Sestina for the Black Deathwatch Beetle
It moves at dark, emerging from the shadows.
Silence mutes the scuttle of a black beetle,
whose wicked wander illuminates the all-pervading black
that delights to take everything into nothingness.
Yet still, it knows
that no one will ever care.
“Help, help!” the victim cries. It doesn’t care.
The trans – gender is dragged into the shadows,
but it is something that he knows
that lays a —shhh!— on his mouth. To submit to silence like the beetle
decrees that nothingness
must always preside over the land of black.
The beetle subverts the black
—Pallas Athena would be proud—but finds it doesn’t care.
It simply envelops. Thrust into nothingness,
it stumbles drunk, inferior and meaningless into the shadows
where it — the beetle
scuttles along and knows
that (Tell them!) it knows
N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Nothing about the black.
Nothing about society driving humanity like the sadistic beetle
to the depths of Tartarus, nothing about the care
withheld from untouchables. The shadows,
it can be said, elevate the soul to a place of nothingness …
AT. WHAT. COST? The bliss of nothingness
equates to weakness. Society knows
that the weak cannot handle the shadows.
It breathes the air black
with fury. It wants to care
about poverty and set itself free of life. The beetle
flies high. And the beetle
knows that it too has faded into nothingness.
Nothing can challenge the will to wander. Not to care
is what it knows.
It is not a speck of oblivion in the perpetual black
but an individual—a vagabond—emerging triumphantly from the shadows.
The vagabond does not care, but he knows
that the black deathwatch beetle insinuates nothing,
wandering free from the black into the flickering shadows.
Triolets of Colours
Blood
As the red creeps out from o’er the hill
men take their flight from their nuptial beds.
He arrives with a thrill
As the red creeps out from o’er the hill
But notices that all is still
And he too perishes instead
As the red creeps out from o’er the hill
men take their flight from their nuptial beds.
Freedom
It wanders unchained
And fills the crevices inside the deep blue.
The aura of Poseidon’s lair cannot be explained.
It wanders unchained
Searching and yearning to be attained
What information shall come through?
It wanders unchained
And fills the crevices inside the deep blue.
Dynamism
Oh, for she is bright!
Eos’ radiance pervades the beautiful.
The dawn, awakening from her slumber, is a divine sight:
Oh, for she is bright!
Casting her warmth on unworthy mortals she has no right
For they are all presently delusional.
Oh, for she is bright!
Eos’ radiance pervades the beautiful.
Ephemerality
We plummet to the depths of the underworld.
Sent with two obols, the psychopomp Charon is pleased!
He navigates his boat across the Styx, remaining in the netherworld.
We plummet to the depths of the underworld.
For we shall never again know joy: our souls have been furled.
Death beckons; our lives have been seized.
We plummet to the depths of the underworld.Sent with two obols, the psychopomp Charon is pleased!
My Friend The Sea (Rondeau Redoublé)
It is you, my friend the sea!
Bashful and beautiful you sweep me dry
As your salty brine wipes my tears free.
It is you, you see, that makes me cry.
He left to be free from Molokaʻi:
that wasted isle. Rife with strife, Papa had to flee
tonight: where he wouldn’t see the sun, where the world bid him goodbye.
It is you, my friend the sea!
Corpses lined Waikiki,
trodden by their masters. The whites would just standby.
Ordered by them, kanakas threw them in the sea.
Bashful and beautiful you sweep me dry.
Out, out and to the west Papa relies:
The currents swift him west. Maybe
it’s a good thing he’s gone yet I still C-R-Y
As your salty brine wipes my tears free.
Faster and faster they hold him steady
Floating by Polenekia: the ancestral abode. Yet he is defied,
Wailing and flailing there is no mercy.
It is you, you see, that makes me cry.
Finally Papa arrives:
W-P-G1 is awry. Is this where he’s meant to be? REALLY?
Oh, fie, you damned earth! No wonder everyone dies!
Now I see you, my dear friend the sea:
It is you.
1. WPG refers to the Western Pacific garbage patch, an amalgamation of marine debris centered around the Kuroshio gyre.