Evidence of Life

Evidence of Life

Selected Poems by Stuart Forrest

Contents Forever..................................................................................................................................................... 3 I Know What I’m Talking About ............................................................................................................. 4 Are You Lonely? ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Pause........................................................................................................................................................ 6 Gone Through Changes ......................................................................................................................... 7 Cold In Here ............................................................................................................................................ 8 Shared Wall ............................................................................................................................................. 9 I Ask........................................................................................................................................................ 10 Summer Love........................................................................................................................................ 11 Singing ................................................................................................................................................... 12 Angry Crayons ...................................................................................................................................... 13 To Be Dear ............................................................................................................................................. 14 Wallet ..................................................................................................................................................... 15 Choir Practice ....................................................................................................................................... 16 Ain’t That The Way? ............................................................................................................................... 17 Black Father .......................................................................................................................................... 18 From the Porch ..................................................................................................................................... 19 I Sprayed A Fly...................................................................................................................................... 20 Broken Homes ...................................................................................................................................... 21 Poker ...................................................................................................................................................... 22 Effort ...................................................................................................................................................... 23 Upon Seeing A Boy Running Down A Steep Hill .............................................................................. 24 Winter Wandering Wondering............................................................................................................. 25 I Left Nebraska ..................................................................................................................................... 26 When You Pray ...................................................................................................................................... 27 Art Gallery ............................................................................................................................................. 28 Friendly Meals ...................................................................................................................................... 29 What Else Is There?.............................................................................................................................. 30 Sharing Tea With A Monk .................................................................................................................... 31 Gallows Humor ..................................................................................................................................... 32 I Would Write A Blue Sky..................................................................................................................... 33 Pouring Tea ............................................................................................................................................ 34 Fishnet Parachute ................................................................................................................................ 35 2

Dying In A Dead Dog ............................................................................................................................ 36 Beneath the Hurting Rain.................................................................................................................... 37 Chocolate Villanelle ............................................................................................................................. 38 Farmers Markets ................................................................................................................................. 39 Freed Woman Of Savannah................................................................................................................. 40 Know What I Mean? .............................................................................................................................. 42 Modern Diet ........................................................................................................................................... 43 Vantablack ............................................................................................................................................. 44

3

Forever Forever is daybreak on the eighth day.

It is “Amen,” from the lips of the Void to its Mother.

It is Eternity’s deep sleep during dreams of Love.

It is an echo of my mother’s heartbeat from a Holy Mountain’s resting place.

It is where The End’s sight begins its search through the Darkness for a trace of human understanding.

It is Time, upon arriving home, knocking, knocking, knocking.

It is the instant before You were known to me.

I Know What I’m Talking About On a lame day, a more-of-the-same day, you have to wiggle your toes, blow gloom from your nose, pull heaven from your heart, and smell its flowers.

Say, ‘Mmmmm!’ like ice cream, a wink, a kiss, money in a dream.

Stop! There’s more, silly.

Be music, crazy piano keys, say something funny, slap your knees, drink frozen delicious daffy, and make your brain freeze out the business, out the worry, out the what’s-been-bothering-you, until sun drops land on your smile, and blessings swarm in your hair, so the Lord will look down and says, “What y’all doin down there?”

4

Are You Lonely?

Are You lonely?

Come to my house.

I will show you how I bake bread.

We’ll smell it bake and boast from the oven.

We’ll talk about our first times, when we laughed so hard, we almost peed, when we cried so very hard, deep in our chests, from our very presence, we just new it was the end, but it wasn’t.

Thank God for that.

We’ll eat hot bread, sweet butter, soft cheeses and watch our cares burn in the fireplace.

We will wipe up sins and tears with paper towels and put them on the windowsill to dry and blow away.

Do you like wine?

Do you like English Toffee?

Tell me your insides.

All of mine are water balloons thrown hard, from behind, from the dark.

Are You sad?

Come to my house.

5

Pause Every weary day, the bus shoves me out with a jolt, hiss, slam, at my back.

