One woman’s trinket is another woman’s gold.
Objectivity is just as callous
As a stubborn conscience.
The greasy face of subjectivity
Reasons to your senses; the waterworks,
The taps inside your washer-less eyes
Outpour caught in salty streams.
Perception throws at you curveballs
The cancer of a family member
The aunt who fed the famished you
And all you feel is a snowball snowballing,
In the punch-packed magnification
Of a little sadness; tristesse in all her
Bony atoms, perverting a steadfast presence.
And all you have is your perception
The barometry of little acts, the harvests
Of the eye, ear, nose and tongue and still
A freaking monster-size feeling
Is what you duel with constantly. Sometimes you don’t
Get a windfall, sometimes the truth hurts,
Sometimes you don’t wish to perceive,
Like when you’re burning the wrong kind
Of substance, no cannabis, just a burn-wound
Flesh eaten by the flames of reality.
And freak-me, is just as fecund
As an ovulating woman. You know your Aunt’s cancer
Eats into you, like a famished cancer cell.
Sometimes, we cannot manufacture
A little happiness. All is lost. And still
In that incessant rainfall, you build an ark
To save your heart from the floods.
Love is a permanent porridge.
A subjective strain that can caress or even floor
You with a knock out. All you can do
Is to face the deeds that make love
Ambidextrous – the punch and the pull –
And she will be the octane
To your engine, the kerosene to your flames
An endless dimension that expands
In mirth and grief.
Perceptiveness is a gift. Perhaps the only
Gift worth fighting for. When you can only
Grease an engine, knowing what stands
Between you and a zombie
Is a little forced locomotion. Moved,
You’re sitting on the slum-dog’s throne,
As a millionaire in wealth.
Kite Dreams 