To Those Who Walk Away
When you walk away
you become
ineluctably long,
like the longing, shadowing
the heart only to dissipate and merge, become
one
with the setting sun, throwing up dark.
When in memory
you live as good as youth
only to die and fade like the greys
of falling hair or debris of shooting stars. Now up
and front, in the dawn
of a day you re-appear
nothing
like the forbidden rose among thorns
or the ivy blossoms
with fragrant yearns, you are also nothing
like the blazing sky flashing
a future
nor like the buzzing bees slaving
for love’s labours from a past. Even
the birds think
better than to sing their song
with the echo
of your name, not even on you the present
blame. Now up
and front, I see the mark of your masque
only in the thin line of a scar
like some weeds on sand
starved and routed,
after a season of drought.
Good Things
Now when good things happen
I sit, just where I am, for a long time think
on the cause or the result, of the things
made severe. I go out for a walk
wondering if I can carry them along
or if they will walk with me on their own
or follow me if they want me so bad; I return
to check if they are still around as sweet
as I left them, or if they have turned sour
like spoilt milk. When I sleep, I dare
to dream lest they betray me
with a nightmare; when I cook
I am not sure if they would eat with me
or eat me; and if we taste any different
from left over stale meals; sometimes
I measure, how long it was I had asked
them over and why pride makes
for unwanted guests; and now that I have
no tables left, I don’t know
where or whether to seat them
on chairs made of bad things, and if
they would still remain good things? I finally
decide to write them out to charity hoping
someone will make them their good things
because I see — that times go by for all things.
Angels
If angels were not merely white, gold and silver
you would see them
every day perched over the parapets, abutments, trellises, like medals
hoisted over street light poles, along railings and roofs in despair
awaiting impending fall, like men on death beds grateful
for the touch of God. You would see them picking
that grain you left out before the rot showed, they would appear
as divers flapping into the dive or as holy dippers
reclaiming the Ganges in the clay bowl of your charity. You would see
them swinging over cloth lines soiling the laundry, yet never
shoo them away. You would fear
to put them in cages lest you meet the same fate
of imprisonment; you would remember each day, every moment
of your life and maintain
a diary of your transgressions. You would marvel
at the greatness of their smallness and think of why and how you are
mere human, your big brain the residue while theirs the seed
of regeneration. It is why you don’t see them
because they are everywhere; it is why
you think they are nowhere.
Be That One
Shed grudges like dead skin
off your back
pumice lust to shine the self-love, wax
the unwanted hair of your armpits if only it
removes the odours of an age-loss, bad breath
can only be treated by a big burp — remember
to loosen the wind of regrets
captive in your gut, keep your eyes wide open,
you are still a child
her crimes beyond bars. Sing,
dance, love your faults, sin, swirl, savour
your quirks. Be the woman that talks loud
to your thoughts, gives you rage to cut down
cages, grants you wants for locked up arms,
weaves your dreams where she bursts
through walls, shoots across space like meteors
bedazzling the dark nights
of the infinite patriarchal sky, be the star
that eclipses the chauvinist sun.
Age
In the sweet silence of the morn
when only the cuckoo calls, the thrush
sings for the mate’s ears, thinking no one
is near, none is yet risen, even the air
is inert, not a leaf breathes, not a foamy bit
of a cloud drifts,
with the sky in wait, while the earth
ruminates, the warmth of the sun grows
slow,
surreptitious, insidious, sly like death,
creeping close
in the guise of a new day, in a sprout
of a hair grey.
Proof of Being Alive
At times you taste poison
no more bitter-black than the orange-sweet love
from deceit
cut yourself with glass-mirror shards,
betrayal sparkling silver in Fibonacci dream-
flow —
out the sour-vomit blood-lust of incubus.
In between you need to sniff
the earthy-brown smell
of kerosene on your satiny skin
remind yourself of your fiery evanescence,
you touch
the hot girdle to grasp your crispy-salted bone,
whip yourself blue and scrapped
crimson with chilli regrets,
pinch your nose and dive breathless
in insipid grey guilt,
fill your heart with buttery ocean-slime
make it the bed then the grave
until you extract that rainbow taste
from the self, a guarantee called
pain — Q.E.D.
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