Asterion ~ Wednesday, 31 January 2018

Pretend I didn't know they brought children to play boisterously inside

Running through the darkness screaming making echoes laughing out of terror

Only when energy drops when the halls grow silent do I know when their fear

Practically falls asleep and they are unaware I have no shame nor pride

Only hunger demands tribute from city-states like Athens or Dublin

Succulent flesh from Greece with olive oil coating their skin without error

Ask me not my plans outside the labyrinth smoke cigarettes drink beer

Likely I will die here my karma is darker than the pitch of this cave

Monsters may be deformed children who look like bulls forced to devour the skin

Over tiny muscles the meat of small children never cooked always raw

Develop a dark taste acquired for sashimi or raw fish from the sea

England starved those children in Ireland sent them to Crete covered in straw

Swift essayed before Joyce described Cork as a maze breakfast with Earl Grey tea

Tranquil before their deaths children sacrificed life with adults none too brave

Exiles ~ Tuesday, 30 January 2018

Reserve the right to write

under heteronyms

to Pessoa his name

Underscores all the rest

characters as authors

of their own written work

Include my given name

of Portuguese descent

as parcel to the lie

Careers based on fiction

decide the fate one leads

as a Goan the game

American children

play with Non-Resident

Indians like myself

Raised in Huntington Beach

California so far

away from Colva Beach

Lost in America

children play hide and seek

the struggle to touch home

Only to find my way

with a Portuguese name

where native people smirk

Savage smiles behind backs

of foreign-born children

like myself born to spy

Deemed no better than dogs

immigrants born elsewhere

natives kick and we bite

Apparently our tongues

in the face of power held

by those born into wealth

Create power from nothing

nothing but the difference

between persons we teach

Understanding today

not forty years ago

when the streets I did roam

Never lost in this land

your land my land our land

their land for those who come

Home to America

land of milk and honey

in my coffee or tea

Answer me this my friends

when I leave this country

may I without a fight

Seek to return back home

to Hyde Park Chicago

where hands and feet go numb

Running in the winter

over black ice and snow

until my heart is free

☆ Epistle to the Pope ~ Friday, 26 January 2018

Dear Pope Francis,

          After suffering from the flu, I came to realize somehow in this lifetime I entered into hell, I fell off the radar, no search party could find my eternal soul, damned as I was before birth, before my conception. I was born a Goan, an Indian whose name derives from Portuguese conquests in South Asia. My parents moved after my birth, their second son, from Bombay to London. After only three months, I have never set foot back on Indian soil. We moved to Kew Gardens, New York after three years, then to Huntington Beach, the West Coast, where I grew up in California, only two years later. Yes! My parents were both born Sagittarians, on the very same date, only one year apart. Thus, they were on the move as if I were a child in the military, getting stationed elsewhere every couple of years. My parents raised both me and my older brother to be worthy children of Roman Catholic and Franciscan background. Our Church on Magnolia Avenue was Spartan and not lavish at all. I came to cherish this memory as a fact of the tenets our Church instilled of poverty, of humility, and of charity but I, as a child, was wicked. I would never obey. Perhaps since my father found in the alcohol he drank after long nights as a flight controller a comfort not even his wife or his two boys could offer in exchange. Thus, I learned to rebel in disobedience to my parents who beat me into submission. And thus, I was conceived in Hell as the offspring of the Great Deceiver himself, a mythical creature, literary and not of biblical origin as I read. 

To act out, I lit fires, like a young arsonist, and stole from my parents like any petty thief. Trouble was my first cause, unlike Archimedes, it was my fulcrum point from which to move the earth. But trouble does not come with a lever itself. My whole life, I acted the role of the black sheep within my own family. I acted as scapegoat and as the lunatic, the crazy, insane son who can do little right. But then, I found my love to read philosophy in college and to write little, silly poems. Perhaps, I discovered I am a late bloomer. 

