Deprived Arms

What convinced
this supple face of a moon
into marrying a cripple,
the night?

Maybe Black was pious
and all that White needed
was to trip into a love
that let it palpitate
a heart within a cage?

Maybe that which is less
is the true infinity,
replete with depleting dots -
a revelation
that frees.

Endless darkness,
is perhaps, light in essence?
Disability, a bestowal,
a power, in a sense?

Moons dangle
in leafless branches -
love is often found
in deprived arms.

Renouncing the Act

Juggling two eyes,
I humour the Universe,
being.

I humour Time,
seeing.

Struggling to rise,
Vision screams -

"Time is a tumour
blooming like a lie,
a tie on your eyes.

Rise, do not see,
do not be.

Life was the rumour
that killed you and yet
never killed you.

Joker- ace, Poker Face -
give up, give up the game!
Look, how Passion billed you,
built you.
Do not, do not build 'you'.

Rise, Ace -
give up, give up the struggle.
Juggle, if you may,
your two selves...
once and for all."

Refuge

Riches followed roots

and then he mentioned 'refuge' -

grandfather is long gone

but his stories refuse

to depart from the mansions

of my memory.

A cane chair and his depleting form -

he talked of his homeland, his princedom -

so unreal, thought I.

He couldn't have been a boy,

charming the cows into a deluge.

He was only an old antique of a man,

reliving the days of his refuge.

"And so we escaped, my dear -

we quit what was not to be:

childhood and home and father,

all turned history."

"I lost my all to the Partition;

I quit what was not to be.

But dear, you must know

that my loss set me free."

"They say of us, that we fled

for life and a future,

for adventure, for destiny,

for struggle, for identity."

"True. And I must tell you:

History is just a story -

what matters is the moral,

not the fact."

Being, Seeing

I am in a room
infected with normalcy -
the ticker - tape of life
crawls before my eyes.

The man who stoops,
the woman who whoops -
see me a drug -
my body is but a bottle.

I'm looked at, talked to
and left untouched.
Untouched by these machines
at full throttle,
I exist a flame in a bottle.

Who's unleashed this sorry tape?
Can I escape,
vision?

Rubbing my eyes
will not let the genie out.

To Infinity

There's a room in my heart I never built;
there's an idol in it I never kept.
And yet I have gone there at times and wept;
knelt, worshipped and also forgotten guilt.

There's a space in my mind that sprung a chasm
and through it I often escape a spring.
Penetrated, I'm empty, I'm nothing!
There's a hollow that leads me to orgasm.

Have you ever seen two galaxies mate?
Outstretched their arms, they spin a unity -
I have revelled in such oneness aplenty.

There's a field in my view that I relate
to dots and their indivisibility;
there's a way I know... to 'infinity'.

Feelings

It isn't difficult, believe me -
I'll always hold the lantern,
help you retrieve me,
conceive me
a poem.

Let me perch on your lips awhile -
a word, a memory, a gasp.
Let me ask
of you, feelings.

It isn't difficult, believe me -
looking at me, not wanting,
wanting to leave me -
not difficult, wanting to weave me,
a poem.

Let me walk with you a mile -
not a body, not a shadow.
Know me a window
to your feelings.

It isn't difficult, believe me -
I'll always hold the lantern,
help you retrieve me,
conceive me
a poem.

Let me ask of you, feelings.

When Father Danced

Another winter waited in the hallway -
to corrupt you with its touch.
I saw you rise, tears in your eyes,
you didn't look at me when you looked at me.

"Make way", said I to myself,
"let his shame walk out, unnoticed."
Father, if there is a man I have loved,
it's you.

But you were to break free that day.
You disappeared before my eyes
when I saw you dance to the music
that was within.

Never have I loved you more
but in that moment -
bravest man, freest man,
you freed me of the feeling of loss.

Look Who's Wailing Tonight

I drowned a man
in the sky.

I was twenty and pretty -
Saturn in her slanting hat,
I was dance in a glass bottle,
I was to break free.

And he,
a poet. That's all.

