(no subject)
I'm sorry that you were asleep when I wrote these words down,
You'd think I'd ought to be used to that by now.
Save for a few of those late night episodes,
Missed opportunities, and "I Don't Cares,"
There's not a lot that I feel obliged to share or talk about.
This may sound bad, don't take it the wrong way..
I love you, however . . .
You're the echoes of my everything,
You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night.
You're the laziness of afternoon,
You're the reason why I burst and why I bloom
How will I break the news to you?
we'll talk it over after i've had some time alone to sort it out
you hold me down.
You're the echoes of my everything,
You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night.
You're the laziness of afternoon,
You're the reason why I burst and why I bloom
You're the leaky sink of sentiment,
You're the failed attempts I never could forget.
You're the metaphors I can't create to comprehend this curse that I call
Safe Subjects
How can love heal
the mouth shut this way?
Say something worth breath.
Let it surface, recapitulate
how fat leeches press down
gently on a sex goddess's eyelids.
Let truth have its way with us
like a fishhook holds
to life, holds dearly to nothing
worth saying--pull it out,
bringing with it hard facts,
knowledge that the fine underbone
of hope is also attached
to inner self, underneath it all.
Undress. No, don't be afraid
even to get Satan mixed up in this
acknowledgement of thorns:
meaning there's madness
in the sperm, in the egg,
fear breathing in its blood sac,
true accounts not so easily
written off the sad book.
Say something about pomegranates.
Say something about real love.
Yes, true love--more than
parted lips, than parted legs
in sorrow's darkroom of potash
& blues. Let the brain stumble
from its hiding place, from its cell block,
to the edge of oblivion
to come to itself, sharp-tongued
as a boar's grin in summer moss
where a vision rides the back
of God, at this masquerade.
Redemptive as a straight razor
against a jugular vein--
unacknowledged & unforgiven.
It's truth we're after here,
hurting for, out in the streets
where my brothers kill each other,
each other's daughters & guardian angels
in the opera of dead on arrival.
Say something that resuscitates
us, behind the masks,
as we stumble off into neon nights
to loveless beds & a second skin
of loneliness. Something political as dust
& earthworms at work in the temple
of greed & mildew, where bowed lamps
cast down shadows like blueprints of graves.
Say something for us who can't believe
in the creed of nightshade.
Yes, say something to us dreamers
who decode messages of dirt
between ancient floorboards
as black widow spiders
lay translucent eggs
in the skull of a dead mole
under a dogwood in full bloom.
-Komunyakaa
You'd think I'd ought to be used to that by now.
Save for a few of those late night episodes,
Missed opportunities, and "I Don't Cares,"
There's not a lot that I feel obliged to share or talk about.
This may sound bad, don't take it the wrong way..
I love you, however . . .
You're the echoes of my everything,
You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night.
You're the laziness of afternoon,
You're the reason why I burst and why I bloom
How will I break the news to you?
we'll talk it over after i've had some time alone to sort it out
you hold me down.
You're the echoes of my everything,
You're the emptiness the whole world sings at night.
You're the laziness of afternoon,
You're the reason why I burst and why I bloom
You're the leaky sink of sentiment,
You're the failed attempts I never could forget.
You're the metaphors I can't create to comprehend this curse that I call
Safe Subjects
How can love heal
the mouth shut this way?
Say something worth breath.
Let it surface, recapitulate
how fat leeches press down
gently on a sex goddess's eyelids.
Let truth have its way with us
like a fishhook holds
to life, holds dearly to nothing
worth saying--pull it out,
bringing with it hard facts,
knowledge that the fine underbone
of hope is also attached
to inner self, underneath it all.
Undress. No, don't be afraid
even to get Satan mixed up in this
acknowledgement of thorns:
meaning there's madness
in the sperm, in the egg,
fear breathing in its blood sac,
true accounts not so easily
written off the sad book.
Say something about pomegranates.
Say something about real love.
Yes, true love--more than
parted lips, than parted legs
in sorrow's darkroom of potash
& blues. Let the brain stumble
from its hiding place, from its cell block,
to the edge of oblivion
to come to itself, sharp-tongued
as a boar's grin in summer moss
where a vision rides the back
of God, at this masquerade.
Redemptive as a straight razor
against a jugular vein--
unacknowledged & unforgiven.
It's truth we're after here,
hurting for, out in the streets
where my brothers kill each other,
each other's daughters & guardian angels
in the opera of dead on arrival.
Say something that resuscitates
us, behind the masks,
as we stumble off into neon nights
to loveless beds & a second skin
of loneliness. Something political as dust
& earthworms at work in the temple
of greed & mildew, where bowed lamps
cast down shadows like blueprints of graves.
Say something for us who can't believe
in the creed of nightshade.
Yes, say something to us dreamers
who decode messages of dirt
between ancient floorboards
as black widow spiders
lay translucent eggs
in the skull of a dead mole
under a dogwood in full bloom.
-Komunyakaa