Tag: writer

The Pathos of An Attic

~ SW Altair ~ 2 Comments

I rarely go up there anymore.
Too many shards and tatters
jutted out, like an obtusely ill-grown tooth
scraping the membrane
of my tender memories.

Those days were young
like an unbroken promise, we sat up there
together in a great chair that could fit two,
with a book of fables that never rung true.
Our kisses went on under July’s sunlight,
against all possible endings
and the moon.
Quiet ripples of endless summer nights,
and her dress was drenched in sweet wine.
She was made of ringlets of laughters,
made of the scent of an apple orchard.
She was made of all good things
that slipped through my fingers.

I rarely go up there anymore.
Why would I?
To sit in that empty chair,
and gather pots of dirty daffodils?
To read those moth-eaten letters,
and utter sentences with no arrival?
To be scolded by that cranky old piano
desperately missing her touch?
Or to be drowned yet again in the immense silence,
still more immense without her?

All day I rummage through the other parts of the house –
the den’s nose, the kitchen’s fingertips,
the bedroom’s tear ducks.
All day I rummage through my body
for a sad corner, for a cigarette,
for a blue dream without her presence,
until the attic is as far as she is to me,
a distant nebulous star.

At nightfall, I sit upon the broken staircase,
palms dusty, sorrows over.
The wind quickens to a new horizon.
I see myself forgotten.

I love her still among those shredded things.
But I rarely go up there anymore.

 

Originally published in Visual Verse, Vol 02 – Chapter 12

Fall’s Kingdom

~ SW Altair ~ 3 Comments

On the first day of your claim,
a newborn raises his fist to the faraway trumpets
sounded for the triumphant return of October.

A league of white doves, oracles from the east,
adorn your royal robe with rain-soaked wreaths.
Before the trembling days and the darkened horses,
there are rivers, bright stars, and you

of pulpy lips and fecund breasts,
from which milk of nacre flows,
and fattened squash tumble down
into the palms of our arid endurance.

Your hair is golden as the maple leaves;
your breath is the scent of an apple orchard;
your earlobes, sweet
as the ripened grapes hanging from heaven’s vines,
have been kissed and kissed
by the doting peasants.

On your brow rests the throne of a butterfly,
dignified and full of sunlight.
Those beating wings reign over your vision.
We shall never despair.
We shall never die for want of another lilac
for as long as your courage perseveres.
The hapless take refuge under your sleeves;
the unworthy flee like indignant black moths.
Only one remains. Only one remains.
He is the great oak beneath the harvest moon.
As he bows to your grace, acorns fall to their deaths,
a season’s offering, a tribute to your life.

Your Kingdom.

 

Originally published on September 20th, 2015 on my old blog. 

Departure

~ SW Altair ~ 6 Comments

Remember when we were young,
we used to run wild in the fields,
easy footsteps caressing
the wrinkled brows of ancient hills.
We were dancing fairies
that made the whole forest sing.
The days were unhurried
and evenly pink.

Then one day you began
talking about a life elsewhere, a place
without metaphorical flowers or bread,
where you could sweat and tread
in your new sails and moccasins. You left me
half-hearted kisses
and bouquets of teary tulips.
Yellow petals fell, as soon as you were gone,
headlong into the ground. Those hopeless little faces
buried themselves in earth,
like obstinate ostriches, hiding
from unstoppable truths, capable
of neither running away
nor being saved.

At sunrise, trees bent down to lend shadows
to creatures who were fearful of their own.
In this world I marched alone
with a book of vacated love
and an undulating heart
that overturned ships
with each turning page.

Only with bruised lips and confessions could I remain constant.
I rid my body of metaphors you detested – romantic notions that
turned rivers into music,
and withering roses into unrequited love –
so that one day you could return
and kiss my hardened, concrete flesh.

Only with hollow bones and desolate passions could I remain constant
among this foliage of absences and
you and I and solitary stars.
At sundown, the world is devoured by her own shadow, whole
and complete.

Years later, I lay under the twilight of fading memories.
Children run across the wrinkled brows of my ancient breasts. My soul
is a bottle of dried laments.
Through half-opened eyes, I see you standing at the very beginning,
a hand in mine, brown eyes, a surge of delight.
Have you come back to say goodbye, my beloved?
This voyage, already so long, expanding into this incessant night,
is about to come to an end as I
gracefully close my eyes.

 

originally published on September 5, 2015 on my old blog

Second Piece

~ SW Altair ~ 2 Comments

I have nothing to give you, my love,
but a jar of my melted laments.
Be still, it’s too hot to touch.
Shapeless sorrows as such
will burn harder than you remember.
Put it up on the shelf, my love,
it will be there forever.
Let’s smile and drink wine today and
let’s not destroy
that remaining sensibility
of the pointed finger.

The Swallow

~ SW Altair ~ 3 Comments

I heard the swallow has betrayed the south-bound league.
Into the fatal arms of winter she dove, a solitary soldier
leaving behind a trail of rain-soaked cloud
already mourning her death.

In the forsaken forest, the swallow often sighed,
breath full of sorrows.
Yet no one knew her troubles, desolate troubles
that bubbled up from her heart,
Like raindrops, like storms, like tornadoes.
Nocturnal feet danced upon unturned stones, under which those fearful souls
slept, seeking permanence in time and forgiveness.

In the land of darkened purpose, the swallow often circled,
tired of her own shadows.
Water fell from the her wings onto dried-up honeysuckles. Those colorless kisses
rested upon the pale bones of broken lilies.
So many of them, once green and alive, unconquerable for an age,
knelt down at the dark wind’s hand, surrendered their petals to fate.

In the night of coal-black ashes, the swallow often pondered,
Will there be courage in those tarried morrows?
Darkness came with furious gallops, as if maddened by her presence.
She stood on the monument of seasons, unmoved by doomsday’s silence.
How she came to find the bow and arrows
buried against the foot soles of an ancient dream –
No one knows.

I heard the south-bound league came to the shore of soft violets.
They put red cherries between their teeth,
and tied forget-me-nots around their feet.
But they forgot about the name of their homestead
and their trembling friend.

Come first snowfall, when all the babies went to sleep by the lulling mountains,
I looked up to the infinite sky,
and I saw her –
A solitary soldier, with burning plumage on her shoulders,
A few bent trees waiting on winter,
and a star, defied, without a murmur.

 

originally published on August 14, 2015 on my old blog