It litters me behind, sidewalked, to slosh through moods, puddles, mental weeds, and nettles.

But once, I felt a single moment of grace.

An instant beneath a gentle serein, a gift of healing silence, a hushful shush to clamor and clash.

I raised my face to be tenderly bathed by a laying on of healing mist.

In that calm, that silence, even the burden of my shadow became a kite, escaped aloft, and gone.

Spirits stir at such times and ration peace to the beaten.

They gather in séance, commune with the living, and caution, “Do not submit to troubles, tests and time.”

6

Gone Through Changes I lost my love.

So, I became a fish, then a lion, then a clam, and I was content not to be a man.

I met someone, but I became a moat, then a wall, then a stone, and I weep because I am still alone.

And if I had stayed a man, well, who knows?

7

Cold In Here It’s a mess, such a mess.

When it rains outside, it’s hard to open my door.

It’s cold in here, so cold in here.

There is clutter.

There is dust.

The mailbox is frozen shut by much time and rust.

I hear strangers try their keys in my lock.

It’s cold in here, so cold in here.

What is the matter?

What is a friend?

I found money in the couch, but so what?

There’s nothing out there I want to buy.

It’s so cold in here.

I’m so cold.

8

Shared Wall Every day I hear her from my little place, my space, through a wall a sentence thick, the length of a laugh, the width of a careless whisper.

I suppose that is all either of us can afford.

Some days I hear her from my work, my writing, and her shouts, cries, and pounding, blasts the wall with wrath and storms at him, and what he is, and what he has done again.

Some nights I hear her from my desk, candle, and chair, through our thin wall and air, a night bird, cooing, long and low, a dove in a sandalwood cradle, lined with pleasure-scented satin.

Some mornings I hear her from my tiny room, I overhear seeping, trickling, silly words, playful rain upon my ears, dripping upon my eavesdropping, least of my numerous sins.

Sometimes I see her outside, sending letters, sorting mail.

She wears a fine robe.

She winks. She waves.

Her smile is wry.

She seems happy.

9

I Ask Will one more prayer bless my eyes to see an act of kindness?

Will one more prayer bless my ears to hear noble songs of peace?

Would a drop of my blood upon an altar stop the beasts and the burning?

Would it cause the awful crying to cease?

Would deaths that cause the grieving to leaven mourner’s bread with wormwood, and the ravings of the evil to be stilled?

Would bullets change to blessings and that one prayer be answered bringing justice to the ruined and the killed?

If so, I’ll say that prayer and a million more until the tops of God’s holy mountains ring, and children can play in the streets at evening, and the weary have a reason to sing.

10

Summer Love Candied apples, dancing eyes meet at the county fair.

Souls, living cymbals ring out frolic, mirth, upon hot, sugar-glazed air.

Tilt-a-Whirl, Tunnel of Love, Midway, hand in hand, Sweet taste of funnel cakes and lips, Calliope steam, Loud, off key, brass band Ring toss, Embrace, imagine fireworks, grand finale, then, tired children, safe, asleep, by open windows.

Dreams are still free.

Do you remember?

11

Singing It disrobes hearts.

It unbinds the wings of spirits.

What can a prayer plead or implore that cannot be done in song?

Minds may plumb and measure, deep and fine, but hearts and spirits bear songs aloft, laying gifts before the sacred throne in pleasing sounds, life, and fragrance.

A child’s idle song causes God to sing, angels confess earthly sin, and barren trees yield their first fruits of youth.

I long to hear silence shattered, and this world and its souls swept in a deluge of song – forgiving, healing, redeeming, joyous song.

12

Angry Crayons We aren’t people anymore.

We are angry crayons.

Leaving a trail of hue and crying, wearing away, becoming stains.

Black and white do not become gray.

They conflict and layer, one upon the other, dominant or submissive, never merging.

We aren’t people anymore.

We are raving crayons, melting under the sun, bending, breaking.

Red and blue do not become purple.

