Hungry Platitudes

Hey there...
you !!
with your 
Starbucks
and half eaten
Espresso bar
so casually thrown
into the 
trash.

Food and drink
still warm from 
your hands
still pink from 
chatting
in that
coffee shop
you frequent
each morning.

I saw you
turn your 
head
from me,
you wouldn’t 
even
meet my 
eyes.

Your father, 
no doubt,
told you
I was 
dangerous
because I 
hear voices
of 
Saints and 
Demons,
because 
the streets
are my 
friends,
because I can’t 
find
a safe place 
to piss,
to wash 
my face
or clean 
my ass.

Or perhaps 
you 
don’t like
the way 
I look
or how
I smell.

To hell with 
you!
I don’t really 
care!
What I 
care about
is that 
you
left me
some of 
your latte
and half eaten 
pastry
and
a paper 
to read
on top 
of the 
garbage.

And if I’m 
lucky
I’ll get a 
chance
to grab it
before
someone else 
does,
and
for a brief 
moment
feel like
I’m 
someone.

Someone 
like you.

© 2008 Querus Abuttu

The White Plate

"Does Daddy kiss you like 
he kisses me?"

The question 
exploded
as my bare toes
wiggled on
red linoleum.

Watching her
stop washing
that dish,
I wished
I coulda shoved
my stupid
stupid words
back
into my
stupid little 
lips
the moment
I said them.

I bit my mouth
till it bled 
salt
against my 
tongue.

The white plate
slipped from
her rubber 
fingers.

I watched it fall
like those
instant replays on 
football
slowly
deliberately
almost
suspended in time
till its milky face
smashed 
the floor
and 
shattered.

I heard
her loud steps
towards the 
living room
and her slaps
and curses
assailing my 
father.

But all I could see
was that
white plate
and
all I could 
feel
was like
I
should be
the one
picking up 
the pieces
before
someone got 
hurt.

Copyright © 2008 Querus Abuttu

"Phantasms"

Cold beads of sweat
Slicing the brow
Freezing lashes that fought against black.
What was that sound?
Shattered perceptions,
Of perfect deceptions
reflected in time.

Icy reality
biting the wrinkles
of folded tenacious pillows of grey.
Gasping for breath,
Wrenched to a whisper,
Sunlight fades away.

I'm blind
I see.

Copyright © 2008 Querus Abuttu

John Ross

John Ross

Two A.M. in the morning
Empty streets
City lights
The clock keeps ticking
Second for second
As I listen to the rain come down.

Well, I remember when we
Were kids,
Best friends,
Hiding from the lightening-
Screaming at the thunder-
Where are you now, today,
John Ross?
Where are you now, today?

College took me away from town.
A girl named Bess took you to Texas.
I found the city,
You worked the Land.
Ain’t it funny how the world goes round?
And still, today, though we’ve drifted ways,
I remember that stupid hat you used to wear.
And in a crowd of people
Sometimes I think
I see your face.

And I wonder-
Where are you now, today, John Ross?
Where are you now, today?

Copyright © 2008 Querus Abuttu

Aborted

I am
an object enveloped in oppressive grey.

(the ultimate uncertainty)

I possess an unnamed name
and a soul
none have ever dared to touch.

I’m spinning in the smoky mists
of what is left of time.

There is no light,
No sound,
No sense of anything
Except the softness
Of my own destruction-
Except the distance
Between my truth,
And Darkness.

My solitude
Is a symbol
Of all that is …obsolete.

(It represents the future)

In the end,
There is no end.
Only the loneliness of
A Spirit
Waiting for a greater love
to enfold it.

Copyright © 2008 Querus Abuttu

Angel

A woman dressed in black
Drapes a veil before her eyes.
No man knows the truth she speaks.
No man knows her lies.
Her soul is one of darkness
Dipped into a perfect light.
And no man feels her gifted touch
till day falls in to night.

She moves in mists of silence
In a world turned inside out,
And whispers dreams of paradise
No man could live without.
Her touch awakens love long lost
in lives damned pure insane.
And nightmares fade from opened minds
that learn to love again.

