MALLI

Do you remember the rusting railing

We used to lean upon

As the western sky

Dissolved in burning gold

While the rest was spread out in darkness?

We leaned upon the railing,

That the cement seemed unable to hold,

Looking at cars,

Some with two headlights,

The others half blind,

Creating a game then and there

Of guessing which one was father’s.

The cars were just travelling funneled lights.

Were we waiting for him

Or for the sweets he brought?

Of course he would always say

He forgot to bring them

And then after taking his pleasure

From our quiet disappointments

He would reveal the surprise

And we would love him again.

I like to think you won those games.

I don’t remember the face I saw

Last year. Your straight hair

And sudden pouts are always

A surprise to me.

I cannot erase

Your laughing child’s eyes

And brown curly hair

That we used to make fun of.

Sometimes I regret

And wonder if I am the reason

For the loss of those curls,

The brown’s blackening,

The sudden denial to play.

I remember your funny monkey dance

That you mastered

Every time we sang in gibberish.

When you started growing up

Mother said the dance became vulgar.

Growing up has been painful for us.

I would like to meet again

The sad snowman we made together

From the little snow

That winter. He disappeared overnight.

Life was so short.

I don’t remember if it was you or I

Who shouted for me or you

When it started snowing.

As we looked up

Snow was the color of sky

And on our gloves

Snow and rain.

It was a disappointment really

But we have lied to ourselves

To have our house covered in snow.

That winter I realised that snowballs hurt.

I still remember the bright green

Of your frock

And its shiny smoothness.

Was it your favorite?

Because I saw it last night

Twirling and twirling

Against the haziness of memory

Worn by a little girl’s silhouette

That was yours once

Twirling and twirling against the haziness of memory.

The 4 and the 5

Lay us on the operating table.
Take a scalpel
and make a neat incision.
Open the cut wide
and wider,
till it becomes a wound,
till you map all
our veins, arteries and feelings.
Rationalise our irrationalities.
Notice the heart beat quicken
and slow down,
'Without reason', you might say.
And in your careful patience and precision
the heart might stop altogether
and with it all this world.
And our lingering selves
scatter,
like the flutter of birds
after a gunshot,
groping for redemption.
But you'll still be there
Under the blinding light -
a silhouette of dreams
and of fears -
contemplating,
with a detached air,
the general nature of death.

Sleeping Together

As you lay asleep
and awake
to my carelessly careful
groping in the dark,
I journeyed
across your body
in search of your heart.

When at last
my palm felt the deep tremor
of life,
I could not distinguish
your heartbeat
from the nervous throbbings
of my own desires.

lovebirds

I remember the two,
While the two of us
On one tiny bed,
Squeaking with every small thrust,
Lay half asleep
From night’s sleeplessness.
They were looking to nest,
As the summer heat
Had found its way down
Into their loins,
And wanted to house
Their union.

Virginia

When you pressed your head

to the ground

thick with the falling of leaves,

the mourning of roses,

yellow as if

unmindful of the hours,

you stared death in the eye

searching in sad depths

of the sparrow’s eyes

and in its eyes

your reflection.

Mother knits a sweater

Mother knits a sweater
For daughter
But the mall has cashmere.

The spider spins a web
For insects
By the open window.

- june 2008

Bodhgaya

On those fields,

Now distant fields,

Of green and meandering veins

Following footsteps of Buddha,

Differently coloured, shaped

Beads of men and women

Tied to a string of a story

Across a horizon of monasteries,

In that moment

Walked silently,

Leading once and following often

Between sudden bursts

Of conversation and laughter,

To see a red butterfly

Floating

Into a blue grey wind

Of winter.

...

He entered with sun laden hair, this creature, a god perhaps from a distant mythology to change mine. He entered like a golden spear of the golden sun piercing the bark of my skin to reveal a warm softness, once familiar. And I strained my eyes to defend myself against this luminous happening to take it slowly step by step. Light by light. And this constriction etched on my pale face, this tremor on my ageing stillness, he understood it as contemplation contemplating surrender. Although it was cumbersome, this alien light in my anesthetic dark, his charm was such that I was a moth given wings whose flight is meaningful only when death is certain in the scorching blindness of a flame. He entered with his stories to fill the hollow of my solitude to reveal my indigence concealed in the dark. He lived by me borrowing my sceptre, ruling the vacuous longing of my beings. He walked about lifting grains of sand, long settled, and when he wished plunged into the stillness of my lake that had not know a ripple since I can remember And with his body, sculpted with an old man's hands and years, he raised storms from its depths.