They lie, crammed in boxes, unmoving, using other crayons, doing mischief, doing no good.

Crayons cannot console, or care, or love. or live.

They just color.

13

To Be Dear Dear God, my God, I aspire most to be dear; dear to You but, O my God, also dear to someone, dear to another like me, someone I can see, someone I can touch in my loneliness, someone with whom I can share smiles, laughter, light, and presence, someone to be solace to my grief and woe.

O My God, I so wish to be dear to someone.

14

Wallet I carry everything I am in a leather skin.

If I lose it, the world ends.

Some poor animal died so I can stuff my poverty in its hide.

Scant money, old pictures, exhausted cards are the extent of my measure, tucked against my butt, pretending to be treasure.

If I lie down on the street, will anyone see if my heart still beats?

No, strangers will rummage in a vain search for cash, scattering the worthless scraps of my life for street sweepers to swoop into stinking bins of trash.

Such shameful evidence that I am no king, I have no damn reason to carry the thing.

Some people own wallets, fat with money, made from evil or good.

If I needed to do evil to fatten my cache, I probably would.

15

Choir Practice Perhaps spirit is evoked by voices given flight within walls, against rafters, among pews, souls and drowsy babies.

World weary, yet we become restless in the blood, in the feet, in our seats.

“Hold my hand lest I fall.”

How they sing.

How they cling to an instant of innocence.

They strain against soiled flesh, throwing off, through song and sweat, their wrong and worry.

“Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”

I know these sisters; songbirds that shake the walls of “The Garden.”

Beneath red satin robes there is woe; flesh worn with wounds and weals.

Still, they sing, they fly.

Tomorrow, they will scrounge and scrub.

Lord, have mercy!

God can’t help Himself; He sings. He sways, He stamps His feet and smiles.

“Yes,” somebody shouts.

The earth falls away and is gone.

There is only the song and a pause for an answer.

Where have my troubles gone?

Why must they return so soon?

Sunlight through stained glass is a hopeful sign.

I believe.

16

Ain’t That The Way? When good things happen, I reach for the phone to call my mother.

When bad things happen, I reach out to her, but...

She is gone.

Still, I reach out, beyond me, this time, this world, to that place, any place, where she listens to me still.

Sill listening, like a woman, combing her child’s hair, humming to the radio, on Sunday, before we go to church.

17

Black Father He was a vine laboriously climbing a white castle wall; his days, his struggles invisible unless one paused and viewed in awe: root, stem, and fruit beneath leaves spread wide, beseeching toward sun and heaven.

At his end; spent, silent, he sleeps, That wall, proud and haughty, could not obscure his labor, or mock the earth that fed him, or the sacred rain that blessed him, or the sun and the unseen hand that beckons to him as a friend.

The wall still stands yet can only stand still.

18

From the Porch Lord knows how long it’s been since the paperboy come by.

Seems like a year is a finger’s stroke on frosted window glass; a child’s breath scattering dandelion manes.

Old Miss Spider work’s round-n-round, trail’n, knit’n, strand after strand, no thicker than a fate’s thread; so delicate, so fragile.

Lord knows how long.

People carry their days in a money bag, spending their days every day; then they got no time left.

Sad really.

Wonder where that paperboy’s gone.

Lord knows.

19

I Sprayed A Fly I sprayed a fly and watched myself spin in circles upon the floor, spin in circles upon my back, spasm and twine my legs, then become so very, very still.

It was so fast…so fast no tears fell from any of my eyes.

I suppose that is how dreams end.

That is how hopes die; how hinges creek when a suitcase shuts, or a door closes, a car starts without you and goes so far, far, forever away there is nothing left to do but lay down on the floor.

20

Broken Homes Broken homes, people pieces, snapped stick figure children lay strewn, angry, idle.

Shards cannot complete a puzzle.

They drift upon a vapor ocean then sink below footsteps, concrete and crust.

Tides of lapse, relapse, and collapse beat upon bleak sand.

Sunken time capsules bulge and erupt broken vows, worn tattered promises, shame, blame, rage and blood.

