Three Poems
By Grayson Sanghani
Words from a Rogue Confessionalist
I am not a giver,
of words, or of callow glances
from inexperienced irises,
and ripening lidded eyes.
I offer not redemption,
or a means of bloody sacrifice.
I am no son of Virgil,
I will not write you for an epic.
I will not lose an armed battle
to your undressed eyes.
You take an eyelash, plucked from my eyes as I sleep,
a sleep that I could not pin down to one night.
That fourth month you took
a tooth, plucked from my mouth.
An inhospitable bud
That you wear as a crown.
I am not a hostage,
but I would not stop a thief,
who sweats themself to sleep.
I would not stop a question,
But I might desecrate my answer.
Coronate this page
And swallow it.
Scrub your tongue and silence it.
(Re)Birth
Truthfully,
It is just as beloved
as the hand reaching into life,
small and fisted for the first time.
Not ready to be provoked,
and made impure, with the thoughts
that only
growth can provide.
Heaven may be shrunk,
and taut against the flesh
that will soon be made into meat.
It may be firm as the skin on a baby
that can hardly speak.
It may be pursed
like the lips of a child who must eat,
but will soon learn to quiet hunger
on command. It may be
the sapling, quiet with the litany
of breaking in and breathing out.
Yet, it may be the wrinkle
by the eye of the man
who stares into the same sky,
for a second time.
Sun recalled
Remind me,
of the times that I had not hidden
from the rays of the sun,
they scorched my skin to a beating red.
It’s not the way that I unravel myself
that can shock even my own flaking flesh,
but the way in which I beat back the sun
until it glows a dimmer glow.
Though an orbit of 9 is a system of 1,
might it lose its own count?
Does it look to us now?
It wades through our fears
and it preys on our doubts,
yet we still consecrate,
its every delay. Like water on skin
after thirst in our breath.
A resurgence of relief
when the wait has to end.
The prisoner would forget where he was
but luckily, the sun crafts his home,
with delicate ease.
Ensnarement is not a burden,
but a recall of peace.
Grayson Sanghani is a student and writer living in Singapore. He can be found exhibiting his ruminations at his website leaven.blog or re-blogging film stills on Tumblr.
