The space between shadows [poem]

There is a place
within the folds of the universe,
across the whispers of Ages,
the space between shadows
that cradle the being and the non

There is a time
in the moments of a rainbow,
between the stroke of midnight
and the beginning of it all,
through the veil of Millenia
when Obscurity meets Clarity

There is a feeling
of lurking, of pinpricks
on the back of the neck,
of the taste of darkness
weighing heavy on the tongue
with the sticky sweet cloy of light

Where Yesterday meets Tomorrow
in the space between the shadows
of the Now

The creatures in the in-between
dance and glide and
swim through dreams of
chance meetings of Life and Death,
of raw encounters of the fleshly kind,
nightmare creatures of
Lost Hopes and Perfect Dreams

There is a place
in the space between shadows
at the beginning of a long journey
and the end of a lifetime,
a heartbeat and a universe away

Is the silent edge to nowhere and infinity
balanced along a single delicate thread,
where reality is made, and destroyed,
and re-created. If,
by some chance encounter (or fate),
You find your Self on this path,
what will you do?


{Note: This poem was published in Vol. 2, Iss. 3 of Rigorous, an online journal written an edited by people of color.} 

Artwork by LillTommy - DeviantArt

http://space-between.deviantart.com/art/Staircase-to-a-better-future-141018609

The End of the World Again [poem]

Note: This poem was published in Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color, in Volume 1, Issue 2.


I have not come here to compare notes
but to sit together in the stillness
at the end of the world.

Yesterday I asked you if you remember
that time we went to see the dinosaur
at that museum we both liked
And you said to me,

“You mean the museum you like, and don’t you mean
  the whale? It was the whale.”

I nodded in agreement but I know it was the
Dinosaur, the biggest creature that ever
walked the Earth, now extinct,
made of petrified bones,
plaster and fiberglass, held together
by bits of steel and ingenuity,

Much like the world we live in, lived in,
made of the real and the fake,
the truth and that posing as truth.
A small army of billions built it
with love and hope and bits of genius
engineering, steel and grit,
sweat and tears, all the cliches that

We fall back on in times of
upheaval and profound change. And yet
the people keep on keeping on, forging a way
forward, moving out of the sticky
mud mess that we got ourselves into
in the first place.

They always make it out, patching up wherever
possible, with tape and glue,
perseverance, pluck and mettle,
And with the brilliance and smarts that creates
order from chaos, a fascinating interplay
of conflicting functions,

The kinds of minds and heart that is hard to come by
Nowadays.

We look at the bubble that holds the world,
sit and watch as the bubble is slowly collapsing
in, consuming itself, we sit
detached and waiting.

How are you feeling about all of this, you
With your big ideas and your glib tongue,
You with your poetry that is a witness to magnitude.
Your profundity bringing focus to the epic
that is, was?, the life of the world

Though the world was an accident,
its peoples an afterthought, formed
in the crevices of the gray matter that
may have been the drunken mind of an All-being
but could just as well have been a fluke,
an odd fish in the salt sea of nonsense.

What do you think is the legacy of this life,
your wisdom in these moments of death
and possible rebirth?
Like that time we were at that party and
they were all harping on about that book,
pretentious opinions falling off lips
like water down a fall, rushing to the
bottom, sinking to the muddy deep, and you said something,
A riposte that would have shut it all down

If not for that explosion at the same moment
that had them running to the windows
to gape at the ruins of a truck and minivan,
Spectators of lives in ruination.

You didn’t say you wanted better, only
that you wanted more.
What did you mean?

No, don’t tell me.
I do not want to know.
I want to find out for myself
if there is a future.
I have not come to compare notes, or to listen
to you after all this time, I just
want to sit next to you, in silence, and
to hear the end, and wait for a new beginning
to come out of the ashes of the end of the world,
again.