Something-like-a-poem About Something-like-love
When it was over, I just put them away.
The letters, the words – your twenty-six mix and match – in a box I called, ‘Favourites’.
When you remember you are lost,
Won’t you come look me up?
I’ll put you up; I’ll hook you up with who you were
(the who I adored).
The you I saved and kept for a day just like today.
You will find yourself there
still.
In ‘Favourites’.
* Art: Mistaken Identity by Ken Wong
I find you in the unlikeliest places
I find you in the unlikeliest spaces.
In my pockets, where the spare change you handed me, still jingles cheerfully.
Or, at dawn when the morning peeks out from the clouds and reminds me of the sunrise in your eyes.
And you are there in the folds of my laughter
Resting in the belly of my lids.
Sometimes, I find you in my silence
and my sorrow. My regrets are plenty but you are there too
Traced by the gnawing strum of a lonely mandolin
Or the haunting lament of the aria muffling in from next door.
I find you in the unlikeliest places.
Today I opened a book of poems and there you were
In between two hundred pages or more
You’ve found me, you said, I don’t know why you keep looking.
You hurt like brand new shoes
Today, something left.
‘Enough’, it muttered,
Got up,
And strode purposefully out of my life.
The things they told me
Oh, the things they tell you.
I was told to look on the brighter side.
I was told the heartbroken couldn’t get the heart broken.
I was told not to believe everything I was told.
Good Night Stories
Sleep close with me and dream deep
There are stories waiting to be told
Your eyelashes write upon my cheek
Songs that are yet uncomposed
Born of Fire
I dare not speak her name for fear that it may break
When sound collides with air.
The idea of her is the most resilient,
Yet most frail thing in my universe.
Herpetophobia
There is a lizard, I hear
That lives in the cupboard of definitions.
‘Leave it shut, then’.
I am destined to live a life without meaning.
Proof
The crevice of my ear still carries the hint of your breath,
shoulders bear the weight of bruising
Your grip is stencilled into flesh, yet
fingertips trace a trajectory of the spine with unbearable lightness
A forensic nightmare, my body the whistle-blower
of surrendered intimacies and forbidden trespasses
The feral scent of our lovemaking shrouds like a mist
Stray dogs follow me home
Two Invitations
Love beckons, bare-bosomed
Draped in lust-woven silks sutured with desire
She seduces my wants and weakens my will.
Sleep extends a plump arm of comfort
Drawing my weary frame into a rare embrace
I retreat into the dark cradle of her chest and make no sound.
The Unbearable Weight of All That Can Go Wrong
Gullible child who believed you were loved
It was an illusion; desperate self-deception
You deserve this disappointment. Welcome now your heartbreak.
Sensible, mature woman? You choose abandonment
And what after all, is there to love in you?
You carry the unbearable weight of all that can go wrong
It is only the truth.
It makes no excuse for its humbleness.
It offers no apology for its brutality
Accept your ugly body. Accept your immolated soul. Accept your weary heart.
Know that you have not been forsaken.
Loneliness will stay and shelter you in his unconditional hut.
Renaissance No More
Her name means ‘rebirth’, ‘resurrection’
She killed me, believing
She could bring me back to life.
She forgot, she was dead herself.
Don’t Go There
(she must be)
beautiful enough to remain anonymous
vs.
(i know i am)
foolish enough to ask for her name
Clearing.
I put away the things you use no longer
because you are here no longer.
I make space for your absence
and the void, still growing.
everything has begun to end
My phone doesn’t ring anymore.
I’d use it as a paperweight,
but even the air has stilled since you went away.
On waking post love
I am thinking of you and our wildly tender passion
Of how your eyes gleam in the morning sun
and shine
Of how your neck beckons
silently
I am thinking of you and our wildly tender passion
Of how your eyes gleam in the morning sun
and shine
Of how your neck beckons
silently
The new falling-in-love dictionary
‘When you say these things, the way you do, I want to run, grab the moment, live for one night
and then never wake up again.’
- R. B.
Stealing – one night together, away from mine and yours
Natural – fresh fruit shopping, my house keys in your pocket
Teeny-bopper-ish – hand-grazing-hand walks, shade-catching under the laburnum tree
Star-gazing – an excuse for our heads to touch
Kiss – a way of sharing a Jack & Coke
Gut – poured out on a webpage, amidst bits of html, in these lines
In your pocket
Keep me in your pocket tonight.
Now and again you may remember
to let your fingers slip inside and touch my breath,
rising to kiss the skin of your palm.
Like Breath
It is the smell of you.
The temperature behind your ear at 6.28am.
The scent of cookies wafting from a microscopic bakery
Nestled in the nape of your neck
Where my face lay nestled.
Perfectly unwanting; breathing you in.
Rendering you as indispensable as breath.
When I say I cannot live without you, it is this I mean.
My love, it is this.
The trouble of love
Intimacy, the turncoat.
Loving one moment, leaving the next.
Churning you inside, leaving you out.
Bangalore
September 2009
:)
‘It’s nice to see you smiling’, she said.
‘Thanks’, I said
While I thought,
‘I am not smiling. That is a colon with half a parentheses.’
No emotion is created with punctuation in misuse.
Get some perspective.
All things paper
-
From the lover, keeper, hoarder of pencils, I seek your skin.
Parchment upon which I may leave my mark.
In the hours and days, sunrises and sunsets, full moons and crescents,
this is really all I have by way of skin.But soon I will make my impression upon you.
Not with lead nor ink,
but with the colours that stain your body from my mouth,
from my hands, from my heart.
Love, Making II
there is sweat
that makes your hair damp and cling to your cheek
and turns your face turns pink and red
blood flushed
my wild, beautiful woman
your neck is speckled in plum coloured rosehips
from my mouth
and from where your shoulders now bear teeth marks
Nine months and counting
someone gave me a calendar today,
it is the last day of february.
it is two-thousand-and-seven.
before the year is out
‘i will be there’, you said
we have nine months.
enough time for a child to be born
and a life to take form.
or two.
is it enough time for you?
a possible explanation
i like to think i ran out of words when i ran into you
which might explain why
i don’t have much to put down anymore
don’t mistake these blank pages for sudden dumbness
or lack of ideas, or inspiration
i am finally living the life i always wrote about: i am living in love with you
i am telling you everything
which leaves so little for my typewriter
and everybody else.
