RENDEZVOUS
poems no longer emerge
out of some verdant soil
like lilies reflexively
spreading their pink cheer
they don’t happen as they did
twisting out of a gnawing gut...
glow worms on the screen
shedding light in dark corners
words tapping themselves out
of their own accord
have lost their easy fluidity
stanched like blood from a wound
they want me to...
POTPOURRI
1.
The other day
When we became very political,
We flagged our posts;
After the sabbath,
We put hashtags
On our souls.
2.
We survived like tramlines in the city,
Some parts remained,
Some tracks gone,
Some lines forgotten,
Some kept like tradition.
3.
That plectrum which you held
Between your fingers
And with which you awakened
Fire and ice,
Found that under the mattress,
And you told...
In Pains
Like a mighty wind, it came
Infant memories of joy defamed
The punctured hearts on the slings
of torment catapulted to the strings
to sign the hymns of bitterness
Those heavy hearts in battered souls
Becoming numb to the pangs of death
Stealing the love of nature to their hub
Staring the ocean of forgetfulness never...
TO SEE
To see
as I see you,
through beetle eyes—
mosaic percussion
of hundred incarnations,
to see,
as I see you
through strange beetle eyes—
like
strange art
on cryptic flowers,
strange streaks
at strange places.
TO THINK
Like the one
who sits cowered
in the haunt
of the anticipated halt,
mind riveting
like a forced swing,
head synchronized
with the ejaculating bus,
the light of creatures
and things,
passing
in and out
as it...
Sandalwood
Some foundation, concealer
a little rouge
a subtle lipstick
her reflection disappoints
lines, hard earned, unwanted
her reflection smiles
it helps
She dusts and tidies
arranges
rearranges
old photographs
of ghosts
She lights a candle
sandalwood
she vacuums
and sweeps
she polishes
and primps
her home
herself
just in case
Two Scientists
I should be in work
instead, I sit in a Dublin café
tightly clutching a cup of tea
as if it might...
MOTHER COURAGE
I was not strong, rather meek and shy,
Saw my mother catching wind between palms,
Trying to hold me
while lighting the dusk lamp,
The mellow sun greeted her resilience, her bravery,
Stroking at the edge of her Bengal cotton sari,
Not knew,
the reason of sadness flooding her body.
Her voice then dropped to a...
Checkmate
This is how it rains.
A cloudburst
when you laugh and compete
with the spattering droplets
and I
harvest a silence
in a pair of pretentious shades
tears have long muted
consoled and labelled.
Everything has a cure
but no one knows or recalls
what heals first
pain or time?
We possess disintegrated memories
petals, showers, ice pellets, leaves, dust, debris, gust, silence
scattered
in...
BLACK IN GRAY AMERICA
(in memory of Sam Cornish)
You recalled a city of stinks:
the shabby breath of yellow teeth,
filthy socks on crusty feet,
blood-spill dried on the sidewalk.
The dirt-floor basement room
your mother tried to sweep clean
rustled all night as rodents
named and renamed you in dreams.
The sorry carcass of Baltimore
coughed up feverish...
True Self
Nameless stands with his back to the wall.
Desperate grappling of an unsettled mind.
Piercing screams emitting from some lost place.
Unsure of any fate, real or imagined.
Looking past a vague blackness,
slowly filling an empty jar on the shelf.
Cardboard dreams crumbling,
while paint peels off in layers of obscurity.
A disease of doubt...
The Removal of Sin in a World Without Sin
Turning once again toward the sea,
strong arms move my head
to look at the land instead,
a desert landscape beige, bland
sand the monotonous menu
for my eyes that have seen it all before.
Defiant, I turn to feast on the wild water,
currents pushing the shore...
I PASS YOU AN EMPTY SKY
I just
love when
I pass you
an empty
sky
and you
spin it
then
hand me
back
a fistful
of stars.
ENTANGLEMENT 1
You reach through
this spiral of settling light
and touch
a drifting,
mislaid piece
of dust.
You lift it
and somewhere else
in time and space,
something in me
rises.
ENTANGLEMENT 2
On this ground I plant
a seed.
I lay by this mound
of peat moss and...