kobutora-riyuko

[kobutora-riyuko]

The God Of My Own Visions

A god watches humans above skylines Witnessing many live, then die For a few piteous decades. Those humans did remarkable things Only as long as they survived. That god, in wonder, began to walk To seek where those humans go. But what happens after, like what happens before, That god could never know Hence he walks forever.

I sit watching humans from sidelines Shadows blended into each other in the light of life Retreating further down a road I cannot visualize. Sometimes I felt warmth of their hands brush mine Faces with fleeting smiles Down that path to never be seen again. Then I wonder where they went, Unlike gods’ loneliness, they hadn’t died yet But I am the god of my own visions. Their shadows looked like death, sometimes, That shade of The Reaper’s cloak. Although I never see the corpse of my old friends Our memories echo like a funeral bell tolls. That sound is the only sound I know All they were to me is their love. All magic or men that could ever exist, Will only exist before my eyes. I can’t prove that they will bloom unwatched, I can’t make out what’s behind us. Then, to find them, where do I go? Hell doesn’t exist - where do I go?

I am the only god of my own visions. Where I go, I walk astray alone.

I've been busy with schoolwork lately - it's been a long time since I've engaged with poetry again. I hope it isn't too bad.

[kobutora-riyuko]

The Lovers

Heart-shaped glasses, little Miss May you come o’er here blow me a kiss? No flower fairer than those rosebud lips May you dance with me to eternal bliss? Heart-shaped glasses, lovergirl Twist and twirl our bodies like the earth Card my fingers through your black-fleeced curls Watch the night unfurl.

Floating atop canopies Set your eyes on my destiny When the sun comes down, Curtains roll out for a comedy Pulled into an onstage dance We actors in a perfect trance Despite the world glance at us askance Come and take my hand.

You who shines on a stage afar Never forget you’re my little star, Graceful like a nymph you are Carve your body into art. You with heart-shaped glasses on, Know you can’t be more alive by dawn Vacant seats, Garden of Babylon There stayed you and I, a pair of swans.

[kobutora-riyuko]

Parable of a Cynic

Cheers to our suffering, cheers to our misery Drinks in the embassy for diplomats of pain. Gold in the gutter, laughter sparks in agony Unhinged brilliance sleeps as we’re wide awake. Madness in method, wisdom in filthy mouths Embrace the paradox, empty the absinthe. Cannot venture further beyond polar South, Moral of the story - live to escape life.

Swirled colors, kaleidoscopes Watered down to specks of cocaine Illusions preying on the young and old Because colors enchant us either way. Two ends of a bridge, two sides of a coin Pain of unlove or pain of heartbreak Wishes for death or American Dreams To coexist then become the same.

Look at each other, ask “Are we human?” Because I’m losing my grip, turning violent Preaching heresies none could muster nor hear. What are we? Creatures cursed of conscience, Our biggest blessing the pain of life. Flat concrete clicks under hooves of deer. Walk your way into fog, strain your eyes Seeking a drop of the sun in headlights: Blindingly vibrant, a strange, new, holy white.

“Too sad to dance” My friend, dance anyway, Sing those hymns and plays - the world’s still a stage. Morals of a cynic’s parable: Pick up your shoes, run the road with your soles.

[kobutora-riyuko]

The House of Rising Sun

How does one know the passing of days, recognize the entropy of time? Answer: By observing the movement of sun, rising from dawn, falling into dusk

Through looming windows in the House of Rising Sun Rising through vague clouds unknown by the touch. What resigns in that house is for its residents to know Those residents lost, gambling away their lives Trading luck for poker chip, as if their only choice Is to participate, face to face those high stakes Because the moment you step into that house You would never escape Its unending matches, omnipresent strife. You wonder what happens if poker chips run out In this midst of such omnipresent strife. Alas! Or hurray! They never run out No matter how piteously few you could count Like an adage “The only way out Is in”.

The house still houses those who win. They still withdraw those chips to join another game. Cogs in the machine never stops Until some leaves, poker chips in hand, Falls from those vague clouds into the unseeable Below, where their memories of that house Hand in hand with their conscience goes Yet those poker chips never stay cold. On their way out, their peers wish “May those poker chips in your hand be aplenty May your hands hurt in holding bulks of them Yet your heart interprets the pain as pleasure.”

You wonder “What about those who stay alive? Stuck in an unforgiving movements of that machine What shall they do to survive the strife Keep their poker chips intact in their hands?” Dear, how else could the House of Rising Sun be named If not for its gigantic windows gazing into the cosmic If not for us hopefuls admiring the movement of sun? Once in a while, in the mass of people walking past, Some will stop by to watch the sun perform its only task Rise at dawn then plummet at dusk Through that window, nothing else. Then they turn their backs to leave Behind a sun that always repeats A sun that never strays from its course. Because whether you chose to look or close your eyes, Tomorrow will always come, the sun will always rise: A certainty carried like belief.

Shall we go back inside? Watch the Sun through that window rise Again, yet again? Regardless of unfolded tumult, our strife, our pain, Nothing sways the house of its name. Regardless of what happens, tomorrow will come, Because in that house the sun will always rise.

For my irl's birthday. Sorry it's late!

[kobutora-riyuko]

[kobutora-riyuko]

In Death We Live Forever

Icarus is a warning to those who dare fly high Yet his story lives telling us to fly higher. Romeo and Juliet, once a caution of love’s foolishness Became a hymn of those who are passionate. In our foolish passions, yes we perish, But only in death will we live forever.

[kobutora-riyuko]

The Moon and Sixpence

Strick-land artists, drinking absinthe Chasing the moon (toss away the sixpence) The moon where Apollo could never land The moon which only exists in my head. Venoms drips down your tongue like a prophecy A tongue which should be slit from the get go. You are no Cassandra, no prophet, no Because voices cannot dictate where life flows.

Let it blow, Let the sand which becomes glass blows Into something translucent and beautiful Then nudge it off the ledge of the shelf - there it goes Into nothing, ashes, shattered croaks.

Bland candies and life dissolve in your mouth Molars grinding up saccharine highs and lows All becomes dust once it washes off Stuck inside your gum, never softened up.

Nightingales on radios sing Poetries and odes of spring Once in a while they perch on branches of Strick-land I should spot a few whenever I go.

Strick-land artists, drinking absinthe Chasing the moon (toss away the sixpence) The moon where Apollo could never land The moon which only exists in my head. Venoms drips down your tongue like a prophecy A tongue which should be slit from the get go. You are no Cassandra, no prophet, no Because voices cannot dictate where life flows.

[kobutora-riyuko]

War and Love on Angel Wings

A farewell to my scythe, a beginning with needles Whose blades prick skin all the same. Ruffled feathers on angel skin, pristine white Pure as your face, halo of a breathing man Unsullied by corpses surround Your arms injured as weak as mine.

Woe is us to march on opposite battle lines Our enmity fated in black and white Helpless fingers raised On any other day choose to pull triggers On any other day choose to wield scythes How painless it was to die On any day but today.

You raised your arms to bare your scars I raised mine to mend yours Grace on me if stitches ain’t pretty These hands had only learnt to shed blood To associate red with anger, hate To dye its fingertips with char of death Gripping countless hands of countless souls subjected To pain, to torture; all they know was all I know.

Gruesome corpses paved our ground as red paved our sky I wonder if you are repulsed by these sights I wonder if these gunsmoke that plagues our nose Creeps into the pearly gates above And smells like home. I know these sights ain’t pretty but they’re desensitized Into my everyday. Are they your first time? If they’re your first time, can you stomach them anyway?

As I stitched together feathers on your wings Unsullied by leaden smudges on my hands I voiced my questions above in silent breaths To as well signal my existence, a sign of life I can’t see your face on the other side And you wouldn’t be glad to see mine But I first learned then of beauty worth treasured With eyes replaced by hollow space in skulls Such a pity it shall be wiped away After a few minutes more When Armageddon would be on its way To lead its sole survivors into nothingness.