After losing my mind, as a twenty year old, I turned to Buddhism to resolve my issues with my rotten childhood. Sitting meditation helped to ground my thinking. I am now forty-eight years old, without children, but my girlfriend and I have four cats as our kids. I went back to running in long-distance races after getting laid-off at the bookstore I worked at for eleven long years in the basement under a seminary here in Hyde Park, Chicago. I started a Master's Program to learn Writing but have yet to finish because I fail to find funding to pay for school. But this is of little concern and consequence to me unless I can help rid the world of hate and power politics which plays on prejudice and even racism. 

But the reason I write to you is that you are the sole person who can make amends to nations to right the wrongs of past leaders throughout the world. Yes, it may sound insane but an apology made by you for each wrong committed by the Church throughout all history may make our small planet a better place for all the sentient beings to live in harmony, or to strive to achieve healthier relations with everyone on board.

My whole life may be hell, and I may be in Hell imagining my life as a simulacrum of what was in fact real but now is illusion, this illusory world of ignorance and greed. What can I do to get a Get Out of Jail Free card from Monopoly? This hell is my prison, this life is my jail cell. Death, I fear cannot come soon enough in my life to end the suffering. 

          Yours affectionately, 

          Rui Carlos da Cunha 

Papal Bull ~ Friday, 26 January 2018

Francis my dear padre

I am in grave trouble 

it appears I'm in hell 

Rest assured in my mind 

no one can save my soul 

but you if you so choose 

As to my own background 

I was raised Catholic 

but gave it up for Lent 

Not to poke fun at you 

I left at age twenty 

when the Eucharist bell 

Clanged daintily beside 

the altar by the boy 

set to perform the task 

Insists he saw a light 

travel across the room 

into my yawning mouth 

Symptoms of my downfall 

came four years previous 

Mass seemed like pantomime 

Curiously absurd 

my laughter annoyed friends 

who thought me born to lose 

Understand my giggles 

prevented my return 

the Spirit was hell bent 

Search my soul as to why 

but I knew possession 

was a demonic art 

Pray for me before sleep 

my soul to keep me safe 

is this too much to ask 

Arrest me before death 

stops my heart from beating 

my health is going south 

Perhaps it's just the flu 

helped me to realize 

I cannot eclipse time 

As you see in my name 

from Portugal by way 

of the sword to convert 

Mark my words my family 

Goans from India 

know not our genome source 

Even if you could rid 

my soul of the devil 

wherever would I start 

Urgent as this matter 

appears to my own mind 

to get you to divert 

Mea culpa I confess 

your attention to say 

sorry the Church used force

Fever ~ Thursday, 25 January 2018

If I should die before the dawn remember me if you can bear this life was mine for a short while you helped me live gave me shelter fed me loved me I know no one other than you who has served me as a patron a beloved to my person upon this earth you kiss my head when I am sick you kiss my lips when I am well I am sorry I could not put order to house and home with cats and books throughout my forehead warm as fires I set when but a child to burn in hell if it exists my body cramps my hands contort the pain is great but naught compared to the brimstone that awaits me I am no friend of God above the myths we make to explain pain sorrow this world on fire I burn not eternal but here and now in this body this shell of life this warm vessel full of warm blood why did I wait so long to ask you to marry my own person you know as well as I betrayal as a phoenix rise from ashes you my dear Pam are my anchor you ground my boat when the weather bodes tornados run run run run when I feel well to recover from injury in sport as well as in marriage divorce a game no Catholic born into Church and raised to feel disappointment as to enter never to see my father's face in his casket since my brother and my mother their insolence grand and profound cannot undo that day's events nor the backlash that continues until her death and his as well if I should die before their deaths do not invite them to take part in any grand celebration of this my life they would not know how much I hate their own persons for one can love and only hate love abandoned if my ship sails towards sunrise past horizon into the dark reaches of night do not worry I am now free and you always deep in my heart

