Contemporary Literary Review India | eISSN 2394-6075 | Vol 5, No 2: CLRI May 2018
Laura Solomon
Poems
Phone Whore 3am
Each pleasing the other with words,
Well that’s okay – at least, I say it is.
I can feel conservative frowns.
Who are they to say
That what we do is wrong?
Tight-laced, twin-setted, morally upstanding,
Middle of the road bourgeois,
Set me free of all that.
God only knows my days on this earth are numbered –
Please let in some sun.
I’ve been locked in a box,
Labelled and categorized,
According to somebody’s textbook,
Some medical man’s misadventure.
Doped up to the eyeballs
And shoved in the corner,
Now I’m coming back to life.
Twin trains, parallel tracks, single departing station,
Same departure date and time – who knows about the arrival?
Live in my imagination – and I’ll live on in yours.
Part fact, part fiction – a master and mistress of self creation,
We see the dark side of life, look on the bright side too –
That’s what they tell me to do.
Moral disorder, death and decay – is that all there is?
Spammers and scammers try their best to fleece us –
Doors slam shut in every direction you turn.
The pound coin spins.
Still, we’re alive in 2018,
Alive and able to pass commentary
Give feedback, offer up our two cents worth
To a scornful, cynical world,
That cares more about the Kardashians,
Or Justin Timberlake, or Sarah Jessica Parker
And her latest flame.
Your message leaves your country and travels to mine.
It reaches my screen – my brain, my nerves.
Are satellites involved, slowly orbiting the earth?
I was one of the almost dead
But with your aid I’ve pulled a Lazarus trick
Let’s see what I can set fire to.
Animal Instinct
Man or animal?
Well what have we here –
A near perfect stranger getting kicks for free
Every night like some Cobain song while I march along in time,
No doubt just as guilty.
I’m old enough to be his mother, there’s something twisted about that,
I ask myself why I continue - nobody has an answer to this question.
It’s trauma that makes the story great,
The wider yawns the abyss, the greater shines the glory,
Think of all the medals we could hang upon our walls,
Polished and shining, public display - if you care for that sort of thing.
Gloss up your scars until they gleam – then put them up for sale,
There’s a space now where they operated,
Must be my lucky day - my mind plays tricks on me,
Not knowing which door to open,
Behind this one a candy store, behind that, a hard brick wall,
The sands of deception shift and change - as everything dissolves.
A limited life span brings everything into focus,
People they care for me,
Well, don’t tell me I’m living beneath my dignity,
As other humans serenade with songs I can no longer hear
All my circuits are cut off.
Kiss goodbye to your old way of living,
You too can dwell in cripple’s alley,
Thinking only doomed thoughts,
That back you into a corner, get you up against the wall –
Shrug and kick it off –
Song plays ‘There’s an empty space inside my heart’
The road stretches on ahead of us –
Into something that resembles infinity.