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.