watch as lazy sweet days of

cool lake breeze licking at sticky skin

scarlet mandevillas opening their strumpet leaves, wilting, opening again

kissing as raindrops slip down and become a glassy stream (when we breathe our

faces, empty and confused, stare up from watery glass)

dancing under sizzling blue light of mosquito lamps

singing your name to the unruly wind (hearing it dissipate, rippling richly across space &

time)

 

evaporate

like a half glass of French Chardonnay left

out on the wood porch swing

in blistering August sun

(oh there’s nothing left but tendrils of the scent of rotten grapes, wrapping round and

round the senses, python of tannins, wrangling, strangling)

 

sometimes, in the fall,

i think of you and blistering August sun.

 

sometimes, in the fall,

i think

of all the Chardonnay, headier than before,

still left

out on the riviera.

 

 

“Petition of an Atheist”

Qiuming Yang

 

Lord,

If you exist, in any shape or form,

Please take away my anguish

And appease the tempest in my heart.

For it has ravaged the peaceful calmness

That is the sanctuary of my thoughts.

 

The sweet and clear stream in which my psyche flourished,

Now flows as bitterly as the water of Acheron.

The loss of a paradise gave birth to a dystopia.

After all they are only one step apart.

 

In no battle can two victors emerge,

One’s luck is another’s misfortune.

The sweeter the victory,

The more bitter the defeat.

 

Out! Hideous sight!

The greater part of grief is a false creation of the mind.

Where reality relents, nightmare takes its toll.

Is this the genesis of insanity?

 

Lord,

Please forgive me,

Because I do not believe in you,

But for the moment you are my only light.

Amen.

 

The burden of living brings much fatigue,

The world’s wickedness makes the hurt hurt more.

Despair spreads like an all-consuming plague,

Death stands as the only wide open door.

 

Flowers wilt and crickets cry,

The song of perishing anguish

Echoes through the land where the fallen lie.

The spirits of vengeance never vanquish.

 

Fiery torch burns in relentless wrath,

Humanity ends where savagery starts,

Mercy doth cure the plague if thou hath,

Sanctuary lies not in the Devil’s heart.

 

“Poem”

Anonymous

 

I don’t remember much about

The night

You told me you loved me

In a room littered

With bags and changes of clothes

Things to spend the night

Her picture watched you

From its place on the wall

Smiling

As you took my face in your hands

And kissed me

My pulse racing

Trying to keep up with your chaotic slur of words

Eyes glazed over

By a mist

We called love