Sunday, October 5, 2008

Poems - Zosangliana

Amongst the Velvet

These slow decaying evening days
have made me familiar with narrow streets
and tiled pavements that pass.
I walk under half moons and shy stars
until I'm at the broken down theatre in the old neighbourhood
where outside the street boys on their street bikes are accelerating
faster away into the night.
Combusting fuel and reflected white noise are followed by silence
followed by my friend who from a thousand miles away calls on the phone.
But I can only answer with wooden words
because my thoughts can't quite mesh together
when summer exhales in this little town in the hills
because I'm the room that hasn't been opened in a long, long time,
because I'm still waiting for my ride
repentant yet still hesitant.
Because I don't want to move from order to chaos
like the street boys in fourth gear breathing in equal parts
of numbness and speed.



For New Beginnings

All is well

I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't
To pry fingers into scars
into trances of cleansed inboxes,
passions and anger and ambivalence
for each other
To break his spell, where all is well
is whispered into ears
and poured in sleep
Don't make a fool of a Paris
of yourself
to think you and yours
can be removed to
a city of good and gold
and roam the cornfields of imagined heavens
in sleep together
Remember who you are
without her,
and what all that you can be
without her.

4 comments:

  1. When i first read these poems i tried to post my comment but the net acted up so bad it couldn't be done and then somehow...

    Storyteller, i think we have another promising poet here. The picture of the poet walking on the street and the bikers shooting off etc. are quite good.

    However, there is still something tentative, something loose with the expressions. They should improve with more practice.

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  2. Yes, I agree we very definitely have a promising poet here who writes good, strong poetry. I especially like Amongst the Velvet with its imagery drawn from "this little town in the hills" that's both so evocative of Aizawl and yet so universal.

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  3. i was a bit hesitant when Caliopia wanted to show these poems here, because i never really thought of them as poems, but just as scraps or pieces, but complete by themselves. thank you for the encouragement

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  4. I think that's a far more realistic attitude to have, Zosang, you'd be amazed at the number of people who deliberately set out to write poetry and instead of coming up with a flow of thoughts, do weird, unpoetic things like count syllables in a line lol

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