not flat, but embossed
Wanted to make small talk
Bewildered I said, go on
You're either trailing dots
Or overwhelmingly exclamatory
Not rooted, removed from reality
If I grow big, babbling into three lines
I semicolon instead
Segment bygone and foreboding text
Nestle into present and reflect
Engage in commas
Pause not stutter
Silence isn't junk
Brooding agony though, is bitter
Draft closures for self
Like my full circle stops
Needn't you always be submerged in company
Like Soliloquies of mine
Are in parentheses
Let them not walk over you
I quote unquote to make a point
You be emphatic and defiant too
Dismantle this "good girl" cloak
Forward slash others opinions
But append question marks
De-program your conditioning
Subscribe to logic and ask
Now I will set in stone
But you essay a trial
Listen to those muffled dreams
Pure, fair, sincere, devoid of denial
MEDITATION (To engage in mental exercise for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness)
Breathe
Let the air flood your airways and fill your
Lungs with gratitude while the morning
Gushes forth a gentle aurora. Let
The birds coat your ears with harmony and
The trees brush your senses with frankincense
Like some holy grail waiting to unfold
And present your face to the heavens. Let
The flowing rivers unclutter your mind
And flood your palms like some heavenly
Blessing pouring into earth wishing you
A day of wonder and happiness
Cleansing your thoughts kicking out the dirt like
Some freshly peeled orange waiting to taste
The core
i’d gotten too comfortable
with my 20 minute releases
punctuating my day with
skip intros and new seasons
so when you walked in on me
making me pause at minute 13
i could hear myself groan
man, the episodes are always
better in a flow
there are no bookmarks
for great shows
and i think i wanna love you
but my mind’s used to pattern
preparing every night for
that timely personal attack
even the jokes in my mind
have forgotten the laughter track
and before i could ramble on
you looked at my screen
took a drag and sat beside me
asked me to fill you up
on how it all started
and in that moment
i realised you were going to see
the show from my memory
and i’d get to relive
all my favourite moments
you’d hate the guy i hated
because that’s how i’d state it
and in the next season
when the old woman eventually
gets the arc she deserves
we would both scream
oh my god yes finally
as i went from season 1, 2
catching you up to 3
i saw you smiling at me
as if this verbal version
was better than the real deal
alright fine you found a way
to make it work
we’ll wait it out together
until season 4 shows up
all your life you’ve believed / that poetry comes easily to you / and you cannot deny it / it’s true / all your observations are dutifully noted down / for later metaphorical conversion / the syntax in each poem sits just right / in the plate of your mouth / and once the words begin welling out they continue / until your gut chimes the bell / and so you’re left wondering / why this exercise has become so taxing / why it feels constantly as if something has hooked your heart / but cannot wrench it past your throat and out of your mouth / and of course the answer lies / in taking a pause / except that all your life you have striven to impress / and cannot surrender now / so close to the end / and so you think of all the brave things you have done / you can only recall a few / but you will not mention them in this poem / lest you sound like a braggart / and by now you have convinced yourself / that this isn’t entirely not a poem / and that you can successfully end it without feeling / too foolish or guilty / but feeling a tad postmodernist, undeniably