What moment gives her power?
What time is reign supreme?
She only has you in her grasp
The second that you dream.
What would you want forever?
And what wish is your desire?
You seek the entrance to her world.
The door is filled with Fire.

Removal

Poor wretched bodies
Unknowingly submitted
To warped and tortured
Fatal cells-
Living clumps of nightmare
Embedded deep within the flesh-
To burn with shame
And to endure
Blessed womanhood removed-
Hideous and foul traitorous life!

Forever-
Scarred the mind,
From the tissue that was severed.
Butchered on the table
Innocent lambs
To the slaughter.
And they all say
That it’s O.K.
(They’d sooner die
than trade)
And none will see
The tears that run
From maimed minds in the night.

Copyright © 2008 Querus Abuttu

A Touch of Ishtar

“I can read your palm.”, said she
as he drew nearer in the night.
He smiled at that,
Laid his hand bare
For her all knowing eyes to see.

She held it gently…
Almost tender-
And spread his fingers
open wide,
And told him secrets
of his life
Enclosed within his
prisoned mind.

He stood, amazed,
As he too gazed
Upon his naked hand.
That this strange woman knew him
(outside in)
was more
than he could stand.

“Witch!”, he cried, “Sorceress!”
“How is it that you see what none
have ever seen before?”
“How is it that
you’ve pierced my soul,
my hand
your only door?”

She stared at him in silence
With ancient eyes that smiled,
And then did speak,
“My son, you knew
the moment that my hand
touched yours,
that all men are my only child-
Since the dawn of age
And time
All men are my child….”

Awakening

Awakening

Feet rotting in the ground.
Straining for a Savior.
Eyes fixed towards the heavens.
Well, there’s nothing there
but Fire.

Don’t you know salvation
is the fusion deep inside?
Blazing there,
It’s waiting there,
for you.

Breathing knife edged cold...
see your mind.
The stillness that you find
is truth.
We’ve done this before,
traveling those gritty sands.
Wake up from temerity.
Abandon the addiction
you’ve clung to
all your life.

Revolutions spinning
Nature’s tumbling wheel.
Put your finger on it.
‘cause silence isn't golden.
We’ve done this since amnion,
Stumbling…stubbing toes.
Take my hand and fold.
It’s the only way to win.

Wake up from complacency.
Abandon predilection.

Wake up!
Wake up!
Wake up!

Held Captive

It was your Captivity
that held me down
and spread the blackness
through my soul like a
subtle poison.
Something in the crucible of your voice
scorched with pain…
Your words
stripped naked with living…

Chained me.

Whipped me.

Gave me the scars of a lifetime.
Cut my heart out
Stole it from my SELF
And raped it…

Spat on it.

I was the object of desecration
trying to survive in a world
that smothered my race
My sex
My freedom…

And I cried at the desire
To deny what I was,
My body wracked
With the torturous words of
Traitor
Judas
Savior

And yes, my tears poured before you
like sweat
beading up on a black body
parched with thirst...
Locked in the hull
of a stinking ship.

I felt the iron chew my flesh
And make it rot.
Then I became Iron-
Cold and Unyielding…
an element of Earth
chaining down Spirit.

As the manacles fell
And turned to dust
I wept for my freedom.
Wept for your freedom
and knew without doubt
that once again I was captive.

A slave to your exposure,
A victim to your darkness,
And a part of the iron
that holds you close
And gives you pain.

Vindication

The Fool stands on the precipice
Heedless of the plunging drop
And raises up her head
To kiss the Sun
from her high mountaintop.
Mindless of the Hermit there
who shines white light
(instead of gold)
she seeks to become Empress
before she’s old.

And if the Fool is wise
she’ll race the Chariot
across the sky,
and touch the Moon
with all the World
embedded deep within her eyes.
And if the Fool is fool in deed,
She’ll speak cursed words
and dive the depths,
and lose two wands for three sharp swords
or reversed Death.

The Fool has seen the Tower
And safeguarded close the Priestess.
The Hanged Man will remind her
that the Wheel still jests with time.
The Devil grant the
King of Circled Stars
shares goblets
filled with Strength
And let the Fool not wander
From her well untraveled road.

Sweet Temperance wakes within her hands.
(I hope).