-Rahk.
Category Archives: Raising Suns
Tell Me, JohnJohn (excerpt from “Raising Suns”)
Who strong enough to hold the ocean?
With all of its waves and womanizing slaps.
Whose hands and arms big enough to hold it all?
Not yours, JohnJohn. You’sa itty bitty little thing.
Your arms couldn’t comfort a puddle
Never-mind a tidal wave. Never-mind a tsunami.
You’d have to be a fool. A fool, I tell you!
to even hope for arms or hands or strength that big!
Is you a fool? Is you a fool or a sage?
If you’sa sage you won’t even ‘tempt to hold a puddle.
A puddle ain’t nothin but an ocean to littler beings.
I bet oceans are puddles to God.
Oceans just so big to us because we so small.
But even still, only a fool would think he could hold it all.
Only a fool, JohnJohn, and I tell you:
I hope that fool exists ‘cause I’m tired of waving
to absence, crashing on empty shores
just to flow back in the deep of myself.
JohnJohn, please tell me you’sa fool…
-Rahk.
EXcavation [excerpt from “Raising Suns (And Other Celestial Bodies)”]
finding pieces of men
protruding from the earth
in a perverse cemetery
full of
winding torsos
and intended smiles,
sentient statues that sneer
in passing with living eyes
and though half buried,
they remain
erect and expecting eager hands
to delve beneath the earth
for their pedestals
-Rahk.
Her Thorns (excerpt from “Raising Suns”)
She knew
before the softness
of her petals
bouqueted her thoughts
Before her nature tamed suns
into survival
Before her pistil
pollinated a need to bloom
After a lover proclaimed,
on the final tug: “I love you not”
Daughters (Excerpt from “Raising Suns”)
She hand washes towels and folds them tenderly, uses the most delicate detergents. Dries them in the breeze or in her lap, whichever’s warmest.
She cleans the dishes, scrubs the stove, vacuums the carpet, she folds the towels.
Her mother always said a wife is only as good as her ability to keep a home. Her ability to organize and fold. Her ability to nurture and nature and take care.
Her mother always told her that good wives don’t believe in divorce. That what God joined together, let no man.
And she’d always black out after that…she blacks out a lot nowadays. Since her vows. Let no man–
Til death, her mother said, and she died often–
When his mistress left him when his boss docked his pay when the white towels boasted brown stains.
So she makes sure to wash clothes, to fold the towels after scrubbing away the stains, after soaking her body in Epsom salts.
Her mother always told her a decent wife is only as good as her housework and a husband, decent or not, is only as good as his whims.
-Rahk.
Rahk's Water 