As
Winter Moves In
Clouds
crowd above branches stripped bare
In
Winter’s stark stare.
Silence
murmurs through cold air
As
if Nature doesn’t care.
Where
are the leaves when we need them
To
guard us against wind and frost?
They
have fled, taken cover in the ground below,
To
leave us alone and lost.
New Mexico, December 9
THE HOTEL ROOM
Solitude has
wild flashes.
Fantasies jump
upon the stone
of desolate
courtyards.
Ropes stretch
and threaten to snap.
Blistered paint
of old hotels,
of forgotten
pillars
that cling to
desperate rooms,
cry out in empty
echoes.
Chipped tiles
erase memories.
Pale skies eat
time slowly.
We shatter the
mirrors of our chambers
seeking
essences;
those fragrant,
few drops of light
that we contain
but cannot touch.
The arms that
clasp the hand-carved chairs by the bed side,
skin that
ripples in moonlight, the woven blankets wrapped around us,
the face of a
thousand moods, the laced curtains that tremble
by the open
window, eyes that probe the wallpaper,
the metal
lampshades dulled by rust, the ears that hear dreams,
the marble
floors that reap our mistakes, hair flowing across the room,
the stained
mattresses that groan, the backs and muscles, hard as opals,
that gently decay.
A few drops of
light endure
and those we
cannot touch.
-- C.S. Cholas
The Concealment: Written by my secret and only friend, Cosmic, on the ship, while crossing the Red Sea
I
was not allowed in school. ‘You’re such a fool!’ they said
My
garments were handmade and concealed me until
My
nightly exposure at the evening show at the Palace of Amir.
No
one can tell me where I was born, and I travel still
Never
to know where my mother birthed me. I hear
She
handed me to a slave and fled in fear.
Baabek,
Isfahan, Ghadames, Hebron.
Rumors
say it was in the Wadi Rum ‘The Valley of the Moon’
My
black skin hints of Marrakesh.
Some
say I must be Nubian from Wawat.
All
strange names to me. Cosmic knows them
all.
Cosmic,
my cat, I found in Istanbul, or so he’s said.
He’s
full of ancient spells in his eyes.
Draw
close to feel them.
They followed me on my mystic walk.
He’s
my only friend, the one who knows who I really am.
We
talk.
My
friend has traveled oft in caravans, alleyways,
And
into strange caves where hermits pray.
Our
Arab troupe crossed into lands
Beyond
what I am unable to know.
Veiled
and concealed between shows,
They
kept me in the closed cart free from male eyes.
I
kept a secret rose a handsome young Egyptian threw me.
I
would be stoned if anyone knew how it came my way
After
a show in Cairo.
The young man slipped
away
After
he threw it so not to be caught.
I
stay veiled until the dark oud mourns.
Men
gather to stare.
They
know what my magic is when concealment
Is
manifest, and my belly twirls.
Ekphrastic
poem
"Green
Eyes” by Derrick Montez
