Tell me, what is it like,
to crooked-roll the dice, to
always get snake-eyes, to keep
slipping on  ice?

Tell me why he talks, tell
me why he walks, the
way he does, like he's barefoot
on the coals.
He's barefoot on the rocks.

All those dice sit in your cup.
"C'mon girl, just fill 'er up."

And tell me why he laughs
at all those broken hands,
          and broken hearts,
      and palms of sand,
and crooked dice,
that fell, through
cracks, and on the lines,
out of their hands, into your eyes.

You said, "Sometimes, I see better,
when the sand up here is wetter. That girl
tried to take the gritty pain away —I didn't let her."

"The sand I put there, in her eyes," he said, "reminded her
of all her lies, and I never did forget her."

it was a cuckoo who flew the coup
took wing from his nest
off to push out eggs, like ***-pa
just another everyday coup d'etat

leopard leaping from his perch
pushing onward toward his prey
a small friend to no feline
trapped in a quick sand
left only to bay

you are these animals

1.

Swirls of golden smoke rose slowly from my blazing coffee ***. The dusty car at a distance slithered and crawled up the winding road. Sitting in the shack I watched the sand snaking its way up, keeping pace with the car and pelting it with sand particles as if it held a grudge against the driver. I had planned to go dune bashing but for the ominous tone of the desert.

2.

The next day morning remnants of what the desert spat out, the sand particles consume me. I am cloaked with gloves of voluminous dust. I take another sip of coffee. The pungent aroma of the milieu and coffee leaves me breathless. The greens are choked and there is sand art on pavements outside.

3.

I try to remove the sand on my hair as I wipe the aurulent sheen on the window pane.  A bunch of men wipes the dust from the tables and chairs in the opposite shack. An old dusty car crawls to a halt and parks, blaring the music of Led Zepplin.

Turritopsis dohrnii: A species of jellyfish that can revert back
To a sexually immature state when its injured or dying, making it biologically immortal.

A jellyfish,
Nothing but thickened water
Some genetic material
Polythene bags and paper glue,
Is granted immortality.
We, humans
The heirs of a billion evolutions,
A million grains of life,
Crumble like sand castles
Scatter like sawdust.

The universe taunts,
Laugh until your shadow swallows you
Your every breath was a thousand last breaths,
Puny mortal.

in dream-like states where
thoughts emerge from unconscious
whim, we carve stone sculptures
on opposite garden ends –

mine is a goat with webbed feet,
Carl’s is a duck with horns;
this is a meaningful coincidence

later, we play in the sand
with our wise inner figures;
he dances while I draw hearts

A tiny trickle of sand
passing through
the fingers of your hand
that's an hour
just a shower
of amber grains
what remains
of a once mighty boulder
much older than time
it has heard midnight chime
many times
the tick tick tock
of the clock of eternity
and now it embraces modernity
slowly wearing away
day by day
hour by hour
as a shower of sand
in the palm of your hand

sand exasperatingly tickles skin
as waves roaringly crashes upon it
a deafening wind agitates hair
as it rumbles through air
                   in all its chaos
                                       I find tranquillity