A sea of grief has no horizon.

Sighs that drive listless waves pound upon unclean sand.

Winds have died and groans cannot fill a sail.

21

Poker It’s a game, like a fist fight, or collecting rent, or stealing drugs from grandma’s purse.

It can be fun.

Fish and chips taste so good, especially when they tilt.

They cry.

If you’re going to feel sorry, don’t sit here.

Do arithmetic. Read a book.

Go have a smoke or something; but don’t sit down if you can’t get hurt real bad or beat some nice guy all in.

22

Effort Can you only float or must you fly?

Gliding is not soaring.

It ends, down upon the ground or perched in the grip of limbs.

Somewhere, someone is just counting all the words they hear; only listening to the impact of sounds against the ear.

Without will one goes where?

By wind, or words, why go if not by wisdom and will?

Borne, not bearing, dreaming, not daring, carried along toward waterfalls, it ends, down upon the ground.

23

Upon Seeing A Boy Running Down A Steep Hill Swept downhill on cascades of grass, legs struck by lightning.

Down from the top You cannot stop. so brush fire fast faster than ever or anything Sprinting feet thunder, pound, dash, almost fly.

You cannot-don’t want to – stop running.

Wildest one-boy stampede.

Will your feet leave the ground?

Will you fall down?

No, God, no.

Run on. Run on until You run out of hill; out of what is down or earthbound.

24

Winter Wandering Wondering Winter’s first snowflakes fall sweetest on the tongue--remember?

Spirits draped icicle festoons on rain gutters, powerlines, evergreens.

Pine needles held frost in their clutches.

There are no clotheslines anymore.

Cardboard sleighs, and steep hills beat typing code.

Fathers blast bellows of thick fog; shoveling shivering, shoveling, sweating.

Rubber boots grinding new snow, cows chewing grain, kids eating corn nuts, all sound the same to me now.

In winter, everyone forgets how to walk, accept kids.

They want to fall down.

Fallen angels, flailing arms and legs, to engrave their lives in the snow for shovels and snow ploughs.

“Hey, I’m not the maid around here.”

I want to hear it again.

I remember after all this time.

25

I Left Nebraska I will never miss Nebraska’s winter. It raids across that flat land; its icy spears stabbing through clothes, into the soul of folk who walk about town; unsteady, swaddled, waddling black and white penguins; black and white penguins that hate each other in the midst of a storm. It snows with anger in Nebraska; blowing drifts as big as bison, and the black and white cold lasts all year long.

Life, within the heart, does not thaw in July, when water steams from concrete and suspicion is a frozen over slush between people.

I can never go back to the cold. I can never go back to my first home.

26

When You Pray When you pray into the starless black of your eyes shut tight; what do you seek?

Peace? Healing?

A gift from a powerful slave?

Is that what prayer is?

I don’t know either.

When you pray and become nothing, eternally in everything; what do you become?

Revived? Renewed?

What you were before conceived?

Is that what prayer is?

I don’t know either.

27

Art Gallery You are a closed art gallery.

Open your doors.

Let everyone in.

Sell nothing but give to each one, something they find appealing until you are empty.

Then, give away your doors, windows, roof, walls, until you are gone, pure and perfect art, pure and perfect spirit.

28

Friendly Meals A meal with my friends is a garden suspended between earth and heaven.

Some quote Jesus.

Some quote Mohammad.

Some quote Moses. fragrances of entwined flowering vines, and rare trees makes naan, olives, fruit, honey, and tea sing in the mouth life’s flavored colors, senses, passions.

I fast to goad my pangs for such meals.

29

What Else Is There?

We eat, drink, laugh, lie at a table that stands on our graves, spilling wine, words, tears and song.

What else is there?

Our labors and suffering can wait.

Our wages are among table scraps at our feet.

We shall be forgotten below the festive table.

What of it?

We will hear the jokes of the next hardy guests.

30

Sharing Tea With A Monk I tell you there are pieces of heaven that fall to earth.

