Realizations: Day 27- aaduna NPM with Bonafacio, Dotoli, Ghosal, Cardinale

The Old Cat

1

More a mass

than anything,

I took the old cat

to its designated

place of rest

below

a bridge of stone

built late in

the nineteenth

century, observing

Highland Park and

a dirt path for skinny

rain water. No true river

ran beneath its crown.

The bellows of homeless

leviathans, cradling a

thinning flame, knelling embers,

chiaroscuroing curved shadows

on the zenith of stones: kitty heaven.

2

The old cat showed signs the night before

stumbling in and out of existence

reaching for a final touch.

3

I made a casket of his little

traveling cage, comfortably patted

with his favorite sheet and toys,

a bit of catnip, made-ready like a great

Mau of the River Nile.

4

The old bridge reminds me of something

long dead. Its dark underbelly, bulging dirt floors,

the occasional bottles of Colt-45 lying beside themselves.

Predial florae, empty of import

the wind sometimes caresses

© 2016 Ayendy Bonafacio                

Columbus, Ohio 

Ayendy Bonafacio (photo provided)

                    

* * *

Daydreamer

how that beachmoon merged our hearts
our lives like twine together wrapped
with thoughts closer than May and June
we were forever forged
our souls a custom-fit
you my love made my heart ring then crack
now I daydream of that soulful calm
for time trumped our love
and I alone chase the cruel wind of yesterfeel
for love isn't what it first appears

© 2016 Gregg Dotoli                         

Nutley, New Jersey    

 

Greg Dotoli (photo provided)

 

* * *

Between Us

Between us it was the matter of drowning

in the pond that to my girlhood was glory.

Summers were birds tailspinning to our slingshots.

We stoned what mangoes survived nor’westers.

Fishes died with open mouths pressed to our palms.

Yet, you took his hand for emersion. Water shed

my skin over plasma exploding, lungs swollen.

Someday I would kiss you, the boy at a picnic

I struck, they thought, & one day that boy would

run away with his best man. Separately pithed

by the years, I would come to you as blood

labeled anonymous, drip like ink on paper:

without you, sweetheart, I lived like no hunter.

The night he left was musky as the civet,

flesh-eating.

Never one to swim, you fetched no fresh water,

sending off forefathers thirsty in those tropics

on the eve of your wedding to a girl who gave

you a brass dial to measure life in full moons.

I saw him once in the prairies among grizzly bear

watchers & he knew me by the fishing rod I had

broken. By then your face was shaded like plums

we stole from the thrushes until it was no more. 

© 2016 Torsa Ghosal                         

Columbus, Ohio    

             

* * *

Perceptions

The youth…

      Disconnected.

      Disillusioned.

      Defiant.

The man…

      Talented.

      Tenacious.

      Temperamental.

The artist…

      Prolific.

      Progressive.

      Profound.

The activist…

      Reactive.

      Radical.

      Revolutionary.

The end…

      Victimized.

      Vindicated.

      Violent.

The memories…

      Unexpected.

      Unbidden.

      Unifying.

The last, the best; the way he might imagine it.

© 2016 P.R. Cardinale                                   

Sauquoit, New York   

P.R. Cardinale (photo provided)

 *   *   *

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