Wordless? Could I write a  poem with silence?
the skid-slide of the road
the burden of a sudden night on me

Sometimes, I fall asleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand
little book open... it may seem so lovely
look at her!
huddled up with her little thoughts
a true writer, that child!
but- but I preferred sleep!
sleep was pleasurable and it did not run
I preferred pleasure to poetry, madam!
please take the label back

But...
sometimes the pen runs out of ink
and the ballpen stutters
and I get teary-eyed in the dark night
I engrave the paper with the ballpen nib
trace the words out in the morning
sometimes I tear the paper with the ballpen nib
and then weep

Sometimes, like this time, the lamp dies
I press the buttons of the AC remote
every four seconds (I counted)
write in the light of its lit-up screen
Sometimes I write on my hand
and when the hand runs out, I go to the arm
I write on pants, on tissue-paper pieces
Sometimes, there is light and pen and ink and...
and you know exactly what.

I could never call myself a poet
the word stuck, a jumble-mess
of all my literary inadequacies
rolled up to hardness, taped to throat
I... I roll up like a cat or a rug
words come by on a conveyer belt
and I stamp each with 'unoriginal'
unoriginal, unoriginal
a moving queue of unoriginal
so many words! the page is empty
I become unoriginal
other times...
so little words (like this time)! the page is full
I become unoriginal
Then I get so upset, I toss poetry away
like crumpled paper, roll over on the bed
an upset lover; I keep an arm back though
for some little touch


Oh my
I think I'm going to sleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand


Or maybe...


No, put it away
we are done for the night

Some admiration, please
something akin to a pill or
a sudden welcome warmth
I want to be put to sleep

a sleep of no tremors or waking
but not death, not quite
like satisfaction or tea, some instilling
of the sea in me
I thought I had quite grasped
a thread or two
but I am paper now
I have no word to write
no light to write in
I have no thought, and I cannot think

some affection would do
some small touch
some bowl to melt into
some flame as well

I want the night to stay
I want to sleep it away
Poetry is for nothing now
I write to satiate
to not weep, or to not fiddle
to remember, or to clear up
to love poetry
or to gather myself up

But the bed is warm and still a pond
and I wish to weep
I wish words were there to stay
I wish they could pat or touch
stoke my hair with an inhuman presence
some song would do
some voice/whisper/word
some sigh or solidity, some affirmation
I am so lonely
I will eat myself up

Sweet hands, half-concealed
in bright red sleeves
you are so cute when you weep
orange-cheeked and blue
with anger that comes from small lungs
and shakes the chest
Stubborn moth, I like to stub
you, just to see you move
you move like water
when it boils, when it breaks
You are gentle beauty
in thin blue arms, sniffing with the clock
and trying to stop, oh
always trying to stop. You weep like Icarus--
a gleaming smudge in the sky
I want to break you over and over

minaret, matte in haze
an illusion of detail
you, Impressionism
your bricks clasp each other
intricately, intimately
without hesitation or sense

lips of red and suave craft
tilt:
pyre suddenly

I step back

I can fathom you
from here only

Silly old papa with a head of stone
A heart of stone, as he wont say
A heart petty, poor and grotesque
Table unturned - noise and show
A jagged black stone - I pick you up

Debris and Zeus - I pick you up!
I throw you to the streets
There you kiss, you kiss - you foul sag
Of a naive wish, you bland-brown day
Out, please, to your beloved grey

You! Pitiful - huge - huge
Huge with arms of steel
Brazen love, burnt scent, naked sculpture
Chipped and art, you are the museum
Of yell and watch and monotony
The crease I will never paint
Gesture that will tear the paper
You disgust my pencil. You hold;
Crumbling; crumpled a poem
Cold, sold - sold. Sold, Papa! Sold!

Alabaster hands
I paint like I know you
but I am afraid
I paint like I know
the hours of holy songs he sung
when chip by chip
he broke his David
out of stone

but I mumble with a brush
polluted a tomb
with thievery and doubt
if I return to you
I will do so stollen
rolled up in bay and --
my Florence! I couldn't see you
I was lost

I could not be him
he unleashed, I hold
and now you wear his hands
like a beloved scar
and then you haunt my sleep
with your eyes of old

I am sessile, sterile - I doubt.
I cannot speak.
stone carved inadequate, for
I do not know hands
the venules and the etchings.
I could not learn

fiddling like a cricket
in the arms of leaf
I see him leap through ages
to come and observe
I am an artefact flaw
and him the sound perfectionist
he inspects fingers
as they stumble in paint
ever-looming, giant, bearded
with a broken nose

you, Florence! He steals
movement, instill it, gifts it
you wear it, then you watch me
with museum eyes
Good love,
I am no David
do not ask that of me, I may weep
stone in my hand
I sling stutter over my shoulder
and watch the forever tyrant grow

1.
Hibiscus rue.
citrus.
cataclysm.
but so gentle rue.

2.
A cappuccino night
eavesdrops,
the lamp sleeps slouching
its jaw slack,
my clock's monotonous cadence
is loyal as always

4.
A quaver
from a cadaver
that is what muttering trucks
do to the night

It is like startled birds:
they never sit back just right

5.
Insomniac mosquitos
have a *******, I think

The night sky
moves like a swarm

I watch it like a friendless owl
but I am happy