A Dreamer | From Yellow to Red

A Dreamer

When we hug we are all communists.

Out in the rain

pulling at one another like a taut washing line, hung like an evening glow.

Gradually emptying a glass of youth

the wind’s

tale. Even on rainy days, there’s a sunset glow somewhere. Since at every moment, there’s a place where evening is approaching. Seeing the evening glow, there must be someone saying “I feel soaked in rain.”

Then aging, I

will be freed from the washing line. With my arms crossed over my breast, standing in front of the clothes that time took off, I’ll quietly quit.

Was that a dream?

Since I am just a body, like two legs, side by side, when I stand up

like arms finally falling in a second

I sometimes fold my arms.

When left arm and right arm intertwine, their hug makes me a prisoner

and then

I feel bound tight.

Being like economics

every moment solitude becomes the glow of the sunset following the evening somewhere

like rain carrying away the partisans of youth

the breeze comes, the breeze goes.

From Yellow to Red

I stopped in front of thought and passed through sleep.

I ran in front of rain.

But

no matter how hard I stare, I can’t see the other side

so today can’t be crossed.

Wandering like this, can I say that I’ve lived?

Is it all right if I don’t live again?

Today, I think about washing my hair

so as not to leave irksome work for others when I die.

Ah, I’ll have to vacate this room.

I must donate some books to the municipal library, burn diary and letters, take my leave. Goodbye.

What else?

To a today that can’t stop today from happening

the term “natural death” must seem beautiful.

Like

something

only possible for things that fly without wings.

Like the heart?

For example

love and sorrow and anger.

If they are gravity

will the stones I threw ever fall to the ground?

When will that moon fall to the ground?

Who

threw that great stone?

The stone

flies through some uncharted today, and then finally forgetting what love is

forgetting what sorrow is, what anger is.

If that stone turns into falling rain

and I get soaked

when I feel the pain

I finally understand

there is a god inside me as well.

I’m flooded

because death carries the flood of our bodies into today

and then vanishes behind the door.

Beyond the window lies the night sky still smashed by the stone I threw long ago.

Shutting my eyes

one day I saw. A crowd of snowmen swimming in the sea. One day I saw The footprints they had left printed in the river. Like clouds’ tranquility and manure’s liberation, like birds’ rest and worms’ freedom, if ever I can cross “Today,”

I will secretly conceal my head inside thought.

From Concealed Words, forthcoming from Black Ocean, November 2022.

Image by Anthony Carrau.