They become teashops in Hong Kong.

In one such place, I met a monk.

We shared a pot of pu-er and poetry.

Suddenly, he stood with a start.

“I must go,” he said.

“I must confess my sins to the abbot.”

I asked,” Is your abbot a man, like us?”

He said, “Of course.”

I pushed a spittoon close to his chair.

“Confess into this,” I said.

“It is without sin and much purer inside.”

We laughed until we ached.

We stayed in heaven and watched the moon rise above Tai Mo Shan.

31

Gallows Humor Even the condemned can find a reason to laugh before death.

They cannot help it.

The soul thirsts for mirth within the blackest shadows.

And what is woe and weeping but the sharpest thirst.

32

I Would Write A Blue Sky I am not a good poet.

I cannot even describe the blue of the sky.

If I could only taste it, place a bit of sun on my tongue, squeeze clouds between my fingers, pick eagles from flight with tweezers, dip them in that vast, living, azure dream, and use them to write on mere paper, then, I would be a good poet, and you would never see the blue sky without me again.

33

Pouring Tea I pour many cups for myself.

Living waters revive dear spirits, fragrances long confined to sleep.

Even a mournful soul gladdens when cheerful warbling douses our cold deep hollow’s emptiness.

I pour many cups for myself.

What lives in steam rises, welcomed into the chill, into the living, only the living.

I pour many cups for myself, and more joyously, for my few cherished friends; once strangers in my little home.

34

Fishnet Parachute People scoff when you fall off the world.

They believe it is your fault, because you’re weak.

People shun when you don’t run your world like theirs.

If your lamps break into plastic pieces, they say you love the dark.

If your clocks stop, they say you don’t want to work.

People say you should get help.

People shun when you get help.

People snub if you got help.

People wonder why you still need help.

35

Dying In A Dead Dog A dead dog in the road; more precious than gold to a lonely black boy that was eight years old.

Even more precious alive was my only friend; petted, cherished, hugged and hoarded, away from all of you.

We would never die.

We would never be killed, but he gamboled into a street of cracked, cruel, unclean, concrete; a snare for a pair of white boys in a car that leered, laughed and ran him down, then circled and ran us down again, again, again, again. five times just for fun five times just for me Almighty God, how I screamed.

All my father’s beatings, could not match such shrieking.

I screamed my life’s blood through my eyes.

I screamed waves of my soul crashing against the gates of heaven; screams that ripped angels from their sleep, screams that chased down God and died at his feet.

The boys left us; my dog, killed in the street, and me, dead in my dog.

Something empty went to my home, wearing my clothes.

It pretended to be me for ten thousand years.

36

Beneath the Hurting Rain Show me where it hurts and our pains shall be fed, calmed and quiet.

Your red wounds, share.

Give them air.

Rest beneath consoling shade.

It is our grief and hurt that’s meant to die.

What flees the flesh sheds this chaff and thrives.

What is left of us is enough for us.

37

Chocolate Villanelle Deep, brown, warm, wet, earthen satin When my shy, cautious passions grew Fingers caress, coax and gladden Couverture of cinnamon hue Such strength of sweetness to renew Deep, brown, warm, wet, earthen satin Let us hide from intrusive view I tempt, entice, and seduce you Fingers caress, coax, and gladden At your first sigh, I was made new Our embrace, bind, entwining two Deep, brown, warm, wet, earthen satin A trance cast by a chocolate muse I’ve no desire to undo Fingers caress, coax and gladden When lips exceed what words can do our zealous dreams of love prove true Deep, brown, warm, wet, earthen satin Fingers caress, coax and gladden

38

Farmers Markets They turn days into shiny jelly beans, colored, flavored, in people and produce.

For a while, we breath fragrance of growing greens, flesh of fresh fruit cut to sample.

Life is music.

People are good.

The world does not bite, sting, or stink while booths boast with abundance and streams of footsteps and babble flow among the best of what people bring.

