Fugue
I lived ambling through a dream
It was nice– the scenery was pleasant
And in my naïveté, I lay
Anesthetized
Sniffing poppies
As the clouds scrambled for the east
They warned me to follow them
I laughed; they were mad
Did they not know they were part
Of a story I composed
A poem that I had penned?
If when the storm approached
I’d easily rearrange my horizon for a summer day
With a balmy tale I had known so well
When the squall had finally passed over
It abandoned me forlorn
In a bed of splintered bones
And tormented limbs
Hemorrhaged in my own stupidity
The Augury
Sitting by the window sill
All was quiet, all was still
Watched a black widow kill
and ply her craft in the ceiling corner
Weave in, weave out, a bobbing shuttle
proof of death’s defamed rebuttal
administered a stitching subtle
A handkerchief without a mourner
The hand upon the spinning wheel
Feeds the thread a measured deal
No more, no less, no inch to steal
from that that knows no foreigner
Finished full of lace and frill
the handkerchief, an airborne will
moth of cloth, the spider’s fill
what Death had had for dinner
This poem was originally published in April 2013 in the Indian Review.
by Ansel Oommen
Ansel Oommen is a freelance science/garden writer, artist, and former student of the Institute of Children’s Literature. His work has appeared in Blueprint, Visual Verse, Intima, and Redivider, among others. Discover more at: https://www.behance.net/Ansel
