For three years we spent walking around the fall leaves talking about our dreams
As if the leaves themselves were crumpled up notes with our dreams scratched on them
You'll never know how hard it's been
Constantly wishing for a 'tomorrow button'
To restart and restitch ourselves at the seams
We have the same holes in our hearts
But maybe I'll finally be able to wash your blood off my hands and keep them clean
And keep ourselves from falling apart
I spent this past summer transferring from trains
Collecting nickels from city sidewalks to keep whatever left of sane I have in me
And for every dollar I should've saved
I could've bought a newfound love
Not for us
But for myself
I spent this past winter learning what "cold" really meant
That no blanket, no heater, no love could ever warm
I insisted on falling in love with glaciers almost my whole life
But eventually I made friends with the sun
And remained enemies with no one but myself
Because I allowed you to feed me lit matches
As you watched my paper insides go up in flames
and now all that's left are the ashes of my memories you claim you no longer know
being swept between the living room rug and couch
where our lips used to perfectly align together
But we both know we can't make homes out of abandoned places
So that's why our love continues to collect dust with our furniture
Somedays it's still summer and the window's open and im falling asleep to the sound of the cars outside your window
But I wake up every morning hoping that you'd call so I can finally ask "in what year does our spring never come?"

SHAKESPEARE'S MIND AND ART

In the memorable words of Ben Jonson,
Shakespeare, the great Bard of Avon,
"Is not of an age,
But for all time."
Endowed with a brilliant mind,
Worldwide knowledge and intuition,
He comprehends the changing trends
And creates enthralling situations.
With his amazing knowledge of man's nature,
Creates admirable, everlasting characters
Like Hamlet, Macbeth, Caesar and King Lear,
Rosalind, Miranda, Shylock and Portia.
Skilful blend of wit, irony and humour,
Youthful merriment, song and dance
As well as poignant scenes of sorrow and remorse.
Dialogues lively, powerful and spontaneous
Enrich all his comic and tragic scenes.
In his inimitable way, he describes -
How "..the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven
And as imagination bodiesforth
The forms of things unknown,
The poet's pen turns to shape
And gives to airy nothing,
A local habitation and a name."
The world cherishes his poems and plays -
A perennial source of delight and solace.
                  *   M. G.Narasimha Murthy
Hyderabad, India.
(Copyright: MGN)

2002
Dearest Klara,
  hope you enjoy
the poems as you dream to write
      one poem
happy birthday*


There are still many books as though
   parliament. A miscalculation based on coordinates
in a wry scene.

Two bookshelves creating a labyrinth, enough that you
are alike. Juxtaposed to scent are many words
and the day is almost done. Ignore fragments once,
but never overdo. I can outlast moonlight’s procession
into a dark cathedral by the window.

On this side – reason; the other, hesitance.
This is no heist. This is what belongingness refutes.
What willingness bandages. The absence of sentries
  made for easy rapture. You slid your hand into the dusty
fort and in between them, the paperbacks ached.
  “I will do it.” and after that, cursed at the farce.

Slid into your bag – you, surrounded by the tense air
of silence. A dilettante at being a fugitive. What is it that
you stole?
   Your body, elsewhere. Flailing. Failing. There are still
many marvels in the scene, but says precision is key.
Cuts as if contravention. This was as calm as painting a child
  in his early years, the hue of anomaly.

Quiet in amplitudes doles out a mystified sense of completion.
I can hear an ajar mouth unwind a soft humming.
   It was time to go – tomorrow when we rise with no memory,
  it will be all but one and the same fault together with many others,
     as if your face that day and your image now
          compels me the cold of a foreign city. Riddance.

your chest, my only pillow
an uneven beat pounds
I memorize every second
unsure if it will be the last
the last time I feel loved
unsure if I even feel loved

Bed sheets become red sheets,
Pillows becomes tear catchers,
No dream catchers here because only nightmares live,
Feasting on wakeful exhaustion.
Deflated bouncy castles for intestines,
White blood cells searching frantically in enclosed darkness.
Enemy invaders seeping into blood, bone and muscle
As the warriors remain trapped in sticky villi.
Drug dependency is a permanent solution
And overdosing is a consistent caregiver for sleep.
Nausea is a rebellious, suicidal last stand
To go down with the invaders as they're taken out.
A seven year war fought inside your body
With no visible battle lines drawn is lonely.
My skin is pockmarked, riddled with the craters of bombs
Fired from all sides with no mercy for the land.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder what'll **** me first:
The invaders or my body's own troops.