Pillow Talk

-What was her girlfriend’s name?
--‘Sue’
-Who?

These fingers travel yonder onto skin and flesh
In the crevice of your lung and kidney
Between the hip and the lowest rib
Sweet ripples of sensation: it tickles --
I know.
In the way your nose begins to crinkle
At the brow –
Creases of your velvet skin folded into one another
Skittle away from my grip
Just when I nip from the fruit of joy –
Wasted nectar trickling down your throat
Tonsils to jugular vein – a honey dipped thorax.
Mesh flesh to flesh
and skin to skin:
The bubble gum of
sugar will hold it all together --
A jungle of limbs:
hands, feet, arms, legs, elbows, knees.
Our very own little
cemetery of human remains
Shredded bodies – naked to the bone
Muscles flexed,
tendons tightened, veins pumped,
The rhythmic whistle
of a single heart beat.
We lay it to rest on
a feathered pillow
Where multicolored
nightingales waddle – scrambling to revolve
This shrine we built – a Mecca of memories.
The warm burn and the cool release of sizzling sweat
As bubbling beads scurry
from your forehead
Diving into the pool
of cotton --
To the music of
bustling bed sheets
A city of white noise – and we trample
The hustling birds beneath our soaking human samples.
So the Church bells tinkle away
As night passes into day – a golden crust of light appears
The red ring of flame placed on a mantel
This space is ample --
We’ll bury the dead and give birth anew
To our sorrow, hope, love, lust, anger, revenge, happiness:
As time sidles away
From the tight grasp
of your small hand
I’ll swindle fate and
trick destiny
Into believing – if I
belong anywhere, I belong here.

You break free from
my arms and onto cold marble.

As I skip back and
forth -- jumping from dream to reality
Floating in the
middle: Your stomach to my chest --
My head to your chest
And nose buried in
the sticky scent of your neck
Traced with saliva
A noose of kisses
Then you stroke the
puddle of my love –

Skin stretched
against skin:
Teeth
Chin
Cheeks
It tickles: I know.
When you smile, I
can’t help but follow suit.

Rintrah

Like a volcano of emotion expressed in a song,
The movement emulates urgency
And the relapses of muscular mechanism fall into a dance.
This heart skips too many beats to count.

So I sing of songs in silence,
To the hum of my breath as my legs break into a run.
Far into the abyss of my past,
These kisses prolong, but the first I will never forget.

Like water, my skin swam into pores,
A perfect fit; the crevice of my distant body as it
lingered,
And a child-like innocence returned,
As I willed to be reborn.

I remember the yearning in my abdomen,
For the forsaken memory of a love so distant,
And when I see the music flow in you,
It reminds me of the babe who played with broken toys on the
pavement

A splash of wave took her tiny jewels away,
She picked flowers to be her friends and trees to be magical
escapades.

I smile only to pretend to be content
A feeling I cannot share with the world
For without sorrow,
Who are we?

And without love,
Who am I?

Questo Amore!

I am made of glass.
I speak with reflection
I walk with care
I do not dare break
Into a billion little pieces.

I am made of crass metal sheen.
I listen with inane attention
To every word you throw away
I do not dare solute
Into a million little pieces.

I am made of apples and cinnamon
I taste like jam; like spices
This pull of gravity weighs me
towards roots
I do not dare fall
And break into a thousand little pieces.

I am made of salt
I act with deliberate gestures of
coarseness
This bitterness is only a
fleeting flaw
I do not dare dissolve
And break into a hundred little pieces.

I am made of water
I am only as fickle as my
thoughts
This wave of emotion will subside
I do not dare burst
Into a ten little pieces.

I am made of Earth
This clay porcelain came of heat
and combustion
This anger is the only source of
my heartbeat
I do not dare melt
Into one little piece.

That is you.

That is clear. Opaque. But. Clear.

Song: For Virginia

Jugular vein.

It throbs in my jugular vein.

‘Leave me.’

It hurts where my blood flows.

Like sharp needles piercing through my life support.

Bum dum. Bum deed um dum.

The rhythm of your existence, I cannot sleep anymore.

Without the music of your heartbeat.

The Mumbo Jumbo. Drum drumming drummed in my ears as I lay on your chest.

Thinking of days when I was younger.

Politer. Kinder. Perhaps, happier.

Days of yesteryears. When I was still a dreamer.

Counting the spaces between us. Singing in silence of the unsaid.

Miscalculated misconceptions.

The unspeakable. The unworthy of being said.

Always.

