Author: poetryfest

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, washing away like sand in the sea.
Every day, we wish for change—
for comfort,
for once to be seen,
to be cherished like human beings.
But here we are, caged like animals.

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, blowing away like dust in the wind.
We stand in line,
waiting for our thirst to be quenched,
for just enough to survive.
Sometimes it feels like we might waste away,
at the mercy of those who give,
who might spare a drop of kindness.
And still, we are caged like animals.

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, I am a star lost in the crowd.
Packed together with no space to breathe.
Maybe we are not stars.
Maybe we are only shadows in a cage.
So many eyes, but none that truly see.

Some are sad.
Some are angry.
Some are tired.
None are happy.
And still, every day is the same.
So much that it all blends together—
our lack of water,
our lack of food,
our lack of shelter,
our lack of joy.

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, hoping for a change.
I know it will come.
But for now, I survive.
To one day greet that change with open arms

A misty figure appears, how curious.
For it appears beneath the tabletop.
I make sure, look under the surface once again.
And yes, truly, there it sits, having chased away the shadow.

I glance around, no one else seems to have noticed,
no one else has thought to look under the table.
After all, there’s already enough to see on the table:
– Glasses, filled
– Plates, filled
– Cigarette packs, half-filled
– Hands, intertwined
– Flower vases, displaced
– Notebooks, untouched

I peek down again.
And it’s still there, clinging tightly to the table leg.
Poor little thing, has it perhaps lost its mother?
Glasses clink and bump. It flinches.

I look at the others at the table and ask for a napkin.
They hand me one.

I reach under the table, trying to gather the little thing.
It moves, and the table begins to shake.

“Hey, careful down there,” someone says to me.
With a red head I explain,
“Yes, yes. I just wanted to pick up an olive.”

Then I stare at it, straight into those tiny black eyes.
It stares back, defiant.
I slowly extend the hand holding the napkin.
It hisses at me, and startled, I bump my head on the tabletop.

And the table shakes.
And the half-empty glasses fall.
And the half-full plates fall.
And the empty cigarette packs fall.
And the hands dart for the glasses.
And the displaced flower vases fall.
And the untouched notebooks fall.

Every Sunday,
Visit to Pap’s.
Mandatory.
No excuses.
Even as a boy,
I know where we would find you
Every Sunday,
Squatting on his your legged footstool watching the Pirates
Lose another game
OR
At the head of the kitchen table.
Either location,
An ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon
And an ashtray, overflowing with butts
Always within arm’s reach.
Every Sunday
After we leave your house, Pap,
My mother tells me how
(When she is a girl),
You come home, more often than not.
Drunk.
Then your mother
(Who lived next door)
Would chase you with a broom, screaming.
Every Sunday,
2
You proclaim.
“You should be a football player.”
And that’s wrong.
Even as a child, I am built like a linebacker
Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested
(Just like you).
“You should be a football player.”
I do not want to.
I am not like other boys.
I don’t like to get dirty.
Or sweaty.
Or knocked down.
No rough-housing for me.
One day (before his NFL dream for me dies)
Pap says, “Let’s go see a man about a horse.”
Can I believe my ears? Pap is buying me a pony!
But we do not end up seeing a horse.
Or at a farm.
Or a stable.
No, it’s his favorite watering hole where
(As my mother would say, “He drank our lives away.”)
There, you hoist me up onto a bar stool
(A stool so high, my feet do not touch any of the foot reasts)
And orders me a soda and a bag of chips.
Then he goes to the corner to chat with his cronies, while I—
A child sitting on a bar stool, sips the coldest soda I have ever tasted,
(And addicts me to a lifetime of drinking in bars with men.)
Every Sunday.
3
“You should be a football player.”
Finally, when I find the courage to say
NO.
I prefer to write, to draw, to read.
Then you nickname me…
“The Professor.”
Never as a compliment.
Always as a sneer
“The Professor.”
An accusation..
Something to bring shame.
Somehow, then, you know my secret.
You know my shame
Long before I know it has a name.
Every Sunday.
“The Professor.”
Eager for your praise.
Your acceptance,
I bring you my newspaper clippings.
Proud of my accomplishments.
An art show.
An essay contest.
You have clipping, too, retrieved from his wallet.
Folded, yellowed, brittle with age.
Arrests.
Drunk and disorderly.
Public intoxication.
And the strange thing is…
You are as proud of these “accomplishments” as I am of mine.

Now that I am even older than you were when the cirrhosis and cigarettes
Took you,
I see we are more alike than I care to admit.
Tonight.
As I slowly sink into the amber cesspool of this bottle,
I realize we ease our pain with alcohol.
You with Pabst; Me with bourbon.
We both chain smoke.
But you pinch the butt of your unfiltered Pall Mall between your thumb and index finger—
Both stained orange with nicotine.
I hold my Gauloise between my index and middle fingers
The way I’d seen Better Davis did in all her films,
Except maybe Jezebel.
I hate that I am like you.
I hate that you made me feel worthless
Not good enough.
Not man enough.
And this is what you taught me.
This is what I learned.
Every Sunday.

