Poetry: Leonard Dabydeen

Leonard Dabydeen
I’ve Got To Run

I’ve got to run
having said so many things before,
it will never be surprising
if I pretend to remember
to forget. So can you.
This time certainty is a joint foreclosure.

Never mind, I’ve got to run
a plane over the body of my leg.
I like the touch of a smooth body, too.
I scribe lines on the legs with a marking gauge,
pencil them,
position them in a vise.

Then …
as if my life is going to run
from shackles of a wood-work bench,
I watch a mallet knocking some sense
into a chisel head
deeper … and deeper
housing a wood-grave.

A mortised mind
so unforgiving
welcomes a tenon arm
moistened with carpenter’s glue
closing the entrails
of an intimidating fit.

Is this a journey
of man
and his environment?
***


The Hunt

How can you tell
what the hunt looks like
what shape
what form
(or is there no shape
or form to begin with?)
it will take
the winged mind
scouring bedrock
of hope
of despair
destiny like rainbow
defiant, daring
yet elegant and inerrant
the hunt juxtaposed
between hunter and hunted
or game and gamer
sometimes you’re victim
innocent as Life
immersed in the hunt
only playing
hide and seek.
***


Swirl of Kinship

Swirl of kinship
moves tonight across my memory
like mystic floating dark clouds
deeper
than flesh and blood
inebriating the mind.

In vaulted exile
my vision is blurred
like fetus in a mother’s womb
knotted with umbilical cord
I go back in time
I watch demented countrymen
gouge panic and fear
as if tomorrow
will never come
nursing whip-lash
through marrow of bone
moving to and fro
crisscrossing
latitude and longitude
only seeking freedom.
***


Man is Architect
(Fibonacci poem)

Man
is
foremost
architect
of his destiny
design-built out of mother’s womb.
Nothing creates another world
in flesh formation
DNA
supreme
for
cause.
***


VIRTUE
(Fibonacci – inverted)

In
all
corners
of the world
man desecrates
his virtue by circumvention.
He manipulates rules, blindfolds
truth by cunning acts
to deceive
even
him
self.

***


Predator (a Villanelle)
Where man crafted his evil thoughts
To execute his wicked deed
Be defiant of his supports.

No matter his lure to his lots
Money feathers his lustful greed
Where man crafted his evil thoughts.

In dire straits man sees all your faults
And bears down on your every need
Be defiant of his supports.

With evil mind man comes across
To solicit you to concede
Where man crafted his evil thoughts.

Where he makes home run for his spots
And sees you as bait for his breed
Be defiant of his supports.

Nothing fearful as afterthought
Is a man’s portend to succeed
Where man crafted his evil thoughts
Be defiant of his supports.

1 comment :

  1. THANKS to Editor-in-Chief, Anurag Sharma and Editor (English), Sunil Sharma for publishing my poems in this August 2019 issue of SETU. Much appreciated.
    ~ Leonard Dabydeen

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