Wondering where you were, there, near me; as I went yonder into familiarity.

Grounds I left to venture into the unknown.

The forgotten desire to know more than need be.

‘What are you thinking?’

Rhetorical questions, I beg you to answer.

Well aware that you were far beyond my reach.

Convulsing in silence.

Meditating upon your own private mysteries.

Yet.

I plead and plead.

Just to feel your limbs vibrate as the sounds that keep our joints moist rush through your mouth.

My skin prickles.

I’m happy.

I’m happy, when I’m silent with you.

Unprecedented.

Lucky me.

I thought for a day or two.

‘I want you to just leave me.’

Alone.

I was alone for too long.

I’ve been alone for too long.

Silent without you for too long to know better than to say anything at all.

Too long.

I’ve been silent for too long to know what to say anymore.

‘I like you.’

Tremble. Shiver. Quiver.

Please.

Talk, voices, words.

They ruin us.

You. Me. Us.

‘I just need you to leave.’

It pricked into my skin.

The unwarranted need to kiss.

I floated above ground for a second.

But, I’m human. More or less.

Things I’ve done. Truth be told.

Demon like almost.

I’m still human.

More or less.

Fix it.

I can fix it.

‘Nothing to fix.’

Nothing.

I have nothing left to offer.

Don’t you hear the emptiness rumbling inside me?

‘I watched you sleeping, twitching, grinding your teeth.’

I twitch because I cannot forget.

I grind my teeth in vain for the lost.

Nightmares.

Sounds. I make sounds with my organs. Crying for the comfort of having something to promise.

The luxury of something to give to someone you want to hold.

I will not forget.

The day my organs broke into smithereens and became liquid instead.

I can still fix it.

How my jugular vein throbbed.

How the rhythm vanquished.

Bum dum. Bum deed um dum.

The Mumbo Jumbo. My heartbeat slowly disappeared into the void.

Smoldering slowly, painfully inside it's own hollow cavity.

I heard the throbbing.

When the light from within me evaporated. Dissolving into the people around me.

Bullet holes. Smoke rings.

I have time.

I can fix it.

I was brave. Once. I was invincible.

I was the kid with a leather satchel bag stuffed with stolen beer cans.

I jumped roof top to roof top.

Rambling senseless prophesies as they looked.

Drunk on youth and pride. Once, I was foolish enough to be truly alive.

I yelled, screamed and kicked, ‘I will change the world.’

The child in me avenged, ‘I will change this world.’

Fickle promises were howled at the moon, ‘I will change this world, before it ever changes me.’

I was brave. Once, long ago, I was alive.

You would have liked me. Better. I was better.

‘You’re not good for me.’

It wouldn’t have hurt me.

I could have fixed it.

‘I don't want you around.’

Hope.

I could have fixed it with hope.

Drum, drumming, drummed as I lay listening to hope die.

The day I lost my innocence.

Absence

I held onto a wet railing,

For I used to be afraid of falling

Meshing into the sublime cools of the gushing water

As bubbles of air leaked onto the surface

Rinsed foam collected at the bottom

From where I stood

Everything was clear.

Parts of me are crippled,

These legs became inept from walking,

Towards the place where we smoked high hues.

Together behind the school campus

My arms were disabled from holding

Onto your weight

For life,

I held onto you for life.

Dear, dear life.

I found you in the hollows of this perpendicular sphere,

Running away from all that was near.

You survived with three stitches above your left knee

When you fell towards the black hole

Attempting motionless symmetry,

I kissed those lovely ears,

As your lips moved to spell existential philosophy

In part I listened.

Some I remember,

The songs you sang when we sat on green grass

And you cradled my head in your lap.

I remember some.

Most I forgot.

But if I ever see you again,

It will all come back to me.

Song: To Celia

Come, my Celia, let us prove,

While we can, the sports of love;

Time will not be ours forever;

He at length our good will sever.

Spend not then his gifts in vain.

Suns that set may rise again;

But if once we lose this light,

’Tis with us perpetual night.

Why should we defer our joys?

Fame and rumor are but toys.

Cannot we delude the eyes

Of a few poor household spies,

Or his easier ears beguile,

So removèd by our wile?

’Tis no sin love’s fruit to steal;

But the sweet thefts to reveal,

To be taken, to be seen,

These have crimes accounted been.

--Ben Jonson--

Flirtation

After all, there’s no need

to say anything

at first. An orange, peeled

and quartered, flares

like a tulip on a wedgewood plate

Anything can happen.

