Poems by Dah

Dah

To Fill This Page

To fill this page

I must empty my doubt,

holding fast to the joy

of ambition.

A meditation: Creation is a revelation

expanding in silence.

What brought us to earth?

What binds us to the promise of language?

With words liberating this poem,

each phrase is an abundance of sounds.

I admire the power of verbs

and make a wish: to sail upon the silence of light.

Light streams into our veins

like cosmic opium

or like lovers who live

for being inside each other.

Sometimes I demand too much

from the universe

and speaking of this is like an iron trap

suffering from rust.

I write this down

so as not to fill my feelings

with emptiness. Soul:

my bliss, my enthusiast

— I must speak of this

to understand these burning lines.

I Promise To Imagine

I promise to imagine

and wish for sentences

chosen by love:

together we’ll undress

my words

and unfasten my attachments.

Emptiness: leave me alone

I will not surrender to blind faith.

Earth breathes fear

and most of humankind

is uncertain of commandments

in writing.

I shuffle my verbs, adverbs, contractions,

looking for instant gratification.

Disappointment:

serious laughter,

like splinters in my throat.

I want to beg earth for forgiveness and

I am embarrassed for not knowing how.

Human kindness needs encouragement,

still our destruction will not be postponed.

How do we explain

to our children’s children

about the darkness we are conjuring for them?

Twilight Is A Sudden Sadness

Who am I to know

the existence of heaven

lives in the pause between breaths

or the story of creation

is a searing scar in the side of Jesus?

I have collected my pleasures,

like monsoons collect the dead,

have collected memories,

the raw force of vitality,

the swift silk of a spider’s web,

the emptiness of being, all of this,

a country of vibrant emotions.

I have touched the sea with my hands,

bringing them together, feeling

the abrupt salt between my fingers,

torrid like the stinging whip of a lover:

Her tongue burns me alive

with its naked wine,

her eyes dig into the depths of mine.

Who am I to know that the Kingdom of God

lives in the stones, fire, water, mud,

or that twilight is a sudden sadness

like blood clots caused by thorns?

Still, my excitement is a tower of energy

a vigorous burst of sperm

or the moonlight’s mysteries fitting its key

into my soul where a secret stillness

wallows in swaggering bliss.

I have tasted the meat of the universe,

its heart, lungs, and liver, tasting it

with my gentleness, a gentleness like

soft lips, or a feather, or a lover’s whisper:

Her mouth burns me alive

with its raw juice, her heart feeds from mine.

Who am I to know that the Supreme Spirit

lives in the flies, the lice, the grub, or that

death’s bitter sorrow lives in the dust, the bones,

the ash, or in the agony of a broken heart?

 — once, Jesus summoned me. He undid

his wounds with the jagged blades of my

tears. I held him, embracing him, saying:

My brother, my brother, my peaceful brother …

who am I … to know …

who I am?

A Shawl Of Indigo Aura

The evening is a thick, black lid

closing over the sun.

Tonight, the sky is inlaid

with pink clouds

because the light has crawled

inside of them, falling asleep.

How is it

I understand light’s recital

yet have no words

to explain it?

A poem without words

a poet without voice.

Today I watched a child,

a young girl, my daughter,

step into a puddle of light.

She said: I have sailed here before.

Her breath is the weight of a sparrow.

Her eyes, like poetry itself.

She wears a shawl of indigo aura

and gives me armfuls of her enthusiastic love.

My seven-year-old daughter with a plum tree stick

in her hand saving earth worms from drowning

— winter storms have destroyed their homes

her enthusiastic love was saving them:

bellies down, she placed the exhausted worms

in the grass, quietly talking to them.

To the dead ones she whispered:

I love you and have a wonderful afterlife.

Of the darkness: together we whispered about

light falling asleep.

The Glazed Elixir Of A French Kiss

The spirited light, solar-like wind,

breath with its passion, the sun’s copious

erotic venom.

I speak of everything and all things

without caution: this noise inside my head,

layers of high pitched harmonics,

the compressed hours between

birth and death, the heart’s heat

ascending and descending,

the end always beginning and again

your Gothic eyes. I have been here

and there, a prodigal hawk

with the flavor of blood-kisses hovering

like steam or mist or a weapon stirring

the body’s carbonic magnetic motion.

Never the sky always the silence disclosing

the stillness in death’s fantasy — life and death,

love and loss, a fatalistic dream-reel

as if two mirrors facing each other reflecting

a vacant image. I remember a faint trail

of finger prints. My impatient pulse

raced into yours: deserted passions,

like roses, each one dies the same way

— our emotions mumbled

through love and into the glazed elixir

of a French kiss: In my arms you had fallen asleep

not knowing I had left.

Setu, September 2018