Why do I have to feel this way?
I feel like you never know me.
But we have been friends for ages.

Why do I have to feel this way?
You left me there in cold.
You are not there when I am in need.

Why do I have to feel this way?
I called and called out your name.
But you did not answer me.

Why do I have to feel this way?
We were so close and never fight.
We were like twins.

But you have changed completely.
Out of the blue we are far apart.
Every night I cried to sleep.

Was it something I said?
Was it something I did?
Was it my attitudes?

Oh friends, you left me with thousands of bad thoughts about me.
Oh friends, you left me without reasons.
Oh friends, you left me with lots of hows and whys.
Oh friends, you keep me asking myself.
Oh friends, you keep me blaming myself.

Do not torture me with these feelings.
I beg you.
Tell me what is my fault.
Let me free from these thoughts.

We have promised.
I remember how you told me we will tell each other our problems.
I remember your face and every inch of your smile lines.

You walked by.
You pretended not to see me.
You never know how you have hurt me.

I missed you.
I missed us.
And I can consider us,
As best friends but strangers.

Losing is a habit
engrained upon my hands,
claiming to be something I am not
Peering in with one wicked eye
fashioned of big words
from worn out dictionary pages

my thoughts are fire in lower case flames
complete with soiled ash
and filaments swinging in the breeze
searching for the unburned match,
the last one… in a long line of empty phrases

blank pages filled with everything conceived
along street water girths and cigarette butts
arranged in the shape of a question mark
on my Walmart coffee table…
never once questioning why

Oh I have written, I have penned
and my quill is soft and filled with ink
of another’s pain, dripping on tree leaf mosaics
and carpenter footprints,
leading down that path that I lure
unsuspecting verses now lost with me

For I am the loser in this game
only because I chose to play by my rules
Penalties don’t count in my court
for I am blind to the truth
that I am nothing more than me…only what I seem

Have you ever
Held a wineglass,
But seen a rose?
Sullen prose above my waist,
The grace below
A fevered waste.
Deflowered from that wine,
Irony beats in time.

My poems, where are they from?

Westerner.

An appellation, of the 'hood of my nation,
Customary identity association,
But not one that springs to mind,
When they inquire, as they do,
Hey man, tell us about your "self."

But there is no deniability,
At least three hundred years,
That my father was aware,
Europe to America,
Westward **, the seeds sown.

From the banks of the Lippe,
Ocean crossing to NYC,
From the Krakow Ghetto
To the shores of the
Manhattan Indian Reservation,
By the banks of the grandest river Hudson,
They journeyed, they sojourned,
Staying for awhile, scattering across the Midwest,
"Coming to America."

Yet out West,
I am an Easterner,
My hometown teams,
In the East Division,
And this schizophrenia
Is non-problematical.

But where are my poems from?

I have studied the time zones,.
The AM's and the PM's.
I know when I deliver this to you,
If the sun is rising or setting,
Whether to greet you with
नमस्कार or magandang umaga,
Greet you with a "Good Sabbath!"
Or an Insh'Allah...

But where are my poems from?

Bog of technical definitions,
Matters not, my poems have no
Passport to be stamped,
The Customs lines they cross are the
Customs of mine and yours.

The are both immigrant and emigre,
Experienced, well travelled, they familiar
With the right satellites to
Grace thy welcoming space.

Tap dance, recitations of evasions,
Answer the question man,
But where are my poems from?
You tell the when, the how but not the
Where.

We can't wait much longer,
The inbox heavy with homework,
Your poems to love, like and take.

Don't you see?
They, born in the West,
For lack of a better answer,
Clock and setting sun racers,
Surfing the Atlantic, Indian,
Circumnavigating the Pacific Isles,
Is just the course they take
When out my window sent.

But is that your answer,
Their path, to the single quest,
From the West, is that the best
Answer you can equivocate,
Where do they come from?

**No.
Obviously,
They come from you...

Wallace Shawn

Three hours of thy ******, mastubatory,
Fantasies with women and cats,
Too much for a working man.

Can we not freeze you in time,
Please be a Sicilian boss named Vizzini,
Obstacle to the savior of
The Princess Bride.

I know that you know that i know that you know
That 1987 was a crash year, but your raspy
Glare, minutiae of a face expressive made it easier.

At the Public, not in the private,
Tales of ****** escapism make me
Drift to sleep, and I know
That you know that I know that you know
I am asleep in in row B center,
And see you weep.

But the play must go on...
Which is why I will rent a memory
Tonite, you, Vizzini, and me,
Will drink a cup of poison wine,
In celebration of the trajectory of our
Mastubatory writings.

They had not seen each other in fifty years.
In between, a world war and a concentration camp.

Then my pop,
Erwin of the Homburg hat clan,
Went for the first time to the land of Israel,
From the safety of the United States.

