Translator

Stranger to both lands,
Native to one,
Feeling the way,
(Blind and blindfolded)
From where I am
To where (I know not)
I want to be.

masks

black anger
that demands release
in scarlet tears
must yet be appeased
by salt, torn
from a raging heart,
and half-fed,
retreat behind,
be held captive by,
a solemn countenance.

how easily are they fooled,
who wish so to be,
till even those who
saw it in the making
doubt its veracity,
and all the fragile bridge
comes tumbling down
at a single wrong touch
and you and i drift,
again, inexorably apart.

Me

'I contain multitudes',
But only one can reign;
I shan't fly on coloured wings
From a shredded shell,
But, snake-like, shed my skin
And save my fangs.

Fever Dream

Common familiar faces
Fronting the heads of
Antique and imagined
Demons, heroes, gods.
Simple, sordid things
Inflating into myth:
Myth deflating sadly
Into daily life;
And this fever-dream
That watches with its
Thousand shuttered eyes.

Entwined

A thousand twisting desires trap me in their tangling coils,
Fill the soft darknesses of my soul with hope and hatred,
Love and despair, till I cannot think, cannot act,
Cannot stand, can barely breathe, past the tight twists
That choke my throat, crush my ribs,
And yet I must stiffen my crippled spine,
Torture my jaw into the semblance of a smile,
And do the hundred munadane duties
Of an oh-so-normal life.

Unmasking

Alone in the dark,
I pull off the last mask—
Gently, carefully,
Though my fingers
Tremble with the desire
To destroy this, even this,
The last of my defenses.
I would not recognize
The face that’d look
Out the mirror
If I dared face one now.
Better to do this rarely,
And only in the warm embrace
Of all-accepting Night.

(no) man is an island

A multitude surrounds me,
Looks, angry/ sad/ pitiful,
Through the unbreakable walls
That enclose/ protect/ confine me.
Theirs tears do not move me,
Nor their joys touch my heart—
Should, but never yet have.
Always at a remove,
Always alone/ aloof,
I walk my solitary path,
Lonely in a crowded room.

Watching

Like a ‘realistic’ soap opera,
On a giant TV screen,
Life unfolds in front
Of my hazy eyes,
And I stare, transfixed,
As actors wearing the faces
Of people I think I know,
Deliver their lines
To an unseen camera.
But when they turn to me,
I drop my cues and
Fumble my lines—
Forever a mere spectator
In the drama of my life.