I worked him a rhyme
and pierced him, all right.
He sang me a wail
and took from my lips,
desire.

And then he made me question
him, "Do you love me?"
Look, I had to kill him.

So I pushed him into
the blackness. More than a murder.
No fingerprints.

I am an open book, people.

I never keep any secrets,
but from myself.

Eternal

Born of the same fire,

two flames, entwined,

their destinies.

Chained, as if,

to a free fall,

they orbit the pyre,

not seven times,

but incessantly.

Untied, they meet

in transit.

They meet, half - eclipsed

by Time and Space.

Their touch is what,

if not an imagined kiss -

fire in the distance, tickling

without having touched at all?

They cross paths and

Time is stunned.

Unfinished

Triangle:
Free, we're three -
you and me.

You, when you're 'you'
and I, when I'm 'me'
are only us, some degree.

And at times we climb
the pole of oneness,
a triangle to be.

Then we slip,
slip away, again
into ourselves.

Never a Story

What was it about his eye -
an eye but a tomb?
Beckoning, then thwarting
that 'life' about me,
he only let death
in his room.

Gore.
I saw him leak a colour
one night.
He almost touched me
with the eye.
Naked,
but for that stain about me -
I crawled out of sight.

He followed me
to my mind,
Love and Doom.
Red,
I ran away,
away from the gloom.

I keep the stain today -
I am a book that has been read.
But for my invisible nudity,
Gentlemen, I am dead.

Beholder and More

Perched on my face, these two pacific birds -
your eyes sit on me, a new awareness...
a gaze that sculpts me and catapults words;
a look that's poetry, a freeing harness.

You gather me an autumn memory -
I'm thousand maple leaves that take refuge
in this road to self – discovery,
you create, and I, ‘become’ the deluge.

Two beaks that undo the limits to skies -
where are you taking me, lovely light?
Is this the ‘beyond’ where you found your eyes?
I feel… feel almost beautiful tonight.

Hope you won’t abandon the nest you create
…and then to territories new migrate.

One Love

I, who worked him into a sculpture
of perfection; carving him an inch every night -
I, who tossed a fish at his sight -
had only wanted to be worshipped.
In my being a worshipper, I was,
I was it. And I was.
And then I threw this sculpture from a height:
I was scared of love.

Broken, it lay abandoned
but for the vulture on the top -
What was it? Who was it?
I reduced him to a vulture next,
a vulgar appetite, 
scavenging what might
have become love.

Apart

Who put this decimal between our names -
so close and yet you're high above me.
Destiny and all its vicious games -
you despise me because you love me!

Life is nothing but a dismal plan
unfolding like it's being undone by fire.
Although I'm doing whatever I can
I know now that I cannot climb higher.

Wisdom is the dot that does us apart -
you reject me because you need me.
I am reduced to a clot in your heart
you want me gone because you bleed me.

Distracted the clouds, build a skyline -
we never meet; you are never 'mine'.

Wheel

All they need is a hole that rolls -
a wheel isn't a mind.
...a wheel to 'wagon' their lives;
design for design.

A hole they can control,
emptiness that may be contained -
a circle they may unravel
and stretch into a line.

A device running clandestine,
a replaceable existence -
all they need is a hole that rolls,
a man but a turbine.

And when he dies of rot
or because he 'thought' -
the tables are turned:
the wagon stops.

The wagon stops.
Suddenly 'it's time'.

Vamp

The window glass
captured a different constellation
this time -
a new arrangement
in my fish net.
Things looked promising.

And then I recalled
our naive discourse from years ago,
routed it back to my heart
and coiled on top of it
like a guardian snake.

Before I knew it,
I'd drawn the black curtain
on the starry window.

I said to myself:
I don't want to have
anything to do with the stars!
Old memories,
can they be undone by new promises?

If I may guard what 'was',
I will do it with the might
of a fierce serpent.
Yes, I will!

Discovery

Two in the neighbourhood,

create love -

a clumsy bomb, worked above

the battered tiles

of reality.

