Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
Once a priest in a sermon said that all babies arrive with clenched fists
and all the dying leave with upturned palms.
Even as a child, I knew what the priest meant. That we come to earth ready
to fight for our lives. That we leave it relinquished to our fates.
But when I think of clenched fists now I think of my dead father,
and when I think of open palms I think of my dead mother.
As an adult, every metaphor slips away like water, dew on leaf,
ice on tongue, tears down cheek. Everything melts away
too quickly to hold on to. Marriage, fatherhood, family, friendship, work, life.
I know I have never fully grasped any of it. You can’t grasp anything
you love with a clenched fist. And you can only try to do so with an open palm.
Often the only fists I felt were those pounding in my head or banging
in my heart or clenching my eyeballs from the inside and squeezing them dry.
Even open palms can hurt with a slap across your dignity, and you end up
with ego all over your face. Life sometimes hides in corners, sneaks up on you,
covers your eyes with its gloved palms, leads you to places of sadness
you don’t want to go. Sometimes, it screams in your face or shoves you from behind,
trips you over and you get up, scramble, raise your fists to fight
but there is no one there. Only a ghost in a mirror, with two white-knuckled hands
gripped together as one big fist or clasped tight as if in prayer.
And if you peer close enough, you recognise them as your own.
First published in Rowayat, a literary journal based in Montreal, Canada.
