fragments: old poems

~ Unknowingly ~

I say it with caution
but
I know you.
I know the face,
both within and without
and every mask that
slides, smoothly or painfully
over another.

I know the nakedness,
when smooth skin
and jagged mind are laid
bare:
You look away from ugliness,
when all I see is that
which is as distant from
beauty as you are from
me
(lost, entangled).

I know the puzzles,
and the answers
that puzzle me more,
I know the dreams,
know especially well
the ones
you fear to dream.

I know of the painful steps,
the minutes you want
to give up;
I know you are me
and I am you
just as much as we are
not each other:
I know the yous.

Now to un-know you.

Written 02/03/11

—-

~ rot ~

What once was
fluid and charming,
lived and grew,
ever-changing, ever-moving,
breathing silently
through you and
me
is now this–
a loud stench in the room,
a black, bloated
carcass
beloved only to
maggots
who celebrate our death.

Perhaps some day
the smooth ivory bones,
dry as ashes
and dust
will bare themselves to
beauty and
adorn my hair
or neck.

Written on 22/07/11

—

~moon-dream~

I dreamt of you
last  night, in black,
white and enchanting
greys:
Perhaps it was because I’d fallen asleep
on a little patch of moonlight
who was resting
upon my bed,
exhausted,
and dreamt upon the
silver strands of his chest;
and as he stroked my eyes
I found your lips,
inside his monochrome kiss.

Written on 07/02/2012

nerves

Pages have fluttered
past, and ages with them,
and my words
sigh
as they pass from
pen to dust,
motes dancing
for seconds
in mind and memory.

And now,
I lay out my nerves
(foryou)
end to screaming end,
twist them together
with shaky fingertips,
and try to shape
throbbing meaning from them...
but worry not, my
love,
no drop
of sweat-blood-tears
could smudge the
words they write
for you.

showered

The last rains fell
and set off a steam
that rose and
trailed its delicate
tendrils
over fever-dewed skin,
and wrapped itself
on restless limbs–
tenderly–
(while outside
the roots dug deeper
and harder
for life,
And the cold earth
too
clothed herself
in drifting mists)
and feathered breathlessly
across parted
furnace-lips.

And now the first rains
have embraced us
again,
(mango rains)
and I find myself
again;
in days that
slip-slide wetly,
through this
wildly thriving earth,
this humid, throbbing
fecundity.
I lie face-to-face with
you, open sky:
now dark with cloud, now
searing
me with sun,
now flowing, warm as tears,
into my eyes,
till blue, bluel, blue
is all I brim over
and burst with.

Only
rain
drops
break
the
silence.

firefly

Firefly,
If I wanted my dull little room
lit up,
I'd rather buy a candle
And search the forgotten corners
By its flickering light, for secrets
I buried away
With music and shadow:

Your radiance is not to
set them
aglow.

But as I stand at my doorway,
Leaning out to touch
And be touched
by your flickering warmth
I would rather watch
as you fly away,
and see the little spotlit patches
of night--
Shining briefly,
dressed in brevity's perfection--
as you pass through them.

And watching, brush fingers
still fluttering from your touch.

autumn

Tonight, a warm wind
and I
strayed into each other's path
and it reminded me
of love's birth and
tenderness.

To turn and find
your face
                   mirroring
my face;
hearing my mind
trip from your lips;
and to feel your heartbeat
fleetingly sqeeze mine
in a parting embrace,
reminds me:

The long season of
weeping sky and
patient earth is at an end;
and I turn (from you)
to kiss that changing wind.

wonder-lust

Let's go out then,
let's take a long walk down
strange paths,
talking--as ever--
about things
inconsequential, weighty
and personal.

Let's stop to sit,
shoulder-to-shoulder
on a city pavement
(where we should be sitting
gingerly)
and stare at the traffic
and lose ourselves in thoughts.

Perhaps as evening falls
and lights come on
we can buy hot dosais
from a crowded stall.
I'll watch you luxuriate in smoke
and you'll watch me demolish
my food in
two minutes flat.

At the beach, we'll lick our lips
to the salt and dig our feet
into the sand.
When the endless waves depress you,
I'll take you
to taste molaga bajji
(while ruefully admitting
that I've never had it myself,
and you laugh)
and instead we'll dine on
fresh fried fish
and discuss politics
and the possibilities of
space-travel.

As the night creeps in,
we will return,
pretending that this is
our life.

face

The blade has been drawn
across your skin,
the poison mixed in your
red tea.
I have placed the barrell
to your temple, and
am but a
hair-trigger away.

*

I have walked
naked under the stars,
a ghost in this
blinding moonlight;
I have danced
naked, as the open sky
watches, disinterested.
I have channeled the creeping
fingers of the fog,
wrapped it
around my nakedness
and jumped
and laughed
and let it in
to warm me;
I have bored into
my forehead
the frost
that was gifted.

*

Dead through the winter,
I wake now
with not a trace
of dream or
faded memory;
I look around
me,
at the world that is
scattered
with scarves, tissue,
half-burned cigarettes
and half-torn-and-tossed sheets
of scribbled fantasy.

I look up to the ceiling
(the world drones on
in the background)
and wish sleep back into
dead eyes,
swollen eyelids.