39

Freed Woman Of Savannah Black gem of Savannah Her sable woolen hair glistened like wet raven wings, African rosewood skin She sold the season's flowers, long-stemmed red roses, thorns and dry twigs, trimmed. petals like deep pools of wine and blood Her mamma named her Charm to keep her child from harm.

She was the town's dear flower girl.

Freed woman of Savannah The ladies of Savannah loved her beauty, begrudged her freedom.

Who would not desire to own her.

Black gem of Savannah Freed woman of Savannah Whose gentle voice was a caress of the shyest breeze.

African rosewood skin She was the town’s dear flower girl.

Who would not desire to own her, whose gentile voice was a caress of the shyest breeze.

40

Noble born of Georgia, handsome white son of gunpowder and iron, lover of privilege, women and whiskey, he saw Charm from his porch, bid her enter his yard, seeing her flowers and African rosewood.

His mother named him Caesar to preordain him a leader among the town's rich sons.

High born baron of Georgia Black gem of Savannah Freed woman of Savannah Noble born of Georgia High born baron of Georgia A rose’s freedom is its thorn’s sting.

In Savannah, freedom is a fragile thing.

A brandished knife is as strong as a chain wielded by a noble Georgia baron, and his threatening knife may do more than merely hurt.

Precious seasonal flowers are destroyed by barren dirt.

Her mamma named her Charm.

His mother named him Caesar.

Freed woman of Savannah High born baron of Georgia A sharp-eyed Savannah guardsman found her beneath bloodstained maple leaves; a brass button clutched in one cold hand.

A trail of petals may testify when they lead to a door.

A button may bear witness when missing from a shirt among the town’s rich sons.

A trail of wilting petals may reveal a truth to the wise man who follows all the way to a high born son destined for the gallows.

41

Know What I Mean?

She was kinda, kinda, you know, know what I mean?

She sat on the porch with her silly friend, giggling, looking at me walk’n by.

And she was kinda, kinda, you know, know what I mean?

She thinks I like her, But when I say, “hi”, she’s like, “What you look’n at?”

And she was kinda, kinda, you know, know what I mean?

So, I said, “I might be look’n at you.”

And she flash me some eyes, like sparklers.

And she was kinda, kinda, you know, know what I mean?

Her silly friend said, “Ooo! Must be love!”

And I said, “Shut up, girl.”

And she was kinda, kinda, you know, know what I mean?

And I got smiles in all my pockets.

42

Modern Diet That morning, he enjoyed a meal: eggs, a muffin, preserves, tea, and a cluster of hatred.

Out of his house, into the street, he killed everyone who had the wrong face or skin.

At noon, her midday feast: savory crepes and sparkling wine, and a dish of frozen hate.

Holding a sign, wearing a mask, she spat and howled, toward every badge.

At dusk, he craved sweets: candies, tart juices, and fruit, glazed with hate.

In prayer, in the midst of children, he exploded, killed them all.

What is in our food?

What is in our hearts, that tastes so good, and pains so much and many?

43

Vantablack We are all lined down; deep and thick in a pit; so black there is no other color where pleas and prayers cannot escape but seep down this jail of flesh.

There is no room to bleed.

Our ghosts scoff, “Show us your chains.

Give us your screams and your wails.

Tell us your stories and tales of the ocean, of sales, of fields, of bales, or we don’t know you.”

Children barter unearned coin with unmarked hands and forsake God for gimme and gold to buy peace from the secret sin.

They covet another color; any other color.

What I hate about my color is my hate.

What I hate about my color is my sorrow.

What I hate about my color is that color is so precious to the Beast.

God made us black.

The Beast made it matter.

Still, our ghosts scoff, “Show us your chains.

Give us your screams and your wails.

Tell us your stories and tales of the ocean, of sales, of fields, of bales, or we don’t know you.”

What I love about my color are my mothers.

What I love about my color are my brothers; sanctuary, survival, solace, and succor.

I may scale the strong walls, and stronger walls that we build with guilt, blame and shame. and exorcise ghosts that scoff and boast.

44