Nobody Gets the Poet Right

A hundred stanzas linger by the stem of a book –
poems converge to a little title, emboldened by texture.

The little boats dare not betray the bank –
the pull of the margin, a protection against
interpretation.

Letters, obliterated by the lamppost;
meanings, congruent to the light –

nobody gets the poet right.

A Ridiculous Place

Infinite reflection, a thing of the past; it has been long I fell into a mirror.
To tell you of how I have been avoiding the error,
I’ve painted them all noir.
Yes, I’ve coloured them black in French, a language I love to hear
but do not yet comprehend fully.

There are perils, of course. Like there’s no alarm that would wake my smile.
The sleeping snake, visible on my face, attracts questions.
The opacity about renders the space limited. So, I find myself
burning the window meshes, bringing in new holes for light –
a little, comfortable portion of the infinity without.

But of course, my house is not an acceptable aesthetic.
With the noir mirrors and the burnt windows,
with the opacity and paucity of space, and
the serpent, dead, on my face – love knows it isn’t invited,
friends call it a ridiculous place.

An Inverted Image

Ripples of plaster on the ceiling –
underneath a woman peeling
glossy paper off a difficult box.

Her gown, a blue bandage,
she tears at the tape, loses a nail
to the present. The ceiling gawks

at her helpless form, kneeling,
trying to unravel the future
of her past.

Holes I Drill

Poetry is the holes I drill into the walls
to hang a memory of
what I couldn’t sustain;
it is the invisible crutch 
that blesses me 
with invincible handicaps.

Poetry is a snowflake I chase –
I can neither ascribe
the tragedies of my life to destiny 
nor accept
any meaningful story that it weaves –
I chase the translucence 
that poetry offers, 
to ‘be’.

Spinning Webs with My Spit

I’ve danced on these staves all my life -
black bars that contain
my risings and falls, my being and not being. 
There’s no dearth of sounds
that drown 
my consciousness. 

Yet I go on 
spinning webs with my spit, 
verbing melodies 
that may trap someone
into a momentary timelessness.
I do not hope to achieve any better than this.
 

Who Were the Men?

Who were the men who planted her voice 
across their vast, brown, barren stories?

Scarlet, emerald and ink, her whispers -
smeared around the edges of nothing.

They told her that she’d been only a drum
they beat to feel the blood in their veins.

Who were the men who lit walls with her eyes,
and saw their houses come into being?

They bejewelled themselves wearing her hands -
who were the men who’d needed all the sheen?

She dwelled a persistent hum in their heads -
they belittled her, a God in their hymns.

The Bazaar

There exists a bazaar,
claiming pieces of you
I believed were mine.
I shiver at the edge of your laughter – 
this laughter that is a universe
you never invited me to. 

How the lights about you
could never warm me;
how the depth of my yearnings
never reached you.
My poems lingered waves
never seeming to crawl
onto all your head-banging. 

My meanings
only pretty from a distance – 
in love, I shrunk a shadow.
The light from the bazaar
kept sweeping me away from you.
And yet I have been waiting.