Author: Iyan Igma

It’s the Goodbyes That Count

~ Iyan Igma

Why is it we struggle for
Fame and immortality?
For, in the end, all will be
Forgotten, lamentably.

Some carve one’s name to etch out
A permanence that will give
The world and generations a
Reminder that once one did live.

But why fret over a lasting name
When everything will be destroyed?
Oblivion at the world’s destruction
Can neither Shakespeare or Plato avoid.

Perhaps to spite this, we humans
Attempt to try to have fame?
But renown upon this earth
Is meaningless and a shame.

When ev’rything must be forgotten in
Order for the next generations to
Have a feeling of desolation and
Accomplishment, just as with me and you.

Thus, thoughts are meaningless, since none
Are original, but have been
Shared by generations who have
Died, as we all will in the end.

The only controllable things
Are our eked out lives, after all,
Since we cannot control how we will be
Remembered, if, indeed, we are at all.

It would be well to make the most
Of this power and cultivate
Friends, acquaintances, and
Envy, greed, love, and hate.

But be sure to set things aright when
At the end of associations,
For it’s been said a dying man
May at the end take salvation

In the last hour, no matter the
Actions. There is hope until it’s gone
With one and the fare-thee-wells
That will render one alone.

If one should ever wish to live, then
Memory is such a crucial key.
Like the Ghost of King Hamlet,
One’s actions must cry, “Remember me!”

How can one be assured
A life in recollections?
I say it’s not best done
Through wealth and perfections,

For people recall most vividly
Births, funerals, and separations
And forget the bulk of life’s
Events’ conglomeration.

And because we’ll ne’ermore be as
We all are here at this right now,
We should honour and make the most of
The occasion before saying, “Ciao.”

Wish you all luck and happiness
And truly hope you will have found
That, though together we may have grown
For a time, it’s the goodbyes that count.

Supernova

~ Iyan Igma

His love was a comet’s song;
Beautiful, lovely, disastrously gone.
Bleeding tears of milky despair,
With the cosmos his pain to share.
He was taken with a-flaring anger and fearful ague,
And here is where it all grows vague,
For which of you mayst nobly say
Aught of the demented mood on that day
When the swollen red giant burst?
In anguished, doubting confusion, and what’s worst
Of all these passions, a self-hating shriek
Urging self-slaughter in no way meek.
This once dazzling and coyish entity
Set fright in all who did see
His plasma smear the firmament,
And to his fickle love was sent
Word of his turbulent demise.
On occasion she thinks and cries,
Her cold tears streaking watching skies.
But she has no forgiveness in their eyes,
And from where he once lay she’s often fled
Like cosmic winds to another’s bed;
And with thoughts as empty as his love,
We now wonder if there’s life above.

War of the Roses

~ Iyan Igma

Roses on a thorny stem
Living in beauty and splendor
Unfolded to perfume the world.
They are called to arms
To fight a futile war
That shall end them
Time is an unfair opponent
With all of the advantages
And all the time in the world to fight
The roses wither and blacken
Lose their beauty to an unkind age
The waning minion of time
Cut from the stem
They enjoy a decomposing rot
Joy they wouldn’t have had, had they fought not
The roses still blossom
Blossom to wither and die
Fighting the same war as you and I

Weed

~ Iyan Igma

They grow up in adversity, always hated.
Others are not happy until their lives have dissipated.
But what makes them less special than a rose?
Marry, they’re much nicer, sans the thorns it grows.
Picked and sprayed and from soil freed
Lives the fittest of Nature’s breed,
The outcast, the eyesore, the weed.

Deflowering Fields

~ Iyan Igma

As if in a dream
I run deflowering fields
Of the spring’s newborn
Bounteously petaled yields.

It’s rare one sees blue
In nature; the oceans are green.
Yet, childishly, the sky adorns
My fingers and in between.

From peedabeds and aphids
I’ve fashioned a toga.
In this black-eyed Susie
Hut I meditate in yoga.

With a honey-suckled daisy diadem,
I naturally rule in thought.
My embellished ways have more flowers
Than any florist has bought.

Excessively I’ve strewn petals
Where their transpiration splatters
To find out if she loves me
Or not and other such matters.

Fief

~ Iyan Igma

‘She’s such a lovely pretty girl,’
Longingly thought the lonely earl,
And in a conscious state that was alternate
Lived in a dream he could not forget.

Waltzing in mist under moonlight,
She made for a delectable sight.
She hastily turned and laughed, as if whisked away,
And twirled and dipped, as if on her knees to pray.

She forgave him of his splendour and conceit,
Called him the most common man she did ever meet,
And, as she majestically twirled around,
He forgot about her queen’s crown.

Then, they ran off to simply live and elope
Beyond the range of the king’s power’s scope.
He’d given up his title and feudal vow,
The king might surely be angry now.

My White Love

~ Iyan Igma

My white love went riding
On a horse that bore her away,
But I still remember her parting words,
“I’ll be back for you someday.”

And in my dreams I wonder
Whither she might be?
I picture her gliding by,
Hair waving windily.

Upon streets of turquoise,
The clip-clop hooves have tread,
Pausing only once here and there
For migrating soda bread.

Behind her a glimmering moon
Spews butterflies into the air,
And all of them weep to praise
My mistress that graced them there.

And in my dreams I know
She loves me with all her mind,
For when she but utters my name
A smile’s all my mind’s eye can find.

