Miscellaneous

© 2000 Nin

I keep every souvenir anyone ever handed me. You are one.
I put you inside the glass tower with all the rest
-- with the Shanghai bears and miniature chinaware
Manchester memorabilia, porcelain ducks from Russia
stainless steel cats with red ribbons choking their necks
postcards of the Ozarks, the Yang-Tze and the Seine
colorblind little this and that from Kazakhstan and Miami.
I love knickknack, keepsakes and generally useless possession
You are one.
But don't get me wrong, I worship you just like a pagan
I dust you every day, whether it's raining or it's dry
and I won't let anyone, not even God
touch anything inside the glass tower, my temple of trivia.
In my lexicon you are with the miscellania
Meaning this and that, and all that is trivial
because life is nothing but an endless trial
a little bit at once, a little bit of forever.

Last Christmas

© 2000 Nin

To return by giving like for like, to retaliate
as I held there the Christmas cards, and tried to inhale
back the tears that were stubbornly streaming out
-- last Christmas you were no more.

A retroversion, pulling me back to those days in the rain
-- December had never been so revolting
-- not even with the thing I hate most, the strawberry pudding.

The rhapsody composed under the palm, where is it now, does it have
enough sun?
"Hey scribe," my sun said, "why the scraggy verses, huh, why?"
-- it fries me dry, nothing else could come out now.

So this is the script as much as I can yield
It kind of takes me in the scruff, but that's all I could do
-- everything is unspeakable because all reminds me of you.

Almost
is good enough sometimes. Things are renascent,
sedative moons and stars
screwed up too and then come
again as if new.
Life
is a winding liquid stuff
around an invisible center like
the thread of a screw.
There
almost is plural, a sporadic spatter
but the whole spectrum is there.
Sprites
of the past, the stark naked fiasco
will it hold you back
when it is now the morrow?

Almost
is good enough sometimes. An almost love,
an almost happiness, almost at the top
of a staircase --
better than a stagnant lair
better than a be somewhere
before the almost was nearer.

Chagrin

© 2000 Nin for Vic Joachim

Purblind beasts in colors, brother, I have had seen too. Sunsets
are at many skies pure red. The cougar with a green beret smiled
an iron smile, the tear gas blurred the vision and nobody saw him
fired. These Protozoa, this lowest form of life, they multiply
by self-division. Proximo, what it all would amount to, do you know?
Proviso, all hell would break loose if they are given a chance to.
I could sleep no more since the days when
there was always smoke in the air, and
hatred prowled in my way as well.
Even prudence was hardly in sight.
Tears were shed no more either, they have become
some volcanic lava. Pyroclastic sorrow --
From the green fields I told the wind to hold you tonight, though.
Give it a little room, shut down the firewall,
just a sec is what I ask for,
the love in you still has the pulse
or else you won't be there
or anywhere at all.

Lone Piper
© 2000 Nina Wilhelmina

Lunch was almost over. You stared at the busy people
rushed from and to everywhere, deaf
while your tunes filled up a little space in the air
-- smog
quickly swallowed them like a petal of rose falls into the abyss.
You played your songs, though --
weren't really aware of your empty system --
you hadn't even got breakfast yet -- but
once you took the sax
it wasn't you anymore, it was a well-fed
rich soul, the street minstrel
was at rest.
A dog sniffed your box and smelled
nothing of the decaying cents
that should be there. The people still rushed about,
minding the clocks, worried about their bosses up
there behind the glass towers, hot and grey
as summer kicked every living thing on the butt
and ignited the destructive fire within people's hearts
-- you played your songs, though --
weren't conscious of how ears around you
were safe-deposit boxes' doors
and they have lost the keys and codes
ages ago.
As your tunes gently disappeared into the clunky air
the soul who yielded the melodies knew very well
the man's hungry enough, but his music would never dissipate
-- around the corner, a little boy with a black eye
was listening, and he
had stopped crying.

Residue
© 2000 Nina Wilhelmina

To a pawnbroker I took
the remnants of you,
but he told me none would ever get
so desperate as to use credit cards on
a long gone madness.

The Sky I See Not
© 2000 Nina Wilhelmina

The orange kisses the yellow tint
some red, some ochre, some golden shade
-- the birds fly across, the afternoon steps down --
"Wish you can see all this," you said --
"Wish this sky I can share"
-- but yes, you're doing just that.

