White plum blossoms gently blew above my head,
As I read my book of verses under the moonlight;
Delicate wisps smoke coiled around me,
Lovingly like an evanescent snake,
I looked up to see a light that barely wavered,
Behind the smoke of a cigarette.
It was you, you came to me,
With a bottle of warm rice-wine
To complete the unfinished scenery
Of the moon, blossoms, lake and wine.
It hadn’t been too long since I met you,
I remember clearly how startled I was
To behold you in your singular beauty,
Standing between the shelves of old books,
Your back towards the window
Where a crescent moon hung, punctured,
By your magnificent head.
And I could not help mistaking you
For an enchanting lunar demon,
For I had never seen such beautiful black hair,
That shone like beaten silver in the moonlight.
And every night we would have conversations
By the windows of the silent reading hall.
Those long talks of solitude and insanity,
Of dark, restless, sleepless nights
Of moonlight weighing heavily on you
And I, promising to take the moonlight away
From the very moon I read my books under;
Tied us together with invisible strings
Till we had nothing to talk endlessly on.
One had to be careful with that silence,
It ate right into the darkness of the night
Till it imperceptibly swallowed us whole.
And now the library became lonely,
For all the nights to come.
But tonight, you wandered to me
In this sleepless, waking, sultry hour,
And tonight, I knew I would take liberties;
I would break through the chrysalis,
Of my broken dreams to savor you.
Your body stiffened against my hard breathing,
My fingers crept up, as if to taste what it felt like,
But you clasped my hand and sat us on the ferry.
Reclining, I stared down at the glassy surface of the sky
Picking up stars in cupped hands as the cicadas pined away.
For a moment I felt like adorning your hair with them,
But no, those stars shone too feebly to adorn
Your silvery, astral shock of hair reminiscent
Of numberless comets traversing the universes.
I let the stars slip through my loosened fingers,
Back to the alchemies of the dark, shifting cosmos
While you rowed us till we were in the midst
Of fireflies floating among the mists and water-lilies.
Oars vanish into the silent waters like wraiths;
Leaning on one side of the ferryboat you flash a smile
The next moment the boat is tipped.
I feel the water engulf and enter me,
I see you beside me, floating under the surface
Like a water-sprite, your arms around my shoulders.
I look up to see the surface above me glimmering silver
The water is warm, and comforting
I feel safe, oblivious but contented.
But before I sleep I must confess
That I do have just one regret:
All the poems that I have written,
Are all the ones that are no longer close to my heart
Which is why, I’ve committed them to paper.
The ones that matter to me, are locked safe in my heart
And that I carry more poems to my watery grave
Than the ones that have been papered.
And you, my demon, you,
Have taken me for yourself,
The best poem of all.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 3:06 PM UTC
Thick glasses till high school,
Long hair done up in a pony tail,
With a lollipop between her lips
Tinted with a strawberry lip balm,
And lemon drops in her pockets,
She graduated and entered grad school.
Lenses replaced those nerdy glasses,
Siren red colored her lips instead--
Lipsticks were here to stay and reign.
Lollipops were childish, but cigarettes thrilled,
Smoked with élan, only to bring bored numbness
Behind those costly sunglasses hiding her eyes,
Set snugly into her neat brown chignon.
Little did they know, though beautiful,
She refused to led down her hair,
For her demons would go on a rampage
And her illness would devour her:
That which was kept at bay,
By anti-depressants in her pockets
A wistful dirge for her golden days.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 2:20 PM UTC
His language would be his skin,
Rubbing against mine--desirous.
His words would be his fingers
Slowly parting the opacity,
Of my febrile, trembling body,
And entering me steadily, ceaselessly
Between my widened eyes and breathy gasps
Of dialogic, intellectual ***********
If Literature was a man.
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 7:35 AM UTC
As the last waltz playing in my jacket ceased,
Loneliness and longing spilled out,
Along with a few coins and a recorder
From my roomy coat pockets.
The phone booth stood there,
Frosted by icicles of promises
Never thawed to life,
Yet a haven from my impasse;
A womb for the stranded & unwanted.
I closed the door behind me,
And fed the phone a few coins,
Punched your number with numb fingers
And fogged up the insides of the glass,
As I waited to hear your voice.
“Hello?” You said, but where were my words?
I must have lost them on my way,
I must have fed them to the phone
Along with the paltry coins,
Could you hear what I wanted to say?
“Hello?” You repeated, a little alert,
I listened to your silence, trying to smile,
It sank like warm music on my heart,
Waltzes and sonatas were so cliché.
Where were my words? Just one would suffice,
Couldn’t I sum us up in a single word?
I couldn’t find the kigo to our season.
I had lost it, left it with you,
That and my voice
In the world I was forced to leave,
And all this while I was held,
Tenuously to you by this phone call,
Till I heard the strained dial tone again,
In this silent world I’ve come to inhabit.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 10:11 AM UTC
I don't want to exist
I want to melt into
The darkness,
Vaporize in the air,
Only to envelope you,
After every sunset,
And be the one you breathe.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 12:56 AM UTC
She had but one little heart
Young and impressionable-
A soft heart of wax
That had great promise for love.
She bequeathed it to a man
Who had exceedingly hot hands
And couldn't care to wear gloves
As he went ahead alternately
Burning and reshaping it.
"Am I perfect now? " She asked
Her eyes bright and expectant
"No, my dear," He replied
"Just a little longer and you'll be. "
She smiled and kissed him happily
As her heart burned and burned,
Resplendent in his flaming hands,
Little sufferings getting oxidized,
Till one fine day, those hot hands
Had nothing to burn and shape.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 10:21 AM UTC
The Muse and the Artist
Lay beside death,
On clean, white hospital beds,
Exposed with cruel mercy by halogen lights.
Something terrible must have happened,
But they were smiling as they were connected,
Precariously by a delicate IV wire,
And a bottle loomed above
Filled with an incredible hue of red,
So beautiful
That I couldn't fathom
If it was blood, wine, or love.
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 2:37 AM UTC
The scarf that you took off with a graceful flourish,
From your warm throat, and covered my head
On one beautiful, wintry afternoon long ago;
That memory intensifies and weighs me down,
Like photographs that develop in the darkroom
But are never shown the broad daylight.
My head now stays uncovered with snow;
I wear your scarf on my shoulders.
Betokening my will to carry
The burden of the emptiness,
You left behind with your departure.
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 2:10 PM UTC
If you ever glanced at me you’d see
My pained eyes that silently scream
The utter helplessness of being in love.
You may give yourself into the arms,
Of another man and he may in turn,
Walk out on someone like you,
Reminiscent of the autumn clouds
That are made of our dreams,
Delicate as the wings of butterflies
That are lettered with our wishes
Their wistful glory is lost palpably
In some mysterious dimension,
For all things are ephemeral.
And so in the end, it doesn’t matter
If you belong to me or to him
But you must belong to poetry,
Your inimitable essence worded,
Which forever defies the cold rains
Poured from the urn of timeless Time.
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 6:39 AM UTC
A stately airship gliding
Over the mysteries of the skies,
I am the smoke trail
That you have left
At your wake.
Evanescent as I am,
Would you really exist
If I had not followed you
Wouldn’t you have been lost,
In the colors of the evening skies,
If I had not pursued?
May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 at 3:52 AM UTC