"If Art Had a Name" and Other Poems

If Art Had a Name

by Roger Humes

The air has grown cool
and as crisp as my thoughts,
the rains of hope have washed the ash
of despair from the sky and my heart

and today I stand in awe
of the sun and of life and the wind
and of how when I now look
into the deep laughing smile
of your kind eyes

that I remember again why
I desire not for my next breath
to be my last and exactly what
love means when I reach

to closely embrace your soul.

---

The Ashes Wept From A Paste-Yellow Sky

by Sheema Kalbasi & Roger Humes

The ashes wept from a paste-yellow sky
while flowing from the river of the heart
to the soul of the sea where the anguish tasted
bitter and dry in the mouths of a nation
that were hidden behind the veils of torment.

When I was five years old the supreme
interpreters informed us that a moon
of cheese shone forth with the face
of the Imam - not the smiling face
of the kind tales but the stern face
of the taskmaster who watched our every sin.

And Al´Lat¹ wept from her throne
in the underworld for they had turned
their backs upon the lion and the queen
who had knelt before the wisest of kings,
and Al´Lat wept seven times for to lift
up their power they had stepped
on the necks of those they proclaimed to save…

…when I was five years old…

…he watched my every move from the moon…

…when I was five years old…

…Al´Lat wept ashes from a paste-yellow sky…



¹ Pre-Islamic goddess of the moon and the underworld.

---

The Blessed One

by Sheema Kalbasi & Roger Humes

She lay fevered floating in a dream, her form changing from human to lion and back and forth between them. Which one, if either, was her true self did not matter for she was one with both and both with one.

In her vision she ran across the savanna, her tawny paws lightly touching the grass, as her speed seemed to defy the concept of gravity while she felt the near joy of forgetfulness overtake her.

And then she halted, attracted by the smell of death and the voices that pleaded for help. Before her on the altar of the grass lay the dead oryx, the black and white markings of its face blending with the shadows of the late afternoon.

By the dead animal's stomach knelt five light brown forms, their appeals for their mother to awaken merged with their futile attempts to coax milk and life from where it no longer existed.

Normally, she would have killed the babies and feasted for days upon them and their mother, but something stayed her attack, something tugged at her heart in the eyes that found hers, eyes so young that they did not know the fear that they should have felt in her presence.

They tottered toward her on legs feeble from youth and the lack of food, and nuzzled around her four legs, then two, then four. Still she did not strike.

So she took them to raise as her own, and the villagers who saw them were amazed and named her "The Blessed One."

Perhaps since she had no child or cub of her own they had moved a nurturing instinct deep within her, perhaps she was merely lonely and needed more than the feel of the wind at her face as she sped through life and across the savanna, perhaps for once she required more from existence than the fulfillment of the kill.

Or perhaps some higher power had ordained this to be her fate…

Whatever the cause, they grew knowing both the ways of lion and woman but not of their own kind. When they encountered other oryx they either fled in denial or attempted to make them their dinner.

At neither did they succeed.

One day, one of them died. She attempted to nuzzle it back to its feet, but in her woman form realized the body was lifeless.

She transformed back to lion and ate it while the others merely watched knowing that some day that too would be their fate, although they could never leave her because the idea of death offered less fear than the concept that she would not be there to protect them.

Then she awoke from her dream in a room alone and cold. The late afternoon sun shone through the blinds painting black and white stripes on the empty space in the bed next to her while she gazed absentmindedly at the light brown color of the skin on the back of her hand.

Upon her lips she could still taste the blood.

Such is always the way of nature …

---

The Dance

by Roger Humes

The shimmer dance flash
of your eyes

as blood throbs rhythm,
life syncopates rhythm,
breath moves rhythm,
hearts beat rhythm

and join

two

as one

across the universe,
across the void,
across the worlds
which spin madly
orbit eclipse

pull tides of-from each other,
thunder and mountain,
earth and rain,
sky and tree,
wind and sun

connect
as song

distance close

distance far

all one,
all joy,
all sad,

all…

ceases…hush…
begins…again…

in the shimmer dance flash
of your eyes.