Dreaming of You
Unclothed, you were as pure as my dream
Stripped of sheen, dampness still on the skin
The light from the east glanced off
the drops of last night's truce
when we were silent to the sounds of the frogs in the night,
remembering only the echoes of ourselves as we once were
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Livelong
Livelong
these are days enveloped in grey
packed in cartons of weary sighs
pickled in the brine of yesterday's rainy night
the dark damp brings with it the
faraway sounds of unknown breathings:
a child's kite that has snapped
its lifeline and floats off softly
these are days blinkered in tears
when laughter is cocooned and splintered
into disparate pieces of lying nerves
the dawn's mellow greetings have
soured and all the sparrows have gone
leaving their nests behind like
prisoners set free after many
thunderclapped monsoons
these are days saddled on aged horses
whose hooves furrow the wet earth and
drag gunnysacks of dying faces for miles
the wind no longer nuzzles the curtains
squirrels tire of the jackfruit and
sunshine melts into calipered hoods:
a sinewy hangman at crack of dawn
these are days huddled in mute throbbings
smothered in snakeskins of venom
befuddled in the dishwater of soporific vision
these are days enveloped in grey
packed in cartons of weary sighs
pickled in the brine of yesterday's rainy night
the dark damp brings with it the
faraway sounds of unknown breathings:
a child's kite that has snapped
its lifeline and floats off softly
these are days blinkered in tears
when laughter is cocooned and splintered
into disparate pieces of lying nerves
the dawn's mellow greetings have
soured and all the sparrows have gone
leaving their nests behind like
prisoners set free after many
thunderclapped monsoons
these are days saddled on aged horses
whose hooves furrow the wet earth and
drag gunnysacks of dying faces for miles
the wind no longer nuzzles the curtains
squirrels tire of the jackfruit and
sunshine melts into calipered hoods:
a sinewy hangman at crack of dawn
these are days huddled in mute throbbings
smothered in snakeskins of venom
befuddled in the dishwater of soporific vision
Desecration
Desecration
Making love to women
how you desecrate their essence.
This the eye of the mind cannot see.
The eye of memory is blinkered by
formless thighs swimming in sea-lined roads.
And how these folds, pink and velvety,
pale and sometimes liverish,
flap their eons through the irises
of this cruel memory.
Dumb memory,
whose tongue has been singed by
the acridity of sweatcreases.
The mind's eye cannot travel
beyond these moments
and memory, cruel as lipless laughter,
creeps away amputated.
Making love to women
how you desecrate their essence.
This the eye of the mind cannot see.
The eye of memory is blinkered by
formless thighs swimming in sea-lined roads.
And how these folds, pink and velvety,
pale and sometimes liverish,
flap their eons through the irises
of this cruel memory.
Dumb memory,
whose tongue has been singed by
the acridity of sweatcreases.
The mind's eye cannot travel
beyond these moments
and memory, cruel as lipless laughter,
creeps away amputated.
The Sea's Women
The Sea's Women
The drops of the surf cannot reach them.
Waves sway like blades of grass
and fall forward softly,
undulating eels silently unfurling their children.
They creep up the sand,
speckled with silver worlds.
Broken snail-trails tattoo the gritty earth
as the waves merge into
a foam-edged slice of their lives.
The movement forward to their pains
is slow like the breathless swaying
of a saree's hem.
Ovoid prints perambulate
against the skin like bruises.
The gloss of their background shimmers.
The waves of the sun are blackened here.
Only the whisper of the castaway sea
rolls up to these boxed lives.
And within airless rooms
other worlds exist like islands of mists
swirling out of the past.
Memory thrashes within,
thrashes within like a flapping fish.
The eyes glaze over with scales of sardines.
The salt of the ocean smarts
the bitten lip, the bitten nipple.
Flesh refuses to split open,
wounds do not bleed their pasts,
no blood taints the moment.
The lips are dry like dead fish.
The lips are small
and the skin is taut;
but fingers can press the lips
and they yield like the sands
at the edge of the foam.
The skin does not break:
the lips' skin remains whole
like the silver surface of mackerels.
The tails of stingrays have whipped this back,
the scalpel of the past has parted the flesh here,
searching for fodder:
red without anger,
dull with the deadening memories of
waves breaking against the sky,
far away from this land of bodies.
The waves lash the slimy rocks.
Thrown back like startled goddesses,
they freeze in the nets of the air
as seagulls circle for flesh.
Fishes have grown since the last time
bodies united,
scales have dulled the ocean's green.
As weary as the sluggish sigh of
the ocean at night,
a body descends onto the absent peace
of the other,
filling the space like bubbles.
From this supine position
knowledge of the past retreats
like scampering crabs
into the grainy holes of the flesh.
This world that is poised above
like the hood of the surf
is no longer alien.
When bodies enter one another
the skin rolls back in pain
like a bandage exposing a gash:
another angered world.
The eye is red,
inflamed like the pulp of proximal memories.
It weeps like a wound.
Suddenly, the bodies of the women
burst into several worlds,
islands of splintered frenzy.
