Poems from Luciole Press Autumn Issue 2009 -- Kumari de Silva
Posted by kluciole at 12/29/2009 10:50 AM 
Categories: Literature, Friends, Writing, National, Luciole Press
Categories: Literature, Friends, Writing, National, Luciole Press
Kumari de Silva Contributor -- California
Kumari de Silva is a 44-year-old poet living in the mountains of Southern California with her muse, her wolfdog Mango. She has been published in poeticdiversity.org; gloomcupboard.com; madashellclub.org; and Creative Thought magazine. She finds poetry low calorie, economical, and endlessly stimulating.
Mango Chasing Her Tail
(for Rosalie!)
My new age friends, I knew in my twenties
would be so pleased with this digital world.
Every thing - is now - in the now.
What young person would intuit a clock has a face?
They will never know that a quarter hour hones shape,
wedges like a pie, takes up space on a plane.
On their watch it's 6:15 period, piercing the eerie darkness,
like the pin point of sound popping out of an IPod,
or an unnumbered web"page" before me,
which can not be leafed forward nor back -
but leaps snidely into an unanticipated link.
No more streaming flow, awash with possibility.
The rhythm of backward glances, continuously variable,
syncopated, but measurable, physical quantities,
like density, heat, voltage are vintage quaint,
but apparently not matters of reality.
There's actually no pressure, the now is here.
Seated before my mysteriously flat screen TV,
stymied old dog, waxes nostalgic for analogue.
thumping her tail in protest, she longs for
faint echoes, and fragmented cedar-scented fog.
**********************
Safety Doesn't just Happen, It begins with You
Latter end of rose aroma March, Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana'ole
nicknamed "Prince Cupid", celebrates his eponymous holiday.
Third week, third month, means more than maile leis and hibiscus.
Scads of years ago, on a humid guava green Prince Kuhio day,
After I had already lost my best friend to a motorcycle accident,
as a slight and lonely, motherless college girl, 500 miles from home,
I threw caution, like a wilted leaf, out the 23rd story window.
Just that once, I resolved to be comforted, sans planning.
I'm 43 now, my 21 year old son is advising me to "not go unprotected."
I reply, "We are not having this conversation," although actually we are.
Latter end of rose aroma March, Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana'ole
nicknamed "Prince Cupid", celebrates his eponymous holiday.
Third week, third month, means more than maile leis and hibiscus.
Scads of years ago, on a humid guava green Prince Kuhio day,
After I had already lost my best friend to a motorcycle accident,
as a slight and lonely, motherless college girl, 500 miles from home,
I threw caution, like a wilted leaf, out the 23rd story window.
Just that once, I resolved to be comforted, sans planning.
I'm 43 now, my 21 year old son is advising me to "not go unprotected."
I reply, "We are not having this conversation," although actually we are.
**********************
Do One Thing Every Day that Scares You
You’re leaving soon I know, like a shadow of the last leaving
or a memory of the next leaving and the next leaving priming
a continuous feedback loop, yet paused on freeze frame. Om Shanti.
Perhaps I’ll be sitting on the couch with my cool,
clutching a purse, a vacuum cleaner, whatever might be handy.
You do not understand the power of your decision, so trust me
In twenty years you’ll look back and this moment will stand out
In bas relief, frozen, glazed, unnaturally natural, like a thunderstorm
threw it together. I won’t appear rattled when I get up to say good-bye.
I imagine I might stand back, give you space, and wave gently.
Or I might press my body against yours one last time. Feeling
the outline of what is, your breath, your cadence, your quality of life,
before letting go.
or a memory of the next leaving and the next leaving priming
a continuous feedback loop, yet paused on freeze frame. Om Shanti.
Perhaps I’ll be sitting on the couch with my cool,
clutching a purse, a vacuum cleaner, whatever might be handy.
You do not understand the power of your decision, so trust me
In twenty years you’ll look back and this moment will stand out
In bas relief, frozen, glazed, unnaturally natural, like a thunderstorm
threw it together. I won’t appear rattled when I get up to say good-bye.
I imagine I might stand back, give you space, and wave gently.
Or I might press my body against yours one last time. Feeling
the outline of what is, your breath, your cadence, your quality of life,
before letting go.
all copyrights belong to Kumari de Silva
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