Still water
resting
at the
bottom
of a
Pacific ocean
tide
pool,

reflections
of you
in my
mind
in the
Sunday
morning
light.

sometimes
I can imagine
I hear you
laughter
carried in
harmony
to me
on a
a salt-kissed
circling
wind.

and I
sit for
a moment
and smile.

I always
smile.

it is
a giving
thing that
you do.

your gentle
manner
of truth
and innocence.

I can always
feel it
there in
you eyes...

you are


where
good  poets
go to
die.

Those marble plaques in the cemetery
hold no dead beneath them
yet in the rising mists of winter evenings
when night like loose dark pebbles
fall from the sky
can be heard hooves of trotting horses
from the rows of cold white stones
and on nights favored by moon
is visible cavalry in scarlet serge
with pith helmets and carbine rifles
piercing the terror paused wind
with cries of vengeance
mirthful in washing blood with blood
on the fields of Cawnpore
dissolving into marble white stones
steeped in the peace of moonlight.

He skims the haze of the day
like a cat seeking its food
prowling lane alleyway
to find you in bitter mood.

On your door the unwelcome guest
you would not call him to stay
with him time is a waste
he would better be shooed away.

You hate when he starts to speak
his sunburned face is a bore
must cut him short pretty quick
behind him close the door.

Like you are nine of ten
but he knows his job is done
is rewarded all his pain
if he can charm just one.

The one that ears lends
a carer who knows well
how it greatly depends
a family on one sale.

He was engrossed in his performance
in the enthralled silence of the audience
catching the subtlest notes from the instrument
as his supple fingers played with the strings
erupting into the finest blend of ragas
freeing the souls of all the stress
converging his heart into his music
eyes closed as in a transcendental state.

But I could not concentrate.

The face behind the beard and the unkempt hair
was familiar.

From a long distant day
I remember those fingers performed in a different way.

The afternoon I came back from school
and mom told me her monies were missing
and he was the only visitor to her room
waiting in the pretext of meeting me
but after a while leaving hurriedly.

He confessed and the money was recovered
but never again the breached trust.

The audience rose in ovation fingers clapping
my own frigid in remembrance
of another performance.

when i last met her
her ******* were bursting with seeds
her thighs plump as stems of plantain
and when in the December sun
she dried her hair behind the acacia
i dreamed of lying with her on the grass
drunk in the moaning song from her navel
till the evening drove us cold and old
and darkness stole her flesh from my eyes
and it's almost December again
as she walks with my hands in her
along the field after crop
just tugging my hand once to stop
delicately drawing from her breast
an Agfa snap of two unreal people
in the most unlikely place
looking awestruck into the lens
passing into the evening light
before leaving me halfway
of her cottage and a home.