Ovi poetry

Carina was never that kind of gal,
never to weep large and
never do in public.
So it took everybody aback
when flabby tears fell everywhere
over that queer situation.

In the first place,
Carina had never had it good.
She had never made money.
She had never had wealth.
She had never seen new hairstyle
or mirror her lipstick colours.

She had never before
had a chance to live
like a slick-magazine mannequin,
with time to play tennis,
ride and have cool butter sandwiches
but then she felt it once.

There was a swimming pool,
near the place she once lived,
ten steps away from
the apartment door.
A borrowed sofa in a led life,
two random contacts and a grief.

Of course, a private pool,
which was fine with Carina,
cause most of the people she knew
didn’t even have the chance to see a pool.
She could sit in the common outing and watch
people drink their martinis and milk.

Naturally, she could not rate all this,
nor be part, just put up as long it lasted.
Like the old man used to say,
life is full of seconds,
rarely some of them happy.
There is no happiness for us poor.

Carina lived a life sore and she
would have gone earlier to sleep
but this dream was a swimming pool alive
and kept her for day and the next
and the next till the day Carina slept for good,
herself swimming in a pool of blood.

You see son,
passageways of days
go through dark doubts
and confusion over
personal conflicts.

You see son
there are no awards,
no guidelines,
no security in life,
only intimidations.

You see son,
the ride is long
in its meaninglessness
and unbeaten through
its thorny clearance.

You see son
frustrations curse the course
and loss the broken thoughts,
the temptations,
the terrible negations.  

You see son,
the time of divinity,
the guillotine of finality
the moment to face
actuality never comes.

You see son
there is no morality
to the fact that
you just float away
in a stream never clean.

You see son
time in the end
runs out of
wavers and doubt,
an obstruction of choice,
while death awaits.

Rain lashed against the fire escape,
I know where you’re hiding.
The metallic clang echoes
in the narrow alley and
I can hear your heart beating.

Rain or shine, your heart is still beating lonely.
The cracked pavement stretched
beneath a canopy of fire escapes,
their rusted railings like
skeletal fingers clawing at the twilight sky.

Amidst all the overflowing dumpsters
and the peeling paint,
your heart still beats.
A bloody tomcat with a torn soul
and a perpetually grumpy expression.

She wasn’t always a resident
of this forgotten world.
She used to chase butterflies in a sun-drenched garden,
purring like a rusty engine
on a lap filled with warmth.

But that was another life, before the expulsion came.
The alley held no butterflies,
only the scuttling of unseen creatures
and the occasional drunkard stumbling
through on their way somewhere else.

She is a heart of a bloody tomcat
with a torn soul and a perpetually
grumpy expression.

A forgotten memory of
butterflies in a sun-drenched garden.

The transformation immediate.
A vibrant flame erupted from the ash,
chasing away the encroaching shadows.

Panic seized apathy’s inhabitants.
The familiar, emotionless world
was being challenged.

They tried to extinguish the flame,
hurling barbs of doubt
and apathy.

But ash held firm.
The fire within grew stronger,
fuelled by the forgotten dreams of the world.

It spread, flickering at first,
but then catching on
in the hearts of others.

A blacksmith, long resigned to cold metal,
felt the heat of inspiration and
began to forge anew.

An artist,
brush long dormant,
felt the passion to create.

The fire raged,
not with destruction,
but with the promise of rebirth.

As the flames danced,
casting flickering warmth on the land,
apathy began to melt away.

Fear remained.

Fear gnawed at him,
he could hear the shriek.
Telling on someone felt wrong
but the injustice simmered,
especially since
this somebody was plain him.
The crime was there
the wound open.

Grandpa always said,
“Do the right thing.”
So, with a deep breath,
he stood outside the imposing
brick building
took a deep breath and
admitted himself.
Wounds should heal.

The potentials were bright, good family,
devoted Christians and all that.
The mother down to earth
the father had working.

Then terminality came,
no permits discussed,
perceptions irrelevant,
devices almost sensible,
no clear anticipations.

Expectations superseded,
required to reminisce the last kiss.
Lust numb in acquisition for survival,
the good family,
the devoted Christians
became a fade remembrance had to remake,
surfacing only in dark flashes of desperation.

The clocks are clicking,
A reminder of the last trail to fondle dust.

Remember when the rat lied again
and the raven flew away?
Remember when the rat made you
guessing your own self,
your principals and stances.
When the raven flew away?

Remember when crossroads met
and building gave the clues?
Remember when the rat carrying
the smells of the deepest sewers
made you doubt?
When the raven flew away?

Remember when the rat
poisoned you with promises?
Remember when the rat soured
your deems, pushing
to the edge of the
absolute qualm?
When the raven flew away?

Remember?

‘Close the door,’ she said and
moved further in the dark.
‘I don’t like the light,
I hate the bright.’ She said
and she started crying.

He said nothing,
entered the room and
kept away from the stench.
Cheap vodka and sweat,
an insinuation of urine
in the back.

‘Not drunk,’ she fabled ghostly,
her eyes barely moving.
‘Just me,’
Just, I echoed her tone
desperately.
A chorus of fear.

Rackets dancing in
a horrendous plant of
boneless souls.
The tears silent ballet
a dramatic choreography.
A waltz of dread.

‘Not drunk,’ she whispered again,
‘not drunk.’
And the smell of
cheap vodka and sweat
drawn him into limitless misery.
The chain of lies.
Again!

Joel yelled, “I had a ghastly childhood,”
but Mona said nothing.
“I accept the apparent of oblivion,
the neglect and the eruption of loneliness
in a wretched early life.”
Mona said nothing.

“My most elementary demands
for some affection
always faced empty eyes,
a billion years of feeble deception.”
And Mona said nothing.

Joel leaped in the dark his voice trailing a gasp
and Mona was alone.
With or without Liam,
Mona always alone.

A tortured past her only companion
bouncing from one nightmare to the other,
ricochet of directed dim,
a dance of matters dark
and a sneeze of a childhood
Joel echo but never lived.

Mona said nothing.