Poems - JP Melville

Amniotic Darkness 2019 and old Imishli   jp Was it war once here? Am I that war? Drops splatter in the dust, bring softness to the evening. Thick air becomes light, even as the sun drops below the horizon. I sit on a veranda. I have showered. Smoking a cigarette, watch mud form, watch a chicken huddle under a plank of wood. We hide from the rain. We watch leaves of quince trees shiver with pleasure. Landlady brings me a meal of cheese: sliced cucumber, sliced bell peppers, bread, stuffed tomatoes. stuffed eggplant. stewed lamb… potato and yoghurt and tea. I snuff my cigarette. I enter the house to eat. I sit where landlady has placed the meal for me. At the head long table. Attended by none but me. Eat like a king in an empty castle. Absurd, this coming to live in another country. Absurd, this believing that one is welcome. I am not sold in. To be polite, I devour all that is on my plate as though watched f...

Full On War 2001 Years Later jp melville It is just about here that you would think that I would get back to Imishli.   And I do.   But not for long.   There is a call from Buck, the guy they call regional director.   Works out of New York.   So guess where I end up.   Yup.   New York.   But just long enough to get fired from my post.   I arrived in the city in the evening.   Into the office at eight in the morning.   Fired by eight thirty.   Fired by a guy who is not paid for his job.   Just sort of always been around.   Which got my mind going on conspiracy theory.   Actually, I had been doing the surfing on the internet from Baku.   International Rescue Committee run by Cherne and pals, friends with Haliburton.   The gas pipeline through Afghanistan, which is about the only reason we have Canadian troops in the land of the Khyber Pass.   Why on earth would Canadian babies be ...

Prayer 2001 - Imishli, Azerbaijan jp melville unknowable, infinite humble, compassionate love Of all emotions, thought, Anger, desire, happiness, envy, melancholy, or more Logic, madness, memory, or more Nothing but what is unknown Nothing but what is infinite Is absolute, Which is the philosophy of mathematics, or physics, The only reason, the only truth Of any science. Only the unknown and the infinite give perspective To what we feel To what we see To what we believe, By balancing what we experience With the knowledge that our experience is not absolute, With knowing that there is always something more, That for every step we take The next is unimaginable, Always one small step beyond consciousness. Patience, The effort to understand And watch the ugly unfold as beautiful, Allow that which differs from us gain respect, Or to unfetter complexity and free the simple to blossom into wonder....