Shutters by Joey Ng

Shutters by Joey Ng

I have seen rebirth and it is like this;

An unheard melody quenching the thirst

For the unseen and the unsullied, All

Must be new to feed sharp pangs of hunger

With their gourmand aspirations and hopes

Of finding something worth doting upon.

In this age of quick gratification

Where anonymity is true to norm,

It is all too easy to lose your sight

Through shuttered windows stacked on each other,

Creating the illusion of vision,

Of clear images, high definition.

But with so much left to see, what is there

To touch, to love, to regale, and to breathe

Through blown glass harps that can sheathe every sword

Found in honest human interaction.

With this pittance I claim to pay my dues,

A name that rings true at low frequency.

Through shuttered screens I can direct legions

Of the expendable variety,

Though countless hours are never reclaimed

But now, with this migration through vast seas,

Lavender and holly picked straight from earth

Sits still as a wreath on our fair head

That we hold level to peer with intent.

Now I can feel, hear, think and breathe through thus

Hallowed lungs devoid of hesitation.

Through this opulent smoke I extend my

Reach and my capacity, taking it

All in with most honest interactions.

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Petersen: Kleichen and a Man

BY GEORGE SZIRTES B. 1948

I have seen eternity and it is like this,

a man and woman dancing in a bar

in a poor street on an unswept floor.

It clings and plots and is desperate,

at a point between violence and abjection,

between warmth and agoraphobic fear.

Let me reverse this and accept the fear.

Let me drop all objections to abjection,

since life itself  is desperate

and has to tread the unswept floor

carefully, lovingly, while the bar

hovers in eternity. Like this.

Source: Poetry (February 2008).