Noel Negele- Two Poems

Good Bye

It’s when the casket falls flat

On its hole and the relatives

Dressed in black like shadows

Screak as if knifed or impaled

That you feel the pain that you

Hear that wailing inside of you

Silent to the outside world but

Very much in insane tension within—

A loud vertiginous paroxysm spreading

Like tar to your organs, soul, heart and

Limps that you feel grief taking hold of

Your throat like a burning scarf—

To hold back the tears is futile;

You realise you'll never see him smiling again

And it is then that you soul,palpable with pain

Somewhere inside the ambers of your skull

Denuded of any optimism or sunray

Protests with sad bickering, remorseful 

To not have cared, to never have loved.

A Day

Got out of the house at 10 in the morning

After living for approximately six months

In the night-

The sun like an interrogation lamp

Asking me where I’ve been so long

Shinning that dull light of sobriety

And I went to the center of the city

For the hell of it

Read some books, grabbed a cup of coffee

Smoked a couple of cigarettes

Sitting on a bench, looking at  women

Passing by in a hurry, bathed in vitality

Places to go, shops to shop

Boyfriends to meet and love and torment

This day is a day to be shared

I thought and I got up and started strolling around

Pretending to be one of them

And I felt alright for a while

And I saw a gipsy kid singing gipsy songs

And a young guitarist singing Bob Dylan

Which was nice

And then I saw an old lady

Standing next to a department store

Begging for money, politely, with educated words

Because her husband was sick—

Holding this picture of an old man

Lying on his death bed, tubes up his nose

And it reminded me of my dead friend

For some reason

And I sunk my hands into my pockets

Grabbed all I had, which wasn’t much

And I extended my hand and she extended hers

And I felt her wrinkled palm receiving and her eyes

Curved in a smile and she thanked me kindly

Even if we both knew

It wouldn’t amount to anything.