Those sleepless nights,
Those petty fights,
The look in your eyes
When I held you tight.
How our hands fit so well
When they clasped together
I think of your voice,
But I just don't remember.

I think of your face,
I can see it so clear.
I think of the three words
I once held so near.
I remember your scent,
How your touch was so tender.
But the feelings I felt,
I just don't remember.

C. Alexander Blum

Twisted, sharp the words pierced, echoing in strange rooms
looking for escape or transformation, and flew from death's lips,
cruel shifting sounds cutting steel traps and cages,
still a wingless bird cannot fly in mad fits and rages,
sits alone devising plans for freedom and does not see,
all the bluest skies lie deep within him

Grabbing at skin and hair and eyes,
Holding tight to teeth and lips and tongue,
Wrapping around each and every breath,
Wrestling to the ground,
Skin upon skin,
Fighting flailing arms and legs,
Giving in to swirling soul,
Spinning round and round,
Moving about us,
Golden light surrounds me,
Chasing and capturing distant dreams,
I'm some other world,
I'm someplace else,
I draw back for a simple second,
And breathe you in,
Then jump into you, once more,
Embraced, I feel welcomed,
The longest slow kiss in history,
I become you,
Then I collapse,
Falling into you,
Falling and falling,
Becoming the love I've always wanted,
Embraced and enamored,
Recognized and accepted,
I fall off the edge of the world.

Days were like honey, even sweeter than golden suns
you were laughing in rainbows - colorfully ever undone
dancing in meadows, and mornings
to bloom again

Your eyes of silver spun light, did shine
flashes of soul, glowing pieces of amber nights
Voices of angels sang you to sleep in peace

Remembering all the places you've ever felt love
with letters in boxes you've looked upon

Days are just pages, they burn into ashes that blow in the wind
all of these days, where do they
begin and end?

I come home each night,
And inhale and suffocate into the fragrance that is you.
Breathing in the residual, yet powerful and attracting aroma,
Upon the correspondence you sent,
An almost invisible heart,
Scribed in your perfume,
Distorting the paper and rushing to my head,
'She is like this', I say,
An association is established,
And expectations reign,
Catching a wanted and needed breath,
A sorta kiss from far-away,
It exudes a deep rich pungency,
That is alive and not manufactured.
It alivens me with hope,
That awaits your presence,
So I can, at last, breathe you in completely.

Oh green I sing, of wings and birds across blue morning sky
with summer sounds, willows round the floating pond
dipping gently by.

Warm winds play music soft
through leaves and reeds, they sing
gathering in the transient breeze.

Under leafy trees of sunlight and shadows
all the day I rest my head
breathe sweet the flowering fields
never shall I leave this place
nor want for any sweeter heaven.

death is laced with colours no eye can see
i saw it yesterday
resting on a twig
on a cold manhole cover
against which it looked so alive
-- it seemed to be comforted
brown wings pulled close, tips almost touching,
against the tiny white shell of its chest,
speckled with black
a tiny beak welcoming the chance to grab
at an interminable silence
--neither ugly nor morbid
but gently pretty,
the presence of death
affirming life.

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
   06.07.2013
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish