Exuberance: Lifshin, Douglas, Chakraborty, Wakefield - aaduna NPM: Day 25



THE CELTIC  BIRD GODDESS' WILD SONG

you'll see me in Celtic
jewels, in tapestries,
carvings. I'm there in
the most gorgeous leaves,
echoes of my feathers
are in the swirl of rivers.
When you hear the
beauty of wings, what I
touched is touched again.
I run with the horse
goddess, with the swans,
the bull, those women,
half women, half ghostly
bird, a reminder of
strength and courage.
You will find me in your
dreams some night
it begins to snow just
after a full moon, my
feathers on your deck the
first night impatiens
wilt in the freeze. Just let
what has been closed
in you open to feeling, let
intuition unfold like a
bruise blue tulip


© 2012 Lyn Lifshin                           
Vienna, Virginia  

Lyn Lifshin (photo provided)





















* * *


Cry Fe De Youth


The smiles of youth were pried
from our eyes at an early age—
kept like concubines;
caged, but in love with this
asphalt and brick equivocator.
Riddles the streets speak
are not at all unique; but
things fall apart
at particular speeds.
Gleams in fathers' eyes grew
into prepubescent prevaricators.

By then we'd learned to duck Red Dogs
Artful dodgers—
even the wind would be a greater inheritance
than the remnants our fathers left us.
We are the children birthed,
then aborted; life discarded
after birth.
The westside's streets run red
as God drags destiny's brush across the city,
painting the pavement wet.
Heaven's tears overflow from mamas' hearts,
washing the trash-stained streets.

The westside is as black as
it is when Earth
turns its back towards the sun:
dark or light, young supernovas shine—
so effervescently bright,
dying out far too soon. Hood stars
spiraling through the night,
falling to earth; yet
no wishes are made,
only prayers and plans
for discount funerals and nine-nights.

An ordinary grace,
somewhere between lost and found.
Guilty or not,
we pay a repulsive penny—
dreaming, like gangsta Velveteen Rabbits,
imagining being
"r–e–a–l".

From books to bricks in short lifetimes;
crack made these stories, violence shaped these lines.
May they engage in no gunplay,
so that the peace may reach the light of day.


© 2012 Melvin Douglas
Atlanta, Georgia 

Melvin Douglas (photo provided)




















* * *


In Search of Thy Epic


i
lemons tangle, incestuously
as the wreck murmur
like those drops of water
of her creepy young father

warmth of the dead, dancing
along the edge
of adam’s apple
made her sigh voluptuous

so salty brethrens grew
upon her treamed curves
so filthy brambles grew
upon my mused verse

like her creepy young feather….

ii
her hooves dazzle my sky
as the fog conceive me
and the dogs spiral around

i break her water
as the genie blurs the sky
and she turns back, softly pale

i dollop her cracks
sophisticated, as the hedgehogs are
and she spurns the field
once again

iii
her crawls melt into
jupiter’s swirling souls
like bird nests, burning

her ruffled naivety
washes the birds away
like soft cobbles, circling

her shredded innocence
numbs the garnished ether
like church chord, faltering

iv
she cracks her shell
headless blood bursts out
ooh the fisrt day of featherless god

anger riots over the road
leading to bethelhem, once more
dwindling bloodstains fill her
and headless children flake off

she frightens those drops

v
i peel  her off
from frozen blue
thus  happens dance

she sparkles, dead
that stream I touch
fishes feed on me

my soul, diseased
sings river, or grass
as death moans.

vi
her viperous dance looms
over the mushy sky
as i learn to loath

she arrives, dead
rooting under the crown
as i learn to vanish

so I am shrunk
and she is shrivelled
as the forest moves


© 2013 Amitava Chakraborty                       
Tokyo, Japan 

Amitava Chakraborty (photo provided)




















 * * *


Harlem Morning


There’s something more in the sky-head
than apprehension of clouds,
/distant capricious weather
& the mourning papers haven’t been read yet

Harlem where I woke
this morning,
A world where it’s been so long
From Hughes &
Other celebrants
Kin to color as the ruse.

Its history is now
A second ago, there
It goes agin
A minute hunger
In a large broad breath

Consider,
Blood of a chin cut
Shaving ages away,
Face reflexive of
Many worlds’ disorders

A woman’s oblong
Legs extend in the shower
Through the centuries
Shaving a way scars for growth
Consider, the various advantages of wanderings
Whenever we go to work
To make our endings meet…

On the way
An early worker too
Rivets fear
Tending towards tenements too gone to be had
& I’m astonished at this diss belief.
Africa seeps through the pavement.
We are not ugly or unaware
A sun patient with its planets
&Time will till

I know histories lie.
At lunch for instance
I finally did eat a newspaper

And it seems I died yesterday
A forlorn shadow.


                                                                                                           
© 2016 Jacques Wakefield                
Laurelton, New York 

Jacques Wakefield (photo provided)




















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