Old Water

We are fated to tread old water,

To drink from the same poisoned cups.

The treasures of the old ones will soon be ours,

Their memories lost and reborn to hum anew.

Tragic, comic, or even fantastic, your story

Has been told elsewhere – your dreams

Have shone in the eyes of another. 

I, Conjurer

If I could craft her essence into words,

Muster even a mite of her majesty,

What words they would be!

Freeing David from dead marble  

Remains the stuff of dreams. 

Still, I try

To conjure magic

Out of the mud of words

And the breath of my life-giving spirit.

Cure

In a lab full of vapours and spirits and twisted tubes,

He set out to conquer death. In this mad lair, 
Unsleeping and forgotten, he toiled 

And at last, with a slight touch of thyme,

Held a vial of liquor to the light – at last! 

He put the stuff to his lips and drank the cure –

No longer would he contend with the malady.  

Senescing

With time, our joints are loosened by winds,

By scouring sands in the winds,

By soaking rains hauled from high mountains,

By quakes that crack us open, leaving us helpless

Against the brutish rush of the elements.

We raise walls to keep them away –  

Will the wildness of time away,

But soon we’ll be lost in their insatiable lust, 

And the magic of the moon will mean nothing.

Insolence

What insolence, to tear my soul from nothing

And throw it screaming into this horror.

Why would you shatter my peace?

Why pull me from the never-ending quiet?

Should I be grateful

For your drop of water in a world aflame?

No, I ache for the bliss of the unknowing,

For home, where sands shift unheard.

Discontent

Dog! You’re an instrument of discontent;

always wagging your tail for more, always

sniffing for morsels in places you shouldn’t.

The taste of your own vomit, 
does it not tell you? Even the universe will not 

fill that void.  

Butterfly

Gorging itself on the open

Secrets in petals—   

The scents & the succulence,

Forever in the pursuit of transient beauty;

Who knows better the secret of living?  

Wings

When the eagle rests, 

tired of its majesty, wait… 

it’ll soon find its wings.  

Dear Elsa,

I fear the westerly winds have stolen your scent.

I no longer find your face in our favorite places.

Your palm prints on my skin have faded with each of her kisses.

The poison has reached my bones – 

I barely recall the tom-tom beat of your heart.

She’s too thorough; she saw tearstains on the sheets

And switched the Egyptian cotton to Chinese silk.

Last night I had the nightmare, remember? The one where

I fall and fall and fall, hurled by some formless creature 
Of the dark. Drawing the breaths of a drowning man,

I woke with my head clasped to her chest –

I had her name on my tongue.    

Instant Dust

Throw your handful of dust in the air,

Hold it to the flame of the sun,

Let it mingle with the rain and ride

On the four winds to the four corners;

Find patterns in its patternless swirls through the yawning void.    

Whether a rapturous bow colors the eastern sky,  

Or a confused wind howls curses in the dark,      

Take the instant by her delicate throat

And lay waste to the bounty she offers.

Tomorrow’s lesson: the taste of shadows and dust.

Heavy Hand

Daily, the broom says to itself,

“I will no longer soil my hands.”

But fate’s heavy hand holds fast  

Until the broom falls apart

And is itself swept away with the dirt. 

Cold Open

A stately Lexus leisurely

Steals through the street,

Its red neon rear lights

In tone with garish bars

That pound bass rhythms into

The mystical three a.m. night.

The limo chances upon

A girl – all legs and rhythm

And the two halt instinctively.

She dissolves into its depths

And the limo slithers on –

In its wake a heady mix of 

Cheap and expensive perfume.  

Senryū

Curse her demon soul!

O yellow dust of time

Bury her someplace deep 

U

m

b

r

e

l

l

a

Lightning bares its gleaming teeth.

Even as the storm pummels

And the thunder growls,

The umbrella smiles

At the fuming

 Skies.

                                                                                            - for April

Ruba'i

Across Life’s wind-toss'd Sea I blew, and swore,

“My Soul can bear these Crushing Whirls no more.”

And lo, from the foaming dimness, a Voice –

“Thou shalt take thy Lot, or else the Black Door!”

Unremembered Keepsakes

The empty seconds, pared of meaning,

Tick and slink like a thief in the night.

The days tiptoe facelessly into the void

Of moldy unremembered keepsakes,

And time, in artful artistry, tattoos 

The horrid nothingness on my face.   

Dear

The hard wintry gaze

Of granite in the moonlight

Could you be any colder?

Tomorrow

As the golden sky gives way to the night,

A mosquito lands on my arm and I let it –

Tomorrow I might not enjoy its sting.

The Night Dreams Too

The Night too has dreams

Of discarding her darkness

And donning the Day’s brightness

Sometimes she’ll linger into the Dawn

Or show up too early at Dusk

Tonight, spare a thought

For the Night’s futile dreams

For, in some form or other,

You too share her dreams

Return

Yes, this is the moon

surely, the moon will return

with the lunacy

that summoned you to me

in the night and light the darkness

that stains the beauty that was

you and i

Pessimism

My dreams are in shades of grey
and the occasional crimson flash

of bloody petals falling to the ground.

When in wakefulness I’m offered a trinket

I brace myself 

for the imminent highway robbery

that’ll nick the ground beneath my feet

and crush dewy hope into the mire

of life’s elegantly crafted cruelty.