it’s coming

In the scorching heat, the thick
Air is frozen, the birds fly low,
Silent, the sweaty citizens move
About the bleak streets, slow
As oversize flies.

On his shabby porch at the edge of
Town, Vigilante focuses his telescope
At the blurry border of the visible
Landscape humming something
Guttural and unsettling.

He pours whiskey generously
Into an opaque glass, shakes
The ice cubes, takes a good swig,
Quacks with content scratching
His unshaven, prominent chin
And begins to wait.

m94

Some scientists suggest that African “Adam and Eve”-or at least a small group of genetically similar group of hunter-gatherers -lie at the base or a manybranched human family tree? The trial of mutation coalesces in a single Y-chromosome whose owner lived between 40.000 to 140.000 years ago in Africa? Because every man on the planet now carries that mutation named M94, scientists like to call this man “Genetic Adam.” There were other human beings living at the same time. Their lineages simply did not make it to the present. — AP News

Genetic Adam (his name sounds
“Uh-Uh in local language) finds himself
illuminated watching the lightning
splitting the bulging baobab tree
in two, greedy flames
tongue the tree guts,
Uh-Uh’s neurons fire,
his brain spins – he grabs
a cindering branch
and dashes back to his cave.
“Let it be light!” Uh-Uh growls
raising his torch victoriously.

Full of awe, his tribe folk
retreated to the dark corners,
but stepping carefully over the border
marked by undulating shadows,
Eve (they called her Yoee-Yoee),
walks into the circle of light,
curiosity and desire spark in her eyes
mixing with flames’ reflections,
the wise one, Yoee-Yoee knows –
mutation A94 requires
a good fuck.

agnostic reflections

Almost two centuries ago
Duke Tolstoy had written this,
smiling cunningly in the snowy
immensity of Russia:
Spit in the eyes of these who claim
they can embrace the boundlessness.
This morning
I spit into the mirror
and try to clean
the toothpaste dripping
from the hibernating
vertical puddle of mercury,
a graveyard of many eyes –
it never reflects anything,
only steals.
I trust no Alice
wearing every face –
the wonderland
is on my side.

The master of my own illumination,
I flip the light switch off
and walk away
leaving the darkness contained
behind the closed door
in the bathroom.

adjustment

Transformation as a form
of trance does not guarantee
that delirious centipede trapped
in a Franz Kafka dream
will tear through the fabric
of mute nightmares and recursive
mutations to become a little girl
in white dress lost in the cloud
of dandelions just a few steps
from the garden fence
and her mother smiling obliviously
to the blank serene sky.

Transition as a form of
transmission feeds on itself
from vibration to vibration
broadcasting every want
liberated by every heartbeat
pushing the universe to expand
a little more, so a little boy
with bruised knees will run again
towards his father turning the corner
of a country lane immersed
in the soft light of one July
evening that never ends.

the singing

when I become this rain
and these dark still trees
touching the restless air
with their swollen buds,
I will be this soft humid night,
and this golden shining lamp
by the window in a quiet room.
I will become you, and you
will be a bird, perched
on a naked tree branch,
a ruffled sparrow crazy with
spring, full of longing, delight,
and pain that will become
this song, but
who will be the singer?

this poem is the winner of Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry 2000