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Like the heavy full Clouds rich with water
I emptied myself by showering upon you
but you never understood the value of precious gems
And thought it an useless advice from the ignorant

I never said that I will make a castle in the heaven
Or create a Palace of pearls for seven
Because pearls are useless in a desert
The dying man just needs a few drops of water

A harvest of peace grows from seeds of contentment
O my daughter, listen
When a crow is killed by a storm
The fortuneteller says, ''He died by my curse

Let us live together as fish live with crocodile
As fragrance lives with flower, warmth lives with sun
As stars live together with cool moon in the milky light
A house without children is a graveyard

Why be alone when we can live together my child
You can make my life worthwhile
And I can make you start to smile
So don't emit poison like snake, I have fed you milk
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced
Now, Live your life in such a manner that when you die,
The world cries and you rejoice.

Don't go away alone, turning your face from us
Remember ! Even a cat is a lion in her own lair

~~~Jawahar Gupta~~~

My wife's family
is a pack of wolves.
One will be chosen,
and the others pile on,
tugging and tumbling
the lucky winner,
looking like they would tear
the chosen one
limb from limb.
At day's end
they huddle about
the battered cub,
licking its wounds
and nesting
warm and huddled.

My family was crocodilian,
cold-blooded and
waiting in preternatural
prehistoric patience
for a spot of blood
as the excuse
to pull the wounded one
beneath muddied waters
and devour their own.

A man without
scars is like a river
without water
like a room without
a window
or a son to carry on
the name
and a man without
a woman
is a man without woe
or sand or a heart
to be broken
a man
who is dreaming only
of a tractor
and wide open
fields with no hay
to be mown.

Shiny bricks and skeins of yellow grass
Barely perceptible colours
Hung with liquid haze
Dog **** and thunder
Heavy close and thick
Miasma
Clings to sweat
Running with drizzle
Clings to damp
Drowning the pores of the skin
Making collars clinging sticky
Rubbing and abrasive

In view of the towering flats
The greyly awaiting wait
Standing at the bus stop
Speaking quiet weather talk
In the distantly English way
So safely meaningless
This polite evasion
Ignores their damp dilemma
Soon, as they sit inside the bus
These bodies shall steam
Like cattle in a byre

Kids hang around the shops
Emptying and kicking cans
The younger ones
Run and shout manically
Their elders spit
And swear casually
All hoods and shadows
Asking adults to buy them lager
Because they can't get served at the "offie"
Rain changes nothing here

A bedroom guitar plays
Weakly electric
And the Turneresque sky
Swallows the sound whole and flat
Sophisticated trash
Crying into a cloudy breast
Shaded darkly round
Full and swollen
Grey and sodden
The distant rumbling
Tumbling closer to home

                                    By Phil Roberts

Two in the night isn't the right time
to be watched over by two eyes in silence
occasionally broken by a hushed voice
pack up sir, madam must be waiting sleepless.

Three in the night and he was right beside me
while the weary moon slanted to west
and dead insects lay on the floor
burned out by the joy of light.

Four in the night he was escorting me home
half a mile up the hill
when the stars were shedding light
fading with the dying night.

He died sometime after I left the island.

On sleepless nights he's there to see me off.
He could never be dead in my head.