But upon the third waning of the moon, the great silver bird roared in the heavens beckoning his return. And he left. How could I, a creature of the dark, love the light? And yet I did, allowing him to enter the mouth of my cave, allowing him to plunder my quiet.

And now even solitude is unfamiliar.

In the depths of the lake, he came to give birth to a monster that now surfaces from the waters in search of its father. It escapes into the light, but it is a monster. Its home is in the dark with me. And so, the creatures of light will hunt him down and I shall be in mourning.

Of Longing

I

In this town
People die around 10 o’clock.

The sky is vast
With a swelling nothing
Between earth and heaven,

A gravedigger wanders
For voices,

Inside tombs
Ghosts recollect life
In whispers.

II

I penetrate this night
Into unending streets

Lit by lamps lighting
Shadow; a throbbing orb
Entrapping me

From another;
Widening shadows in between,

There,
In night’s deepest slumber
A star flickered.

The Invasion

When you brought the outsider 
To the quiet of this hill, 
His loud mannerisms 
And his erudite conversations 
Drowned the nightingale song 
And the sky was suffused with the flutter of wings 
In diaspora. 

With heavy steps 
He walks now 
Ascending 
The summit of our secret 
Where a flower grows - 
A wildflower 
Among the wilderness, 
A dull flower 
Wet with dew, 
A pallid white spot 
Among the green, 
A nameless flower 
Ashamed now 
Of being there - 
A native embarrassment 
Under a foreign gaze, 
It quietly broods. 
It is to be uprooted now 
Or will it be trampled upon? 

And as the sun settles 
In the heart of the sky, 
The monkey 
Swings from branch 
To branch 
Escaping the poacher's gun. 
A shot, 
Lightning, 
An unheard thunder 
In this quietness. 
And this fear is unknown 
And this fear is deep 
And settles 
Under the stones 
Of running streams. 
The ape, 
Misses a branch now, 
Comes crashing down. 
Crimson blossoms 
Are gently shed. 

The sky, 
Now drenched in blood, 
Is a memory 
Of what has been 
As a crow laments, 
Somewhere, 
At regular intervals, 
Lost in thought. 
A bee still lingers 
In the scent of a flower, 
Humming a tune 
In drunkenness 
Oblivious that night is near. 
And the flower 
Folds its petals close 
In an embrace 
As a cold breeze gently 
Ruffles its bare limbs. 

Night has seeped in 
Slowly, secretly, 
In the throat of a frog now, 
Now in the murmur of streams. 

And as I sojourn here 
In this last tranquility, 
Floating with fireflies, 
Now bright, now dim, 
Now dimmer, 
I see the blinding approach 
Of a torchlight. 
___

Allusion

I write love poems

because I’m selfish.

I give you flesh

in broken words and phrases

so in the white spaces

I might possess you.

I capture you between words

and sentences laying you down

in lines.

I place a comma

so you might breathe

and come to life

for me.

I place a full-stop

now here, now there,

almost carelessly,

so you might cease

and listen

to me.

I give you thoughts

in words and words from thoughts

so you might agree.

I give you a face

in a verse.

I make you smile

or perhaps flood you

in a trail of letters

swimming down your cheek

to believe

they are yours to give.

(But if I dare be honest,

they are only mine.)

Two symmetrical phrases

slide down to become hands

as I caress them

under the sharpness of my pen;

they come alive

in slow dancing movements

to form an embrace

in a complete sentence.

I wish to give you wings...

But then I’d better not.

I write love poems

because I’m selfish.

so that I might possess you

and grant you the gift of eternity.

But within the folds

of my pages

you will be lost one day,

to be smudged

burnt and buried.

You too!

You intangible one.

Yet I have sat down to conjure

lifeless words,

sentences, verses, scattering

commas and full-stops

across barren sheets

to resurrect you;

so that I can play God

and grant you justice

for your indifference

and hate.

I write love poems

so that you might love

me.