ten years ago

twenty
you heard my wish to be a poet
and now
not forty
see the making of a man

Assuming the colossal form

Amar Shah · Assuming the colossal form

Assuming the colossal form,
Krishna burned bright blue
and lifted arms and thighs and head
above the princes and their games,

assuming the colossal form
would help to sing a simple Gita,
drop some science on a royal jerk,
and liberate him from the pain of birth.

Assuming the colossal form
was a mean and evil demon,
Arjuna lifted bow and shoot,
bared his teeth and shouted, "Ha!
illusion, figment of my doubt,
you do not in the slightest trouble me.
Thought you not I'd trained for this?"

Assuming the colossal form
of O-type stars and nebulae,
Vishnu's lungs and tongues and
larynx, diaphragm let shriek
the awesome, holy roar of God.

Assuming the colossal form
was how he'd meet his maker,
at last the rumble of his father,
again the welcome of the womb!
Arjuna trembled, retched and crumbled
fell and fought no more.
A naked insect cowered where
the hottest warrior prince had stood.

"Assuming the colossal form
would not be such a big-fucking-deal
was a gross miscalculation,"
the giant God-man thought
and thundered out
this cryptic,
baffling,
boundless wail:
No, listen,
please,
I'm on your side—

Tom

Amar Shah · Tom

She pulled back the curtain.
It blew over her face.
"I know you're there!
You think I don't know?"

and answered back a voice
from bushes just beyond the fence,
encroaching nearer to the wood:

Isn't it more important
that you know
that you
are there?

She swept a curl over her ear,
wriggling loose
from a sloppy bun,
the worn beige silk
neglecting to cover
the curve of her breast.

"It's ok, it's ok.
Tom,
I've known a long time.
I can
actually
see you,"

and carried back the voice,
resolute,
authoritative,
young, confident,
inflected by French, Dutch, German.
It echoed cross the plain of sand
expanding wide on every sight:

And what does it mean, to
allow others to see you?

"Tom, you can knock it off!"
she huffed,
teeth baring bright,
salutations to
the fullest full-moons,
the river-cancer moons.

"Come to me, Tom,
I want you, I love you!
Let's not play games anymore,"

and came again the voice,
the Father's cold and laughing voice,
high, clear, studied—
intellectual
—and therefore spake the voice,
the cosmic, demi-urgent voice,
loosed from black holes yet uncharted
beyond the reach of space...time:

Interesting.
Very interesting
that you would say that,
when you
don't know me at all.

God

the great dream giver
the great dream doer
the one who makes your secret wish come true

who frees you
David
from the rock

to stand in shining glory
naked, uncontained