Death

The Ring’s Vow

~ Iyan Igma

When last we were naked together,
I wished that you might stay
In my ravenous arms forever.
But duty called, and you were away.

I never got to hold you and
Enjoy the exuberant kiss
That only lovers understand
When they are wearied by bliss.

The moment is gone, as are you,
And now there’s none to warm my bed,
To cuddle with the whole night through.
O, that I’d been a nun instead!

For these emotions will linger,
Although they cannot be fulfilled,
Like the ring’s vow on my finger,
Since we were engaged, and you’re killed.

Oh, had we not been so hasty
To give our maidenheads away,
And had love not been so tasty,
I’d not be tortured today!

For there are bonds, my dead young man,
That will chain down the living’s soul.
You became part of who I am,
And without you I can’t be whole.

Sure, I could lie with other men,
But I can never lie with you.
I would remember us again.
But in death I can lie with you.

Sailor Boy

~ Iyan Igma

Sailor boy, you’ve come back to port
After journeying far away.
Why is it you won’t look at me?
Is there nothing you’d like to say?

Why haven’t you taken me in
Your arms or made a bride of me?
I guess it’s true that sailor boys
Have no heart save for ship and sea.

Are there no stories you would tell
Of bounding mains and foreign shores,
Of hurricanes ventured bravely,
How mates snore and the captain bores?

Why haven’t you shared more with me?
I’ve loved you since I was four.
I wish you’d stand and hold me, but
You don’t have land legs anymore.

You’ll take your final voyage soon
And be taken away from me
By the dame that wooed and killed you,
Buried with your mistress—the sea.

The Relic of His Love

~ Iyan Igma

His scent had faded from the shirt
Like the perfect trust kids place in
Parents and the beauty of dawn
Consumed by harsh, sunlit din.

I’ve lost the relic of his love,
The musk that let’s me dream he’s here.
So I go to his apartment,
Hoping wildly his voice to hear.

I go onto his bed to lie;
His smell hasn’t begun to ebb.
I hold his pillow tight and think
Of my love tangled in life’s web.

Maybe when he returns and rests,
Some lingering traces of me
Will make him think of weeks alone
Without my zealous company.

Perhaps a little whiff will make
Him crave not the flesh but the heart
And soul which love him so, like his
Musk teases me when we’re apart.

I watched as you died

~ Iyan Igma

An aged child, I watched you as you died,
Slowly at first for you yet believed
At first in diet and then in faith,
Albeit your hopes were quite deceived.

You staunchly refused to have chemo,
Since radiation sickened you so.

The healers all came and laid on hands
Covering your head with olive oil.
You thought there was much reason to live,
But still your health continued to spoil.

And then you died, your innermost light,
Your source of will, the strength of your fight.

And afterwards little time was left,
And you were deteriorating,
Spewing acid words to maim my faith.
Your spirit was debilitating.

Your muscle reduced to nothingness,
Your stoicism into tenderness.

You whittled a wooden pry bar pick
To open your nearly lockjawed mouth
For liquid drops to tease the hunger.
Your ravaged being headed south.

The bastion of manhood I once knew,
Wasting, lucidity failing you

Nor pranks nor jokes would ever more play
The mage who could make the skies rain gum.
A frail filament nigh to burn out
We gave our last regards one by one

In a small window of remembrance
While morphine and pain were no cumbrance,

And you died as she held your shriveled hand,
Never making it past forty-two.
And since there was nothing we could give
To mitigate pain or restore you,

Your death was a gift on Christmas Day;
You died forgiven in every way.

Cereal

~ Iyan Igma

“Chewy,” thinks me, fork in hand,
Commenting on her taste.
Throughout pubescence had I been
Taught etiquette and not to waste.

She tasted not like chicken but
Of sumptuous carnal pleasure.
Sat I picking at fickle fillet;
I had deboned her at leisure.

All of the girls who’ve died for me
Have touched me in endless ways.
In love, I trust all’ve had the misfortune,
I know of one crime that deliciously pays.

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.

S. Mooching

~ Iyan Igma

I only kissed her
To make her shush,
But I continued
Silence in no rush
To hear or to see
Her crimson blush.

We had communion
Past when we couldn’t breathe,
But we were at our loom
Learning to intricately weave.
An onlooker would’ve thought
Us a human wreathe;
If we’d separated forcefully
Our chests would heave.

Like this naught matteréd
Besides the pure elation,
Not even when we died
Of breathless suffocation.
Onward we kissed
Ignoring salvation,
Smooching blissfully
Eternity’s duration;
I’d no intentions of hearing
Her whining frustration.

The Conquistador’s Beard

~ Iyan Igma

The virgins were sacrificed
For fun and for pleasure.
Moctezuma gazed over Tenochtitlan,
Blinking at his leisure.

The nation was arrayed in
The formation of victory;
They’d exterminated the strangers,
With the exception of two or three

Trained in the art of surrender
And broken captivity.
Their leader’s beard was to be used
In religious ceremony.

The fool who’d tried to conquer
The Aztecs was now dead.
His body was mutilated,
As was Cortez’s head.

After the defeat none
Of his ilk would dare invade.
The rumblings of a war-like people
Made a throbbing serenade.

The Spaniards had come
For Glory, God, and Gold;
They’d met dishonour, their God,
And the decaying mold.

The prisoners of doom
Had the vengeance of ague.
Smallpox to the Aztecs is
Like in Europe the black plague.

The existence of a nation
By smallpox was mended,
Just as the world
On their calendar ended.

Venules

~ Iyan Igma

Your wrists are so blue and vibrant and rich
That they’ve made a passion within to itch
As I sit near you watching blue streaks jump.
I feel passing breathless, though mine lungs pump.
Think I how lovely it would be
To have your arms tightly round me,
Wrist closed crossed slightly behind my neck.
Thus embraced, your lips I would peck.
And I’d tremble, though not for kiss,
But from sheer joy and oozing bliss
At having your love trickle down
My vertebral spine from the frown
Upon each wrist that I you gave
Because my passion’d not behave.
They tempted me sore with their tunnels
Passing fair that, as if with funnels,
Must be drained. Note I did not slit
Lengthwise, thus you’d live a tad bit
Longer or perchance die not at all,
As winter blocked by eternal fall.
Lifelessly listless you’ve become
While hugging me to death, and some
Of you pools on my back. My pet
Your love stains much as runner’s sweat:
Lumbarly collected at the tail
With thoracic ellipses, as well.
While your pallor groweth more pale,
Our chemistry doth I inhale.

The Goodwill of Death

~ Iyan Igma

“Good ladies and good gentlemen,
And those of gentler births,
I stand before you here today
For a crime that is the worst.

But before ye yet judge me
With a sentence that shan’t waver,
Please, let me inform you
Of how I did him a courteous favor.

I gave him the goodwill of death,
As goodwill to all must be.
How can you possibly think
This was ill of me?

Some people may nod or wave
Or shake another’s hand,
But me, I merely accosted him with
A smile and laid him out in the sand.

This earth is a cruél place,
What with kids and wives and rent;
He’s probably up there thanking me
Now that his life is spent.

How rather unfortunate
You’ve taken this the wrong way;
Perhaps you’ll understand when you
Have the goodwill of death someday.”