A wire here, a knot there -

their love is the antenna

that works sometimes...

...rain or no rain.

Their singsong snores,

an explosion that illuminates my nights -

I lie awake.

I lie awake for my ears to see

the surreal; the 'discovery'.

Implosion

The two of us succumb to the ether -
pursued, he tells me, "Flow isn't a tether."
He, who had found me, by finding me not,
forgets, he bound me by binding me not.

So, here I swirl, an invisible thread;
I sail a curl, unsettled on the bed -
the night unfurls, a black flag on the sky -
we collide; he says, "Don't question 'why'."

"More?", I ask, "You'd touch me any further?"
Deep... and deep could not get any worser.
"Oneness", he says, "merge, unite, come and stay."
I shudder and weep; I can't walk away.

And implode thus, the flame and the feather -
the two of us... succumb to the ether.

I Whistle to Birds

I whistle to birds -
my breaths are caught
in a new rhythm.

What of my words?
I believe they've gone,
gone with him?

Golden footprints
I leave behind;
he's sculpting me a fire.

I long to be heard,
as I flow a muteness -
there's something within.

I whistle to birds -
my breaths are caught
in a new rhythm.

Kettle

By the bedside,
a porcelain white kettle -
she settles a deadness,
commonplace -
the usual brewing within her,
unusually.

Gift

The untended garden,
an unintended garden -
sentiment on mismatched sheets,
clipped together.
Ardour in plainness;
I leave you
my outgrowth -
all of it.

This that bloomed about me,
without me -
this feather that still grows a fan;
the bout
is all yours,
yours, yours.

Half a violin; the black key
that flows -
the accidental colour
that is always getting deeper -
I leave you lucid blood
and a swinging door...
...to churn into love
that which is more
than love.

Heartless?

She who laughs, a shattering glass,
she who walks, drunk to the core -
nimble fairy, sips from the sky;
slips her lips onto its wanton core.

Drops her hands on a purple road;
loses her feet to the night.
The heart she carries in her eyes
and then weeps with all her might.

Although

I see that the string has been pulled
and I see that you're caught in the frenzy -
you're trying to lull the music into sleep.
I see that you're fluting a purple tune
to this chord that still vibrates
and vibrates, red.

The guitar was a gun
and the trigger done;
I see,
I see that the string has been pulled.

I long to kiss your lips
and empty you of this music.

Although I sing to you at times,
I do not make The Confession.
I only wish you'd see
the concession I made
when you didn't touch me.

Glacier

Militant,
the advance
of your white body -
how shall I teach you
to pause,
and to let things
keep their colour?

Don't come... don't!
For when you do,
you come a lover.

How Similar

How similar are our thoughts-
yours about life, and mine about death:

You refer to your breath
when you say 'struggle'
and I refer to your breath
when I struggle
to live.

To Artlessness

Drape it a lyric across those lips;
keep it on your fingertips-
my name you say is enough?
Have it clipped to your heart, but know:
I will go.

I will go
where there is no art-
no seas, no shores, no ships.
I will go where the wind is rough
when it whips
life into submission.

I will tow every line you drew
and disrupt this symmetry 
that still tries to contain me-

trap it, if you still want...
my name on a ruled sheet.

I will go where poetry
is artless.

The Reply

Yesteryears, they burn, a fire-
your mind turns to fear,
you ask:
Will you raise our tomorrows
in the ashes of past,
the blackness of love?

And my reply
is the black rose,
that will never be found:

Tomorrows
born of the past
will be the thorns that I will keep-
thorns guarding
the blackness of our love.

Celibacy

"I will do you."

Here is our Cinderella,

trying every shoe:

nothing fits, not one hits

the point.

Twelve times, the twelfth hour-

twelve thoughts

but one:

what is the point?

Starfish!

Starve fish.

An alien between her legs;

circles in square pegs:

woman, she breathes and begs-

I need the ocean,

nothing less.

Starfish,

one of a kind-

she glides into celibacy

of the mind:

I shan't find.

I shan't find.

Orgasmic Eye

Solitude has needs-

I am his orgasmic eye.

