When I think
About you
I make sure to close the door

To dodge artfully
Your eyes that
Could seek out
The smallest *****
In my armour

Your touch had
A cruelty that could
Draw blood with
A caress
... or was that a slap?

Your words cut me
Off from myself
And everything
That I held dear

Till I fluttered around
You like a kite
Without a string in the
Forlorn sky

Was it love
Or its likeness
That cloaked itself
In hatred

There's a hole
Where my heart
Used to be

A crater that fills
Up with sunshine
When I open the
Door and stop
Thinking of you.

You can meet
Life and Death in the
Waiting room of any hospital

Where the Maker sends
His products
With parts
Worn, torn or never born

Internal passageways blocked
With the ash of
A million cigarettes
Larded with the residue
Of one meal too many

Half-despatched from
The world by
Speeding vehicles
Or minds scrambled
By relentless grief

Hope flickers as the
Soldiers line up
Their arsenal
Of tools, medicines
And little white lies

What will be
The toll on the
Battlefield today?
Only the waiting room knows

Chip shop
Next to a heart hospital

A labourer sleeping under his truck
Unmindful of the hay overload above

Kids guzzling bottled water
As they protest to save rivers

Leaders flying hundreds of miles
To reinforce the status quo

Orphans roaming the streets
Where couples queue up outside fertility clinics

The clothes that get skimpier
As the actress grows older

The lies that get bolder
As the mountain gets higher

Life is full of oxymorons
In the post-truth city of my mind

There you go again,
Claiming to represent me
Because my fingers are
Marked with indelible ink
Vowing allegiance to you
And your unscrupulous colleagues
For the next five years

Which may just be an incubation
Period for the opposition
Party that will claim its
Right to rule next.

Dressed in pristine white
Hearts filled with
The blackest of thought

What gives you criminals
The right to roam free
After every year of looting us?

There’s something to
Be said for the way
The lips affirm or deny
What the heart desires

Why is it so hard
To pay the pharmacy bill
When money changes hands readily
At the cinema hall?

Why does a shiny suit of clothes
Feel so right and reasonable,
When a walking stick
Seems to be an extravagance?

It never seems right to
Pay a worker on time,
Because you can feel the
Reassuring bundle in your hand another day

Is it the result
Of knowing the price
Of everything
And the value of nothing?

She had a fine turn of phrase
Said her readers,
Who'd go no further
Than the spine of the book
To come to that conclusion

She listened to the voices
That jostled for a
Patient hearing
In her head.

Till they were ready
To step out on the
Pages and say their
Goodbyes to their
Birth mother.

No wonder then, that she
Felt the pang of
Irrevocable separation
Each time

Her fingers caressed
The keyboard.

There's a bird in a tree
Near my window that sings
Past midnight
The sweetest melodies.

It knows not,
Or perhaps doesn't want to
That the sky
It trills at so earnestly

Is brightened not by the sun
But by lights
That hide peril
In their electric embrace.

I'm a bit like that gullible bird,
Allowing my heart to
Soar at the false dawn
Of electronic relationships.

Everyday, we meet
In the same smog of a city’s ignorance.
My right hand stays
Raised - in farewell or salute?

I feel not a little ridiculous
A man of flesh and blood
Poured into a concrete
Shell and painted gold

Stuck in the middle of
A thoroughfare and
Given my own road,
Roundabout and
Peeing spots for dogs and men.

I turned a 100 recently
In potential earthly years
And so, I got a spa treatment
Of poems and posies
From my undead enemies

Everyone had a fable
To share about my
Supposedly wonderful life.

While, I, the scriptwriter
Of many a horror tale,
Continued to play mute witness
To my never-ending death

As I waited to meet you again
In the same smog of a city’s ignorance.

When the mind goes
about shutting
The doors left
Open by the careless heart,

Life muffles down
In the fog of memories
Comforted by the humdrum
Freed from the need to react

But it isn’t long
Before the heart awakens,
Looks around, and decides to teach
The mind a lesson

By opening a few windows
To let in the breeze
That will eventually
Knock open a few doors too.

When the wind ruffles its fingers through the
Leaves of the last tree
On this kerchief of land
That will soon house a thousand families

Will there be a requiem for the
Butterflies that were slain
In their hunt for honey from
The flowers of
Non-existent gardens?

After
We’ve kissed goodbye
And double-locked
The doors to our hearts

There’ll be plenty o
Of time
To sweep the floor.

Going our separate
Ways,
Isn’t it funny,
How studied detachment
Grows slowly
Into considered attachment?
**
Together in our
Need to be apart,
How were we to know
That when we got off
Half-way,
The train would
Disappear,
Taking the station
And the destination
With it?

He’s painting as I pass him,
And still at it when I go back,
Painting again
And again
For the past four days.
Today, he’s gone
Having whitewashed something old as
Something very new
And completely succeeded.

I met a composer of true lies once,
Who wrote wonderfully believable lies about me,
Scented with love – or so he said.
But the wind whooshed them all
Off the table
Before I could read them over his shoulder.
Now they hang like plastic bags
On lone branches of autumnal trees.
Shredded, meaningless and unreachable
Except to a ragpicker.
Me.

Steeped in hot water,
swinging, swaying
hurriedly meeting
milk and sugar
Life dust in a bag,
Hanging by a thread.
*
Misting his glasses
With the steam of jasmine tea
he said, "You're going to
hate me for this,
But I've forgotten your name.''
Later, at the train station,
He waved goodbye,
Adding, "I'll be in touch."

In the Tube,
Crushed between the blind musician
And the tired teacher,
They kiss
And cross continents.
The Tube crosses streets,
Without leaving tracks.