We are young, fresh
Stars in our eyes falling hard
Summer running wild across cotton candy skies
I wish I could push pause
Take it all in deep, slow breaths
Another season of warmth and sunshine
Passing me by with a quickness
Your smile glitters just beyond my melancholy
Bringing me back to the present
I mirror it with ease
Even if a part of me will always be wanting

I move from the shadows
    To your intrinsic body:

My touch
     Dissolving
         Like the horizon,
The radiant pulses throughout
     Like scattered embers
Under celestial forests,
     Light and dark dance
Like a hymn of the solstice;
    Touch,
Naked light,
     Bodies of elliptical passion;
The light in your eyes
Makes the love we make real.

I'm reading poetry at the cremation ghat
amid chanting of God's name
while ferrying and burning the dead.

The noise unsettles me a bit
as sets me thinking of my own death
that by all means seems closer than farther.

Yet I get the relieving feel
reading poems would heal
all the agonies of my flesh
and take me to that spiritual level
where I would take death as
passing into another dimension.

I'm not much of a religious person
but have always felt devoted to my kindred
seeking transcendence through them.

The best thing I'm hoping right now
is when I burn
someone would amid chanting of God's name
read poetry at the burning ghat.

Once it was a place of sorrow
where bathing came from hot tears
warmth barely came from Tomorrow
little thought was give to more years

Where eating was swallowing a truth
that was just sawdust coated in lies
Mirrors simply reflected angry youth
all seen through drug clouded eyes

Upon a bed of razor sharp intentions
She painted a heart upon her chest
from the blood that flowed in rivulets
in the indentations of her weakness
She sighed that she did her best

She found herself upon silvery shores
under an incandescent Sun
hoping that she had evaded the laws
condemning her for what she had done

Head thrown back in a field of dreams
Serenity in her tumultuous gaze
Lips curved gently against the screams
so much clarity in a languid daze

She gently caressed coloured flowers
with hands that had never sought to protect
from the constantly brutal storm showers
that raged when she failed to connect

Where once there was only rain
all she could now feel was dry
Where once she was warped by pain
utter tranquility she could not deny

She rebuilt herself in a different place
in a skin that was as hardened as stone
Where her demons could find no trace
far away from all she had known

sometimes i want my skin to crawl -
i want to sit my bones in muck and sink
until my nostrils are just above the level
where i can no longer breathe

i want to purge myself of every great loss,
that's ever been or will come to be

i want to exist in every moment that i live,
to feel every emotion with an earnest heart,
to see every sight with wide eyes and an
open mind ready to learn, unlearn, relearn

i want to evolve, though the process
will be painful and neverending - i want to grow

as i passed i saw the room,  coal on your table,

spread neatly. wondering i glanced around,

saw the snowy  underwear on hangers,

the chandeliers.



it all showed pride and i know

you have seen it too. raddled

face in mirrors, knowing that we

are all much the same, without

meetings and disagreements.



so,

must we write about it before we forget,

before  people come and disagree?



they have small waists and a  national costume.



sbm.

she rang me. did not leave a message.



later,

i dialled 1471 and rang her back, there

may be a charge for this.



i did not leave a message.



at 6pm she rang and left a message.



i was washing my feet. do you think



that there is a meaning to life?



sbm.

A Ballad For A Thin Man.

Understood backwards. Lived forward. Life.
Haunted by diverging others. Us but not. Wraiths.
Ghosts of what if? Who then? What might have been?
Leave room. Turn left. Lovely house, wife, retirement.
Leave same room. Turn right. Shack, loneliness, poverty.
Theorize games. Physik quanta. Slide down strings.
Into Wonderland, Oz, Middle-Earth. Narnia.
All the places that don’t exist and matter the most.
Where doors open up to impossible possibilities.
Fight your way through every day. Pit bull of potential.
Just do your work and be kind.* That is a separate peace.
We may be others in other universes, but here we are just us.
**** it up. Love your life. Do what you must. Soldier on.
Real realities can really hurt. Take it like a Man. Or Woman.
Be grateful for your trials. Trials are you. Struggle.
Mount the philosopher’s donkey backwards, advance.

I wonder if I have invited the storm--
     Provoked passion--
Traces of sweat in swelling heat
      glisten
and I taunt dark clouds singing siren songs.
      The curves of my voice
thrill lonely spaces.

Flashes of light crease the sky --
      similar bursts echo
from your eyes.

Reaching around I tremble
as the heavens
      rumble loudly back.

I will meet you there
     inside the tempest.

Let it rain.

they fly in
and sit on my shoulder
even when
i don't want them to

old Bob's ex-wife
had his sofa covered
in some horribly ugly
historic print

(i thought it was
kinda pretty)

i saw a haversack
made out of that
self-same fabric
in my possession

today, Bob handed me
a leather bag
he had sewed with
that fabric as the lining

i hope i smiled

because the other vision
was of his family
clearing his possessions
out of his cabin
after he passed

i'm afraid it isn't
long now