A side trip, an unscheduled tour visit-stop,
A private memory to re-collect,
To a special hospital,
Where the survivors who did not really survive,
Live in tender care until there are no more.

A childhood friend to see, a dust to be disturbed.

In comes a man, now an American, a family man,
But with a European goatee, un-accented English,
Yet a boy, a young man from the Hamburg clan,
When last seen in the 1920's.

A voice calls out happy,
A miracle I call it.

Meine kleine Ervin!

My little Erwin!

What can I say other than
I weep as I write.

Down came
the heavy rain
***** coal
coloured puddles

and you and Helen
stood under
the railway bridge

she clutching her doll
Battered Betty
close to her chest

you staring out
at the grey rain
thunder and lightening

making Helen scream
and clutching
your arm

her thick lens spectacles
steamed up
and hiding her eyes

I hate lightening
she said
what if it strikes us dead

it won't
you said
putting on

the brave boy routine
not while
you're with me

she didn't look
convinced
to a great degree

and peered out
through her smeary spectacles
when will it stop?

she said
it's not near
you said

you have to count
the seconds
between the lightening

and the thunder
and that should tell you
how far away it is

she took off her glasses
can you wipe these for me?
so you took the spectacles

and wiped the glass
on the end
of your shirt

until clear and clean
and handed them
back to her

and she put them on
that's better
she said

peering out
at the rain
and the puddles

on the cobblestones
of the short road
and the bomb site

nearby
you counted
after the flash of lightening

and the bang of thunder
10
you said

it's 10 miles away
she peered out again
at the grey sky

and pouring rain
seems right above us
she said

you gazed at her
standing there
drowned looking

with her hair
hanging over her face
and stuck

to her head
her dress clinging
to her tightly

her shoes sodden
you felt heavy
as if you'd swam

in a lake
and climbed out
fully dressed

with your jeans
and shirt wet through
clinging to you

I'm cold
she said
her teeth beginning

to chatter
her knees knocking
she clutching

Battered Betty
you put an arm
around her

and held her close
smelling the damp
the rain

the peppermint
on her breath
come

you said
let's go home
before we catch

a death
and you took her hand
and ran along

the cobblestones
stepping by puddles
and down Meadow Row

her fingers becoming cold
her hand wet
and slippery

and she beside you
clinging on
to her doll

by its swinging arm
making its one
good eye open

and close
like one feeling sleepy
wanting to doze.

At the tiffin break they surrounded him all wanted to have a look
He held it tight in the dim class light in his hand the hidden book
The boy was proud for the gathered crowd each wanted to win his trust
Went on to plead made frantic bid reading the book was a must.

With no option he started auction the boy saw in the deal a chance
For the mystery book seemed worth more than a mere cursory glance
I stole a look at the tempting book leapt my heart of a curious child
On the cover glowed bright in dripping blood the title ‘Mysteries of the Wild’.

In childish imbalance I lost all sense was gripped with one mad desire
Come what may at whatever cost from the boy the book I must hire
The boy having got a whiff of my plan and gauged the urge on my face
Said ‘ten full rupees is what you must part I would settle for nothing less’.

Ten full rupees was real big money no way could be arranged by a child
Knowing it was absurd still I pondered at stake was ‘Mysteries of the Wild’
That day I ran home with just one thought haunting the mind of a child
Ten full rupees is no big deal for an access to the mysteries of the wild.

On that evening of ceaseless haunting I gave all my lessons a miss
For there was with me a note of ten rupee given by dad as school fees
It needed a tough will to strike devil’s deal put the money to misuse
But possessed as I was to know the mystery I needed no reason’s excuse.

Next day in the class without a fuss I paid him the sum of school fees,
‘Give me the book as you promised for I’ve brought your ten rupees’.
‘I’m so sorry’ said the cunning lad ‘the book is taken by someone,
so stand by for the time be in the queue like the other boys in the run’.

Hell on me broke loose tightened the noose I could hardly stand on my feet
Heard my dad shout when the truth was found out the result couldn’t be sweet
The thrashings I got scolding and what not the bitter memories of a child
Sank all passions drowned the obsession to unravel the ‘Mysteries of the Wild’.

Years rolling by buried the child’s sigh lay hidden in the lost mind’s nook
The momentary thrill that remained unfulfilled forgotten was that prized book
Then one afternoon as I was passing by an almost antique bookstore
It peeped through a timeworn glass that book of mystery from the yore.

I felt an inexplicable yearning to own for once that book
To retrieve from its breast my childhood dream it took
‘What price’ I asked the man ‘I want to have it please’
‘Never mind it’s unsold long not worth ten rupees’.

I got the book with a heavy heart came sat in a corner of the park
Caressed soft held its bound cover that at last got my finger mark
In that twilight hour under evening star I wept like an inconsolable child
Knowing no more I had need of it I would never open the ‘Mysteries of the wild’.