Unfinished poems ~

Unfinished poems

could be 

heartbeats 

searching for synapses,

held-hands 

looking for warmth,

pauses 

seeking annihilation,

or 

a story of love 

so strong 

that 

it's consummation

could only be 

a tragedy.

Perils of breakup sex (or, why I can't keep my legs closed for you)

Now see what you've done, she said,

spoilt my hair with your come,

you were always one for a mess,

never wanting to come inside,

forever searching for new places to spill.

It's right too, I guess, that 

we leave on this note,

the final sign-off as we part,

& I remain to clean 

your unending mess. 

Strange, that I even allowed you 

to fuck me this night,

but I guess

nostalgia beats experience -

& my pussy has it's own mind.

Now, 

why the hell am I feeling gooey inside,

when, after all we've been through, 

I should have felt relief -

not a fucking flood of emptiness.

But you have always been my best lover,

held me together, as you tore me.

God, how I will miss having you inside, 

our mornings, your hand between my legs,

& my holding you, as you grew soft to hard.

Why couldn't our life be the fun 

which we could conjure in our sheets?

How can we be like animals in bed 

but 

despicable human beings?

I part with you the way I part my legs -

it's a mystery as to who would 

enter my body, or my life,

but just go, lover, just go,

before my love again turns to lust. 

Let us break what we have 

to preserve what we had,

let us find ways to rebuild what is left -

we will see if the worst of us has died,

we will see if there is some good which survives. 

But if things go badly for a while,

come back, sleep on my breast -

I will be a Mary to your Jesus -

you will break my body with your sorrow,

I will mend you by holding you soft. Soft. Soft.        

Sundrops ~

If you want a reason to live 

come to the desert. 

The lazy smoke of morning fires 

indistinguishable 

from the mist from my mouth.

Babies awakening in cold mornings 

finding their reasons 

in throaty screams.

Stony umbrellas 

forever sheltering

and clouds caught in trees.

Sandy roads 

meandering lazily -

carved out to just be.

And I, a wanderer, 

seeking meaning in stranger places,

unable to find an answer 

to someone who says -

sundrops have all life's answers,

why go, when this is the place to stay?

In Dhundlod on 29 th January 2015 

Together in a winter morn ~

It's never a day for nays,

even when it's freezing over,

there's always a way to warmth,

there's always a fire we can find. 

Your hand is sleet in pink,

snuggling to find desire,

I can only murmur you a sigh,

when summer's buried in the ground.

And so, on a wintry morning,

I have your cold nose in my neck. 

And I think, with a small smile -

we are together, so I forget the rest. 

In Dhundlod on 28th January 2015 

Vexations & largesse: diary of a hypocrite ~

I have decided that 

I don't like her. 

All my dealings henceforth

will be of sheer hypocrisy.

I will smile with elan 

and wish her with warmth, 

whilst thinking of her 

as that necessary pain:

alas, I will be a worse person 

because of her.

But it gives me a mull 

and a cause for pause:

are such people tests 

to search for decent response,

or merely life's directive 

to search for good in disaster;

merely means to perspective -

of bad which could be worse,

or are they people with stories 

of life lessons we should hear?

I will then meet her with sincerity,

step aside after the first flush,

I will admire her considerable talents,

and bypass her nature.

The wise have rightly said -

avoid what's vexatious to the soul.

I will do my sitting mediation

as she holds forth,

be right in my behavior

revel in the largesse of my soul. 

A Woman of All Seasons ~

I see the river in her,

as she cuts deep 

when she flows.

At times, 

I see the hills in her, generous,

not a mountain's arrogance.

Often, she is the thunderstorm -

ostensibly angry, 

but only cleansing the sky.

Who will ever know, but a few, 

that she is also the soothing shower 

of an impervious day.

And the time she is the mist,

she is only hiding 

her friend from his own scars. 

In all her seasons, 

she weathers her own caprice,

to shadow the hidden truth -

a dark night 

often hides

a sheltering sky. 

(For Maayaa)

Conversations ~

We generally talk 

through the television:

we speak to it, 

it gives it's story,

and then we hear each other. 

So we have reflected drama

in all our conversations

though 

our tone may well be dead.

Every tv show has a resolution,

so does ours - 

reality as contrived as fiction,

until the next season's run.

Once, a long time back,

I asked him to sit in front of me,

to shut out every device -

book, music, television -

and look at me.

I talked,

waited for his response,

he squirmed,

uncomfortable in my gaze,

desperate for escape.

And then he looked away. 

Ever since,

we have never sat across the other,

we have never talked to each other. 

We have stayed together,

but forever looked the other way.

