Poems by Isabella Amaris

SALTED EARTH

Salted earth,

Preserving the sweat

of the hundred feet that stepped upon you,

and your kind,

before my time.

Lending your softness

to careless streams,

so that hard minds may drink from them.

Preparing the mountains with hope,

and so they stand

still beneath the seas.

And yet they dig you up so mercilessly,

that even your blood is not given its time to heal.

They plough through your future,

With the ease of metalled machines,

That are their heart,

Though not half your strength.

When will you fight back, I wonder?

When will they realize that you could bury us all,

With one word, one gesture, one turn,

Of your rough and loving hands,

made of the gold of the Earth,

and the life of the stars,

so that we might live.

THE IRRITATING SNOOT

Such an irritating snoot it is,
Such a nuisant; pestilent snit!
It slithers and whines,
And pretends to resign,
With sinfully slow intent.

An alarmingly snooty relic,
Of alarmingly shaky habit,
You sorrowful make,
Of bumbling take,
And parenting skills of a chick.

Ah, snoot, a snoot you so are,
As snooty as those who, by far,
Have more cause to bear,
The whimpers you share,
But slither far less than you care to repair.

What can a snoot like you want?
With you, all reeks so redundant,
You procrastinate,
Hyperventilate,
Of persistent repute,
Rambunctiously rude,
And then when you still,
With strained strength of will,
It’s rest that you want,
From workplace to fun,
In wonderful haze,
Of recurrent laze,
In dastardly whim,
For all you can skim,
With such unerring haste,
For heaping your plate,
With all it can take,
Although you are late,
Immense in mistake,
And proud as a rake,
What an irritating snoot you are!

I PART WITH ME

I part with me,
On Monday and Tuesday,
For the sake of Wednesday and Thursday,
And so Friday is forgotten.

I part with me on Saturday and Sunday,
On creation and new birthdays,
For the sake of money and bank holidays,
And so my dreams are forgotten.

I part with me,
Today and tomorrow,
For the sake of yesterday and forever,
And so immortality is forgotten.

I part with me incessantly and always,
When I sleep and when I wake,
For the sake of living on the outside,
And so I am dying on the inside.

I part with me,
But a part of me lives still,
For the sake of who I should be,
And so my faith hangs by a thread,
Spun of gossamer and sweat,
And I’ll part one day with this I,
That parts with me.

WHEN THE BLOOD STOPS FLOWING

When the blood stops flowing,
where does it lie?
Beneath the bushes and the shrubbery,
of this forest-tree life?
Out of sight, like hidden madness,
from the gaze of prying eyes,
So that neither mind nor open mouth,
would dare to ask the reasons why,
It stopped flowing.

Feed off the earth! it
cries to itself at night.
Let it seep into the flesh,
of this grasping existence.
Swat off the thorny branches,
of Nature’s protection,
and eat the harvest of its
summer days,
until it seeks to replenish itself,
and the world breathes
a sigh of relief, for
it is flowing again,
through the bowels of the earth,
and the life of our forgiveness.


© Isabella Amaris 2011

Some of Isabella Amaris's poems were published online by Silverfishbooks (Malaysia). The short story The Story-Catcher was in Silverfishbooks's two anthologies in 2004 and 2006. Another, The Shoplifter, was in Singapore's Quarterly Literary Review (Vol. 9 No. 1 Jan 2010). Isabella Amaris has also published some poetry ebooks, The Rhyme Whisperer Series.