Another way to return

You still go back panicked, groping the old songs,

blinded in tunnels, to soothe your roughed-up

spirit. The muddy river comes along

in broken down wooden barges, loved up

smooth old piers, worn rusted cranes dipping

their necks into the water, and no-one

comes to greet you, and no-one is gripping

fingers tight in comfort, lifting your burden.

You can hear the sunlight playing, somewhere

on the waters, a cowherd with cattle;

but here it’s just four small, chocolate squares

of light on blank concrete, and static crackle.

The news comes on in the evening, and it’s

floating seaweed, there’s gunfire in the distance

mushrooms of smoke and dust on wizened targets

and faces still lean out, clenched in resistance,

and refugees are portioned, as if we’re

barbecue nations. You don’t know if Suzanne

will show you her harbours, if she’ll let you near

the river’s wavelength, or if she at all, can.

A lot of things top-of-mind today.  First off, I'll be returning to the  A-Z, and no two ways about that. The sign up is today. Not only will I be participating, I am in deeper than previously this year because I am a Ninja Minion on Ninja Captain Alex J Cavanaugh's team. (If I knew the exact emoticon to express the yayness I would totally insert it here. But since I don't, just fill it in yourself)  I am also all signed up to participate in the Colours of Life Poetry Festival scheduled for mid-April, which is a(n offline) poetry event in my local community.

It's the fifth anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution today, so my friends there are very much on my mind too. Hope it goes safe and smooth and that they each get what they wish for in 2016, politically and otherwise.

Anyways, the upshot is - April is going to be a superbly amazing month! Can't-wait-but-also-love-the-waiting-and-working-writing-researching-rehearsing-part emoticon here. 

Have a great week!

Riverlove

A certain yearning for those ancient rivers

eats into the morning without results;

the nearest one’s two thousand kilometres,

and the Hooghly’s distance now measured in worlds

the Benue and the Nile both out of bounds

just indifferent seagreen gulf's around.

There’s far too much inspirational guff

about the threequarterness of oceans,

about how the rivers end up being cupped

by loving seas.  And the televisions

get thinner and bigger, open wider jaws;

yet no rivers come by.  Not one trickle flows.

Frangipani

Each velvet-soft frangipani memory

falls on a bank then washes away

with the tides into the light of the sea

hovering between a darkness and a day.

An old woman, with gnarled tree fingers

stoops to pick a handful for her apron

but waves flash one burst of gold and silver

snatch them in and then forever darken.

A sparrow pecks at mud for unseen insects

and calls the flock and cocks its head and waits

and rushing wings do come out and connect

but all the same find nothing, it’s too late.

The last ferry, with a blast on its horn, pulls

through silk-dark rivers, frangipani petals.