The way of all flesh ~

And she, 

a poet in everything 

(except words),

traced a silk road 

on my chest with her legs,

and said -

There's nothing worth reading

except about love,

there's nothing worth doing

except make love. 

What is your mood tonight,

to do or to talk?

He found a mole 

somewhere up her thighs,

where shadows 

had begun to fall, 

and said -

Let's make love with words,

and see where it leads:

why dwell in one world,

when there's adventure in two. 

Her smile was langour,

and felt like smoky halls

&  mothy nooks-

Your words give me a high

but your body is my soul:

you enter me

and make me a mistress of zen.

I'm a creature of my skin

and your body makes me whole.

Maybe the way of all flesh 

is perdition,

but the way leads 

through nirvana.

So be my Jesus tonight,

read your sermon to me,

and then have me crucified:

be my cross, my love, and 

let my blood not go waste.

Don't believe them who say 

you have sold your soul 

to the devil -

know, it's treasured,

know, it is rendered pure,

every night with me,

every night.

Lost songs ~

That exasperated sigh of yours -

will sleep soothe your memory

or will you think more of it?

Our differences are specks in space

but stones in our hearts,

and unforgiving,

even as every dawn absolves 

every night of every sin. 

How much do we lose of each other

as we think only of our own hurts.

But such is the nature of all grief -

a moment of stress,

a decision of distress,

a lifetime of regret. 

Is there the joy of amnesia

somewhere 

in our chequered fortunes,

when we rid ourselves 

of the problem of us,

to rediscover our lost innocence,

and the pristine tone 

of our old love songs.

We were, and are, 

good people,

tired for a moment, 

confused,

mistaking 

a mere moment's exasperation

for a problem of infinity. 

A word I will ask, my love ~

A word I will ask,

if you allow me, my love,

the love you learnt from me,

who is it that you do it with now? 

Olde year blues ~

I never wait for you to come

nor for you to go.

But your final passage 

has only sadness

writ in it's skein.

Even as the skies 

streak with celebration,

no amount of music 

can drown the plaintive cries of

a hundred partings. 

Resurrect, as you must,

but leave your false dawns aside:

have the courage 

to tell your final truth

first. 

The roads were washed out of rains ~

The roads were washed out of rains,

it was cloudy and gloomy

and much of last year's grime;

they say it's a new year 

but deja vu is all that I find. 

She likes me as a poet ~

She likes me as a poet -

she doesn't like what I write.

She reads every word I write -

she doesn't like when it's about her.

 

I tell her i write about what runs in my veins -

she cuts my vein & says: write about that. 

Stranger in the mirror ~

A stranger stays in my room with me. 

I look in the mirror and talk with him. 

He is not always likeable,

but we often look out into the sea together,

thinking of what conjoins us

and the wonder of that:

nothing is ever what it seems. 

I am style, he is substance,

I'm decent, he is corrupt. 

And in that divide lies the answer 

of why we coexist.

It's easy to say "Opposites attract",

it's harder to understand that 

opposites desire:

what they want is much stronger -

they crave,

they ache,

they covet,

they hunger. 

And even as they change, 

they battle with themselves. 

And when I look again in the mirror,

to finally see someone familiar,

I see 

a new stranger.

Ray ~

I see the ray of light 

falling into the room, 

I see the floating smite 

as it drifts in the light,

and I see you 

as you see me. 

I see you see me 

as the dust & the grime,

I see you see me 

as nothing more than a deed,

and I see my light dim,

as I see us fall apart.

The room glows warm

even as history finds it's criminal,

in the recesses of our story

we lie broken.

The ray finds it's nature,

and leaves the night behind. 

The Stone's Song ~

The brook flowed over the stone.

A song gurgled in their throats,

the twosome loving 

their serene place in the sun.

Then the brook rolled the stone 

along in it's flow,

the stone could have dug in,

but it let itself go.

Further and further

the stone was led, 

deeper and deeper 

in the stream's depth,

until it reached a plane 

where there was no light, 

no sound, no song, 

just the brook's sightless eyes.

And a silence instead of 

a heart's song. 

(And she asked him 

"Nowadays, why are you so quiet?")

Flowers wrapped in flowers divine ~

For Thay

(forever alive  in Plum Village) ~

Flowers wrapped in flowers divine,

petals loving the whorls inside,

the whorls knowing the colors divine,

a vision seeking a vision undefined,

without a beginning without an end,

a breath which stays, a breath which stops,

the skies know infinity -

that which is born never dies. 

The stones ask - am I  the river?

The waves ask - am I the water?

Life asks - am I the flower?

Thay says - ask not the question,

your life is ever-present, for love never dies,

and every bit of you is made of me.

You will cherish my words, my life,

for they are yours and made of thee.

