all of them do
first you are hurt
then it becomes routine
you’ve come to expect it
that you don’t even bother
to find out fully
what it is all about
you accept it
this is how they live
this is their entertainment
talking shit about you
a diversion they take
from time to time
that thrills them
because they are bad
and you are not
and they know that
and feel sad
and you tell yourself
for no reason
you’re being had
but laugh it off
there’s no point
getting mad.
into my eyes
and I feel my face
and neck
and feel good
and there is
drumming
somewhere
in the
neighbourhood
and I am
transported back
hundreds of years
and become
a banyan tree
a stone lion
golden eagles
flying free
and there is
this sensation
in my body
making me
feel like water
like a baby
being born
torn from
the womb
of mother Earth
and at her breasts
I soon suckle
the nectar of life
so sweet
while she rocks me
in her arms
and when our
eyes meet
I see the universe
blow me a kiss
and I laugh
for the first time
happy and in rhyme.
thinking of things
life is good
slow mountain
existence
memories like cattle
grazing on the pasture
like the trees in the forest
and my mind clear
like raindrops
dripping one by one
how beautiful they are
as they fall
how endless
this delight
this sky full of light
where the sun arrrives
presently and seeing
the world happy
suddenly bursts into
loud laughter
and we wish it
is always like this
hereafter.
make me sit here
and laugh
after all those
years
they still touch me
those precious moments
and this slow life
tingles my heart
warming it
under the glowing sun
shining bright
making me think of
how I and my friends
howled hysterically
in splits
everywhere
we went
playing the fool
seemed to be
the rule
and hearing those
voices now in
my ears
seeing those instants
of hilarity
in my mind
I look at the sky
up high
at its brightness
and I close my eyes
and I hear the light
chortle and say hi.
my words
in the breeze
in the singing
of the bulbuls
is my poem
in the waves
of the oceans
and seas
I scribble
and my letters
are instantly
washed away
but I keep at it
scrawling
and now there
are so many
languages
I hear
on my street
and my mind
is open
like the air
whose talk
is so beautiful
life turns
so colourful
I laugh in
its embrace
and it roars
in rhyme.
it simply refuses
to be friends
it will not talk
and you have
this murky feeling
about everything
you think they’re
all out to hurt you
and you laugh
at the whole thing
how disorienting
life is
though you are
prepared for
anything
because you know
that is the
only way
you can live
that is the
only way
something
may give.
my head flies off
my neck
and begins
to float
like a balloon
in the sky
and I feel
so much lighter
I laugh
and there
down below
I see my body
waving at me
jumping up
and down
in joy
and I glide
freely
laughing louder
drifting in the air
till I merge
with myself
on the ground
once again
and all my pain
is gone
I am reborn
at the threshold
of a new dawn.
after all the evil
they’ve done
they celebrate
drinking our blood
and intoxicated on it
they howl in wicked glee
they pick up our bones
and rattle them
making such a din
the rest of us
who are alive
go mad
with the noise
and they chase us
all over the world
and we run in fear
as death lurks near
and they grab us
eating us greedily
while we die like lambs
until every last
one of us is gone
from this Earth
and then they laugh
till the skies shatter
and in this cacophony
again the demons dance.
you need to live
life is not a bed
of roses
someone
told me once
and now I know
it is a bed of thorns
and you are nothing
more than an animal
or a ghost
you simply do not matter
and then nothing makes sense
you find
when the puzzle slowly solves
itself in your mind
and you look at death
in the face
and laugh in transcending
ecstasy
filling up this universe.
and there is sunlight
after rainy days
the trees and mountains
look so green and happy
while the birds sing in delight
and small black monkeys
in the high branches sit
and watch the world
that is beautiful
the children are friendly
they all chat with me
and a few days ago
some of them
had gathered
in this house
behind mine
and were running
round and round
their ecstatic laughter
ringing against
the purple walls
and I felt the Earth
go around the sun
and I smiled at
memories of
my own childhood
and the air
was full of voices
of people gone
as I nodded in greeting.
Dominic Alapat 