I visualize you
who I will never know,
Constant Stranger
I call you, I imagine
you when I write
and to think, you
will never know me
like the few who
I am close to, those
who say: I don't
understand what you
are talking about,
but I know what you
mean...you know
there is no other poet
on earth like me
and I know there is
no other poem in the uni-
verse just like you
and every two folks
have there own way
of loving, the poet
and the poem know
what they like, like
the kind that takes us
into different and strange
countries until we realize
at midnight, we are alone,
you and I, Constant Stranger,
anonymous mates whose love
can never be consummated.

Movement of time collides
with tear drop melody
darkened angel
to final day symphony:

gun blasts in homeland
enter familiar flesh-
different tongues conceal
common threads that makes us

wounded souls call for God
in bomb dimpled lands-
far from American eyed reach
and inside

amidst spiritual sands

Treading with foot print patterns
around rock’s pure holiness
meditating in temples
laden in gold tributes

seeking truth’s distant comfort

guns blast in homelands
families wonder why-

pain embraces consciousness
dripping hints of salvation
into thick Iron pools
of Christ’s calling

red horse not so distant
seven seals awakening
run back to one
it’s time to find love

Cold today
but at least
the sun's
in play

Out in it

Wind talking
through mouthfuls of white pine
sweeping, swishing whispers
just enough to let the chimes
sing as bells
without bashing-- themselves
to dissonant trinkets

Music-muttering, free

Leafless shadows of the early spring
cold creeping 'cross
the yards toward noon
where they disappear
into a wood-chipper

What the hell is with my neighbors?

Why do people hate their trees?
Maybe 'cause they are not theirs?
Grown beyond them and their confines?

My tiny yard so feral
They probably hate mine too
But I belong to them  
and mine belong to me
They curve around, protective
my home of wind and bird and sky
swirling
cream 'n coffee
one into another
like  
Music sometimes
falling through itself into...
Sure--
know ******* a morning

I let them live

trees and neighbors

...as my mind smears into afternoon

No one stays long
in the house of the bereaved

The hounds are lonely tonight
but not the priest

I dream I am still
in Tennessee grieving

Drinking moonshine
and branch water
looking for a fight

The undertaker creeps out
of the farmer's daughter's room

His wife beats a spider
with a broom then sweeps

When Death beats his child
nobody listens to her weep

My mother used to beg,
Son, don't write about Death,
We'll cross that ditch soon enough

I have nothing but respect
for the dead, I said

But there is no doubt in my mind
Death is a bad dog, a real *****.

architectural mollusks
    are falloping through
                              my brain
                        squeezing past the
                         instincts that
        have kept me down
My instincts,
              once brittle sea stars
                          that splintered
                                    into cracked
                                 peppercorns,
                 are now mixed with
           the breathy liquid
        of squid,
lubrication for
the spiny paths ahead
They blow their ink
between my
inverted vertebrae
      injecting Jello into bone
                           busting through
                        fiber and tissue like
                          fresh-skimmed
                    lavacream
and all my muck
rises to the top
in a neon rawness
that I find beautiful

Soon
my burning crevices
will be cooled
fossils will turn to flesh
and, as sure as knowledge
springs into action
I will make
for the shoreline
like a cephalopod rocket
silky smooth
my fins spun into wings
touching magic
as they glide

there was no power

from my Mumbai hotel I
could see the stream of people
in the narrow street below

a cart carrying the dead listed
and nearly toppled over

the ox pulling it did not stop
dragging the askew carriage along

passersby steered clear of the primitive hearse
knowing it carried the curse, the fever felling the denizens
of this muggy megapolis

a plague harvesting souls
quicker than they could be burned

the Mithi was thick with their ashes,
diluted only by tears of the mourners
who harbored fears they would be next

I was there, a helpless healer;
a doctor turned detective, running
a race to find a cause, a miracle cure

all my potions impotent,
all my staring at slides a lesson
in limitations, ignorance--a discovery
of crawling creatures too miniscule
to be dissected, too beguiling to be
understood

my eyes were tired of looking
at the tiny death moguls and their victims
my ears weary of the entreaties for relief
from suffering

yet I stood and watched, one wagon
after another, carrying carrion for the pyres

I prayed the power would stay off,
for light would have shone on me:
a curious survivor, unworthy of whatever
grace kept me from the heaps of lifeless
limbs bound for the fires of the night

My father and I
lie down together.

He is dead.

We look up at the stars,
the steady sound
of the wind turning
the night like a ceiling fan.

This is our home.

I remember the work in him
like bitterness in persimmons
before the first frost,
and I imagine the way he feared
the pain, the ground turning
dark in the rain.

Now he gets up
and I dream he looks down
into my brown eyes
that may as well been his.

He weeps and says goodbye,
my son, I don't want to
go yet, but I can't wait
around to watch you die.