Poetry

A Mystery

Posted on by Napoleon Dozier

White of eyes. Framed in the frame. Blood brother of brutality’s murder rhymes slips off the tip of his tongue and civilisation is lost.

Undigested malady, hoist me on the shoulder of your affection. I do not exhale a priceless thought. You are not reading me. A page has yet to turn, like a neck to see if you are looking back at the beauty which momentarily passed you by. Like life. Like an idea, swift uppercut and pasted on your heart. I have lived your sighs. The marks on the bitten end of your chapters are mine. Dog eared. Black of lies.  Yellow on top. I am writing you into me.

They mispoke my name once and again. I am besides those whose eyes can not see clearly enough to fly. Beside pages of pain or painted refrain of ages gone slow, to be born again. The oldest child is the mirror of the man who denies himself the peace of reason and souls burn on the wavelength of insanity. Words out of order. A semblance of order. A reason not forthcoming. The questions of why. The long endings that do not end on goodbyes. Is that true?

True say we say it means something but it is not true to say that we know the answers to the questions of why the white of eyes and black of lies behave the way they do. Greys integrate well with blue beards, if you let them live amongst the masses that breed on unstroked chins. Up is down and down is out but who is counting up the hairs on chins that have not been stroked and greased with questions in bed with questions that plague your head of aches? And the red noise of information which feast on your white of eyes? So green, so low down, so dependant on the drug of knowing. And what do we know? Who are we? What are we? Why are we? A mystery to ourselves. To each other. Yellow on black. Or of it.

Godmother of reality and her children suffer, blows of reckoning, headshots, eyes reddened, and unrecognised as the hugs of Joe. Snatched at death. Woe the tides that come to sweep laughter off the shores of John Doe, lamentable dreamers of our digital days, nightless and wide screened. Wide as fear stretches intrusively into the safe space. Enchanted tears roll back the years of sleep.

 

 

 

 

Sunday

Posted on by Napoleon Dozier

Sunday prayer, a confession of tears that painted the tracks, long enough for three sides of a story, cut time rhythm, my word is gospel when i’m silent I sing the loudest, laughter can’t find where I hid the jokes. Its on you. A pity party only needs a jester for intermission. The crown of clowns is to sweeten the pain of truths told for cheers and jeers, and fears freshly laid out, the city crawls behind you now. A short prayer, longer than we lasted, music makers of myths and heart breakers breaking out of old skin, dead as last night.

 

Native

Posted on by Napoleon Dozier

Dangerous nonchalance, tame the tongue as one would tame the Shrew.
Nigger owes you when it owns you,
tie the rope around the neck, choke the spirit behind the word till it sounds like Reggin.
Old words in new clothes begin aggin with new clothes on old pain.
Healers like dealers, double up on bad luck for crowned faces cried out in biro blue.
Thorny headed healers for troubled heart, trembling lips sip from the pimp cup, your child drinks your tears through breast milk, breathe easy baby.

 

 

 

Sky

Posted on by Napoleon Dozier

Is it the sky that colours the thought that my eyes speak when you look into me? I didn’t try to hide your questions in there. We just got stuck on the tangled high wire of hearts we dared to cross on foot. No fear. Just fools. Just us.

I wore your favourite smile today. It only cost me a tear before the train arrived to put me back on track. Love races the many miles of memories behind a kiss. I had hoped to return it to her sacred place. Sometimes we hold on too long and awake to find that the dream does not always follow us into the morning. And yet the Sky remains as young and dear to me as that devil in green. Or was it blue? And I as old as the grey bearded child I always was.

 

 

Always

Posted on by Napoleon Dozier

Always

Soaked in mystery

Always

Loved by the Sun

Always

Kissing the wind that swerves

But never bolts

Always

Living for the ride

Always

Dying to be touched

Always

Crying to know more

Always

Reading the silence behind the words

Always

Dancing with your eyes that stir up Trouble’s waves

A love that beheaded the cyclops and the serpent

Always

Whisperings that climb the giving trees and nest where hearts are a flutter

Always desire

And must we seek it

Always

The hard floor of contemplation

A temporary port that harbours dreams of the impatient night

Low tides on the horizon

Always

New lines of order

We tip toe on reason with guilty feet

Tango of terrors

We marvel at what we are and never could be

Longings and latitudes

Always the drift

Always so near to our distance

Always

Hungry for a life with no name

Numbered and numb

Always

Awaiting

Always

For time to dance with chance

 

 

A Refrain

Posted on by Napoleon Dozier

Tomorrow will not be a work in progress before a refrain,
(before) the rain settles, and snow falls,
and they raise a hand to strike my cheek or wipe my
brow. I hold the pearl in my eye (the other hand), and
plant the seed of graceful song, and rub the soil
between soft palms (when we see eye to I), before
lost trains of thought, we wore our best years at a
distant glance, and thought we’d meet on Andalusian
hills, to dine with dreams we didn’t make, to share
stories we haven’t lived, and paint pictures we could
scarcely imagine.

Tomorrow will not be an excuse for today’s unfinished
business, talkin’ bout how good it feels to get another
chance at life’s poker table, to play your five
stringed instrument, like a child making three special
wishes by a fountain, with your lungs pumped full of
hot air, and the mercy of the wind at the back of your
neck, to dabble again, and maybe with a little lady
luck, razzle, dazzle a fortune born of sweat beads and
high blood pressure, and fly you away on a ready made
bed of thornless roses, with a song in mind for when
you cross over, hoping that the hill won’t roll over,
when tomorrow strikes you and your waterfall
resolutions, slippery, just as quickly, money like
water trickles through fingers, pressed together,
pockets shut tighter than fists, breath held longer
than destiny’s late shifts, but you don’t feel much
younger than first love, now dare you ask older,
wiser, brother, sister, friend in disguise, what the
wind behind your back is saying, when she ain’t
blowing you away. The voice I hear says, “What you
don’t do today will not deliver you tomorrow”, as
surely as one day bears no resemblance with another.
Tomorrow will be decided today.

Small Death

Posted on by Napoleon Dozier

Mother tongue is cool, and you can be the conscience of my indiscretion, or the remedy that triggers a poet’s latent talent out of the comfort zone and complacency of a reclining chair. Dormant, but not dead. Though he used to die a small death everyday, he thinks it would be best to live a lot, stop the rot from dot to dot like her heart forgot to die again today. And now we come to you and I, and now we wonder how and why? Wondering how high…is the drop? How long…till it stops? Its not the pain that troubles you, cause death serves a purpose of its own agenda, though I’d sooner be a warning sign for danger than the fool that got in the way of a stranger called Providence. And if it bites like last winter, and sister warm blood tastes better, then you should know that the fraud will be the block buster ’till further notice, but notice how your past reminds you of how far away your future cast you, drawing doodles with your minds eye, can’t see too well with your past life, and dearly beloved is a dwelling place for the restless, rowdy like premature ambition, a mission statement wears your age with contempt, crowded with sentiment on insecurity highway, down below, the parched valley raises up another question mark to consider in cubic shapes of monochrome colour, yeah underneath that red Sun, rising to fall, waking to sleep through fog, the distance, the drift, and your wondering how high is the summit of your desire, to climb back up from your small death, on the string of the loose change that barren land loaned you, the countless grains of Sahara’s sand timer tickles the unfancied soles of your feet into motion, defeats stagnation, anticipates the storm, marches on like the aftermath of the Somme, but will not carry the dead on depressed shoulders, and empty stomach.