MY DEAD RELATIVES

i hear them outside
in lonely evenings,
scratching at the door
most often late

always, i open, not really
caring to see who’s there

they file past me, clutching dated news
papers in their blue hands, hair disheveled,
each trailing a mothball scent

my uncle chain smokes, grandmother
turns down her hearing aid before
sitting comfortably in her old pine
rocker in the far corner

no one speaks, not even to answer
my questions or my pathetic offers
of coffee or red sherry

in the twenty minutes it takes
for them to overstay their welcome,
i re-open the door and they shuffle
back out into shadows

grandmother, always the last
to leave, stops and whispers
softly into my ear;
i smile but do not understand
her words

i take a few seconds to savor
the lingering smell
of her peppermint breath

before closing the door to wonder
who they will visit when i’m gone
and whether or not i’ll be with them

Tim J. Brennan (68degrees)

THEIR PLACES

Look,
the dead hold
their mouths
like this, no,
more like in their
hands as if trying
to catch the cries
of the good and vanished.

Themselves.

Themselves like someone
who has no belongings.
Like those who are tied up
and left to the hands of those
who destroy everything they touch.

They are dead and when we try
to listen they always have someone
taking their places.

T. Obatala (trkyounger)

TWO PLACES

Dear Sir
I don’t want to be in two places at once
In Autobiography of a Yogi
I read about holymen who
meditate for years
levitate
disappear and
materialise
in two places at once.

When I meditate, a series of explosions like fireworks
occurs in my forehead
lotus flowers open and close
the tyrannosaurus rex eats the toilet, man and all
in that scene from Jurassic Park
over and over again
If I meditate on the bodhi tree
where Buddha was enlightened
it begins to wilt and shake and a horde of crows
descends upon it and strips it bare of any greenery
and meditating on a skeletal tree
is slightly disconcerting
so I usually stop.

I don’t want to be in two places at once.
When I’m with you I long to be home.
When I’m home I long to be with you.

I want to be like confetti
or spores
painlessly dispersing on the wind
wherever I go
luminous.

Yours sincerely

Lily Chan (Blissbuddha)