Poems from Idle Moments

1.22.2005

In a Restaurant, The Seventh Coffee

i love you in many languages,
but Worst, in many Names.
Such is the Malady
of a Silent Sip:

An Inner Friend whispering
'This is the moment' -
Criticizing my own Voice
and observing my every dialogue
warning me about
the expense of this fakery
of the Seventh Cup.

Dare i trust him - Them.
This debate with oneself?
Or should i believe
The Facade that tells me
'No this is not the day'.
Perhaps, The Liar,
the one saying
'She does not love you'
Or The Elder advising
i can get hurt again with
just one kiss.

How it is possible
to know oneself,
That one which
love you The Most -
When i am Many
and each loves you
in their own ways!

Across the other table
You speak without speaking:
Closer to me with my every sniff -
Aroma after Aroma of just another day,
another coffee, another dollar

But never a good cup.

Authors note: One of several poems in a series but I tried, as with many for it to stand on its own. The Capitalization is for the proper nouns, that which to draw the image from mere physical to the metaphysical and give the alternate selves, and inanimates like the Sip, the Worst, the Voice more room for movement - that is to say the tragedy of the thought in between each sip - of telling or not telling a certain love that must be told. I also used "the dollar" instead of the peso because it has a more universal appeal, than if I used a local currency. I tried to use small caps for the 'dominant' "I" instead to capitalize on the irony of the predicament. Perhaps the mystical seventh will add depth as well when at the end of a supposed creation ironically nothing is created but the same pain. I hope it works.

Published: January 22, 2005
© Copyright by Jardine Davies/webguy via lit.org

why do Colonials write

filipino writers, bloggers and poets in english, this is for all of us

why do colonials write
in a language not their own

is it but compulsion
to reconquer enslaved souls

or trickery of tongues
desiring the master's scrolls

is it acting out plays
that we were told to be grandiose

or - affiliation
to the master's gourmet choice

is it altruism
that we share this enclave

do we but compensate
for a freedom we don't have

or more to elevate
dissociate us from slaves

perhaps we do amuse
ourselves with our new grace

we acquire mastery
by swearing a different name

professing that ourselves
are apostles of new face

we create the symbols
undoing mistakes years past

suppressing the anguish
of being a conquered land

is this reparation
from guilt of lost of old fights

or do we write because
yes, the war was never gone

in this final bastion
do we consider the words

do we colonials write
and claim this language our own?

copyright (2005) Jardine Davies

1.20.2005

The Migrant Lover

what kind of love is this?
i do not feel your kiss!
click, type, lick, type, lick,
post-modern webcam flick!

Ode of a Struggling Poet

Peg this word to rhyme
And bind its feet in fire,
Proclaim meaning as crime
And nail grammar as desire.

“Are you the king of poets?
Yet it’s your people that decry:
Fancied fakery in your voice
Mouthing syntax is not divine!”

“Say or link or write it!
Do you not see the Light?
God’s gift is merciful tongue
Uncinquered in every word’s flight!”

“Caesarian pride hails you…
Reason and rhyme combined,
Canon and comma commands though
That concept-heresy be defiled.”

“Not even a good iambic!
(Ill-counted-syllable-whore)
Selling yourself as artsy
Kitsch from heretofore!”

“I wash my hands of this…
Your hypenation is wrong.
This is not a poem you wrote –
All but hogwash and filth.”

“All your people’s repulsion
A Life's work disowned.
Ask me not why poets hunger
I beg you retract your oath!”

The Man thus, hyphenates a point
And dies an unpublished cross:
Post-humously venerated
In words not his own.

It was said he did unleash
The power of the Word.
To this date still a dream
That poem truth be told.

Am I bestowed gift-divine
Defining my heart enthrall
In this structural foreign pyre
Do I not hunger and die?

So I peg the Word to rhyme,
Hyphenate distance and Time,
Proclaim I am a disciple
But no one sings my psalms!

little Baby in the womb

littla fella in the womb,
you are named a freakish name!
Xhristian saints presume your soul -
yet you are Buddhist when you're old!

Twenty years of placeholder games -
A first name 'Boo' too often called
but a second Nick left undervalued.

Names too Manny for a billion passwords:
Juan cantaré for the Spanish girl,
A contracted version for kewler songs,
another Zip for returning roots,
a ghetto whistle when reborn.
One label of a first-unsexing,
a Durrty one for your biting dream,
a respectable Monsieur for the biz,
and still another for easy fools -
a fancied number for cyberfucking,
and one untold, for the Babygem.

How have your mummy murdered you
by ascribing a dad's life to live?
At moments birth a world-dictate
when Zee choice is within language:
Yuri, Erryn, Cyber-punk, Cool101-Moe-Hammed,
Zhiang Wei(gh) this crime before you die:
Shoot it Clint! In the middle of the eyes.

Can't you name yourself by one lone word
Not english, or Tolkien or Hollywood?
Twenty years of bounded voices -
innerselves of Tales untold.

Therefore Rocke-fella I implore
be a nameless warrior till you Know,
one excellenté word however alien
be it so cryptic but beautiful:
Lives to live are bound by names
but never ever if by Choice.