Waiting Room

The woman with the portable oxygen tan
is standing in front of the exotic fish tank
looking at the fish. The woman looks like the fish
with her bulging eyes and yellow raincoat and exotic
portable oxygen tank. The fish tank is
too small for the fish, thinks the woman. If only
it were bigger, she could breathe easier.
The fish swim back and forth, back and forth,
looking for the way out. They think there is one.
They think if they keep looking they will find it.
Death is the only way out of the exotic fish tank,
thinks the woman. The dead ones are lifted out
by a living hand, which the fish probably think
is the long hand of Death. It scares them and they
scatter. But it's the same hand that feeds them,
this hand that lifts them gently up when they are
no more. It cares for them. It loves them. It would
hold them to itself, if only they could be held and
live. But they can't, thinks the woman, looking down
at the small bones of her own hand, and lifting it up
to adjust her breathing tube, inhales jaggedly, floats away.

~ Paul Hostovsky

Order Of Things

ORDER OF THINGS

There is a rightful order found
Beyond the things that seem to be,
Something beneath the surface seen
Hidden behind prevalent schemes.

I know this fact through feelings felt
in such relief that come to mind,
When in life I do my bit
And leave results to Spirit's will.

There is a rightful order found
In which Spirit our lives arrange,
Giving us what we rightly earn
With precision in circumstance,

Designed to rhyme and meet somehow
In a rightful order, time, and place.

~ Oliver Mbamara

Cousin Coat

You are my secret coat. You're never dry.
You wear the weight and stink of black canals.
Malodorous companion, we know why
It's taken me so long to see we're pals,
To learn why my acquaintance never sniff
Or send me notes to say I stink of stiff.

But you don't talk, historical bespoke.
You must be worn, be intimate as skin,
And though I never lived what you invoke,
At birth I was already buttoned in.
Your clammy itch became my atmosphere,
An air made half of anger, half of fear.

And what you are is what I tried to shed
In libraries with Donne and Henry James.
You're here to bear a message from the dead
Whose history's dishonoured with their names.
You mean the North, the poor, and troopers sent
To shoot down those who showed their discontent.

No comfort there for comfy meliorists
Grown weepy over Jarrow photographs.
No comfort when the poor the state enlists
Parade before their fathers cenotaphs.
No comfort when the strikers all go back
To see the twenty thousand get the sack.

Be with me when they cauterise the facts.
Be with me to the bottom of the page,
Insisting on what history exacts.
Be memory, be conscience, will and rage,
And keep me cold and honest, cousin coat,
So if I lie, I'll know you're at my throat.

~ Sean O' Brien

Happy Independence Day!

XII PEACE

I seek for Peace -I care not where 'tis found:
On this rude scene in briars and brambles drest,
If peace dwells here, 'tis consecrated ground,
And owns the power to give my bosom rest;
To soothe the rankling of each bitter wound,
Gall'd by rude Envy's adder-biting jest,
And worldly strife; -ah, I am looking round
For Peace's hermitage, can it be found? -
Surely that breeze that o'er the blue wave curl'd
Did whisper soft, "Thy wanderings here are blest."
How different from the language of the world!
Nor jeers nor taunts in this still spot are given:
Its calm's a balsam to a soul distrest;
And, where Peace smiles, a wilderness is heaven.

~ John Clare

To Sleep Less And Dream More

If for a moment God were to forget that I am a rag doll and granted me a piece of life, I probably wouldn't say everything that I think; rather, I would think about everything that I say.

I would value things, not for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep less, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes, we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep, I would listen when others talk.

And how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!

If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serrat song would be the serenade I'd offer to the moon.

I would water roses with my tears, to feel the pain of their thorns and the red kiss of their petals... My God, if I had a piece of life... I wouldn't let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them.

I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would live in love with love.

I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to be in love!

To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own. I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetting.

So much have I learned from you, oh men ... I have learned that everyone wants to live at the top of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.

I have learned that when a newborn child first squeezes his father's finger in his tiny fist, he has him trapped forever.

I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet.

From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won't be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying.

~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez