Incense ------------------- If I set aflame Immolate my name In fierce fires burn my desires Like hearts that broke and went up in smoke there'd spread a shroud of ashen cloud eyes would smart veils would part to breathe in air in dark despair tears would roll of blackened kohl my name would burn and the burning sun would then eclipse my name on its lips recede in shame smokeless, tame my tarnished name in eternal flame no, I must live I must forgive It's not my turn to crumble or burn not on this day not in this way I must walk down to life in town find out how I must live now Somewhere there beyond despair to buy or lease life and peace *********** The clouds look down today they frown stay where you are we are the czar no smoke no tar will spread as far all your name all your fame if set aflame in fires untame in blackened plumes will blow in fumes no memory, no shrine in registers of time your name, now crossed forgotten, lost rebuked and chided berated, derided away from their throne I walk alone ********** Leaning stalls by crumbling walls A bazaar, a souk veiled faces, a look a beautiful presence musters in silence sandstone, chipped battered, ripped by warring sandstorms assailants, armed fierce sands from angry lands pitted, yellowed walls brace the stalls sentinels now shielding somehow together, this ethereal oasis the worn-out heat on a desert beat breezes strum an archaic hum under the tarp cool needles, sharp frizzle, rustle softly tussle muted footfalls walk through stalls of colorful, intense oriental incense *********** narrow mazes, bright in desert noonlight under colored cotton shade yellow, red, blue, jade a hawker, in essence talks about incense *********** "I have a million kinds" "life's attars in rinds" "this one, of your birth" "your first steps on earth" "this one for every moment" "borne forward in torment" "on this large stall here" "there is, for every tear" "you've shed, in innocence" "one redolent incense" "I have for all delight" "for every day and night" "you smiled or soared a height" "like hawks in flight" "for every kindness past" "this incense will last" "each true, intense" "all this, your incense" "each one has your name" "but never burn in flame" "flames that people stoke" "turn into backened smoke" "live life under the rain" "never set it aflame" "never burn your pain" "let it restfully remain" "small or immense" "mellow or intense" "your life in every sense" "all of this fragrance" "its value, immense" "when it smolders like incense" "its fragrance, then, sublime" "will infuse through all time" *************** The hawker's words slashed like swords my inner turmoil and like a plant to soil returned my peace in return for these moments intense that he sold as incense in the heat of that summer to every customer pauper or czar passing through this bazaar In every ally and nook of the incense souk was a new fragrance of reminiscence intense, immense my name like incense vaporizing, nascent life's every moment although now spent my past and present a middling name never aflame just smoldering on to the next aeon the world will remember as the smoldering ember will waft until spent incense, heavensent ------------- 16 Jul. 2016