Truly I Say, This Is Disasterpiece

The Law Is Always Just

This evening on my way home from SDW,

tripped over a gigantic pile of horse apples

from a proud downtown mounted cop

That same cop, on First and Union, wrote

a bent old man a ticket

for failing to bag up a steaming pile

of his Cocker Spaniel's crap.

Why doesn't the strong arm of the government

have to clean up its own shit?

---William James, 3/26/2007

If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.

Love Poems Are Horrible And Here's Why

The Manchester Arms Love Nest

Will she groan

out my name

when it is my turn to fill her?

I rhythmically ejaculated

A word that formed on my lips that

lacked any discernible meaning

—Harder, faster, slower

The girl next door screamed

Through plaster lath walls

I open my ears

and dream of aloneness

---William James, 3/5/2007

If you haven't already, check out Randomly Accessed Poetics first publication: The Texture of Words.

My Second Poem About Dad (is now a sorrowful confession)

I've noticed, in my relationships with people (excluding children), that when the shit hits the fan, there are no innocent parties.

In (relationship) wars people are not nice, they are not tame, they are not domesticated. People are in fact wild animals.

People may behave in a civil manner in whatever relationship they are engaged in, but underneath that thin veneer a primitive beast lurks. Nobody wants to talk about this. Nobody wants to personally admit the truth of this or apply it personally to them. People want to present themselves to others as angels or sheep without blemish, but this is not reality.

Me, I have a wild animal in my heart. I harbor a lot of resentment in my body. I hold grudges. I am haunted by past wounds and misinterpretations. I do irrational things. I am impulsive. And I have been cruel to people whom I shouldn’t have been unkind too. I am not beyond blame.

In dealing with the sudden death of my father, the veil between the rational and the irrational has worn thin. The veneer of civility has become peppered with holes. And I have uttered things (on 07152012) that never should have escaped my lips.

This whole experience of being the bad brother and son has reminded me of the Robert Service Poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

Mostly it was the word turmoil, which became moil that reminded me of this poem.

I look forward to the day when the fallout of dad's death settles to the ground. And we who have survived have been able to extract all the radioactivity that has poisoned our flesh so that we can once again be united under the banner of family. Dad often quoted a soviet dictator (whose name escapes me) who wanted to escape the conflict with the west in order to return his people to useful labor.

Yes, dad, we in the family (here still breathing) need to put down our guns, beat them into hoes, and return to useful labor in the garden.

Friday's Children by Afzal Moolla

Ramblin' Bob Dylan Blues.

Why does the sun dry up so many scattered tears

slipping down the coarse cheek of a million hushed fears

where no one is scalded though the searing fog clears

while prayers are mutely spoken even as the end nears

We shatter and scrape on demented knees

Blindly begging for mercy as it silently flees

Searching listlessly for salvation drowned in the breeze

That spits at the soft rose suffocated by a wheeze

I know now what I need never have known

Of hope that was trampled before it had flown

Into a wasted sky filled with hate that could drown

The giggling of the crowd and the crying of the clown

A hope so fragile that its wings were of brittle glass

Ripping the veneer off the sewers of class

Twisting the fabric of the weighed and costed mass

Who numbly waited hoping that it too may pass

For when shards of that hope in all hearts scurries away

To a darkness where crowded night is emptied off the heaving tray

'Tis then when sewn eyes shall behold that doleful day

When all shall tear at each other while on demented knees we still shall pray

For a lifting of the veil of that wilful deceit

That's wrapped up in a flag swollen with conceit

While the limbs splinter in the claw of a winner's defeat

Yet still the drums roll for the ill-fated souls chose never to retreat

From that drenched battle-ground where blood flows through a sieve

And love's lost song plaintively begs for a reprieve

From eternal loss which into raw emotion does cleave

Only to slip through the fingers and like grains of sand, leave

(For Bob Dylan)

Copyright © 2012 by Afzal Moolla

I've come along ways since 1994

Excerpt from the First Stuff

There are many          lakes in a sea;          there's many lakes in the          infinite ocean deep.          All are separated          by their own will.          All are part          of the great whole,          but being blind,          don't even know.

If you haven't already, check out Penhead Press's first publication: Randomly Accessed Poetics, Issue 1: The Texture of Words.