A Rose ~ Wednesday, 24 January 2018

Rui's my name a name 

even my mother can't 

teach me how to pronounce 

As I grew old enough 

to meet perfect strangers 

not just children who rhyme 

Needlessly for humor 

to create a distance 

between the foreigner 

Directly before them 

the son of immigrants 

they must somehow denounce 

Of course to understand 

how a Portuguese name 

and an Indian boy 

Make sense in the real world 

you must know how a sword 

converts people to faith 

Ask the perfect strangers 

how they pronounce my name 

and confusion rises 

Confusion because R 

at the start of my name 

sounds like a language crime 

Criminals say hooey

to distilling moonshine

sit me in the corner

Entertaining a dunce

who can't even pronounce

his fully given name

Simple for a small boy

in Lisbon or Rio

but I felt like a toy

Simpleminded children

could pull a cord to hear

a rhyme cut on a lathe 

Miraculously life

could never stunt my wit

intellect in sizes

Even I couldn't know

the brain a strange muscle

convoluted in turns

Mapping such turns as rhymes

I created a form

of poetry no one

On Earth will ever try

to mimic something mine

no one will try to tame

Realize I came here

not against my own will

but not by choice returns

You never earn interest

on such an investment

with my life near half done 

The Salamander Speaks ~ Wednesday, 24 January 2018

13 

         love is not love when love 

Fashions nooses around

the house to show dismay to contrive arguments 

in order to debate the merits      of conflict 

to talk and talk and talk 

                                             never to just shut up 

In the grocery store mother and daughter show 

their verbal jousting skills 

in order to discuss openly their struggle 

with each other they seethe 

with contempt and dislike to find no common ground 

probably for the best we disrespect children 

Leave the matter alone

you say the children know 

nothing about raising dysfunctional parents 

we cannot raise ourselves 

let alone teach children 

who reveal our values to everyone around 

Teach adults what children 

already know so well

Everyone is equal even if we decide

to treat someone special 

Remove the need to hate 

to pluck a white daisy 

14 

Kiss and make up then buy 

the cat litter you told your kid you can't afford 

who in the fuck am I

I ask myself to butt in to involve myself 

in their hot mess one aisle over hidden away 

their engaged agression 

Little philosophy 

remains in my pea brain 

To stay away and take the high road to observe 

with my ears not my tongue

an anthropologist 

Even if I knew what 

exactly to tell them 

Really to you believe 

they would listen to me 

a stranger from abroad 

unqualified to judge 

to get caught up in games 

I really know nothing 

about just bite my tongue 

and bide my time until the wickedness is gone 

☆ Misterioso ~ Wednesday, 24 January 2017

Last night I died just like you in my sleep 

Although I died from pneumonia 

Still the fact remains I died the same night 

The very same night that you died 

Nobody knew we would die together 

If they did someone would have done something 

Glad to know no one intervened 

However obvious the fact remains 

That I died and you died without a plan 

I could not have killed you not in my sleep 

Did I mention I died of pneumonia 

I could barely breathe with these inflamed lungs 

Enter the delirium state 

Did I mention I called the hospital 

Just as I was falling asleep 

Until they arrived with an ambulance 

Still the fact remains I died just last night 

Timing is everything with clear vision 

Lapses in certainty 

In arrivals and departures 

Kings and queens at the gates 

Enter my delirium to tell me 

Yes you did call 911 in your dreams 

Obviously it wasn't effective 

Until the ambulance arrives just sleep

Insist you did everything that you could 

Nobody needed to die just last night 

Mercy comes in the form of an angel 

Yes my delirium caused me to dream 

Sleep can be calm or fever pitch 

Like heaven or hell as we imagine 

Enter the gates at the airport 

Enter my illogical dreams 

Perhaps I didn't die what if I did 

The Ghost of the Clam ~ Tuesday, 23 January 2018

On his deathbed the poet made 

arrangements yeah you know 

Necessary to make his peace 

with his life but not the people 

He met along the way people 

in his family who treated him 

In a bad way they simply didn't care 

back in the seventies they harmed 

Shaker with their terror tactics 

they didn't care about the child 

Disappointed by his parents 

as an adult he turned tables 

Endless psychological games 

only alcoholics know how to play 

Ask them whether or not they knew 