Nobody does winter better than you ~

Nobody does winter better than you.

Mist curls out from your mouth

as the sun slants with it's false promise.

Long shadows lie like bruises 

on the hard unforgiving ground.

You are both the ice which cracks 

& the crevasse where you fall.

I can only reach out 

to save your slivers,

for you will forever find 

the moribund in your breathing. 

I now fear even the first fall of snow,

for nothing white is now sacred.

And the days -

when winter was the time 

to seek warmth in

chilling wilderness -

now lie buried in a shallow grave,

as we wait for the next blizzard 

which would chill us, but never ever kill.

Karma ~

There was very little left 

to say,

but the cruelty could have been

limitless. 

She chose grace instead,

and all I remembered of her,

before she left,         

was humility.

She was what she was, but 

I left a larger person,

though broken.

I stepped out and found 

the evening clouds 

tinged with an ochre       

I had never seen.

For everything one loses,

there is something which always 

comes back.

Holy burial ~

You are my most beautiful vexation:

you could have my flight,

you turned out to be 

my Westminster Abbey.

Name ~

I struggled with fragilities

with a sense of eternity,

I thought I was the ground,

even as I moved as the breeze.

Then, in a fleeting moment 

I knew -

your name was an illusion,

hence only yours would abide.

A Little Poem ~

Somewhere beneath the skies,

lived a little poem,

always out of grasp,

though always in sight.

Such are things of beauty

such do they survive,

first they come as vision,

they stay on as a sigh.

Meaning ~

You are meaningless

without your eyes.

I have seen the smoke 

of your cigarettes laze 

around your face

as you tried to find life's meanings 

at the bottom of a glass of port.

I could have told you,

if you'd asked, 

that you were already a destination:

some people search,

but some people, like you  

just are. 

Favorite Stranger ~

I will be your stranger

& I will find you again in the sun.

The world can be a bit too much 

at times,

but you can seek me out,

lounging, 

a charming dissolute presence,

and you could wonder what 

my favorite bedtime tale would be.

I can look at you, 

as strangers do,

fully but hidden,

interested in a disinterested way,

& make my way to where you stand.

"Coffee?"

And we would weave our way together

into the heart of a renewed world.

I would be your favorite stranger.

A London Song ~

There is a rhythm and rhyme 

when the river flows,      

the Eye roves 

and there is music -

because you are here. 

The bridges ask us to cross,

the boats say linger,

there is a today unraveling

riding on a hundred yesterdays.

We've walked long miles

through shades and shadows,

inside an Indian summer,

beside sunlight which hustles.

And time goes by so slow, so slow,

if you walk at a pace 

which is ours, ours,

in a stranger-land strangely familiar,

a place which today we claim as ours.

Priorities ~

Of course, 

there would be things to do

but I know they can wait

when there is a bell to listen to 

and an evening to savor.

We can't just sit and stare,

there is a world to discover,      

but let me linger over the coffee,

let me finish a poem on love.

There are mysteries to unveil

and things to complete,

but the chiaroscuro before dark

is more vital than any task.

Bruises ~

I remember your songs 

the way an ache 

remembers a bruise.

The rain finds its aroma

the way the earth 

finds its soul.

Behind your smile lies

the anciet secret 

of life,

whatever much the storms destroy,

you will always carry 

the light.

A skin away ~

I slept beside you,

a small distance 

between your skin 

and mine. 

And in that gap lay

everything which attracted 

and repulsed,

all the truths and lies 

of our lives.

Strange, 

how I hold my breath,

as I say this,

as if summer's secret 

was just being revealed,

a ragged paper,

a secret note.

And I wonder -

aren't the only truths

the silences 

between our words, 

the hurt hurled 

couched inside phrases,

the bruises we bag

beneath our souls. 

And I know, 

even if I bridge this gap

with my despairing hand,

the memories of 1000 scars

will find their way to blast 

my bridge over our river Kwai.

I know the combustion

which happens when 

skin meets skin,

but as combustible 

is the tragedy of stories 

left undone, 

their unwritten words mute,

for therein lie true stories 

which write their last lines

much before the end.

Each one of us find our own pain,

even as we hurtle towards an end 

where our tragedies are the same.

Spring in autumn ~

He lay there, 

like spring,

on autumn leaves,

a tragediene's sign 

that

at the end of every end,

life abides.

LondonSpeak ~

Did you know my skies always have clouds? 

No, not to hide the sun,

but to give the blues a break.

And in that imperfection 

lies my story.

You may curse my history

or find purchase in my changing seasons 

or muse on my undefinable beauty.

But know my blossoms to be scars,

come to earth to show you can heal with burning.

And in that truth you may find my only truth,

the rest are only true stories.