The Stranger Within - D'Jara Culpepper (classic english novels TXT) 📗
- Author: D'Jara Culpepper
Book online «The Stranger Within - D'Jara Culpepper (classic english novels TXT) 📗». Author D'Jara Culpepper
The Hidden
Dear J. Franco 4
Cleaning 5
[To the musicians aboard the Titanic] 7
Photographs of a Norwegian Singer, 2012 8
The Broken
Walking the Path between the Science and Kettler Buildings 11
That Day 12
To Love is to Adore 13
The Lost But Unforgotten
Square One 15
I am of… 16
Phalby 17
The HiddenThe Hidden
Dear J. Franco
I am a stranger
writing, to you, a letter
because I love your work.
You’ll never read this,
but I have wondered
what it is that you see
when you look at your life.
There are people who look at you
through a magnifying glass,
forget that there is only flesh and bone
to see once the film reel stops clicking.
You smile and continue on
like they’ve left roses at your doorstep.
You wrote a poem to Heath Ledger.
You said you didn’t know him,
but I think you wanted to.
He was your mirror,
yet you wonder what took him.
He stopped being a stranger
like me when he died:
“your death had made you Holy”
Oh, do you look at your life
and not see what is there?
You act, write, paint – for what?
Heath knew it and did what felt right.
You scream Art! Art!
The art is alive and well!
but you’re just screwing strangers like me,
pretending the Holy haven’t gone without you.
Is it not painful, knowing
the greats are dying,
dead before us?
Cleaning
Fold the laundry,
the heap that has been
smothering this bare mattress
for months, collecting salt
from yesterday’s nervous sweats
and tasteless meals eaten
to fend off the demanding pangs
of failure, of solitude, of stasis.
You could try laundering it again –
You should wash it,
air it out with summer’s breezes;
the thin, feathery essence
of snow crested mountains
and dew drenched greening hills
gently pricks my nostrils no more,
a biting stench swiftly slithering
into its place uninvited,
hiding in the wind
like dust bunnies between
brittle bristles of a broom.
Is the stench now catching in your throat?
Bombshells stream down flushed flesh,
flames swamping the pupils
to your eyes of lingering dusk.
You part crackled lips to speak,
but it isn’t budging; that rank smell
makes you sharply wheeze,
interrupts your train of thought.
The stench needs to be aired out.
I try to scream it, but say nothing.
Your face says I know,
so I lie here and wait.
It dries out your tapering throat
before me, yet I lie here waiting,
watching its chokehold tighten,
the must of Grimm tales
and yellowing letters
clinging to every divot
like fresh cellophane.
I keep waiting for you
to shake it off and finish up.
You created this mess,
so you’ll clear it out.
But I now live here with you –
It’s not just you bearing this.
You were just here first.
I lie on our bed, waiting
beneath the stifling heap.
You don’t air out the laundry.
You just lift and spray it
with a daisy’s scent,
hanging your head all the while.
Weakly, you look in my eyes.
I have your space saved:
Come, lie and rest;
gently bury us again.
[To the musicians aboard the Titanic]
To the musicians aboard the Titanic,
thank you. Death tried
to cut your time short,
but he never knew
you had all the time
in the world in your hands.
And to all dreamers, dream on –
Dream things so grandiose
that they overtake you as
hunting jaguars, leaving
no scraps of mortality behind.
I dreamt I was you,
hair pulling loose in clumps
and falling to ground
like daisy petals in winter’s winds.
My hands twitched helplessly
like lobster claws tied tightly.
I saw, then, our truth,
and was ashamed
only of all that died before living.
We’re all musicians, you know.
We’re all musicians, you know.
Photographs of a Norwegian Singer, 2012
The purest darkness and how it swallowed the hairs on his head – I remember fair skin shimmering like stardust amongst the night and eyes staring out, worlds away, so filled with a solemn calm seen only in graveyards. The battle was ending, the enemy retreating home. This man now stood alone, the tale coiled tightly in his chest, a snake suffocating, longing for air.
He set out, sword in hand. Snow caked the ground underfoot, yet he trudged onward, uphill. He pierced the earth, the sword shoved deep inside. He kneeled be-side it, head raised as he unsheathed his cry. I watched his siren’s call unfurl, his song of victory ringing in the ears of the naysayer, awakening the hope and fight that I once had –returning life to this dreamer.
Photographs of a Norwegian Singer, 2012 (cont.)
The Broken
The Broken
Walking the Path between the Science and Kettler Buildings
The sky is so inviting.
Its flat blue so gently embraces
the sun’s golden light.
I feel Gaia smiling, too:
I see spring grasses maturing
to emerald and bushes in bloom;
I hear how the wind moves
through Her branches,
whispering so only She’ll hear.
I walk on, the whispering
an itch inside my ears.
3:12 on campus is so empty, silent.
The whispering seems so loud,
ringing in my ears now.
I see two robins flying together,
their wings touching. I look away,
nearly gagging from the sight of them.
The robins are still there,
still flying so close to one another.
I pause and just look on. What is this
bitter taste on my tongue?
At 3:15, sudden rain comes down,
streams warm on my face,
each drop a deeper purple than the last.
That Day
Do you remember that day?
I
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