they turned a blind eye 

To his older brother and his cousin 

upstairs laughing as the boy screamed 

Holy terror of the dark soul destroyed 

by people he trusted what a mistake 

Believe me when I say he made 

arrangements with people 

Endgame plans to destroy 

not his family but their families 

Despite years of bad blood he made 

sure they would remember 

They would be forced to watch 

their own adult children and wives 

Helplessly watch as men trampled 

with horses over their loved ones 

Endless torture comes to an end 

once his brother and cousin learn 

People are people from their birth 

not to be ridiculed abused 

Only because you have the strength 

of character to fear no reprisals 

Endless torture enters sensitive souls 

at a young age belittling the child 

Terror is a tactic used in wrestling 

to tag-team an opponent into helplessness 

Maybe the arrangements never needed 

to be made the poet held his cards close 

Ask him why he studied Russian 

in college and Shaker will smile 

Definitely he knew what they did not 

he saw what was coming he played his hand 

Even if they hadn't treated him bad 

as a child he couldn't ever forget 

Ask him for forgiveness too late 

the seeds were sewn decades before 

Reason plays no part in blackmail 

when nothing is expected in return 

Realize some brothers are so different 

that favoritism made one son appear 

Adopted by his birth mother 

and his alcoholic father 

Nobody knows how to turn the tables 

on his own family better than Shaker 

Give them what they expect 

no do the opposite 

Engage when they retreat 

disappear when they need his help

Maybe he should have killed his mom

and dad when they first threatened him 

Endless games of torture they knew 

so well taught their eldest son to abuse 

Never would meet with reprisals 

but laughter all around drunk with laughter 

To this end Shaker lay on his deathbed 

knowing full well his plans after dying 

Simply couldn't benefit anyone 

nor could his only book of poetry 

The Salamander Speaks ~ Monday, 22 January 2018

9 

Creativity sucks the marrow from my bones 

      especially when down sick with influenza 

seriously you sneak into my home to eat 

On the lamb and expect me to get back in touch

       with you at the prison now they put you away 

       for good forevermore 

when you became my friend 

Locusts swept through Egypt 

like gypsy caravans on the move through Europe 

Liquidate the Roma 

As you said so you did 

but they were just children 

Really you couldn't find anyone your own size 

10 

Gifted and talented education for sick bastards beyond repair at least I learned to give the executioner a wide berth the hangman his love of sailors' knots the governor whisky and a box of cigars bribery may not win an election by votes 

Ask the last governor while you're in the big house 

Last I heard they lost the keys for that bastard 

Lo and behold the lights continue to brown out 

Organize a party to search for your childhood 

Wonder how you turned out to become the sick fuck out of all of my friends 

11 

        ask me why you blackguard 

Maybe if I answer the post-it note you left 

As cryptic a message

as if an Enigma began working again

to save Nazi soldiers 

Recently discovered 

Ready to kill poses frozen corpses survive 

as if an episode

of The Twilight Zone caught 

them unexpectedly ready to shoot half-dead 

Oświęcim 

po polsku 

Oświęcim 

Widows of prisoners

in concentration camps 

Forget I speak of such 

matters such sad marvels 

Over the years we read to absorb the horror 

to root ourselves in fear and trembling at terror 

Lessons in faith taught me humility before 

call it what you may God the malicious demon 

the prime mover of breath worked me into frenzy 

Lessons of this nature 

learned from history books taught me to grind my teeth 

On the rocks of hatred against those who do harm 

but when it came to you 

Windows to imagine gave you license to kill 

and God couldn't care less 

12 

Pretend I didn't say anything about God the imaginary entity beyond sense beyond our own senses no one could imagine 

Art as a metaphor

for everything we sense 

everyday of the week

•    •    • 

Religion is a game 

for people to fight wars 

a reason beyond sense 

where emotions murder 

in the name of pure hate 

senseless incredulous 

appeal to blood vengeance 

does your God hold a sword 

Likely this is Justice 

potrayed as a woman 

Objectively blinded 

to appeals by mothers 

Reality creeps in when executioners 

sharpen blades to kill sons

The Salamander Speaks ~ Saturday, 20 January 2018

▪THE SALAMANDER SPEAKS 

5

Pallor in the mirror 

thirty-six thousand feet 

above surface level 

'1968'

