Poems | Easterine Kire

 

'Red Flowers' (Acrylic and ink on handmade paper) - Sabina Yasmin Rahman

1. Trumpet in tunnel


Sound
not light

magnified
brutally
like when man
first created music
out of raw sounds like that

primitive
backward sounds
those hewn out innards
of earth
spewing forth
broken chords
choking
like a man's rasping sound
trying
to get out
through unsmooth passages
a hacking
a racking
throat
oesophagus.

2. Månestråle
(Moonbeam)

Rounded flakes of moon
falling thickly
and landing like snow in the valley
ringed moon

I know you think of the moon's light as constant
but tonight it is a sprite
skipping into the city streets
and every dark alley
skipping

Have you heard this moon song before, my love?
this unguarded melody of silver gray
I see the moon's beams in your hair
listen to my heart leap
leaping

And your eyes, ah dear love
there's such a light there
dare I try to recapture it in song
and word
and picture
by light of this moon?
move with me
move towards
movements
that
flicker.

3. Forgotten

There he lies
lift him up
with care
he is my love
my forgotten love
my beloved
he has lain so long
at the bottom of the sea
be gentle with him
my forgotten love.

Will you please play
a soft song to draw him up by

There is seaweed in his hair
and sea water in his clothes
that drips back into the sea

Play a song like a boat retreating
so he will know he is remembered by me

That curve of cheek I loved
that line of neck I admired
I would say that easily
if I were a lover like any other
and point it out to you

But no
it is not like that

Have you ever known what it is
to love by hearing and not by touch
to have sound in your ears
as some have blood in their veins
heart stirrings
at the stringing of a chord
the euphony

So loved him I,
like an epiphany in my soul
sea drawn, seaward bound
while the sea-mist was rising
thinner than sound

And now
I know
I must return him to the sea

Play on while the sea receives him
more wife than I
more lover than I ever will be
my love
my forgotten love.





4. Diamonds

I don't like diamonds
Øystein
something hard about diamonds
something cold

razored stalactites.

                I think of the men
                who ripped out the stone
                from cold
                dark earth entrails
                their hands grimy
                with unnecessary soil.

I think of the men
who grind the stone
the harshness
of that sound
rock against stone
sharp
shrill
shriek
shattering the quiet
in taut lines

                I never liked it
                when my daughter dropped
                the crystal bowl
                so it sharded
                into a million diamonds
                glittering
                in corners of the room
                awaiting their turn
                to be swept up

Crystal diamonds
that cut my finger
when I thought
I had picked up
the last
gleaming
never liked
diamonds
no
never.