I saw you at Caridad.
The one at the corner of 191st & St. Nich

A huge rat climbed out of a pile of garbage beside you.
You didn’t flinch.

You had the white and purple varsity baseball jacket,
A corona inside one of those brown paper bags.

You had on those glasses,
I remember they changed tints,
According to the time-of-days-magic.

I saw you there.
Sky somber blue,
Like the loud silence on the last days of summer
When kids return to school.

We’d been there many times.
The last after graduation,
I remember you said sorry
That this was our celebration.

I saw you standing,
Clean shaved, hair perfectly combed.
You always said, “If a man’s hair isn’t kept,
It’d be best to stay home.”

I saw you talking up everyone who walked by.
I saw all your teeth and imagined
The ember in eyes.

You ran cement block hands
Across your face.
Battered nails, dust
Dried clay.

I saw you there and only saw you happy.
Is it true that while you were here,
Your heart was also smiling?

River Road winds to
a pavilion at sunset
blue glass feeders hang

the whisperer calls
a shimmer of hummingbirds
appear magically

Fresh sugar water
refilling at dawn and dusk-
beebalm ambrosia

field ballerina
emerald crown, ruby collar
black mask, lucky charm

teacup cradle nest
nearby in the tulip tree,
petite sojourner

presence of wonder
I let the world slip away—
evening devotions

Missing
People Dissing Time
Items left
Memories never made
Every Year it’s
Happy Birthday But-
Finding Things
Being Reminded
That the Angry People
Never healed.
They Acted like
It was the end of their world
When mine was
Waiting to begin.
You lost Grandma
Around the same age
Outlived by A few.
It comes and Goes
But nothing is the same.

my childhood home
Situated at the convergence of the Volga and Tversta
Our sister cities bomb each other
Bleeding-mouth Liberals
We climbed to the top of coney island
As the chickadees shed their skin
You can’t cry in space
Gravity is subjective

Paralyzed, confused, hurt
All come to mind when I think of fear
Fear is one of my only constants in life
It holds me hostage
Stops me from reaching
Trying
Caring
As I grow older
I see the world continue without me
And I grow more and more exhausted
Exhausted of staying on the sidelines
Saying no to friends
Hell, saying no to myself
Is this what life is?
Constant heartache and fear?
No!
I refuse
I want to be happy
I deserve to be happy
So what if it sounds selfish
I am the only one who lives my life
And I have yet to live it
So I am deciding
Today
Right now
To be selfish
Yes
Fear will always be with me
But so will happiness, kindness, and love
The qualities that make me
The me
I’ve always wanted to be
Always deserved to be
And those qualities will scream for me
Louder than fear ever screamed against me

You want to make something immortal?
Then grab the knife, not the brush,
let the canvas scream crimson,
let the gallery lights flicker
like a failing heartbeat.

No more soft metaphors,
no tasteful still lifes,
just the wet truth of the blade,
the way it parts flesh
like a critic’s tongue
dissecting a lie.

Art is too polite.
It begs for approval,
wears its pedigree
like a gilded collar.
But violence? Violence is honest.
A slash doesn’t apologize.
A wound doesn’t ask
if it’s avant-garde enough.

So ruin it.
Ruin all of it.
Let the paint run
like a gutted confession,
let the frames splinter
into kindling.
When they ask why,
bare your teeth and say:

Because beauty should hurt
or it isn’t real.
Because I’d rather be a wound
than a whisper.

Now watch the critics flinch
as the blood dries
into something
they’ll call genius tomorrow.

MAHAKUMBH

i.

The Ganges condescended
to flow down from Shiva’s matted hair
with white laughter
from the Himalayas to Kashi
it shone so pure and bright
but failed to quench
the earthly thirst
or cleanse the human heart
their sinful mind
the goddess couldn’t change
I clearly see in its apparent grace
missing all turbulence
so necessary to wash out
the ills of ages it seems
it’s lifeless now
impotent to set right
the rotten state of man

ii.

The morning’s withered flesh
and swollen skin of the day
by bloody nullah in smoke
tears shade tomorrow
like today, everyday they cry
but nobody hears groans, or sees
dark eruptions on naked walls
that hide maps of bones
and skeins of dreams piled
beside broken hearth fate
is a luxury of helplessness
they won’t believe or accept
if there is a hell on earth
it’s here, it’s here, it’s here

iii.

Sacred map
no sense of direction
lost again
the message in numbers
the way in 434*
the twin flame—
missing the connection
scary world
feeling isolated
yet hope to get better

(*One needs to unlock the spiritual meaning of the number, the numerologicalsignificance of each digit, says a sadhu!)

iv.

Who sees the smoke
of the thumb-sized flame
the body burns
the ashes of silence
float on the holy breast
tears pollute

–R.K. Singh