a river

narrow
winding
i watch you turn

you look like you'd hurt me
but how can i be sure
you could be what saves me

voices warn me to step away
so i don't get swept in your tide
they try to push me
but you pull me closer

i chase after you
to understand you
but you're a maze

narrow
winding
i watch you turn and turn again

shallow
but you'd drown me if i let you


heavens, do i want to drown?

a piece of shore can
enter the river slowly
to become much more

first you have to be
a river not a piece of shore
then journey begins

I listened to the river’s babbling,
her competing voices,
none winning, none getting ahead,
ahead of the next bend, the next meander,
a departure from the mainstream,
taking the conversation in a whole new direction -
leaving the lies behind
and the truth high and dry,
to be banked, baked crisp and brittle, crunched
to dust under a heavy rockfall of doubt and disinterest.
But I listened still, for the following chorus,
the next controversy.

I didn't need to wait long - the new river babbled...

When the tidal wave came
I was looking the other way.

I knew the gentle Shuttle
had its shallow banks
concreted, walled, ready
for the diverted torrent,
but for some reason I was looking
North, thinking that way lay
the Thames and its barrier,
not knowing the wave
would follow the Shuttle’s
more meandering route

and I got it in the back of the neck.

There came a time when I realized the river flowed outwards
The west became Sahara and east Bombay.
The golden chops grinned in greed.
My lips were full in windy cold winter,
and you became hoarding supply-less supply.

Before the storm, the river had all but given up,
the guttural roar of wind and deluge
rattled all souls, except her
and in the aftermath she swelled
and bore delicious weight again
and my eye-contact
with the pageantry of the green headed drake
told all the muddy truths:
to underestimate is to lose