Euterpe or Erato—I Forget Which

No thanks

to my muse, mean witch,

no pearls
but those I dive for myself. 

Remaking

Away from the iron 

teeth of the stone-

eyed predators, away 

from their grinding gears, 

we’ll sink into a rose-
tinctured world of our own 

making. We’ll know only softness –

lips, thighs and dreams.

Moon-cold, My Sweet

I must remind myself to hate

in portions and to love impetuously

only as much as the moment demands.

Surrendering to either destroys the self

or worse…

From my window, the moon ruminates

coldly on the sinfully muted city

and I on warmer days,

and how little they meant to you. 

Counting

Knowing only adds to the tragedy

that each blessed second is more cursed

than any before. For each 

greening leaf that affirms its value 
through beauty, a peony

is counting lost petals,

and the beauty who swung by you,

serving jazzy notes to the street,

is shriveled like despair,

and the thrill you shared with her

is a lump in her throat. 

Hunger

You’re the wraith in the plain

where the wind plays a lonely note.

You have said the words, bathed

in milk midstream, made

plain your hunger to the forest

of your forefathers. But   

                                                               

the seal remains unbroken.

The seer has foreseen it;

your life line is long and strong

but the cosmos holds captive your star –

your empty note wails across the barren. 

Imagining Him Happy

What is waking

for Sisyphus? who knows by now

that the boulder will roll down again,

that he must roll it up the hill again.

He no longer curses the stupidity

of the gods, their infantility.

He’s traded in his

apathy for ambition –

a blind boiling for a perfect trip.

Eventually, you gather that the grind

is as eternal as the blackness of space, that

the small mercy of stars

shall not stir the enormity of your sky. And

from its cold stone you cull

a twisted pleasure, the cool

tickle of sweat

down your back in the blackness.   

Clunk

All it does is a clunker. Still,
     the hammer loves the anvil

as only it can…

(Un)certainty

In the morning I craved clarity

but the day offers none.

The further I step into this fog, the fuzzier

mileposts of what to and when to become.

Clean-cut lines

are dreams I daren’t have.    

That Song

You know the time that shiver

of a song

brushes all over your goose bumps that

you push back two inspired tears 

and still the shout of your soul   

from burbling madly into the orange air?

Don't stop, Janet

don’t stop.

Animation

Because you weigh your life in your hand

and it is a broken shell

because your voice has lost its teeth

you intone

to the breeze

‘you’re a goddess brushing past’, and

to the sky, ‘peace

cannot be bluer’

and to those bones, your dreams

‘you will find flesh

and live’.   

Search

Still in darkness, I am the fool who

believes in bottled sunlight. If only

I could find the right stopper,

the right rune or incantation:

surely, then

the light would keep.  

Curse

By the ancient binding of rebirth on the moon

your bond shall be ageless and true

by the changeless breakers that yearn for the shore

your spirit shall seek no other

by the belly of the earth that churns with fervour

your blood shall burn for no other.

Earth shall churn and the moon shall ever

hurl breakers to the shore

and you shall yearn and burn. 

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.