*

The mirror stands, tall
and dull.
It stares back.
No bullet penetrates.
No knife scratches the
unflinching surface.
No fog nor sky
dare penetrate.
The mirror stands
oblivious to dream
memory
and will.
The mirror stares,
unflinching
impenetrable
unchanging.

afresh

forgetting,
we paint pictures
of past, the pain,
and colourlessness;
compose symphonies
in legattos of
langorous pleasures-to-come
and crescendos–
we forget.

conversing,
we acquire new languages
of metaphor,
phrase and poetry,
shutting out,
as others look over
our slow-building wall
(forgotten)–
we converse.

loving,
with kisses across
frames of newly-splashed
colour;
(lips and fingers stained)
and we push keys,
caress bows, strings,
and rise,
with the riot of notes,
rise,
rise,
rise,
to look in with unbearable wonder–
we love.

destroying,
we forget,
and create,
converse, build, burst
with new love.

"Constantly"

"Do you love

me..." she asks,

fully knowing

that Love ebbs,

flows,

and is not steadfast:

full in the morning,

trailing off into little dips by noon,

and is fascinated

by the most usual of things

at dusk;

builds unnoticed,

stays, wobbly,

and destroys itself with passion,

rebuilding

and fizzling

out,

at whim;

arhythmic and

maddeningly predictable;

the more you say it is,

the more it is not;

and giving up, you resign yourself,

but now, it is...

(or is it?)

And she, knowing all this,

half-smiling (self-deprecating),

leads into

the adjective:

"...constantly?"

Can('t) I live?

Without love. Without hate. Without sorrow. Without expectation. Without disappointment. Without heartbreak. Without tears. Without silences. Without those long, stifling, stifled silences. Without sleeplessness. Without insecurity. Without fear. Without the need to get away, far away. Without privacy or the need for it. Without judgement. Without pain. Without pain. Without pain. Without pain.

Without repetition.

Without mockery or self-mockery. Without running away. Without foolishness. Without those false notions the world or your slice of the world taught you. Without pretenses. Without honesty. Without dreams. Without doubts. Without humour. Without music. Without FEELING. Without honour. Without self. Without mindless heart. Without fear. Without you. Without us.

poetry

Those fleeting spaces
have escaped me--
those spaces I would build,
and build,
and craft.
And I blink, sleepy child to
the morning.

I only find the banal now--
the useless, self-conscious
moments
that are more anxious to finish
than to see where we go.

Crinkly eyed, teeth set on
that sharp edge of
sleeplessness,
I am left, bereft
of those spaces, with just
words.

(and I would never dream of blaming you.)

pillowtalk

You whispered secrets in me
while I was
asleep.
Now they whisper back
and listen
for that only voice
that speaks,
for confessions
And I--
oblivious and wondering--
fight softly,
to slide into dreams.

All in vain.

For you
have dissolved:
disappeared with the night's dust
into dawn's dewdrops.

nightfall

Somewhere at dawn
my light begins to fade
as I lie restive
(next to you)
watching others fade in...

The colours began to go
long ago.
I lived, dreamed
those throbbing pulses:
sugar to scalded tastebuds.

And now sleep eludes
and the lights drift
and drown...

I will wake you soon
for eyes that
breathe colour into me

For a little while
at least.

again

I had thought
you were gone--
buried under,
pushed away, or just
evaporated.

I had rested, serene,
self-satisfied,
content;
I was well-ordered
again,
free...

But you haunt me
through gesture, word, or passing thought
You rise with a shallow smile,
embrace with a quick caress

And I am slave to you
again,
Rage.

winter

I was awaiting the winter
and its creeping warmth
(I had told you).
We began with the spring,
and through the summer
and the long arcs of never-ending
day
I was awaiting
winter:
frozen tear-drops,
golden moons,
a cocoon,
and you.

The world awaits the winter now
and as we sweat and stew
in what was broken,
day and night
have begun to mate.
Winter
has arrived
in me.

underbelly

And when, some day, you tire
of me; and bored,
tear me or cut,
slice or delicately
dice;
you will see,
I'm not flesh and
blood inside but
what you never saw,
what I swallowed with my foolish dreams:
A sodden, broken
rotten watermelon
dripping water
and salt.

On your shoes.

kaleidoscope-rainbow

You have burst:
stunning texture,
shape,
and colour
onto pale
translucence;
A perfect teardrop
shattered by
one pure ray of
you...

You have possessed
these broken pieces
of coloured glass.
And I,
I am bathed in it:
in dizzy, breathless,
swirling colour:

The world twists,
falls
and you,
tumbling with it,
have me spellbound.

It is all
radiance now,
all thrummingly glowing.

fade

you
are always fading:
never gone, yet never there.
finally at rest;
you
are yet restless,
memories
moving through me
like a dream.

I
want to let go
of you
and all the tomorrows
that I had
till yesterday.
I
am lost
without you,
lost a little of me
with you.

A million questions
to ask you,
a million conversations
to have
your hand, to hold:
Fading.

rain

Quiet rain,
stealing in when no
fading dewdrop was
looking:
You've passed over me
sleeping... Drifting in half-
dreams of
soft rain
and your pattering
caress on fevered limbs.

Slipping and sliding,
I'm freed--entangled--steeped
as I wake, my being
already quenched.
Your flavour on my
lips:
Seeping rain
and half-
remembered kisses.

tentacles

La lune is out tonight
Blooming like a yellow
blood-flower
splashing and pouring over us
and ours.

The bare branches claw
at the million billion stars:
the hour of madness is at
the back of our throats
(can you taste it?)

Measured smiles, the words reined
in: as we walk
the winding path through the wilderness
The edges straining, calling out
to us
(Listen, you can hear it)
Murmuring and whispering of
what lies
hide:
what lies
inside.

Run and hide,
for your can, we can
all taste it now:
over, around, beneath us.
inside us.

La lune is high now,
shining into us.