I come easily.

The Dog Wakes Up to its Tail

At the Station, by the track, is the corpse of Silence,

papering the earth with pure blood.

Layer, after layer of stories with the same ending-

they died.

But theirs aren't the only suicides committed.

Nobody knows that a dog had woken up to its tail on a Tuesday morning

and smelled for the first time, death.

Two men, in a train, had woken up to their balls

and learned that they will kill themselves as the train of life sped

along time's tracks.

The poet, journeying in a dream bubble, had sowed death in her mind.

She's waiting to reap it.

Death, and the thought of it, is a big leap, indeed.

While life, is only a keep. Our habit of sleeping.

Each moment, when you succumb to life, know that you are killing

yourself; know that you're planting a tail where you should have

plugged emptiness; know that in keeping time, you're losing it.

The Boot

The Night is Reality's boot;
existence, a bruise.

In the face, we take it,
our moment of shame
when the game is over
and we lose.

We lose it every night
and hope that some day,
some day we'll choose
death.

But all we do is wait
to be struck again,
to be shamed
into dying or living.

On Her Being the Moon

I saw the Moon rehearse the act one night;

being an artist's clock is not a cakewalk-

to babysit their black minutes; to talk,

while they are at your breast, undoing white.

Nursing is no pleasure; you're but a muse-

they'll use your timelessness to satisfy

needs that stem from their perennial blues;

compulsions that consort them to the sky.

I saw the Moon evolve into a poem;

a man then shawled her in his old canvas.

And I saw him carry her to his home;

he nailed her to a wall by the cactus.

What You Have of Me

When I hyphenate
my lines,
I imagine you at the bank,
sipping from the river
its flatness.

And when some words
are born out of the rhyme
that was our time,
I imagine you cradling my poems
in your arms,
kissing them with the understanding
of a muse.

'Because' is irrelevant.
My every pause
is an allowance for you to touch me,
physically-

there, where I hide my mind
is your point.

Arms and legs are just spokes
to a wheel,
that has forgotten to roll.

Polished Woman

The paint is going;
oil, flowing;
and the soul,
billowing from the body.

Ten words
shot at the woman-
daughter, breasts, veil, book,
marry, carry, weary, cook,
look, life.
She thinks.

Twenty angles
to the same question-
fertility, futility.

At thirty,
the paint is going.
As if, life is winnowing
the woman from the body.

Number Plate

A number plate on the roadside:
it fell off as the car sped;
couldn't be nailed to the journey
any more.

Let the car(s) invade every secret-
we shall stay put in the dust
where we may fade,
fade, fade.

Zero
attempts at suicide-
I fell off midway in life; they say,
I'm dead.
Couldn't be nailed to The Journey
any more.

A number plate by the road.
Fading.

Eloquent Night

The night is an eloquent form; bespeaks

tenderness at your hands, 'tween your fingers,

lips. A tangible silence; look above

the curves... there's a constellation called love.
Have it in your eyes, this jewel that lingers
by the night. Love is only yours to take.
Make of it, a new dust for morning's sake;
love is only yours to take. Take it in.
Between your fingers. In your eyes; your palms.
Let every space be the spirit, Love;
break free, tonight. Give up all your meanings-
be looked at and spoken of, only as
love. Take it in tonight- all this that sings
of you and me and you and me and You.

Penetration

Water is on fire;
tides are flames-
they aim for the sky,
but penetration
is a distant dream.

Submissive

The piano, at high tide

was a little short of reaching you-
between my teeth,
a last breath that couldn't escape.

I then walked away-
trickled down my mind,
to that place where one heard the ocean
guzzle silence.

Deathless music-
I lived in a neck;
a deep gorge... redness.

Each tide was an arm
that fed the moon to Time's ears.

Couldn't I but recoil
these tides back across the sea
like one does with old tapes-
cassettes that forget to contain their music?

But my fingers were taken.

Lunacy

To slip into a startle

as you drag the burden of your breaths

and to laugh

when you see his face

rise again, unbeaten;

a winter trickling to your depths-

the other half

of you, there,

there before your eyes, once again.

