Julius Marc Taborete
Poetry

I
Song of the Moon River

Once has crossed
the River underneath the stark
roundness of Blood Moon
where one, but two
shrieks have struck his skimpy
Legs. Discordant ripples
break the current as the lean Toe
resonates ragged
waves of indecisiveness;
upon touching the manic flow,
bloodshot eyes waver
back and forth to each Vortexes
of the bewitching screech.
One
is from the downstream
and Other is from the upper;
tugging for directions
to occupy with.
Voids to fill in.

He stills
in the water,
waiting for
the decision;
to persist or accede
from the pressure.
For one last time,
and for the last time,
he goes with the flow
With the flow
comes defeat.
From his escape,
Hunger and oppression.

He dreamily rests
with the current;
He embraced
the current.
Washed with the blessing of the
Blood Moon,
he calmly succumbs to the raging
current.
And Once stood
in the middle of the River
has gone with the wave,
ebbing in His own
swirling pool, saying
“It’s Alright.”

II
It is the Call

You have the Wings of
my freedom,
the shackle to my lifeline;
the land where I pursue
the beatdown. I am not
to be captured
nor caged.
Not to sink nor swim
in the shadows.
Not to fly in foreign Wings
nor in foreign skies.

Propelled in Blue Hues
grazed by the Sun
once,
Mother had kissed
My skin with patches
of Brown, with the songs of
my ancestors but
swept away in
my Father’s proud façade,
Whitewashed with features of
the East.

In the land where my feat
seared the ground
thawed the color
once
my Mother had touched.
Turning into White
ashes, they have locked me in
my own freedom,
in the delusion I dwell.
They have singed me,
my roots;
and now
I
mock those
with Brown skins
pursuing the beatdown
I was once flying for.
It is the Call.

III
Antler

“Find the Antler”
in snow covered hills,
in icy patches of fields,
in cold whispers of barren cliffs.
“Find the Antler”
where stark eyed wolves search for prey,
where landslides melt villages,
where echoes resonate over
crystalized cries of nature.
She says,
“find the Antler”
who runs in the deep forest,
who glides in the mist of lakes,
who basks in the warm light of
Majesty.
Seen underneath the gleaming
rainbow butterflies
perched in the stalwart horns,
strewn with sonnets of Eve,
detached from the writhing blight
she rings in my ears,
“find the Antler.”

Strained in my naked eyes,
seeking for its loftiness
in the full bloom of its own
Spring yet runs
swiftly where
no one has seen or heard.
In its wake
a wind bites the frost,
heating my thought,
constricts with invisible thorns;
She appears in a chant
cracking
in my mind
that the Antler is near,
is here,
that the Antler stood
in the shadow of Her voice—
of my shadow.

For once I stopped
in search for the moment,
yet
for spare bats of my eyelids
She has escaped astray,
The Antler has run away.