Mankind foreseed of an Armageddon Heralding a first and final encounter Of archangels and reapers of death Predicting victory “It either favors one side or the other” Foolish Oracles, Never heralding a first and final encounter Between us, above their own corpses Who never had a chance to witness Last survivors watching the sky become blood And crumble into liquid. How such last survivors become us One bullet, one slaying, one death shall decide Shall justify days or centuries we survive Battles of evil and good, black and white. Yet as I run against such fateful time I mend your wounds, you awhile Tell me tales of paradise I don’t know  Tell it to a demon for the very first time.

Oh angel, I had been taught so much on my dying days These minutes I had known more Than millenia spent to slash and slay. You admitted you knew more about my kind Never known demons can be graceful too. (Me too, I’m the first demon to know, For the very first time).

Oh angel, aren’t you tired To walk these no man’s land and soulless barricades Army boots trampling on fertile soil humans love (Which shall nevermore bear flowers you admire) Raising rifles until arthritic bones Shoulders worn on the death of your comrades? Oh angel, Mankind feared of Armageddon Of bloodstains ebbing into crumbling walls Yet doomsday truly came Once their last monuments collapse into dust Testimonies of their kind hushed One last drop of blood finally dried.

These minutes I stitched your wings into health Shall be cleansed off in river of vanity Whose waves surge in time an angry red Blinding your halo; so rest your head On my shoulders, eyes wide shut White wings enveloped in robes of death In an embrace, skull and flesh. Let God’s sun swallow us whole like the rest of humankind. Can you witness God’s red, angry sun? (I don’t think it looks angry, but I’ve closed my eyes).

The poetry of change - can you see it all With eyes wide shut: the poetry of doomsday? I say farewell to my scythe, to begin with needles As you barred war to carry love on your wings.

[kobutora-riyuko]

The Tunnel

Walking in the night, walking in a tunnel seeking light Bookish wisdom is no different from graffiti on the walls Figure out those scriptures predecessors write Echo for another human being through the halls.

Walking in a tunnel merely to arrive at light Some will stall their steps, some takes flight, yet I Know no matter how I walk, I cannot reach that light Know that light shall only come once I’ve closed my eyes.

They presumed, assumed too much of what lies over there Of heaven and hells, of this prison tunnel lifted up I slow myself although this darkness overwhelms I might sit and stare at endless darkness up above.

From my pouch a flask of alcohol rolled out Undrunk yet tempting me to help forget the night I sat alone until a figure comes around My old friend with decks of cards whose edges wore by time.

Years had passed, the roads we chose, the distance gone All those changes we went through had made our distance grown Yet we walk one forward way, step forward for one goal Along the way we stopped to signal our existence’s known.

He confessed he was afraid to spiral into gambling games As I pondered whether to unpack the flask and pour for us We admit our troubles may come catch us now Praying to each other we’ll get diagnosed.

But let loose! The world will spin with wine A little game of cards might help a great numb in our minds Ponder whether we shall slip inside a rabbit hole Never to escape, but that is for another time!

To each of us, we stood up, then we whispered our goodbyes. Been an hour now, we could have gone another mile Further our distance from each other for another mile To each of us we walk toward our little individual lights.

On the walls inscribed all over again, said: “At the tunnel’s end, there will always be light.” I prayed to him he’ll learn to fight those demons he shall face While pondering along my walk about our little time.

I can’t care for what awaits me in the light Nothing but this tunnel makes our reunion worth the while.

For my friend. Happy birthday!!

[kobutora-riyuko]

Oikawa my beloved

[kobutora-riyuko]

A Crow On My Windowsill

An old friend of mine asked me to hang by her art room, Where she said she sells her artworks for two hundred bucks As she gestured to a crow Picking up a melted clock by its golden chains In acrylics on a blank canvas.

I know those crows well, Enough to cherish one at home. Not enough to cherish it with two hundred dollars. Hands on my wallet, It takes two years for such money to come, And I was sixteen.

An old friend of mine wore her Oxford cap as she moved her bike, Two pieces of Franklins in her pockets. Heads whipped, hair scented black locusts, She smiled as though I entered her art room for the first time. She wondered if we could meet someday, And I wondered too. Ma sighed: “Two years of allowance money gone” While I believed that, Two years of money was worth something more.

I don’t remember her, I don’t remember us speaking since. Yet her crow was still perched on my windowsill, Picking up melted time by its golden chains.

For: @annakacoyett