The sky I see not is the sky you get
but isn't this futile to ponder upon? When yours is mine
in us, what meaning is there on such a possession?

Inherent in love
inlet to whatever is yours whatever is mine
-- Infinity is the thing we purchase
by having us, even if there is inflation.

The More I Blast
© 2000 Nina Wilhelmina

Germicide I drink a lot
The commercials lied
Germs stayed alive in a closer knot
And me, I died.

Languor of rain season
When dreams are buoyant
And green plants
outside grow up giants.

Larva of discontentment
Spread itself under the lazy short-lived sun
Got tanned.

The more I blast
the thicker the wall becomes
Distrust colonizes
every nook of my mind.

Maybe Asleep
© 2000 Nina Wilhelmina

When darkness descends fear wakes up
Its belly is empty, hunger does gnaw at
its vacuum head.
Out it goes looking for prey
Eyeing you, in fact. Go hide.
Love may knocks over your head but
fear gets you eaten alive.
It's silent now. It rains outside without a noise
-- or am I going deaf? I know you grip your pillow tight.
Watchout.
It's not coming from under your bed
It's in your head.
Still silence and nothing else yet
Fear seems to be getting its vacation somewhere else
or maybe asleep.

Clandestine
© 1999 Nin

This klan is so tight
no air it vents
Nor any to get in.

The conspiracy of trivia has prevented
me from many things otherwise have been
done and over with from now, several lightyears.

Why do I cry while nothing seems so blue
unless your eyes is included
for which I wouldn't even bid?

This secret society thrives
on my tears every night.

First Leaf
© 1999 Nin

First leaf in the rain wakes up
with a soft yawn
Out here, the meadow and the silent sun
Life stands still, souls move in slow-motion.
How do we know an always?
Leaves are born
-- Depends on your eyes,
They might go on,
or sink back to oblivion.

Honey, You're Home

© 2000 Nin

Honey, you're home
-- wherever you are.

Be it the sand tickling your toes
or some slippery floor,
you breathe the air, you're there,
you're home.
Strange food upsets your belly
and the foreign smog hits you hard,
but you sleep there at night,
your dreams follow you,
you're home.
Steel bars might make your door
and someone else holds the keys,
but you're resting your soul there,
you're home,
you're free.

Holding Back the Years

© 2000 Nin

Holding back the years, the stories which nuances have been long gone
on pages of scrapbooks only fading colors remain in action
and days go mercilessly by, and the pictures fade even more.

Holding back the sorrow, go the whole hog, sending off signals of giving it up
-- you are blessed, baby, with having no past
-- not a straw of the things which I have in excess.
Let me propose
a toast for your health.
If you can manage the ahistorical life
after the next tenth month of March --
when maybe you go bald as you're afraid of
what your hysterical little wife complains of
how your dirty little kids never be proud of
-- Let me propose
a toast for your health.

Holding back the tears, homage to the outdated firebombs
I retain them like a sink everybody has let clogged
-- you are blessed, dear, with having no remorse
-- not a drop of what I have seven oceans of.

Ye

© 2000 Nin

In the backyard of this world old purple
sunset dives like a tear
at the corner of the sky. Clouds --
tenth shade of grey -- fly about, shreds of a cry
are left drifting by seagulls
who forgot the way home.
Everywhere I send eyes to, still I see
you. Though this sea isn't even blue. Relics
of things past, sand that has known
too much, a crab walks like
it avoids its own shadow, and I am iced
the cold wind whips me hard. Soon it will be night
-- the same black has been starting to land.
Soon it will be night --
I don't think I can bear that old friend of mine.
I dreamed of showing you this sea -- the waterway
that sew my world and one of thee, but
the sun went down and it
didn't give me morning. Now
that I wish I were nowhere, the night
from thirteen hours before
from your back porch
sneers at me at my here.
The last time I saw your eyes they were on fire
I was a pile of pyre, what stands on the sand now
is all burnt, as grey as the obese clouds there
but not so lucky, the east wind is now keen
to blow away everything but me.
You wouldn't know how it feels like to lose
you, sunrise -- makes gold out of dew, young grass
waking up with a loud silence, nighthawks
pull off the curtains -- how hard a never is to me
even when it is to this life most ordinary. June has
never been so empty. Yet your voice is still filling me up
and what I have you can never take back.