April 7th, 2023

For you, only

When we took our shoes the first time

At the temple gates

It was the beginning of water bending

And droplets in my hands

You felt my pain on phone call nights

But then all we did was moonshine under the light

We were not allowed entry within the walls

But we're allowed to stay until final call

You've made me better for what it's worth

And kept my wheels spinning beyond this earth

And shot me up and down the park street lights

If you've watched the bottom of my shoes

You know I got 40 licks and I've had the blues

The bottom right corner of my soles

On my right anklet extreme

Tell the story of uphill climbs

And a brittle statement that led to footstep screams

A passerby drove right on thru

And I would have been a dead bunny if not for you

I'll feed the children of Krishna, too

I'll home your animals like how I honor in my shoes

An uphill climb with a fleeting look

Of hopelessness and knowing an eternal muse

You art there for me in celestial orbit when I think of you

You are in my ears when I have nothing to do

You are in my heart from morning to start

You were at my family's mourning ritual

Of Karballah and Kusumpur and Kanpur, too

Of Noida, Murshidabad, and Dilli too

But kali peeli you bring me home

You sent me back in a plastic dome

For 500 rupees I paid the price

Of losing your respect into a motorcycle night

I would have walked the whole way back the first we met

If I'd known my lesson would be so long learned our second test

I walked back knowing not what I had lost

For in the sands of time you were not yet mine

But never-ending, mind, remind me, remember me

I'll be seeing you in familiar times

I'll be seeing you at the moonraker ride

The bumper cars, the bowling lines

The carousels of Saturday club

The stuffy halls of Cal Club bells

The bell hopping servants who inhabit my eyes

The sockets of my hips that tell no lies

The sockets of my eyes that accept your peers

To know you are peerless and I am deeply your dear.

With love, Manas Winfield

For The one and only

The Heroine(s) I've Known

 

We met halfway past sundown

At the suicide saloon

I did not let you see the craters of my moon

Coffee warmed us up and all we did was swoon

The second time we met and the sky was our whole room

Your mother made us tea and we sipped away our hopes

She said you’ll marry this one

And she’d had you on the ropes

Then your Papa sent the crows

From the Eastside to the West

…And My momma always taught me you gotta choose the best

My father art thou in heaven?

Only German Hegel knew

You can read a million pages

But you’ll never misconstrue

If you’ve only heard the greatest hits

Of History and its tunes

Then all the Led Zeppelin you’d ever heard

Never learned you ‘bout the Blues

Because current events cut deeper

Than crimson ever could

and the red-tongued goddess maidens

Won’t ensnare fires in the woods

For a water-bender most quenching

Is what’s needed to keep the peace

But don’t be misled my dears

The typhoons are of the East

I’ve seen the paths straight out of hear

In the crescents of your ears

I knew my god was in the flesh when it did not sweat in fear

I knew that peace was love supreme

When I let it whip me bare

I knew I’d drowned my craters there

When I crouched my hatred down stares

I knew I’d wait another year to show the moon to shine

We don’t need to be reborn again

To know who’s born …. under a

bad…

sign

 

I wouldn’t cry because you left me

For that is whom you choose

But to question my reality, wept me in the blues

I do not cry because you left me

Nor felt the agony of heart impaled

To see the mass graves adorned in blue suede shoes

would crater me to see you fail

For freedom goes of its own Accord

And To Yoda’s onto Hondas

But the day you drove straight up that hill

The Warrior Peace Arized down Yonder

The day you grab that wheel and don’t turn back

I’ll be your journalist

Until that day shall come

I’ll carry your shoes upon my chest

You needn’t bear the weight of chiles

To be the most respected of the pack

Browner than Blue and Bluer than black

The wheatfields in Egyptian mires

Are whole-grained pleats in ricey tyres

And the world won’t keep turn another day

Till the farmers make theirs back