Across the sparkling waves she flies
To drink at rowdy sand bars;
And when she inebriatedly brawls, she
Proves to my leaping heart women are from Mars.

Amid the clouds of snow banks
She dusts off her reining hands.
She’s coming back to me
From beyond those dull foreign strands.

And from my dreams I wake up
To a bitter reality;
I like my dreams much better,
For there she returned and kissed me.

Bridges

~ Iyan Igma

We sat atop bridges, though
Our lives we couldn’t cross.
Though I loved her lots,
She felt for me dross.

Poised blandly admiring murky
Waters of the Ochlocknee,
I forgot about her and dreamed
Of my old home near the sea.

Near Fargo I was wading shallowly
The swamp’s Suwanee, bridge overhead.
In the tea waters splashing, I’d been warned
To veer from dark spots or wind up dead.

Swamp, my Swamp, where I feel at home,
I walk above wildlife on a boardwalk
Which in the end woodenly towers
Presenting a view of where soulless stalk.

I’ve fished in you when of small age;
I was too bored sitting to catch much.
All I wanted was to walk the trails
With bridges, canoe, and some such.

There were no bridges at Trader’s Hill
Where I developed swimming skills,
But there was a boat ramp and dock
And at times a gator—sorta like a croc.

Stroking North of you on clean waters
Can be found near the lottery of D & L’s
A perilous span with black canals beside
That could not comfortably solace with rails.

I always mesmerizedly feared falling in
The abysses whilst we drove
And deadly would I be found
By unlucky rescuers who dove.

On Danespoint, which my stepfather maintained,
I intoxicatedly breathe in the angled heights
Of the St. Johns while a lesser part of me
Was given acrophobic chills and frights.

But Fernandina salt marshes at sunset
Is the image I’ve always had for love.
Many times I’ve abrasively stared
At that vegetated waterway from above.

“Haiku’s for No One”

~ Iyan Igma

“Haiku’s for No One”
Haiku’s for no one,
For my perfect lovely girl
Who was never named.

“Sweetness”
Her voice is as sweet
As the words it ne’er will speak.
My muted beauty.

“Silk”
Shaggy spider web silk
Sandy blonde at roots
Strawberry at the tips

“Conditioner”
Fondles her mid-back
Finger stroking windily
Coiled for emphasis

“A Green Ground”
Yellow rivulets
Of limestone green, purple pores
Specked with birthstone blue.

“Pools”
All expression and
Communication should swim
In these profound thoughts.

“Lips”
Flesh-bills as soft as music
Full as gibbous moon
Pale as unspoke thought

“A Taste”
Receptive moist skin
Eden tastes as orange sherbert
E’er pleasing and chilled

“Tegument”
Marred with complexion
As soft as her gentle heart
Freckled where I kiss

“Thermal Need”
Meager covering
To touch ever chilled as ice
Requiring my warmth

“Llama”
Name as rolling and
Long as the Georgia Piedmont
Or family feud

“Camel”
A boyscout snake, this
Label ties up tongue and
Constricts capacity

“Indecencies”
With froggy toes webbed
Her feet will be as flippers;
I hate being pinched.

“Necking”
A polished tower
Hair’s curled from the left, behind,
Over to bosom

“Objectivity”
Proportional to all
Things to her figure
Be it petite or plump.

“Thailand”
Surface tension smooth
As stretchéd and long as my love
For her will last.

“A Doll”
Height is important.
She must be life-sized enough
To be seen by all.

“A Right to Bear”
These cannot be
Underestimated she does
Need them to grasp me.

“Obelisks”
Delicate power
Shafts strong enough to support
The weight of my head

“Washington”
The roll is calléd
Their number is thirty-two
In their gum wrapper

“Semi-Very Precious”
Pearly off-white stones must be
Long enough for her
To lovingly nip

“Singing How She Does”
The deformation
Isn’t length or shape
But it’s desire to nuzzle

“Licking? Good”
To hold like a dream
Long as needs be with the nails
Gilded like stained glass

“Placement”
Like dwarves in caverns
Fitting comfortably in
The vastness of mine.

“Jojo”
Stately as naught else,
Fleshed out to prevent ennuí,
Unslumpéd grandeur

“Maybe”
When I see my love
Outside of dream, then I’d say
Earthy love exists.

Pluto and Charon

~ Iyan Igma

Off in space, as it seems,
Disconnected darkly where
None could hear the screams
Of tortured coldness
Except for the occasional
Neptune passing by,
Who you probably wouldn’t
Let hear you cry
Since away from such
You brokenly ran away
Parting from grave orbit
In a memory far away.
Of you twain escape artists
Which of you works the hardest
And which is most rife with sin
And evil down below within?
Charon the loving boatman
Who does others deliver
To Hell, your pal, who is
Larger only a sliver.
Or Pluto, the incarnate Hell
Whose atmospheric shell’s frail
As a mask where all can see
In the light there it does be
On the one half thinly in glee
For hiding the darkly empty.
Calmly with pure intents
You happen to deceive
Yourself, Charon, and all souls
From him you do receive.
Though one of you is bigger
In the force of gyration,
The tugging created diminishes
You both in force of the rotation.
With the elliptical orbit which
Is planetarily unfitting
Throughout the spinning galaxy
You seem to be sitting
Unable to truly master collaborative
Force, as in a gerrymander.
You’ll never become the something
Much more powerful and grander.
Woe you weren’t the hidden planet that
Influences the orbit of Neptune;
You separated and settled
For being a double moon.