Anticipates a rise 

in air cabin pressure your ears pop with delight 

Lift off means lunch lifts up to give voice to vomit 

your mouth projects 

6

Liquid contents inside 

a swiftly procured bag 

to dispose of with glee 

Order a martini 

dry gin shaken not stirred 

though even Bond   James Bond 

Required no moment 

of reprieve when the light 

struck his face his pallor 

7

Distinctly unlike green 

unlike your sallow face 

present in the mirror

Oboe plays concert A 

to tune the orchestra 

8

Lapsus memoriae 

a lapse of memory 

as to why I beseech 

you to entrust your faith 

if you can remember 

Lightly shuffling your feet 

in slippers on floorboards 

not to wake up the dead 

As the cemetery 

boasts no less than twenty 

freshly dug unmarked graves 

Revealed by police dogs 

hidden beneath your house 

what makes a man your age 

kill innocent children 

The Salamander Speaks ~ Saturday, 20 January 2017

▪THE SALAMANDER SPEAKS

1 

To state the obvious 

as ridiculous fact 

begs the reason to start 

Elegance comes in fits 

a momentary burst 

giddy to touch the flame 

Research debunks these myths 

without substance as false 

valid but plainly false 

Religion finds its place to worship and fixes meaning in that one spot to discover empty values to fill a void 

Only what happens when you leave that place for good you reflect on blind faith knowing full well you lack perspective and context in this very moment 

Resolve to understand truth comes when you stand still stopping dead in your tracks when you accept code blue as the only reason you are still alive now 

2 

However many times you iterate the same 

mundane morbid belief as logically valid 

Only a truth table could prove your argument 

worthy of attention 

although a professor may offer you a prize 

Reason scoffs at the flaw 

as inconsistency 

defects of character 

Rise in the face of lies 

in the need to pretend 

that honesty is false 

Only to state again 

and again things exist 

as if this overcomes 

Real world solipsism 

for intersubjective 

experience to gloss over authentic life 

as deceptive practice 

3 

Mirrors work to display 

the appearance of soul 

at the moment the soul 

Invents flight from body 

into an astral plane 

not unlike a worm hole 

Resemblance to the real 

is purely fictional 

and coincidental 

any persons you meet living or otherwise 

4

Reveal occurrences 

your imagination 

allows you to conjure 

as conjuror of ghosts 

Otherwise please fasten 

your seatbelts and enjoy 

Reality Airlines 

where we take your troubles 

multiply them by twelve to make you feel relaxed 

once we hit the tarmac 

Kiss Uranus Goodbye ~ Friday, 19 January 2018

Mr Gabidar draws 

a diagram to show
how a two-way mirror 

Inside my mind allows 

my subconscious to cleanse 
my conscience as night falls 

Swirling in a vortex 

dark matter stops my pulse 

cold I hear a blue note 

Travel the stars I spot 

the Archer time requires 

a margin of error 

Equal to perfect scores 

Nadia Comăneci

earned at fourteen my mind 

Reflects back to my soul 

within my boyish heart 

I hear a quartertone 

In walked Dub Master Slim 

to spin within astral 

gravity pinpoint sharp 

Open-heart surgery 

scalpels cut the needle 

drops in vinyl groove walls

Small as her back his scratch 

attains liftoff in ten 

seconds the countdown rote 

Orbiting my wax ears 

unaccustomed to style 

Mysterious is sprung 

Inaudible to ears 

naked even enhanced 

the speakers blip out blind 

Numerical data 

incomprehensible 

outside the gyrus cone 

Waltz through the Milky Way 

to the supermassive 

black hole hidden by warp 

At speeds too fast to hold 

sway over the engine  

this short life I aspire 

Lift the burden of proof 

to the court assembled 

I sense forces unknown 

Kiss Uranus goodbye 

Jah wobbles the center 

the balloon a bee stung 

Enter worried blue notes 

to set tones for cosmic 

disaster set on fire 

Dark star radiation 

ripples the universe 

the Whimper overblown