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.