My good friend, long-time collaborator, and sometimes editor trE conspired with me on another gem. I’ll let her take it from here:
“Barry and I have been collaborating for about a decade. If I think it, he can bring it to life. If he starts something, I can usually finish it. We have meshed well for such a long time that I was beyond myself with glee to finally see him get active on Medium. Every time we work together, it is fun to see where we are in our work at that moment. He is a great Writer and a dope friend. Thank you for reading.”
The poem is called Dead Roses. I won’t host it here this time, as it is already available on Medium and trE’s WordPress site. Please drop by her place and check it out. I always enjoy creating with trE, and this was no exception!
My dad demanded that I learn to code-switch and speak the corporate lingo so I could “make money in the white man’s world” (his words). Big ups to pops for making sure I could earn a living wage, but yeah, I almost never feel like my authentic self, whoever that may be.
This one hit me where I live, so I just let it flow in one take.
Reaching the summit was of no small feat
Great Sister’s reception felt bittersweet
The young man bowed to her respectfully
The old woman shrugged an indifferent beat
“Great Sister,” he greeted her fretfully,
“I come to you troubled, regretfully.
Life seems meaningless, yet death do I fear.
I pray you change my heart’s trajectory.”
The old woman peered through somber veneer
Her response, sincere, and yet still unclear
“Your fear of death is a fear of pre-birth.
If your life lacks meaning, why are you here?”
The young man searched her words, seeking their worth
He puzzled their weight, finding only dearth
“I climbed this peak seeking your renowned sage
but you made it clear I serve as your mirth.”
Great Sister stood fast in his bleary rage
“My child,” asked she, “recall your pre-birth stage.
You cannot; for none of us know that time.
The same is death; an unreadable page.”
The young man mused over these thoughts sublime
He asked, seeking reason within the rhyme,
“So death is a void and life, but a joke?
If true, does that make existence a crime?”
Great Sister laughed soundly before she spoke.
“The void and joke are both yours to invoke.
We are a part, not apart from the whole.
I am flock and hen; you are shell and yolk.”
The young man bowed as her words took their toll.
his heavy heart lightened by her console
Path to the valley, beyond his control
Its footfalls? Perhaps his own to insole.
***
Age makes me forgetful
and fudge-brained, I dread to say
or perhaps, greater advancements
and enchantments are at play
it only just occurred to me
a week into February
that this month highlights my history
cultural, personal,
and other mysteries
and yet I haven’t needed relicts
of my own humanity
as touchstones for skin-tone
I know I’m alive when she arrives
and our tactile forcefields interact
mysteriously melting presently
into history like a scribe’s ink
sinking into paper, as we seep
boring deeply into each other’s
borders and core,
thus is our union recorded,
soaked, and sodden
heartened, I held her tight
with all my heart and might,
firm hand, and soft as cotton
our pleasure’s-way
made the pressure-play
of looming Valentine’s Day
all but forgotten
after that, our anniversary will come
and go with a similar lack of fanfare
casually cast aside like sloppy rhyme
in the middle of middling poetry
she will spend our grand day
in Boston seeing a child’s play
for a weekend excursion with friends
as I continue sketching meaning
within uncommon Seattle snow
as it trends towards commonality
there will be a continent between us
and I cannot recall us ever being closer
nor a moment I have felt apart from her
perhaps age makes me forgetful, or
maybe pre-fossiled brain is less fussy and
savvy enough to cast aside frivolities
as a cicada sheds its shell to prosper
I just know it is unnatural
to fret over what feels elemental
we breathe and laugh freely
like nature casually
coursing through us
***
I daydream of living in watercolors with you
a soft, aqua-grey rainy still-life, content to be
captured eternally in textured contemplation
our pigments suspended, yet still blending earnestly
momentum of our joy arrested on papyrus
I would sketch us blue, sharing a bright red umbrella
two among coal-smeared masses bleeding grey clouds and rain
worlds inverted by reflective puddled apertures
all scurrying, seeking warm, dry shelter, captured here
an imperfect moment perfectly rendered in frame
I want to live inside a watercolor painting
presently framed, racing time flowing free, left-to-right
where we know where we’re going while free to be right here
an unending twilight of fullness, steeled for supper
not pictured; two steaming bowls of chicken-n-rice soup
***
Prior to this WordPress post, this poem was shared on my Medium profile as Water-colored Soup.
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 