The Stranger Within by D'Jara Culpepper (i like reading txt) 📕

Contents

The Hidden

 

Dear J. Franco    4

Cleaning    5

[To the musicians aboard the Titanic]    7

Photographs of a Norwegian Singer, 2012    8

 

 

The Broken

 

Walking the Path between the Science and Kettler Buildings    11

That Day    12

To Love is to Adore    13

 

 

The Lost But Unforgotten

 

Square One    15

I am of…    16

Phalby    17

The Hidden

The Hidden

Dear J. Franco

 

I am a stranger

writing, to you, a letter

because I love your work.

You’ll never read this,

but I have wondered

what it is that you see

when you look at your life.

 

There are people who look at you

through a magnifying glass,

forget that there is only flesh and bone

to see once the film reel stops clicking.

You smile and continue on

like they’ve left roses at your doorstep.

 

You wrote a poem to Heath Ledger.

You said you didn’t know him,

but I think you wanted to.

He was your mirror,

yet you wonder what took him.

He stopped being a stranger

like me when he died:

“your death had made you Holy”

 

Oh, do you look at your life

and not see what is there?

You act, write, paint – for what?

Heath knew it and did what felt right.

You scream Art! Art!

The art is alive and well!

but you’re just screwing strangers like me,

pretending the Holy haven’t gone without you.

 

Is it not painful, knowing

the greats are dying,

dead before us?

 

 

Cleaning

 

Fold the laundry,

the heap that has been

smothering this bare mattress

for months, collecting salt

from yesterday’s nervous sweats

and tasteless meals eaten

to fend off the demanding pangs

of failure, of solitude, of stasis.

 

You could try laundering it again –

You should wash it,

air it out with summer’s breezes;

the thin, feathery essence

of snow crested mountains

and dew drenched greening hills

gently pricks my nostrils no more,

a biting stench swiftly slithering

into its place uninvited,

hiding in the wind

like dust bunnies between

brittle bristles of a broom.

 

Is the stench now catching in your throat?

Bombshells stream down flushed flesh,

flames swamping the pupils

to your eyes of lingering dusk.

You part crackled lips to speak,

but it isn’t budging; that rank smell

makes you sharply wheeze,

interrupts your train of thought.

 

The stench needs to be aired out.

I try to scream it, but say nothing.

Your face says I know,

so I lie here and wait.

 

 

It dries out your tapering throat

before me, yet I lie here waiting,

watching its chokehold tighten,

the must of Grimm tales

and yellowing letters

clinging to every divot

like fresh cellophane.

 

I keep waiting for you

to shake it off and finish up.

You created this mess,

so you’ll clear it out.

But I now live here with you –

It’s not just you bearing this.

You were just here first.

I lie on our bed, waiting

beneath the stifling heap.

 

You don’t air out the laundry.

You just lift and spray it

with a daisy’s scent,

hanging your head all the while.

Weakly, you look in my eyes.

I have your space saved:

Come, lie and rest;

gently bury us again.

[To the musicians aboard the Titanic]

 

To the musicians aboard the Titanic,

thank you. Death tried

to cut your time short,

but he never knew

you had all the time

in the world in your hands.

 

And to all dreamers, dream on –

Dream things so grandiose

that they overtake you as

hunting jaguars, leaving

no scraps of mortality behind.

 

I dreamt I was you,

hair pulling loose in clumps

and falling to ground

like daisy petals in winter’s winds.

My hands twitched helplessly

like lobster claws tied tightly.

 

I saw, then, our truth,

and was ashamed

only of all that died before living.

We’re all musicians, you know.

We’re all musicians, you know.

 

Photographs of a Norwegian Singer, 2012

 

The purest darkness and how it swallowed the hairs on his head – I remember fair skin shimmering like stardust amongst the night and eyes staring out, worlds away, so filled with a solemn calm seen only in graveyards. The battle was ending, the enemy retreating home. This man now stood alone, the tale coiled tightly in his chest, a snake suffocating, longing for air.

He set out, sword in hand. Snow caked the ground underfoot, yet he trudged onward, uphill. He pierced the earth, the sword shoved deep inside. He kneeled be-side it, head raised as he unsheathed his cry. I watched his siren’s call unfurl, his song of victory ringing in the ears of the naysayer, awakening the hope and fight that I once had –returning life to this dreamer.

 

 

Photographs of a Norwegian Singer, 2012 (cont.)

The Broken

The Broken

Walking the Path between the Science and Kettler Buildings

 

The sky is so inviting.

Its flat blue so gently embraces

the sun’s golden light.

I feel Gaia smiling, too:

I see spring grasses maturing

to emerald and bushes in bloom;

I hear how the wind moves

through Her branches,

whispering so only She’ll hear.

 

I walk on, the whispering

an itch inside my ears.

3:12 on campus is so empty, silent.

The whispering seems so loud,

ringing in my ears now.

I see two robins flying together,

their wings touching. I look away,

nearly gagging from the sight of them.

 

The robins are still there,

still flying so close to one another.

I pause and just look on. What is this

bitter taste on my tongue?

At 3:15, sudden rain comes down,

streams warm on my face,

each drop a deeper purple than the last.

That Day

 

Do you remember that day?

I