The words she whispered linger in the place she wept. Clutching a picture of her parents, she contemplated for several minutes, drained, with nothing left. Her tears fell on the glass picture frame that she held in silent lament. In her last agony, she spoke softly, in faint breaths. Lying down in a white nightgown, she closed her tearful eyes, and slept.
-
When I was a child, I thought if I stared at my mother’s pictures for hours and weep, I could bring her back from her eternal sleep. I joined the ranks of the motherless children who rode their bicycles in the night, in tears, with their mother’s memory still in them. An only child, I witnessed the pain in my grandmother’s eyes; the agony she carried from the loss of her children. She told me long held secrets before her transition; in my young body and receptive mind, I sat quietly and intently listened. Early in her marriage she had suffered a miscarriage, and through her life, she had endured tremendous damage. That evening I became a man; holding back my own tears, she knelt and wept, and let out all the pain of the years. I took my grandmother’s hand — and kissed her, and held her, and told her that she had become my mother, and that she was all I had, and that I loved her. In those moments nothing else in the world mattered; and on that night, oh that precious night, I swore an oath to myself in a small room under the heavens, that I would die to protect her, and stored that night in the depths of my soul, so I could always remember.
-
When the tears come, I look for you in the in-between.
I immerse myself in your love;
The fragrance of your essence I breathe.
You kiss me; you shelter me;
You hide me in the embrace of your wings.
In the darkness, you are the light of my candle;
The beautiful lyrics of the song that I sing.
You are the tranquility of my soul;
The gorgeous realization of my longing.
The sincerity of my eyes and the passion in my touch,
Are the utterances of my heart’s whispering.
I run, I run to you — and you are there waiting. -
We were but striplings, some without mothers, some without fathers, running wild in the night unafraid of pitch darkness with hearts of lions. Our aura glowed beautifully in the souls of us; we laughed and we wept in fierce countenance. We were young, yet many were the trials for us; our bodies skinny and undeveloped, so in the company of monsters we fought with tears and dreamt of vengeance. To keep the pain from sorrowful and depressed grandmothers, some held in their agony and kept the devastating silence. Go back in time, and look into the eyes of us. Move past the innocent smiles, and see the hurt in us. The unresolved pain of our past is the illness of us. We cry on the graves of our mothers and curse the abandonment of our fathers. If I could, I would take away the trauma from all of us. We seek heaven’s light to take away the darkness. They are scarred, and they are beautiful. They are my brothers. They are my sisters. Still, now, with the blood of hope, and with the blood of vengeance, we survive tormented summers and bitterly cold winters.
-
In your embrace, spiraling black waterfalls are released
Vastly flowing over brown hue contours,
Pouring into deep spinal ridges and forming new rivers.
Calming morning showers on yellow butterflies
With an emerging sunrise, are your whispers.
The brightness of your radiance is the accumulation
Of the rays of the sun, for seven summers. -
Sitting on a twin sized bed in a dimly lit motel room, she lights a cigarette and opens up a bible; she inhales the nicotine, then a slow exhale. After reading a few verses, she closes her eyes and takes another pull; she has worked all night and she is tired, with a little redness of the eyes, but she is beautiful. The intricacies of her contemplation could never be properly conveyed through any written literature or narration. She makes money anyway she can, to feed herself and provide for her son, but she seldom sees him. She prays money’s accumulation will be her salvation; she wants to be a much better mother and live again. The tobacco in her cigarette nears its end — she takes a drink, leaving the condensation on the night stand. She lies down with the television on, the volume low. The comfort of a comforter underneath her, she meant to cover herself, but she was too exhausted. Her eyes close with the hopes of beautiful dreams. She slips her left arm under the coolness of a soft pillow, falling asleep in her heels.
-
Lascivious intent stalk the city blocks were women in short skirts and six inch heels walk. Naked ladies dance seductively in front of eager men for money; they dart in and out of dark 25 cent peep show booths, secretly. The scent of perfume and cigarette smoke lingers heavily; women of the night approach cars with dimmed lights. X rated movie theaters run films all night. The inebriated lean on glass windows under neon lights. Men and women use cocaine to stem the somnolence and numb the pain. Heroin users lie zombified in cheap dingy hotel rooms with dirty needles still in the vain. A prostitute walks down 42nd street in torn stockings, holding her broken heels, feeling the warmth of summer night concrete beneath her feet; she has worked for twelve hours straight with no sleep, under the sprawling glare of Times Square.
People eat in diners at 4 AM, and after two cups of coffee, through large windows listlessly stare. The scent and feel of New York City permeates the night’s air. The underbelly of the city are the fulfillment of licentious desires, addicts getting high, violence, tiredness, the pursuit of money, and sordid transactions. The drunk and homeless urinate on themselves, slumped over on subway platform benches. People wait on the train, with eyes bloodshot and lifeless. Another young lady heads to 42nd street, seeking quick money and excitement. The city blocks swallow you subtly in a matter of minutes, hours, or days. It traps you in its bright colorful lights. Out of towners languish for weeks, missing long forgotten flights. Uninhibited wildness leads to the exploration of long suppressed vices. Euphoria takes over.
-
When you speak to me,
Your words turn into butterflies
That surround me, lovingly. -
He dances with the beast under a dim street lamp in perfect synchrony, but only one can be seen. Cold rain commences; the tears start to stream. He dances wildly to expel the darkness and temper the misery. The beast continues to dance, but in agony, loudly he wails, painfully.
-
In his suffering she held him and listened to him,
And in that instant, his heart started mending,
Leading to lasting healing, and loving longing—
And on the evening she kissed him, he wept,
and said, you are always what was missing;
And he held her in his arms from the twilight, until morning,
Whispering loving utterances as the tears streamed from joyous crying,
And on that day, after a beautiful dawning,
She became his everything.
Intimate Compositions 