Counting

Aiko has written this Ellaran in Syllabic Laranameter recently, a form developed by Munayem Mayenin. Here is her post. To find out more about this form click Here. An Ellaran is a four-part poem in four Ells, each Ell having their own name: Ella, Lara, Raine and Aranya. Each Ell  has four Laranzas in it. For more visit Here.

1. Ella

Shelduck, skylark,
sand martin, gannet, whooper swan,
kittiwake, bar-tailed godwit, tern,
crossbill, wigeon,

meadow pipit,
ringed plover, eider duck, and still
water, a tideless ripple, breeze.
For days on end

you are alone.
You forget to speak. You wait there
by the water’s edge, counting birds.
Day becomes night.

Fireflies, glowworms.
The night is vibrant with noises,
light. You wait by the still water.
Listen for birds.

2. Lara

Tinker, tailor,
soldier, sailor,
rich man, poor man,
beggar man, thief.

Counting cherry
stones, your future
laid out before
you: thief. You weep.

You say, ewe bleats
for lamb the wolf
drags; dogs have night-
mares in their sleep.

For days on end
you are alone.
There are nightmares,
but you don’t cry.


3. Raine

In the city once named for
the soot that choked it, the rain paves
a way for yellow wildflowers to grow in lips
of rooftop gutters and line the rows

of old granite tenements
with freak foliage. From your room
you watch the flowers bloom, and in the evening you
string fairy lights out over the floor

like white stars on the carpet,
a false charcoal sky. You think back
to winter nights, running home in the rain, brollies
forgotten or dropped on the pavement.

It was not long ago that
there was someone here to hold, fold
into, grow warm against the cold outdoors. But now,
now there is no one and so much time.

4. Aranya

Soon you return
to the water’s edge:
salt, foam, flot. You squat in the sand
between the broken mussel shells,

find a tiny pearl—
a shiny bead
of time and care amongst the shards.
You hold the pearl in your fingers,

hold its small globe
up to the sun—
a glint of hope. Peace. You open
your mouth to speak: I am no thief.

You head for home.
Your bright shadow
at dusk rising to meet you, like
the future, this pearl, a white star.

Go Up

Ravine

You, sweet lover of rivers,
sleep in the finest bed
beside your balcony at Miralrio.

I trade my diamond tiara
to keep you here.

A stream of guests to bide you.
A room of your own to muse.
A ravine laps at your quiet wisdom,
feeds you truths.

We babble in tongues that spring
from the well of our own lives:

I tell you, art has power
to grow within us: a living organism,
a child in the womb.

Remember the armchair—
remember the door of the ship
torn from its hinges
to accommodate my gift.
Remember me—
my furniture poesy.

You fill yourself with my invisible energy,
the shakti that only love can give a man
in struggle for self-fulfilment.

You sit beneath the tipa tree
and speak in visions.

Your words take root and feed me.
Your leaves and branches—
my womb, my balcony, my chair.

You draw faces in the shelters of furniture.
I wait en la barraca for your return.

                                Days are endless
                               since you went away.

I burn like a slow fuse.

Go Up

The Paper-knife
 

Cradled in the crook of my palm,
I measure your weight in breaths.
I lower your body on an exhale,
slide your single leg between sheets
                                                                   and tear.

Your production precedes you.
The man who sold you to me
said you are a relic of your time—
nothing is made as well as you are
                                                               these days.

My need for you has made you real—
I am your god. I make the fate
that binds you to the envelope
or book, that buries you into
the heart of a man or leaves you
                                                                 to rust.

You are an article of construct – an idea
forged of metal, locked in wood,
engraved by the ornate hands
of the artisan who holds your image
in his mind, a shared vision,
                                                         a formula.

Your essence defines you.
Your essence defines my essence.
My essence is the stream and leaf.
My essence is the infant smile.
My essence is the black ant who bears
his lifeless brother home on his back.
My essence is the point
                                                    of a paper-knife. 

To read more of Aiko's writing visit her Poet in Residence page at Poets' Letter

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Copyrights @ Aiko Harman

Authenticity

For years you were the end-all, be-all
for me. My mind a sieve of words
meant only for you.

But when finally our hands link,
you fight a mile-span of feelings
between us—
                                                      a separation.

You say it is always either/or with you.
You say you cannot have your passion
and your christ.

I tell you, you will be the death of me,
and you say my decision is mine alone.

In art, a masterpiece is authentic
                                                if it is faithful
to the artist’s true self.

And so in time, I measure my body
in canvas and paint, ink and thread,
and I wait. I wait for you
to become art.

Go Up

Authenticity is a Bird

In St. George’s Square Garden
a crow perched on a wooden park bench
caws out into the echo of empty space.

Hurried passersby do not notice him
clocking a change in the weather,
like a cuckoo keeping time.

Days pass. Snow blankets the paths
and grass, and only a blotch of black
in the garden blights it.

A crow, dead on a mound, mouldering,
like a bogman caught between seasons.
A lay cairn; a sky burial.

Crocuses crop up in purples and whites
from the earth, but still, the crow.
Hurried passersby now note it,

watch it decay in the grass, day
after day, and wonder when someone
will throw its broken carcass away.

Go Up

Fireflies

Before you loved me,
we played Scrabble in Dainohara Park
beside a small lake covered in lily pads.

I take ages on my turn, calculating,
and catch you staring out over the water,
hands clasped around the lingering warmth
of your vending machine Royal Milk Tea.

I lay down the tiles for “SPARKLE.” Seven letters.
“Impressive,” you mutter, and grinning
I wrestle new letters from the bag.

Our hands pass more rapidly
over the board. You set M beside E.
and I put U beside versatile S
until there are no words left
and the afternoon has faded into night.

It is the first time I beat you.

Later, we search for fireflies in the darkness
and find them, like shooting stars.
We tread off the lit paths and cast
our bodies into one another – in a gazebo,
against the cold painted steel of a playground slide,
tangled in a tire swing dangling from an old pine.

I think you love me then.

To read more of Aiko's writing visit her Poet in Residence page at Poets' Letter

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Copyrights @ Aiko Harman