Tag: New York City

Poetry

Two Poems by David Francis

Post author By borderlesssg1
Post date September 14, 2022
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Art by Hennie Niemann(2020). Courtesy: Creative Commons

SENTIMENTAL PAST


She has a sentimental past
of old friends, of an ideal love
of friends she misses dearly,
of shared laughter that leaves an ache
that no one new can now ease,
no one else can ever fill,
you can never take
their place: nor should;
they remain, but are far away…
but when her face looks sick, or dead
and she thinks of him instead
of a passion still-smouldering
if only for a full instant
like a toppling revelation
of a colossal mistake
the realisation
of being on the wrong highway
that is to say: with you --

She has a sentimental life
of homesickness and heartbrokenness

I know
because the tears start to flow


WHAT IS THE WAY?


A compliment is the way to your heart
but your heart perversely seeks its pleasure
and, latching onto him, would rather smart
than be its boring admirer’s treasure.

Intimacy, pure and undemanding,
falls into your lap and graces your day --
how have you merited understanding
and now with indifference throw it away?

“How” is the question one wishes one knew.
Meanwhile, apathy makes all hopes shatter.
When you said “You don’t know me” was the clue
and the rest, all the rest doesn’t matter.

For now you’re left with him and I with me
as sun rays glance opaquely off the sea.

David Francis has produced seven music albums, Always/Far: a chapbook of lyrics and drawings, and Poems from Argentina (Kelsay Books). He has written and directed the films, Village Folksinger
(2013) and Memory Journey (2018). He lives in New York City.

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Tags David Francis, Hennie Niemann, New York City

Poetry

Clouds & Rain

Poetry by David Francis


THE SOUND OF RAIN


The way it makes everything
inside seem dry
and yet vulnerable.

Lovers love the rain.
But to the lonely it hurts,
like withheld tears.

Strange, the present
and cyclical passage
of time: this rain now.

It dies. For an instant
aware you say, “It’s stopped.”
Cautiously, as if a hazard.

Listening to the rain
in pajamas,
eyeballs tired from reading,

Outlasts the sleeper
who wakes, wonders,
“Has it rained?”


SYLLABLES

She only sings four syllables
but that doesn’t irritate me. Because
I say the same words
over and over: “We’re together.”


CIRCLE OF CLOUDS

Clouds are circling fast
come in from the coast
and the blue makes
the cold less cold
but you went away
in the middle of the night
rolled away on a bus
all day inland
you’ve been gone longer than you said
a man without sleep
is like a man dead
I see everything gray
though the clouds have been pushed
by some invisible oar
I won’t feel it
till you come through that door

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Tags David Francis, New York City

Poetry

The Chef

By Jee Leong Koh

for Richard Chan (Yummy Tummy, Flushing, New York, March 24, 2019)

Unctuously fried oyster omelet.

Hainanese chicken rice. Sambal fish balls

pierced on a stick, as in the old night markets,

airborne kerosene lamps lisping with a flair.

Mee goreng with sliced fish cake, Chinese sausage

and egg. Bak kut teh spelled the correct way,

the way of memory, for bone meat tea.

And finally, the chef’s very own favorite,

the pièce de résistance, on which he lavished

a fiery, slurry, egg tomato sauce,

the chilli crab, made from Dungeness crabs,

in which we dig with fingers for sweet flesh.

The critics got him wrong. He has not changed

profession. He is still a travel agent.

Jee Leong Koh is the author of Steep Tea (Carcanet), named a Best Book of the Year by UK’s Financial Times and a Finalist by Lambda Literary in the US. His latest book is Connor & Seal: A Harlem Story in 47 Poems (Sibling Rivalry). Originally from Singapore, Koh lives in New York City, where he heads the literary non-profit Singapore Unbound.

Tags Jee Leong Koh, New York City

Poetry

Elmhurst, O Elmhurst

By Melissa A. Chappell

(Elmhurst, the only public hospital in New York City was founded to serve the poor in 1832. It serves Western Queens County.)

Elmhurst, O Elmhurst,
I did not know you in your mothering shift
of glass and mortar.

I ticked off your name in my mind
as you caught my ear on the morning radio:
“Elmhurst.”

This, as I authored my own survival.

Perhaps I may be one of the remnant.

Perhaps this wasting bane
may steal away on some wing
of the breeze.

But, no, Corona prefers to steal the air
from the ravaged world;

so that one day I saw on my 52 in. screen,
Elmhurst,
with an almost snake like refrigerated truck,
parked outside its venerable walls,
the vile work of Corona
unmasked,
by the shining light of day;

so that, the wretched of God gathered at the hem
of her weeping garments.

The poor and the dead,
thronging around her.

She has mothered them for generations,
now they lie dead in the emergency room,
with none to kiss their brow.

She weeps over those who have waited so long
to shelter within her.

Yet she rejoices in those who leave her,
walking from her doors.

Elmhurst, O Elmhurst, I did not know you
in your mothering shift
of glass and mortar.

Yet now, now, I catch the genesis
of the most improbable invitation
on a wind that comes
out of the surly darkness:
“Breathe, breathe.
I will keep your going out
and your coming in.”

This, for the poor who gather around
the shabby fringes of the earth.

This, for you, O Elmhurst,
form this time on,
and forevermore.

Melissa A. Chappell is a native of South Carolina, USA. She contentedly resides on land that has been in her family for over 130 years. She has a BA in the Theory of Music and a Master of Divinity degree. Besides writing, she plays several instruments, including the lute. Music and the land are her primary inspirations for her poetry. She has had two chapbooks published: Rivers and Relics (Desert Willow Press)

Tags ElmhurstOElmhurst, Melissa A Chapell, New York City, USA