He pins you down

and the choke is fooled into life.

Song, a liquid

that drinks you and fills you...

he's there, 

there before your eyes again-

you see him rise again.

His word,

undressing you, your every thought-

you repeat him,

defeat him

in being the poem he was.

And suddenly-

you're beautiful.

Oblivion

A poet's dream,

when it acquires the pallor

of love,

is like a stale pond

with lotuses and creaks

and accidental ripples;

a pool that is a Universe

frozen in time.

If you touch it with a brush,

it will hurt.

This picture cannot contain

anything more.

A poet's dream,

when it gathers dust,

is like love

locked up in a heart

that is an old guitar;

the strings, in their stillness,

playing nothing.

Of the Corner

Have you ever burned a paper
by writing my name in a corner,
turning me into an edge
that eats anything but itself?

A door has bitten into half
the halo that is sunlight
and now the room is left burning;
it began from a corner.

To live a deserted bench
in the bald gardens of my mind
is a gift, I'd only give to you.

Marrying Depravity

What induced me into
marrying his depravity-
his lust for shapes,
his wantonness,
that appetite for words,
and that need for forgetting?

He is revered
by lambs and wolves
for he is the agile tiger,
he is life
and its rawness;
he is the bone by the bank.

I asked him about the moon
and he turned to his glass,
"Gold", he said,
"I want to forget."

Dawn is a Biscuit

Dawn is a biscuit
dipped into your liquid dream;
I taste it through you.

Ode to his Perfect Masculinity

His eyes branded me with a golden glance-
I burned with desire; I became a fire,
fated to perform the eternal dance-
that reaching for love, that soaring higher.

His lip was a rivulet lost in me,
and I found my soul at the water's edge.
His fingers that played me a melody;
I was but turned into a timeless pledge.

His arms that blossomed around my heart;
I was sculpted anew- a perfection.
His feet that drew me a work of art-
I journeyed a shadow sans a question.

I say to myself that I know a man
who has worshipped me like no one can.

Spent

This evening that I spent in your heart
curtaining it with my eyelashes, black;
swallowing light and repainting the shack
with nothing but the wan darkness of art-
recall the night that I spent in your mind
adorning it with a poem that didn't lie,
recall my nakedness and you will find
that I did not lie when I said I'd die.

Because I gave away my truth one night
and lost the prize of my virginity,
because I stripped you off with all my might,
because I touched you with insanity-
just say to yourself, admit what is right:
that you were loved beyond infinity.

The Bird Must Die

I,
am a desperate sky,
caught...
...caught in a mad flutter
of wings...

...the bird must die.

Heavy chirp-
it shoots at me a sigh;
it tears me and I,
stutter...
...caught in the mad flutter,
I cry-

the bird must die.

Purple beak-
it nibbles at me.
Trapped,
I live in an eye...

...a bird contains the sky?

The bird must die.

To Paradise

I walk to the shores

of these eyes of yours

and contemplate

suicide.

Hide

if I may, behind these doors-

these eyes of yours,

create

for me a paradise.

Abacus

He has us in bars -
pebbles for people;
two and two make four.

God counts. Life,
is his abacus.

And us, nothing more
than being meat
for meaningless additions.

Trapped
into this vile math,
we are for sure,

pebbles, marbles, stones and stars.

And Then There Was This Mirror

I had looked into several mirrors-
those that thought me beautiful
and those that weren't pleased;
mirrors that wanted more,
mirrors that wanted less.

I had looked at mirrors
that weren't mirrors;
mirrors, I'd shattered with a look.

And then there was this mirror
that had caught me right-
a mirror I fell into
when I wasn't looking.

A mirror so much me
that I began
reflecting it.

A mirror that was water.

The mirror that turned me

into a ripple…

The mirror.

Whether I’m still ‘into it’,
I cannot tell.

But the mirror is always there.

With me.

We’re travelling together;
unraveling each other.

Mirrors. Reflections. Lost. And Found.