https://mihrankalaydjianblog.com
For Mac
A dead starfish on a beach
He has five branches
Representing the five senses
Representing the jokes we did not tell each other
Call the earth flat
Call other people human
But let this creature lie
Flat upon our senses
Like a love
Prefigured in the sea
That died.
And went to water
All the oceans
Of emotion. All the oceans of emotion
are full of such ffish
Why
Is this dead one of such importance?
O So Lonely
Are the days gone by.
When others enter your life
Then you push them by.
O So Lonely
When you were in control.
To love them or leave them
You were ever so bold.
O So Lonely
While you sit alone.
No one is there
To make your house a home.
O So Lonely
After all the hearts you break.
Did you ever think it was you
Who you’d really forsake?
O So Lonely
When life was just a dare.
You didn’t take time to love
You didn’t try to care.
O So Lonely
Have you learned the rule?
That its not just about you
But it does take two.
O So Lonely
Why sit and contemplate?
While others enjoy life
Its never too late.
Tape And Glue
”My heart is very fragile, held together
By a bit of tape and glue.
It can’t handle being shattered again;
Keep it safe and hold it close,
So that it might heal.”
Unable to deal with another blow,
I gave you the opportunity to
Revive or repress my happiness.
Would you dropp my weakened heart
All in due time?
I couldn’t predict the outcome.
You worked your way into it.
The tape and glue fell away
As you took their place in
Piecing it together and repairing my wounds
With your tender love that fills
The once gaping, hollow spaces where
Missing components were never regained
And the cracks that were forged
Through the most powerful of pressures.
The last remedy that has a possibility
Of succeeding is your time, your love,
And your life.
For now my heart is strong,
With your essence infused within it,
But if you were to attempt to
Abandon it, when you provide its
Only structure, the slivers that remain
Would hardly be salvageable
And forced to be scrapped.
You’ve made a permanent mark
On this once battered, worn,
Torn and tattered heart, and
It can no longer survive without you.
April Love
We have walked in Love’s land a little way,
We have learnt his lesson a little while,
And shall we not part at the end of day,
With a sigh, a smile?
A little while in the shine of the sun,
We were twined together, joined lips forgot
How the shadows fall when day is done,
And when Love is not.
We have made no vows – there will none be broke,
Our love was free as the wind on the hill,
There was no word said we need wish unspoke,
We have wrought no ill.
So shall we not part at the end of day,
Who have loved and lingered a little while,
Join lips for the last time, go our way,
With a sigh, a smile.
The Frog Pool
Week after week it shrank and shrank
as the fierce drought fiend drank and drank,
till on the bone-dry bed revealed
the mud peeled;
but now tonight is steamy-warm,
heavy with hint of thunderstorm.
And hark! hark! hoarse and harsh
the throaty croak of the frogs in the marsh:
“Wake! wake! awake! awake!
The drought break!”
but no, that chorus seems to me
more a primeval harmony.
The thunder booms, the floods flow
blended with deeper din below,
and every time the skies crash
the swamps flash!
and the whole place will be tonight
a pandemonium of delight.
From On Being Fired Again
I’ve known the pleasures of being
fired at least eleven times—
most notably by Larry who found my snood
unsuitable, another time by Jack,
whom I was sleeping with. Poor attitude,
tardiness, a contagious lack
of team spirit; I have been unmotivated
squirting perfume onto little cards,
while stocking salad bars, when stripping
covers from romance novels, their heroines
slaving on the chain gang of obsessive love—
and always the same hard candy
of shame dissolving in my throat;
handing in my apron, returning the cash-
register key. And yet, how fine it feels,
the perversity of freedom which never signs
The Unknowable
Who had children. Who died.
Who found himself lucky after thirty years
and stumbling home realised
it was a simple error.
Who ruled behind the scenes in the Department of Misinformation,
who was later conscripted
to underwrite Armageddon.
Whose hand was lost in a sawmill
and was met again as the strange dust
of a new-found galaxy.
Who migrated to the other world
but came home to bury the dog.
Who divorced and died of alcoholism
in the country town where destiny misplaced him.
Who topped high school, failed everything else
twice, married money, then slept through
the death of three children.
Who was invisible, became a wall, became a street,
entered real estate, bought a city,
retired into owning world opinion.
Who saw his son indicted for reluctance, shackled and maimed,
blamed for the colour of the sky.
Who inscribed his name in the old script,
the one no one reads anymore,
the one where things inscribe themselves
so what they are
reads itself back
in us.
Who was my shadow when daylight was.
Fog blankets the desolate earth
With motionless, invisible arms
Concealing any imperfections
Of Nature’s poised beauty and charm
A vapor mist of moisture
Dampens foliage with care
Gentle as the sweetest kiss
On tender lips, so fair
A necessity of plantations growth
Sipping wetness of various form
Absorbing like a starving sponge
During the calm before the storm
A miracle of unspoken prayer
From crying clouds, does fall
Saturating dirt and root
Soaked, satisfied, Nature’s call
We Wear the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,–
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
When Intimacy Changes into Indifference
Time just flows past
And you never notice
Till subtle changes come bubbling to the surface;
When intimacy turns into indifference.
Time just flows past
And you never notice
Till your close friends just drift away;
When intimacy turns into indifference.
Time just flows past
And you never notice
Till people who supported you in tough times just disappear;
When intimacy turns into indifference.
Time just flows past
And you never notice
Till one’s cross feels too heavy;
When intimacy turns into indifference.
