Brass

I have spent my life
being loud, strident, trite.
Trumpeting like a swan?
More like honking goose-like.
Of all the ears that could not hear
the deafest one was mine.

Shower

He likes to watch me, unseen,
in the shower
my head, heavy with grief
leaning against the cold tiles
my bulging belly
overhanging with untold secrets
my Botticelli flank
aching from a neglected spine
the clear water
running down my legs
diffused with the urine
of failed surgeries
he touches the curtain
(a passing breeze, really)
to inform me of your admiraton
as he watches me
in the shower
where I stand, unseen.

Coming Home

She is sprawled
half undressed
guileless
her arms hanging over
the sides of her chair
reading, so deep in thought
that putting on the other
half of her clothes
has slipped her mind
I bend over her for a kiss
she holds up a hand
index finger pointing
and I wait. Impatient.

Awakening

The awakening was slow
and late in the coming
so the light would not blind
my unbelieving eyes.

Dilemma

To leave
and make you realize
what you had.

To stay
and risk your eternal
not-knowing.

To love
and have you think it
my weakness.

The choice is absurd:
to hurt not having you
to suffer because I do.

Foundation

A house was started in the spring
no cement was poured:
they wonder how it crumbled
they did not see it fall.

One brought lumber
soaked in tears,
some brittle bark
to weave their fears;
one added planks
termite riddled,
one did not come
to build at all.

One carried nails
rusted with blood;
they hammered it
to stay aloft
through wind and rain,
in joy and pain
when they thought summer
came to call.

The walls were built
with careless hope
that all would be
withstandable.
They built for years
not looking down
to see if it would
stand too tall.

Now here they stand
among the heaps
of windblown dreams
at summer's end.
A house was built,
none came to see
the swaying stilts
none can recall:

No cement was poured.

Backroads

Flying down the black ribbon
of a winter road covered
in the ashes of mourning snow.
Rushing by leafless, lifeless
gnarled fingers rising
from twisted trunks asking for just this
one more day in the sun.

Almost There

Wait. Stop...stop
A moment frozen
stopped motion
hand holding still
"You want me to stop?"
Bitten lips tasting salt.
Just. Hold. On.
Nod yes, Wait...Stop...
Don't stop....Eyes shut... Let go...Leap!
Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop...

Words

They are just words.
Tell yourself often enough
you might make believe it.
Words strung together
into a necklace
no throat will ever wear.
Written, seen, read, spoken
have you not woken
from a dream
with another's words?
Weapon-like words
knives, arrows, bullets
rend the flimsy armor
of false beliefs
Could your words not span
bridges over chasms
of misunderstandings?
Like painful stitching together
of torn hearts and broken minds?
Like salve on open wounds
can they not undo?

Dancing with Surya

Tiny tendrils of my wonder
are snaking their way
through the cement of my endurance
in a wall, started by my tormentors,
but built, brick by back breaking brick,
by my own unnourished soul;
what was to have been my fortress
became my prison, brick by brick.

Tiny tendrils, stretching and growing,
awakening after a long lost sleep
match the wonder of the walls
fallen brick by broken brick
creeping, crawling, twisting themselves
through the crevices of my daughter's sunlight
forcing the mortar of my prison
to crumble, made gravel by her love.

For Vibha: At Gautam's Death

In the heaps of fallen leaves
among the hoards of fallen faces
I stand, an oak, sheltering all:
all around me, the sky is falling
in jagged blue pieces
the sky is falling.

The Flight Series

One


Brown and tan and dark
earthtones
yet so unearthlike.
No green of grass
no blue of quenching thirst
Brown and tan for miles
earthtones stretching before me.



Two

Dallas at 35 thousand feet
cloudy and dark
silver and gray
bathed in fog
and swirling mist.
I fall into
its shrouding arms
fearing myself
fearing the fall
torrents of tears
torrents of pain.
And the first drop of manna
to my parched lips.



Three

Rivulets in stone
running through gashes
on the sides of
improbable majesty
running red from the blood
of what wound of mankind?



Four

In slanting waves
what once was
a trickle
has turned into
this storm.
Covering all our
windows, all our
views, all our sight.
But in ferocity
it loses to the
storming in my heart.



Five

The window was small.
Still, bigger than
the window to my heart.
And the droplets
of tears that clung to it
flicked from my tainted fingers
were darker than Desdemona's blood