Thumbelina

Thumbelina. Cymbeline.  Mambo, if you please.
Pleased to meet me?

Toes, they touch it briefly-
the earth beneath your feet.

Dance, let us move. Tango, if you please.
Meet me once. Drink me neat.

Wild, wild eyes. The chase of chickens.
And all we do is eat.

Maybelle. Farewell.

Thumbs. Cymbals. Mumbo Jumbo.
No. No. No. No, no.

Come

Do not axe it.
Follow the wild trail
of the root underground.
I will be found.

North

We have never needed a compass. Here, where we

sail, the North that is, we need commas and conjunctions;

we need socks for our feet.

Veiled women do not need anchors. Wombs here are trenches.

Nobody drowns in the North.

I once went sight-seeing to a bunker. We had tea and an over-priced

packet of potato chips and mud and oxygen, yes. We climbed out

to better things- a house, guards, guns.

Mountains, caught up in an embrace. Echoes, mistaken for heartbeats.

Rivers giving themselves up. Temples, mosques, churches.

For whom the bell tolls? Never mind.

Poetry must rhyme; every syllable accounted for. Here in the North,

there’s a question nobody answers. Everything is flawlessly flawed.

Nobody drowns.

This is mine. And that is yours.

One owns the boat. The other, oars.

Rivers, shores. Manners, mores.

The Caesura

The mirror’s white-

a warm shower just ceased to be.

I drop one leg in my jeans,

half-filling them with me.

A blue vein on my wrist-

ticking, I can see.

Chipped nail-paint, tan-

No, I don’t need the mirror to tell me.

Separation. What will tomorrow be like?

Frail like the past.

An outcast.

Separation? Can it be?

Upon beading your name into my breath,
He tied the thread across the neck of death.

Rape Therapy

That I am a mother, you do not know-
you who eyed me a can
to be emptied in a gulp.
Tin, skin and never a soul, never whole;
you found me a honeycomb,
a fruit you beat into pulp.
But the womb
was never yours, and you
never were a man.

That I am a mermaid, you do not know-
you who fixed me a Saree
when lust swam about in your eyes.
Legs, eggs and meat; never complete-
you wanted me a meal,
a drink, a drug to lend you those highs.
But the feel
was never yours, and you
never were a daddy.

I once drew a cow tethered to a yoke
and then I erased it fearing the men
who'd come for its milk.
I was too young to think; I was too young I think
for I had erased the cow and nothing else.

My memory is a coward
still yoked to the men I'd not drawn.

That I am a murderer, you do not know-
you who raped me with silences
and reaped me for seasons.

That I killed myself and that I killed you
when I said nothing and fulfilled you-
this you do not know.

That I am a medicine, you do not know-
you who are healed where I'm held.

Nothing Unusual

Nothing unusual about your eyes,

only that they’re a little too common.

Nothing remarkable in their blackness,

only that it reminds me of the nights

we spent away from each other, struggling

under the sky, vowing to set ablaze

everything that refused to burn with us.

Nothing extraordinary in the gleam

of tears that are half hidden by the lids,

only that I presume them to be love.

Indeed they are your love and a lot more-

they are your liquid soul; they are your voice,

untouched, orphaned for an eternity.

They burn me; is that unusual?

Run

"Run" I tell her

at the Cinderella Hour.

                                                “Forget the foot and float-

                                                  let your heart be a boat.”

Her heartbeats misled

by the wanderlust of Time;

I tell her to forget.

And to run.

That she can be told;

that she will hear,

is clear to me, too clear.

                                                “Don’t drop the drape, just dance;

                                                  embrace the womb of chance.”

Her thoughts gone astray;

feelings that no longer rhyme-

I tell her to forget.

And to run.

That she will uphold

whatever she’s told,

is clear, too clear.

                                                “Why weave yourself new wings?

                                                  The heart’s a sling with strings.”

“Run” I compel her.

“Run” I tell her.

The Corona

Little compliments
and unspoken endearments-
I sit wreathed in love.

His Pride

Two black strokes, her brows-
pave the passage to his pride;
he follows, gets lost.

Today I Build a Letter

Today I build a letter in my mind,

with loving words and little blocks of dreams;

a letter you will seek but never find.

Today I write with my small breaths aligned

to the spring of life and its many streams-

today I build a letter in my mind.

The dervish dances to tunes undefined;

what are planets spinning at their extremes?

The letter you will seek but never find.

Remember the times I’d been left behind-

because I would stop to collect sunbeams?

Today I build a letter in my mind.

Our love is a tide, let me but remind-

that which first forfeits and later redeems.

The letter you will seek but never find.

This ever-rising ladder that I lined,

is thoughts that but intertwined at the seams-

today I built a letter in my mind;

a letter you will seek but never find.

Blankness

Air, unfurling ‘you’-

white paper, curly edges.

My pen may not kiss

but my breath will touch your being;

your blankness will inspire me.

A Pauper's Poem

The shadows have left them

and my eyes are now lonely-

I cannot find any dreams;

my sleep is famished.

A lone beam in my heart,

a bar of dust-

I cannot touch it;

I cannot be blemished.

The sky is widowed;

I scavenge stars from its skin.

Yet what I have lost-

can it be replenished?

In days, another moon will grow.

But these lamps of mine

will never be lit again.

The fuel was love and it’s now

finished.