Selected Poems of Raian Maruvin.

Cloud Traffic Control.

A thing of beauty. 20231208.

Plant a lily in a clay pot. Watch it with care. It may even blossom Under the right air. Open up your heart But beware, you Can't make a flower talk Back if it doesn't want to.

Without despair 2. 20220530.

I have an angel for happiness The tough love, this-world-is-not-kind parent type In charge of reminding me I should be happy But wouldn't most of the time Because she knows I'll be an addict If I'm ever too long just happy Content, dreamy, isolated I'm likely to reject reality So only rarely I see her Amidst the clouds, family and friends, My silent guardian masquerading as Flowers, books, everyday things Aware, because I'm made to miss happiness I'll love it more when I find it next

Time with the sun. 20231217.

A window on my bedroom's right Its curtain, a measuring device Let's through a falling pillar of light
Another in the room, a river of smoke Chasing, silent, transparent strokes Until boldly colliding with the pillar, on its path home
I watch it thin as the sun goes down For all the minutes I've watched it drown Into the shadows, I'm worried now
I may yearn for the lost rays, More time with the sun, more time in a day, Its next visit will not be like today

Little worry. 20231013.

What I should have feared was Worry, When he told me he has my back All eighty of its hands wrapped around me As if I was under attack To anything that would come near He'd bare my teeth Only I would be the one to bear Wounds fighting rocks and trees

Judges for the mob. 20240122.

I don't know what's right or wrong. I suppose someone in this world does Or a lot of people do and they have built The chains that lead us. They have their reasons, Uglier than the truth, "This is how it is" they tell To the elephant in the room. Each an avatar of the whole Mob, each an authority alone Responsible for shaping the very world They claim has turned them into its clone. ... Imagine what it must be like for the police to patrol processions. A seat of power responsible for maintaining peace and calm, yet so afraid. Saw a few of them on the road today.

Scratches. 20240126

I see now we carry lightly Never knowing the weight of what we love Yet are shaken to finally see Despite the years worth of scratches, One that's deep enough.

How's life? 20231231.

Almost in the wild with each new shift, Met a few lives on the drift.
(Wore a shirt and tie to match shoe after shoe Said a few goodbyes, rhetorical how-do-you-dos.)
Shook a few hands on the hills and creaks, 'Round the fire on the sand, amid loud claps and beats.
(On squeaky office chairs, in heavy meeting halls On plastic grass grounds, in smoke and alcohol.)
Wonder when I tire where I'll be? Someplace in the wild that doesn't rush my feet.

Year end restless. 20221227.

Perhaps the final minute will think best to no more question The year may yet depart as it passed, in colorless quiet Like all his brothers, slow and fast, come since some age before him Or for worse, choose petulance to disagree with death.
Regardless, another year's athirst, restless.

Year end tally. 20231227.

I swear I fought hard as I reached for desires though small, Valued them more than the object itself That the journey too may live, the climb uphill Mean more than the peak, past even its thrill Only now at the year's end, counting down my checklist All I see are blank boxes, missing their own green ticks

All, everyday. 20231220.

Bikes and cars rush by An endless stream of wheels Often a truck mixed in the tide A bishop in the stampede Each in a struggle perhaps Not all their destinations reach One more bloodied in the same fight Is an insect crossing the street

Rules. 20231209.

I follow the rules. Even the ones I can not see. Without which I am told I'm invisible to society. I dot the i's and cross the t's, Read whatever's popular. Wear the color they tell I look good in But only until it doesn't feel like a collar.

Greedy problem. 20231107.

I'm weird that way, Only cause I know how it is with me I need my space, But I do enjoy your company I'm careful in how much I take Small doses have a safe history Only cause the math is fake For how much you can need anybody

Outside. 20231202.

I went outside to go outside, Forgetting the weight of the world That would make me hide inside Where I was comfortable For deep within an even bigger fear Won against the calm "Nothing stays," it says. "My dear Blink and it'll be gone."

Bookmarked. 20231117.

I looked at you and knew I could love, For it had been a while and I Worried that I no longer could.
But thanks again that we meet, Ate out, shared a burger, drove around the city Past the sun had set,
I got to see your boyish hair, And though the world was not the same, Though since it has been years,
It felt exactly as it did the first time I saw you. I looked at you and knew I could love, Before at last I forgot how to.

Prisoners each. 20221225.

Can you see your prison Staring through the clear crystal glass As you brush in morning Hoping you've pushed again life back
Can you see the prisoner His past screaming, scribbled on the walls Fingerprints where his desperation stuck Frozen loudly on the metal bars
Can you see the life sentence Every deal made for commutation compromised The noose ouroboros, yet undead hope, Inevitably demonized