Poems of Jean Rojas

For the least time

I held your stare

Traveling the distant nowhere

In the outer recesses of space

Brief moments of gaiety

Are but overused

Memories to be replayed

Silenced the night whose

Stillness can be heard

Loud and clear.

 

For the last time

I embrace the shadows

Hovering about you

Memorizing each trace

Of darkness

Each line and each

Hallow vision

Savoring the few minutes

Of private contact

With your negative image

 

For the last time,

I thought

I came so very close

To you

Advancing in inches

And inches so near

Conquering the barriers

Of fear

And demolishing the

Brick walls of time

Command now this life

That was lived

In the briefest of happiness

 

For the first time

Before the dust

Shall blot out

All memories of today

Let the past give way

And the future stay

If only to rectify mistakes

And restore your good name

 

But life goes on cruelly

And like a theater’s curtains

Must fall

On us all

 

So for the last time

I said my goodbyes

Remembering your stare

Out of nowhere

Remembering your shadows

And your pain

Never have I felt

Your presence more strongly

As I kissed your shadows to rest

For the very last time……

 

 

For: Wallace Reid

         1993

 

The ill-fated Wallace Reid was  King of the American Cinema in the infancy of the 20th century. A good and cultured man before he entered the movies reluctantly, he  became a drug dependant after an accident incurred while filming.Instead of giving him proper medical attention, his producer told the company doctor to give him morphine to deaden the pain (so that the shooting of his film will not be delayed).He died of morphine addiction on 18 January, 1923, aged 32.

Verses out of rhyme

From prophets to poets

Out of line

Corridors of restless passages

Form this abode of passion

Of mine

In countless manifestations

Upon seeking representations

To salvage this predicted downfall

About to be genuinely fulfilled

 

What say you

To my fate in this

Displeasure?

Hiding the crimes

That people must censure

Getting a fix

And giving a trick

Being used like a workhorse

Before my staying power

Is over….

 

Can I make myself

Come to terms

With failures for fortune

Riding the crest

Of my oblivious popularity

Will they remember

Or can they see?

When white men

Would drag me

To the cell of my death?

 

I belong here, don’t I?

Like verses out of rhyme

 

I close my eyes

To nurture the prick

Of this solution

They must inject inside

Of me

To dissolve me

In the fading backround

Like lingering shadows

That will never take shape

I brought my hands up

To touch my cheeks

I wipe the bitter tears

As I lay me down

To sleep…….

 

 

For: Wallace Reid

        1992

 

On the road

I thought of you

Through flying clouds

And powder blue skies

 

There is a feeling

I can not comprehend

That makes my mind

And will bend……

What meaning, unto me,

Do you want read?

 

Lined trees alternating

In shades of green

Moving on ahead…

 

I cried

 

‘twas a long, long route

To a destination

I had no control of,

The pain and the pleasure

Intermingled in my breast

My heart was not at rest

 

I remembered…..

For so long

I finally did,

As I realized

There are fewer and fewer

Memories to live with……

 

I know your tears now

For I have shed them myself.

 

1993