Blossoms
I’ll tear words from the cityscape
And send them to you a thousand coffee joints away.
Words that hang on the tram wires..
Like crows sitting on fences..
Words which drop like mercury,
From the microphones of an
Early morning Azaan.
Words, which lurk in the dark alleys
Where respectable men visit
After twilight crawls in like thieves.
Words bearing the burden
Of what I never said,
Like wrinkles carrying memories within.
Words which whisper in the cracks
Of old buildings..
And waste themselves like poems in crumpled sheets..
And when they reach you
So many miles away,
And soil and despoil themselves
At your door..
Tend to them..give them the warmth
And the comfort of that blue sweater of yours.
They’ll blossom..
Like the memories of old friends..
And the perfume of an old song..
The Aubade
Black waterfall on your snow-capped neck
Long white arms
Measuring my love last night.
My tongue that gauged the inches on your body,
And colonised your breasts with love.
The morning coffee has kept me awake,
Your kisses last night,
Kept me alive.
Between those white sheets,
Our black souls found new maps.
Your giggles ran across the room,
And street lamps trickled in
The curtains.
Little by little your soul lay bare,
Then your body.
When I unhooked your past,
Your tears
And then your bra.
My fingers like little feet
Crawling slowly to school,
Traced your body.
The valleys, the hills
The untended gardens
And let loose the
Disheveled storm cloud of your hair.
As the morning went to the tea stalls
And the city brushed its teeth.
Helter, Skelter
The words scurry across the page,
Like rats deserting a ship
I run after them,
I know only a handful I need,
Only a few, to give shape to you.
How at sunrise I think of you,
How at twilight you are still with me.
How at midnight you giggle,
Asking me not to hang about your words.
Only a few would be enough,
And yet, they slip off the margins
like sand through fingers.
Finally, I find them gasping,
Near the kitchen sink,
Pleading to let them be.
For they confess,
They are too weak to paint,
How at sunrise I still think of you.
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