Outside the sun

has rolled up her rugs

and night strewn salt

across the sky. My heart

is humming a tune

I haven’t heard in years!

Quiet’s cool flesh—

let’s sniff and eat it.

There are ways

to make of the moment

a topiary

so the pleasure’s in

walking through.

--Rita Dove--

Sonnet 40

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet love knows it is a greater grief

To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.

Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.

--William Shakespeare--

My Lover Gave Me Green Leaves

My lover gave me green leaves

with the mud of the garden on them,

radishes sharp and red,

nasturtium flames.

He gave me the tender heart

of a cabbage, its glossy coat,

a loaf of bread studded deep with seeds.

He gave me the note the blackbird

I’d cried at the blackness of by the river sang.

He gave me the struck fire of the thoughts

in his mind—flint on flint.

He gave me the taste,

direct on his tongue,

of the syllables their embers did not destroy.

He gave me his word,

the word of an Adam—a promise,

should he set eyes on the sun.

He gave me a drop of the dew to hold.

To see my face in it.

To look through.

He gave me, in the chrisomed palm

of his empty hand—a gasp of joy.

--Josephine Dickinson--

Buying the Whore

You are the roast beef I have purchased
and I stuff you with my very own onion.

You are a boat I have rented by the hour
and I steer you with my rage until you run aground.

You are a glass that I have paid to shatter
and I swallow the pieces down with my spit.

You are the grate I warm my trembling hands on,
searing the flesh until it’s nice and juicy.

You stink like my Mama under your bra
and I vomit into your hand like a jackpot
its cold hard quarters.

--Anne Sexton--

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow
of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went
down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn
all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

--Langston Hughes--

I Am.

I'm the enchanted forest without the magical tree. I'm the flying saucer in an alien land. The sanitary pad in a nun's lap. The rabid dog in the quarantined zone. The tattered rag on an urchin's face. The saliva stuck to the cheesecake. The childhood bicycle lying in the shed. The stringless guitar under the bed. The doodlings on the torn pages of the high school journal. The flat tyre on the beach trip. The jagged rock that makes you bleed. The crab bite that makes you cringe. The clear water than makes you see. Things you cannot be. I'm the anomaly in an alternate reality. Blessed with divine symmetry and anthropomorthic inanities. The empty bottle of champagne. The mute shouts of a dying soldier. The metallic hulk of a defunct submarine lying in a junkyard. The silhouetted vampire hunting criminals in the dark. The swiveling bottle of Cuty Sark. The detectable sperm in the dung pile. The doomed worker in a coal mine. As much barbiturate as amphetemine. I'm Vishnu and Shiva combined. The politicized ferociousness of a Moulvi gone asinine. The red cheek of a slapped school-child. The bleeding nose of the thrashed wife. The glow of a toddler's smile. Within me, Oedipus and Electra combined. The ceaseless maternal fretting that drives sons wild. Fatherly nonchalance that makes you deprived. The malicious pettiness of the political giants. All this and more. I am. I continue to be.

--Hussain Dada--

When I Am Not There

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glimpse of snow
I am the sunlight on a ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn's rain
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there
I did not die.

--Desperate Housewives--

The wound on my leg reminds me of a vagina

In justification of the subject designated to this particularly uneventful message:

How the bleeding wound and the velvet skin ripped open into a perfect V, reminded me of an oyster shell. As the white pulp seeped through the mouth, tiny drops of diamond reminded me of a lone woman masturbating in her dead husband’s bed. I used a cotton ball to dab the blood which stained my white shorts and left a mistresses’ lipstick marks through the transparent skin of cloth. A seductive smile. A crimson tainted smile. The blood collected into an eyeball and I saw the reflection of a woman in labor. The pink walls of her innards expanding to let the passage of life flow within her, from her, through her. The pain quivered in my bones, much like the casual touch of the woman you love, the side glance of a friend you once kissed in the school yard, the laugh of a father who belittles your every achievement, the nonchalance of the mother who betrayed your innocence, and much like the lies you told as a child which eventually ate away your soul.

It’s funny how everything we are and everything we will be is only a mirage of everything we hoped to be.

Hence the resemblance. Do you see it?

Sometimes

In the contours of my heart
I weep ink droplets of tears
And smear these tiny booklets of sorrow
I write in hopes for you to hear
The wit, the satire, the humor, the vanity
These words which compromise my very grains of sanity
Sometimes I wonder; if love has finally taken its toll on reality.

