Shades

Onyx eyes reflecting a solitary beam
Long halls delved down deep
Tracing ringing echoes across cracked tableaus
Seeking answers in ancient dirt

Why unearth old answers?
Why seek gods in the secreted corners?
Will they help us remember?
Will they restore our faith?

The myths of tombs are full of dangers
Long buried pressure plates
And propped up boulders
Ancient evils best left alone

Careful what your beam catches
As you probe down deep
Not everything is a reinforced arch
Some are old barbarisms

The ancient ruins of our past
Are tempting sirens retold in odes
While there is the occasional gem
Most are lies hiding ignorance

Look at the past with a Roman eye
Take the fables as foibles
And seek new treasures
Outside the tombs of the dead

Stop

“Stop fucking up,”
We say collectively
to ourselves.

It’s one part indictment
One part affirmation
and all a bit unconvincing.

Three wisteria bushes jut from a hunk of basalt
Marking the grave of someone so important
No one remembers how to spell their name.

Why do we even want to be remembered?
The age of Cadillacs has come and gone.
We’re always a step too late.

If everything is imitation,
why do I claw at the roots of my ancestors
Digging for deeper understanding?

Only two wisteria remain -
Lightning struck one and transformed it into charcoal
Suitable for a cave painting.

“Stop fucking up,”
We cry to the heavens
to no avail.

We needed to focus.
We had been divided
but, you showed us the way.
You showed us
what it really means
to be a senator.

You gave us a bad guy.
Showed us the heart of darkness.
Gave us a villain worthy of Hollywood.

After all, we love our action movies.
We like nice clean cut stories.
We needed someone really evil.
To really unite this country.

Lean into it, man.
Start wearing black,
practice your throaty voice
and your death grip.

You already got the backstory
You killed enough kids
Destroyed enough homes
Stood idly by
as the apocalypse kicked up

Redirect tax payer dollars
Fund you final opus.
It needs to stand with the greats.
You got to out pageant Nuremberg
You got to cross swords than Saddam.
You got to unhorse Putin.
We need a fitting backdrop
For a dramatic conclusion.

Make sure your statue
is taller than your ancestors.
Build it big and tall!
Make sure we need all of us
to pull it down into the dirt.

I watched her brilliance
as she flashed amidst heaven -
midair for effect.

She scorched a Sakura blossom.
The pink petal drifted on a hot wind
and then slowly curled
edges blackening like burnt paper.
I smelled a cherry scent
tinged with an aroma of vaporised flesh -
her perfume.

The shadows grew real,
as she made them elongate.
Their names etched in stone.

Only I could survive her.
Years of war had lined me
with lead and concrete.
Like some mad Oppenheimer,
changing history for the sake of curiosity,
I had blinded myself with my slated glasses.

I stood transfigured
With heaped ashes of spent lives
Swirling as she came.

Helios and the Local Colours
When Helios deigns to show his sun-blasted face,
He brings out a prism of local colours.
That’s when I step out of my hovel,
Pull my cap down ov’r my eyes,
And go drink,
at a bar,
Run by a gay man
Who loathes me.

Though he sneers when he slams down my drink,
And abruptly adjourns our conversations,
Frequently forgets my orders,
and sighs smoke in my face,
He’s the only publican
in this fucking town
Who can make a proper cocktail.

He uses a glass screwed into a shaker,
The right bourbon and the sweetest vermouth,
With a symmetrical sliver of lemon
Twisted and seared
Mimicking the drinker and the maker.
He decants into a fancy glass
and garnishes with a gored cherry.

Outside, away from his jeering eye,
I sip my drink and watch the regulars.
I study the indigenous and destitute
As they socialise on a bench
They always welcome me,
Like they don’t know me
And like we are the oldest friends.

A native, smelling of glue, has his face tattooed.
That’s only acceptable on an island
Equally worshipping and scared of its heritage.
He interposes himself on my observation.
And frankly asks for a cigarette.
When I refuse, he doesn’t falter.
He just interrogates me about my day.

The off-duty prostitute surprises me,
she’s not on her usual corner.
Instead, she spreads herself on the warm bench
With her sad face and melted features,
Her missing teeth and blue bark,
She quotes Camus
To her compatriots.

When they leave,
The bartender emerges with a pot of boiling water.
He possessively scalds the public bench they dared to sit on.
Disinfecting their presence from his upscale atmosphere.
He’s an expatriated Castro Fag from the Frisco Bay.
Battle hardened by the local leather scene
Though he hasn’t lost his accent.
He’s as jaded as the stone Moko,
Set in dirty pavement stone.
Strode by prostitutes and artists alike.

When Helios deigns to show his sun-blasted face,
He brings out a prism of the local colours.
That’s when I let when I step into the light
Burn away my undeveloped privacy
I merge with the other colours,
Become refracted and reflected,
Just another dying hue.