Nocturnes

I

If you have ever been on an island

that had a volcano, spewing up 

noxious gases, I am sure you would

know what it means to grow up in

my kind of a family, except its not true.

I was born in Old Atlantis, or that's what I was told,

before it went down to the sea. Whose blood did they

spill? All the lonely animals in the abattoir-

whose birth and death were forecasted,

whose existence was a daily act of violence-

in whose name we drifted melancholy prayers.

To the wind and to the sea we are all equal.

II

Where I grew up, there were mayflowers, 

and meandering rivers.  

I sometimes wonder if you and I would make an island,

one where we would raise grey wolves and teach them

to eat the living beasts out of people; where a volcano

would lie dormant and Prometheus would hide his fire; 

we would sleep beneath  starry skies, and the tropical 

palms will reflect moonlight far into the

 window of an apollo astronaut-

we would know that this life that we share is 

not an ounce of rice, bread and wine-

but all the things that we are too little to comprehend. 

There would be no war here, no justice, 

no heroes or villains, we would just be, won't we? 

Two mandolin bound

dreamers painting hieroglyphics 

for the new world.