Like small furry animals
they seek to burrow into pretences
scurrying from their fright, their anger.
The drops of the surf cannot reach them.
Waves sway like blades of grass
and fall forward softly,
undulating eels silently unfurling their children.
They creep up the sand,
speckled with silver worlds.
Broken snail-trails tattoo the gritty earth
as the waves merge into
a foam-edged slice of their lives.
The movement forward to their pains
is slow like the breathless swaying
of a saree's hem.
Ovoid prints perambulate
against the skin like bruises.
The gloss of their background shimmers.
The waves of the sun are blackened here.
Only the whisper of the castaway sea
rolls up to these boxed lives.
And within airless rooms
other worlds exist like islands of mists
swirling out of the past.
Memory thrashes within,
thrashes within like a flapping fish.
The eyes glaze over with scales of sardines.
The salt of the ocean smarts
the bitten lip, the bitten nipple.
Flesh refuses to split open,
wounds do not bleed their pasts,
no blood taints the moment.
The lips are dry like dead fish.
The lips are small
and the skin is taut;
but fingers can press the lips
and they yield like the sands
at the edge of the foam.
The skin does not break:
the lips' skin remains whole
like the silver surface of mackerels.
The tails of stingrays have whipped this back,
the scalpel of the past has parted the flesh here,
searching for fodder:
red without anger,
dull with the deadening memories of
waves breaking against the sky,
far away from this land of bodies.
The waves lash the slimy rocks.
Thrown back like startled goddesses,
they freeze in the nets of the air
as seagulls circle for flesh.
Fishes have grown since the last time
bodies united,
scales have dulled the ocean's green.
As weary as the sluggish sigh of
the ocean at night,
a body descends onto the absent peace
of the other,
filling the space like bubbles.
From this supine position
knowledge of the past retreats
like scampering crabs
into the grainy holes of the flesh.
This world that is poised above
like the hood of the surf
is no longer alien.
When bodies enter one another
the skin rolls back in pain
like a bandage exposing a gash:
another angered world.
The eye is red,
inflamed like the pulp of proximal memories.
It weeps like a wound.
Suddenly, the bodies of the women
burst into several worlds,
islands of splintered frenzy.
Like small furry animals
they seek to burrow into pretences
scurrying from their fright, their anger.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Why must we write?
Why must we write?
We must write since
words are like raindrops
that traverse the vastness of air,
encapsulating all that went before
and hurtling on to confront
all that is.
We must write since
the words in this poem
can often struggle to burst out of
the skin of this page.
We must allow these words to
bubble slowly, percolate at leisure,
undress and change their letters,
shift allegiance.
We must also write to
allow the whiteness
of the page to dissolve
and reappear in distant skies
as blue.
We must write since
words are like raindrops
that traverse the vastness of air,
encapsulating all that went before
and hurtling on to confront
all that is.
We must write since
the words in this poem
can often struggle to burst out of
the skin of this page.
We must allow these words to
bubble slowly, percolate at leisure,
undress and change their letters,
shift allegiance.
We must also write to
allow the whiteness
of the page to dissolve
and reappear in distant skies
as blue.
Mannequin
Mannequin
Through windowpanes of love,
my heart on display:
a mannequin in mauve,
passers-by beware!
Prod me
feel my muscles
not yet flabby
Ogle me
let my dresses
arouse envy
My fingernails have jagged edges,
the corners honed even finer
to prick my skin with steady progress
and delude myself I'm still together.
Steal me
take my grudges
away firmly
Grow me
watch my puzzles
crumble early
Through windowpanes of love,
my heart on display:
a mannequin in mauve,
passers-by beware!
Prod me
feel my muscles
not yet flabby
Ogle me
let my dresses
arouse envy
My fingernails have jagged edges,
the corners honed even finer
to prick my skin with steady progress
and delude myself I'm still together.
Steal me
take my grudges
away firmly
Grow me
watch my puzzles
crumble early
A Child Named Palestine
A Child Named Palestine
He cannot remember his mother but
but he will never forget his midwife.
She was the bomb that hurtled through
the crowded orange sky
while he was still curled up, unprepared.
Her hands were cold and rough
They ripped open his mother's belly
and hauled him out bloodied.
Her screams preceded his,
endlessly announcing the agony they shared.
No hands needed slap his buttocks
to make him cry.
The flames around forced open
his mouth.
The acrid smell of gunpowder was
his first intoxicant.
For him the world would forever
feel and smell the same:
his mother's screams the sound of
the earth turning on its axis,
the bombfires the many sunrises of his life.
He cannot remember his mother but
but he will never forget his midwife.
She was the bomb that hurtled through
the crowded orange sky
while he was still curled up, unprepared.
Her hands were cold and rough
They ripped open his mother's belly
and hauled him out bloodied.
Her screams preceded his,
endlessly announcing the agony they shared.
No hands needed slap his buttocks
to make him cry.
The flames around forced open
his mouth.
The acrid smell of gunpowder was
his first intoxicant.
For him the world would forever
feel and smell the same:
his mother's screams the sound of
the earth turning on its axis,
the bombfires the many sunrises of his life.
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