Happiness - A Poem

The number of times we met
Doesn’t even get past the fingers of one hand
But the happiness inside me
Lingers like a toothache
I fill in between blanks with it
And when that fades
I take out the memory of it
Like a old faded photograph
And that makes me ache all over again
With happiness

The taste of Nothing - A Poem

the day lingers
in my mouth
as i lick the night

nothing happened
to make it so delcious

yet
the day lingers
in my nostrils
as i sip a dream

and wonder
how nothing can taste
so sweet

Stitches - A Poem

I thought I was done.
Through.
I thought I had stitched up
The mocking, yawning mouth of the question
“Will you, do you, when will you…”
With long, tight, hard irrevocable stitches
That said
Never
I thought I was ready
Packed
To take the train
Out of you
When suddenly,
I tripped
On something
That burst the stitches open
And spilled me back into that yaw….

Green Tea - a poem

He, she
Between them
A dark green sea
A bitter brew
Of what grew
Out of seeds of words
That were never meant to be silent

A Butterfly in Waiting

Night
I lie softly curled
In my mosquito-net cocoon
Watching
The shaman-witch wind
Weaving a shadow play
With the light from the street lamp
And the leaves of the parijata tree
On my soft cobwebbed walls

It’s an enthralling tale
Sung, not told
In voices that only I hear
Of how it will be
To have gaily painted wings
To flit and float
And sip from
Flowers
More gaily painted than me
And bask in the fame
Of a million delighted gasps,
“Oh, look, how pretty!”

I watch and listen
Enthralled

And think how much
I like it here
Close to the ground
After all, when I fall,
How far down will it be?
I like the way
It smells here
Of known darkness
I like that I am still
A possibility, a promise
Not a pretty fulfillment
Flying to my death

You could say
I’m not ready to be a butterfly
Just yet…

What if you said you loved me....

What if you said you loved me….
Reciprocating
Ache for ache
Measuring your longing
Against mine
Sigh for sigh

What if you said you loved me….

What would I do for dreams
Day and night
What would slip under my eyelids
Open and shut
And fill my soulscape
With the 70 mm, Technicolor impossibility
Of you and me?

What if you said you loved me….

Would it pall

If I had on call
Your arms to wrap around
And lose myself in that urgent tenderness
Your face to nuzzle
Any leftover nook that your arms overlooked?

If I had on tap
The taste of you to dreamily lick off my lips
And savor in some vacant reverie
Your head to fill
My lap?

What if you said you loved me

Would I tire,
No more desire
To claim you in every public place
With my eyes, my thigh
Proprietarily ranged so warm, so close
Against yours?

Would it be a bore
To know that you adore
Crave
Rave
Yearn
Burn
Hunger
Hanker

After, for me

Just the way,
(Will you say?)
I am
Was
Ever will be

Hangnails, varicose veins and all

For the way
(Will you say?)
my skin spills, satin
over my shoulders
And disappears to some undisclosed destination
That you
Crave
Rave
Yearn
Burn
Hunger
Hanker

To find…..

What if you said you loved me?

What if then
When
We reach Happily After
And have sipped the welcome gin
Settled in
Walked hand in hand
Over the indulgent, insouciant sand
Traced the rest of our lives
On each others’ bodies, breaths,

What then?
What would we do for afters….

24 hours

The seconds coagulate
Into a minute
The minutes dissolve
In the pool of an hour,
The hours are raindrops
Of a cloud - day
Who sidles up to her lover - night
They embarce and lose themselves in each other
To become the night sky
Dusted over with the pearl grey powder
Of the same clouds
Night and day
In which the hours ripple
In which the minutes dissolve
In whom the seconds stick
And then come unstuck
To swim in the sea
Under my eyelids...