In the crisp winter nights
My hollow cries shatter glass domains
For I tend to bestow cruelty galore
To those you lure
Into the compound festivity of your heart’s desire
Never have I had the chance to hear
These wordless dreams you sing with eyes glistening in fear
Sometimes I wonder; if love has finally taken its toll on my lover’s tears.

In the dewy afternoons of autumn
I dream of endless possibilities
To inflict countless brutalities
On this forsaken mass of flesh
Crimson, violet, ringlets of appearing blush
How I pretend to suffer in my aching insomnia
All the pain and bruises I bear are for my nymphomania
Cure me somehow,
For I live as I dream…alone…
Sometimes I wonder; if love has finally taken its toll on these lone bones.

In the shadows of my fleeting grace
I wish to lament my fawning self through these blood-stained traces
Just to take a peep into the bedroom
Where you undress so patiently, so carelessly,
Take you by surprise, for these kaleidoscopes of time
Have turned my skin into bits and pieces of lime
If the Virgin Mary be so kind,
I shall slip my tongue into your mouth, kiss you on the sly
And whisper secrets into the bowels of your spirit
Only to hang myself inside out
In the wooden crate, seven feet below this heaving earth
Alas! For this life, shall matter least to me, from that day forth

Sometimes…

Because I know, that love has finally taken its toll on me and so much more.

Doth I Protest

Look into the ball of time
How it circles in a rhythm of ecstasy?
I wonder, if there is any symmetry
In the little eye I see whirling beside me
Two large eyes, blue, green,
Staring into the void,
Undressing me in the silence of all this turmoil
Wear me low, abuse me slow,
Polaroid curses, black tattoos of sorrow

Mark me too…
Love me too…

Look into the ball of crime
How it sins in the camisoles of disgrace?
I sit to wonder, if there is anymore left to lose
In the soft meshes of these linen lies
Two pleasures eating away at my soul, guilt, vanity,
Copulating in the reeking shadows of this brothel
Kiss me with your teeth, buried into the layers of my many skins
Make me bleed some more, bruise me brighter,
Seductive cuts, purple bends of regret

Fuck me too…
Don’t leave me too…

Fables for One

The best strawberry I ever ate was a garnish.
It spread inside my mouth
like a little lie,
molars doing their best
truth, truth, truth
while the juices crept sugary into the crevices
where I store my words.

The sweet accessory
stuck itself to my vocabulary
my red becoming redder
and reddest,
the only red.

Later, I was touching names,
and licking my fingers,
poking around in my teeth for adjectives,
wanting to tell you
how I spent my day alone,
but finding only the same other
surrounding every crown,
the taste in my mouth all like tiny seeds.

It was true
what I said about the strawberry
but I spread it like a little lie.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Beware

Beware of all the pretty faces that you find
A pretty face can hide an evil mind
Ah, be careful of what you say
Or you'll just give yourself away.

Beware of all the kind words you hear
A kind word can veil spite to tear
Ah, be careful of what you don’t say
Or you’ll just lose yourself to another pompous tale.

Beware of all your secret lovers
A forlorn lover will never find comfort in closure
Ah, be careful of those you love
Or you’ll just forsake yourself like this fleeting dove.

Beware of all the past you find today
A memory you disintegrated to keep at bay
Ah, be careful of the lies you disclose
Or you’ll just disappear into the reflection of your own monstrosity up close.

Beware…

Odds are slim; perhaps, you will never live to see tomorrow.

A Glass of Wine

Raise ti's only a glass of wine
Drink to the corpse of your wallowing youth
Every child must bear the crimes of it's time
For it is only deemed fit for us all to mime
The living and the dead alike

Drink to the courage you muster for a morrow you shall sow
The conjugal responsibilities you belie
The self you must tie
In the broken mire of your collapsing body and soul
For no man has ever foretold,
The secrets of a young heart so bold

Drink to the life you owe.
A syndrome of heartache you coax
Day in, day out
Come hither, kiss me slow.
Pace the pavements of holy landscapes
In myths and fibs you were told as a warrior
Not so long ago.

Oh little one!
How we drink and drink some more for the solace we wish to score
Lovers and demons, begin to resemble one and the other
Long before we know, the short-sightedness of our heart's core

Happiness

Godliness

Goodness

Holiness

Ah! Drink to the utopia you and I yearn to partake
On this lowly pilgrims quest
Lest you decide to forsake me in the shadows of my distress
Fuss, I shall
But none the less
I will soothe my soul and parade the aisle in my wedding dress
For I have already begun to see
El Dorado in the silhouette of my maiden’s nest

Alas! I will drink, for ti's only wine.