Knotted

Knotted since I swam out corded
  My touch, my smell, my feel, my taste
My companion, vision, shadow
 Heart breaker, healer, shaman!


I break each time you touch
I don't mend if you don't
Bound, gagged, slave or mistress
I hate yet crave you, O life

Death is larger than life

Death is larger than life
An ache, the bigger hurt
Quiet, the louder sound

A face turned away, eyes shut
Heart cold. My acceptance
The deadlier severance



June 2013

Phool aye hain

Rishton pe khizaan aa bhi chuki
Faasle, duuri, adawat hai bassi hui
Ab na hasrat hai aur na zaroorat
Baat kab ki khatam ho bhi chuki

Par jis paidh se ik bharri ru't mein
Tum ne mujh pe phool thay barsaye
Hai wahin aaj bhi woh aur ru't hai wahi
Phool ayain hain, barse nahi abhi


April 2013

Sometimes a memory climbs out

As sometimes happens, a memory
climbs out; sits down, hugs you tight

Of rain that patters and whispers
Of home, of the sun like second skin

And I am 11; life shines
All is right with the world



April 2013

Hoopoe calling

The London sun dripping ice.
Winds cold with a fervid bite.
Days dark, hazy nights darker still.
Smoke and mirrors. Front page.

Summer afternoons, bare feet on grass.
Hot 'Pindi sun beating down on a thin lass.
In the lawn reigns a mourning Cypress, so apt.
Hoopoe calling. Marigolds shining. My back page.

For Nyx and Chione‏

Would not have Nyx and Chione
wished too for love, light and joy
For doesn't darkness forebode sadness
as does cold; death and loneliness

Yet out of night births day, brightness
And dreams, love's pleasures, friendship
The cold bearing one who initiates into
after-life mysteries; makes songs, music

Still, even goddesses and nymphs succumb.
They yield, conform and in loneliness; spawn strife,
pain, death. The other, one who prophesies,
holding tight to deference, the social moral order

On Wings Perfumed‏

The Greeks would
scent the wings of doves
send them high flying above
fragrance scattered, air perfumed

I, too breathe you
out in scented breath
swirls infused and fecund
with you and with I

Not just for me now
do you here remain
For all of heavens above
and earth, we imbue, as one

No, I am not yours, not I
nor you mine ever or now
But of the heavens above
and earth; released you and I