RUTH'S POEMS

• August


• Last August, i was skinned alive
• And speared in my chest.


• I've tried to be humble
• But when the whole world


• Is slave to my rhythm,
• You have to follow suit


• And bend your knees for me.


• Worship me, you are filth.
• I've scraped my knees,


• Cut my tangled veins
• With a dead leper's needle.


• And when rust meets rust
• It doesn't kill or bleed.


• This is my cosmic moment
• This August, is my calloused rhyme.

• Grandpa John


• When i was fourteen,
• I scrawled letters everyday


• To a man i had never seen
• But loved with all my heart.


• My grandpa dearest,
• I knew he'd listen, and want to know
• What hurt me, and what healed me.


• But the letters were addressed to
• A name i hate, a name i was


• Forced to believe was superior
• Simply because it was English.


• The four agonizing letters that formed his English name - "John".


• But i was fourteen, and ashamed to spell
• Yohannan
• Yohannan - in Malayalam, in Hebrew


• The languages of my forefathers
• By blood first, and by faith second.


• The curved sounds of Asian tongues
• Scrunched and shrivelled by English hands


• Scrunched to four letters - "John"
• And somehow i loved it more.


• Because a Yohannan was always painted to be wretched and inferior.
• But a John is worthy of respect.


• But now, in this one realm
• I refused to choose violence,


• I chose to kneel in defeat.
• And to love and celebrate


• My grandpa -- my appachen
• Beyond languages and forced culture,
• From now and for ever.

• Dreams of Detest


• A man once recited his core
• A candid wish sans stutter


• Painted in all hues of yore
• Quicker than a heart could flutter.


• Of wants and desires alike
• Of dreams and passion


• A paltry conscience strike
• Or a sea of compassion.


• His mind played a harp
• "This globe is but pleasant"


• Pity his eyes weren't sharp
• Unlike the detestable peasant


• Who preached as he dragged
• His morose feet on the earth


• Of all he saw he bragged
• Sewn from undisputed worth.


• His advice was a simple one
• To take heed of straits dire


• And archaic wonts to shun
• The heathen shields of ire.


• We are in freedom illuded
• By minds in a clogged ball


• With false hope secluded
• To make full a cup of gall.


• T'would reap you a rich yield
• To learn from the blessed:


• The wrestler went to the field
• Knowing there lay no harvest.

• Auguste
• Green eyes and one hand
• In ways, very quaint


• Craft a cunning plan
• To hastily paint


• On my face, a scene.
• In a sorry pale


• Neither a queen
• Nor a pauper's scale


• Is likely to read.
• A joke, a work of art :


• My lips queerly bleed
• Mirroring my heart.


• I've come to present
• A show for the lords


• I fail, i repent
• A sinner in cords.


• I start with the feet.
• A prim, nimble pose


• To poise defeat
• And my will on my toes.


• Now then, my hands glide
• At a vulgar pace


• So feebly, to hide
• The wear on my face.


• And my bleeding lips
• Twist in paper glee


• Smile inside the scripts
• Afraid of the free.


• Is this the show you came for?

• In a Day
• I am wealthy, if wealth demands
• To own a bruised heart


• And two tired hands
• Which sit to form in art


• This old tale of courtship
• Of lust, of greed, of pain.


• For mine weary quivering lip
• Will sing the tale in vain.


• With daft eyes and daft mind
• I sought to hold the thread


• And to spin this tale, blind
• A folly, a child's dread:


• Love is but the divine sum
• Of long suffering and goodwill


• Of shunning envy; for some,
• Of victory and shunning still


• That which irks the peace
• Which love vows to wreak


• But then it began to cease
• Rendering my soul weak.


• What in the spell of one day
• Woe of war failed to make,


• Mere words fared to say
• Love is wholly heartbreak.


• Every harmless word birthed
• A rusty dagger in my chest.


• To bleed is why i breathed
• This cursed breath of detest.


• Now in steps, with the moons
• That grew with my dismay


• Trading sackcloth for tunes
• And keep on, come what may.