We both got our hearts broken,
But while yours was only stitched up,
Mine was a forest that kept getting burned down and replanted, only to get destroyed again.

White lotus, never let you forget this
you, I, or any other does not exist
outside the fiction cosmos weaves;
all of us add color to it each minute.


പ്രപഞ്ചം ഒരുകൽപ്പിതകഥ

വെണ്‍ താമരേ, ഇത് സ്വയം
മറക്കാനനുവദിക്കായ്ക!
നീയും ഞാനുമെന്നല്ല, എല്ലാമെല്ലാം
പ്രപഞ്ചം നെയ്തെടുക്കും
കഥയല്ലാതെ മറ്റൊന്നല്ല!
അനു മാത്രം ആ കഥയ്ക്ക്
നിറം ചേർപ്പവരാണ് നാം !
(Translated to Malayalam)

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets.  In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little **** in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

                                        December 1965

I lie here, fresh, pronated,
Sifting through the sheets of my memory
For the strand, a hint, a mark,
A scar
Of her decadent delicacies,
Of urges and celibacies,
Just to quiet me and falter,
And falter hard, mad,
Into the night gentler
Than the lightest of strokes,
     Her touch.

And the moon creeps through my heart tonight—
A chill, a violent chill, still—
An opera, a sonata, an elegy,
A requiem
Just because I fought
     With an angel.*

© 2015 J.S.P.