Love! you dealt a bitter blow –You lay me cross the mortal plains,Bedewed, bedimmed amongst a show
Of tearful clouds of eternal rains.

My brother attempted to jump off the roof.
Hey, can I tell you something Andrew?
Been there, tried that.

It's not worth it.
I took you into this family because I love you.
Not so you could jump off my roof and end your life.

Now come here and lay back down.
I need to dream a good dream with you here.

Trying to jump off the roof...
Hmph!
You need to get your act together.
You are supposed to be the sane one in our siblingship.
Did it ever occur to you what I might think?

Let's drift to sleep, Andrew.
Just you and I.
Just like old times.

Love! you dealt a bitter blow –You lay me cross the mortal plains,Bedewed, bedimmed amongst a show
Of tearful clouds of eternal rains.

wounded from the breast down
Red Cross crying from above
reach out for your flailing sacrament
and find only rivers and streams,
flowing divergent from your heart.

the hospice cannot save you from
the clutches of blinding light,
as the doctors who cut off life support
fail to find the wound

in your hands lie
all you ever hoped for, screaming. dying.
run away stop crying stop feeling
but as you lay, their bullets pass
over you in retreat.

the soft wind caresses your face
as the final tomb closes outward,
escaping your lips are final words
nobody will ever hear.

This time it's Fate.
No longer can I pretend
for we have run out of track
and we must stop now
lest we careen over the ghastly drop before us
lest our hearts inevitably smash to smithereens.

There's a small vice on my heart
that you turned incrementally since the day we kissed
Always there was space to manoeuvre
wriggle
a gap to shift around in and say, 'That's better'
to comfortably fool myself that I was not caught.
But now, my dear....
Now the grip leaves me gasping
and that metal feels cold
and I cannot ignore it.
The trouble is
I kissed your elegant, beautiful face
and I guided your hand to that vice in my chest
and enveloped your fingers with mine
We turned those keys together.
I was so enamoured
and I wanted your love.
I told myself I could get out at any time.

Too late, my love
It was always too late
For we're kindred souls across lifestyles
and lifetimes
and my body knows yours like the taste of my tears.
I resign myself, then, to bleeding.
I resign thee to Fate and what she may decide
knowing only that never shall I be your jailor.
I refuse to allow
that wild tempest soul to be anything but free.

I am happy to be caught.
Though I writhe with this pain
and slumber eludes me in my misery.
For one thing I have realised
is the depth of my cowardice.
Although yours came out as tenored and trembling
you still had the bravery to speak the words emblazoned on your heart
the ones that threatened to fall from your lips
as my head lay perfectly in situ against your collarbone
and my heartbeat and breathing lined up with yours
in our quiet symbiosis at 3 a.m.
I danced around the words
flitted lightly, noncommittal
and said 'I think I'm falling in love with you',
which was a lie.
You are far braver than I
and to this day I've run
but you deserve far greater than that which I have meted out to you.
You deserve honesty.
You deserve the breadth and depth of what my heart aches to tell you
though I am frightened beyond words that the vice can go no tighter.

I love you.

Your eyes glazed over,
Glued to the television screen.
While I lay behind you crying,
I am unseen.

There is only silence,
All I feel is pain.
And you dare not speak my name.

We are distant,
Never touching.
Curled up into a ball,
I become nothing.

Clicks and clatters are the only sounds you make.
Let me sleep forever,
Never to wake.

I met an insomniac through a Craigslist post

Who alleged: She’d stolen > 2000 hearts

On subways/escalators/sidewalks – men turn to toast

(By her gorgon glance, she boasts, even testicles depart).

How does one ensnare one fashioned of nails and sap?

By invisibility, mirrored shield, winged boots, curved sword?

The heart’s armor, thus arrayed, can easily entrap

This goddess, dreadlocked in her own umbilical cord.

But I do not stoop to conquer, but to please

This walking paradox, over-caffeinated, old soul

Intoxicated by words, music, auteurs (esp. Scorsese),

You’re my aurora, glowing green, in the north celestial pole.

Slacker, artist, writer, words have escaped you:

You lay breathless at the foot of your wandering Jew.

1
Like the  turning sheets
of a monthly calender,
life has layers after layers.

How would he know that ,
just a callow youth on  sea shore
playing with  smooth pebbles,
that was when he saw her first.

She was the woman who
taught him, whole cities lay merged
within a woman, like wave after wave,
of inhabitants over time, leave their
archaeological markers of periods,
she was a mystery like life itself.
There is no way to decipher.

2
They first met
in the city of light,
Diwali lamps were lit
in all courtyards,
It was an immortal moment
in his  life, he realized,
leading him gently to the light
which evaded him though he assiduously sought,
she parted without a word
Did she belong to someone else?
3
The city of sorrow,
yet again brought them  face to face
Ridden with angst of existence
he stumbled, was about to fall, then
he  could experience her iron will
more than a woman, she stood, like a pillar of strength,
she took his weary head in both hands, pressed to her breast,
pulled out the crown of thorns, their paths
diverged again, inexplicably complex, was their relationship.
4
In the city of guilt,
an unexpected meeting again,
they were surprised. Here, they were on their own.
They  wanted to take their lives in their hands,
in spite of the currents that pulled them to different directions.
But he knew all the while that her self, was divided between
three cities within  in her.They co-existed, Light.Guilt.Sorrow
will their love survive? Not all loves are intended to live long,
a parrot in his tree of loneliness always whispered.He pretended he didn't hear,
A game of dice, almost was their lives, mysterious forces did bet on their love,
Having traveled through fire and water, she was beyond pleasure and pain,
Kali with a fiery nose stud, female power that overcomes all pain,
she became, that shattered his dreams for them.
He was thankful, to be awakened by her,
the light she lit, burned bright, within.

Now or never.He crossed the river.
Deliverance comes from an inner source,
otherwise all will end as an idiot's tale
signifying nothing.
Her flame lighted his wick, liberated him.
5
Fire spitting dragons one can tame,
but in the duel with demons of life,
it could be a blood letting end,
call it play of chance or what ever
they are the  easy game here
He  packed his backpack and
started to move eastwards,
Westward bound was she, invariably,
her heart had still a song left for him,
the void was filled, the pain was stilled
with anesthetics of mind.
Just for one last time they went to the beach,
watching the sunset was their good bye to each other.
They never met again.