Saturday, June 21, 2014

Dah- Three Poems


 "Queen"
 
The way the bees pull apart the Borage
pack their bags and fly off
I raise my head
and pluck the air with my lips
marvel at their weightlessness
at the way they stain the sky
when they swarm
 
Striking against the sun
their yellow appearance
is a child’s design that floats
from the bottom up
small stars of exquisite bitterness
a wood-fire of stingers
minute eyes of splintered black ice
 
They have invented the secret
the persuading of waterless pollen
into Royal Jelly
while the queen dominates
with her dangerous sex
the pure poison of ecstasy
spilling a violent sweetness

 
"Sardines Mesh and Scars"
 
The freeway shakes with severe
nervousness. Bullets of light
ricochet then strike, like livid eyes,
the sun drops its broiled fruit,
and the cars mesh with one another,
burning the air’s thin garment.
Each face in a window is a dream
that just begins, radiates and dissolves.
The spinning tires run from death,
impatient and burdened.
Dense smears from dark treads
are collected scars on the road’s body.
The metal wheels burn with the furry
of a great applause.
Somebody’s oil is leaking, like black guts
from a belly wound; clashing music
breaks out of open windows,
and everyone is compressed,
as if enormous cans of sardines
in line on a market shelf. 
 

"Lead and Salt"
 
So often I come close
then pull myself together
Still no concern for this wrecked world
all I can do is go back into myself
conjure a hole
and caste these feelings to the bottom
where the light is displaced
dries out
where the dust scatters
like a shy apparition
and leaves the world behind
 
darkness of days
darkness of nights
darkness of lives
darkness of deaths
the unseen void
the obvious severed air
 
There must be lead in my lungs
or a heavy sea that’s all salt
 
I could list more complaints more ailments
but what’s the use
cause my weakness is for life
but not for the wrecked world
yet this weakness draws me closer
closer to death 
 
 
 
Bio:
 
Dah’s poetry has appeared, most recently, in The Sandy River Review, Stone Voices Magazine, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Orion headless, River & South Review, The Muse, and Miracle Magazine, and is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Perfume River Review, Literature Today, Poetry Pacific, Zygote in my Coffee, Red Wolf Journal, Deep Tissue Magazine, Jellyfish Whispers, and Rose Red Review. The author of two collections of poetry from Stillpoint Books, his third collection is due for publication in 2014, also from Stillpoint. Dah lives in Berkeley, California where he is working on the manuscript for his fourth book.

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