"Father's Home."

Sitting on a piano bench feeling the keys at my father's home,
I play some romantic pieces for my ears only,
I begin to improvise some tune on a distant memory,
A distant memory that none have seemed as dismal.
Something about the air is right, the light just the right dim,
The bass plays in the left hand, and the violins in the right,
But they are the sound of voices, and if you heard them before,
They might ring a bell.
Somethings are slightly amiss, while others happen just right.
I can hear the steady footsteps of father,
I continue to play uninterrupted and luckily--
Last night I dreamed of an alien fetus--gosh I hate nightmares!
And I woke up and my eyes moved as if by an invisible force
From the paintings on the wall and I noticed a shadowy alien,
That wasn't an alien, but it looked as if it was painted onto the painting.
Then I slowly realized, God's image is in all works of art.
I hesitated to go back to sleep, today I couldn't find any aliens inscribed in paintings,
And I've tried to recreate the exact conditions to no avail.
Sometime's passed, I've returned to the present and my memory has faded,
For the last four years my standards have been lowered,
The love of my life has remarried.
Alas, I have a recurring flashback in my mind:
I see a new figure right in front of me.
It was of the time I first met her!
And I am as suddenly as I am scarily returned back to reality.

"The Ruler of Pluto"

A ruler of the dwarf planet Pluto jumps and lands again.

He wins the dark side of the moon battle ten times over.

His Pluto feels so cold, so distant, and so planet-like,

A probe can reach Pluto in ten years to pick him up.

On average, radio signals take five and a half hours to receive.

We think that if the ruler of Pluto exposes himself to the sunlight,

He would be unaffected like the cold color of its sea.

That's why we don't miss him, when we belong on the unique Earth,

And this hurts the ruler deeply.

The green atmosphere, thin, and visible, holds heat like a sheet.

Pluto’s coldness eludes him, because we earthlings infer and assume incorrectly.

The ruler's rock of rocks, ice, and his loneliest of all his possessions, made us yearn for his return.

He and his reflecting moon, Charon, shortened the distance between himself and it.

So Charon, we think, orbits Pluto by a weak gravitational pull—

A stray from the Ort cloud!  But he told us, once, about the Hallucination.

Two other moons that orbit Pluto have less of a mass than Charon.

But as native inhabitants of Earth, 

We never theorized how cold Pluto feels on its dark side, which heats up by the weak radiation.

And Pluto’s moon, Charon, never became known where it came from despite having multiple theories and facts.

Then, one, long, Pluto day, the Sun's rays warmed Pluto again:

The horizon began to disappear and the light side faced the backdrop of stars, nebulae, space,

The ruler of Pluto jumped and didn't land anywhere.

by Daniel Alexander Apatiga

"A Lyrical Poem"

Still as a liberal,
I'm melancholy,
She's afraid of the man who wrote to her,

Still as a socialist,
The days of dueling are over,
But in books and games they live,

Still as an unhappy communist man,
I love her like the calm moonlit night.

by Daniel Alexander Apatiga

"Orwell was right, Orwell was right..."

In my twenties I walked mad and discontent

Due to scandals.

I thought there lacked an equal.

My father and I bar-hopped while it felt new,

A pulling force seemed to make us walk inside.

My wife I saw and all my life I waited for her,

My love!  “Suddenly,” I said, “why do you not answer my messages?”

Alas, it's my personality that strikes you down.

Your silence begs for me to talk to you,

Though I did not know my silence would haunt me to this date.

A bright and white lady appeared, a transparent ghost.

Like Molly Pitcher, she helped injured soldiers

From Iraq and Afghanistan while I had no job.

She's an androgynous communist, a Russian-American.

Far from weak and devoid of thought for anyone but me.

I didn’t know how to react to poor service.

The other venue had a waitress who complained

Of the most ridiculous assertions against me, yet--

The police—they heard every shaky voice.

I was paranoid that they would be at my doorstep.

Out of respect for the law I kept quiet and played the idiot role.

I was clad with a moral impetus to visit you,

To make you mine and make you do things you’d never do.

A lady dined across the packed bar, that night, she stood up.

She was a vile, dark demon who walked gracelessly

Towards me who was in fancy to all but you, in fantasy about you!

Meanwhile, Molly Pitcher poured beer at the back.

I, like the waitress, was clothed traditionally.

Her tanned, unique face and agile, light frame—

I did not have her number so I asked and forgot the other.

She didn't have mine either, and I shall never forget:

Her lack of courtesy and rude allegation.

Her allegation was impolite and without material. 

The White Lady who was Molly Pitcher vanished.

I last saw her beneath the counter.

While she left with an ugly man,

Orwell foretold the future that we lived in.

We lived in it.

A deep thought in my anomic head droned endlessly without you.

“Don't worry”, I thought to myself, “I lived in Orwell's book and now,

Surveillance cameras are recording my voice though they belong to me not.

My non-wife welcomed me to a bar without trust or love.”

Trickery and falsery covered her in a delusion. 

She never welcomed me nor fell in love with me.

I learned later she hated me.                                          

The White Lady looked at the cook and then towards me—

The cook stared in a wide-eyed, idiotic way.

My anomic head and my embarrassing self… 

Who never learned from Brother's Karamazov.

But I told myself: 

“When I saw her face, she was not on the same page. 

I was going to be her teacher and we were going to get married.     

When I heard her voice her voice was always music.

That meant everything to me.” 


by Daniel Alexander Apatiga