Friday 31 August 2012

Tritina on the broken road


Two halves of a road rarely make a whole
I’m used by now to stick to left or right
it doesn’t matter where they split or meet
 
don’t tell me now the laws of wrong and right
the moon’s congealed, it’s too late to meet
and again make my broken things whole
 
and even all that’s perfect does not meet
each norm for being pure and whole
the moon’s full just once a month by right
 
It’s not whole, but the road's right; whether or not we meet.
 
 


For : Form for all@dVerse

Wanted to use this prompt here, but as usual got in too late. Story of my life! Borg de Nobel.

Thursday 30 August 2012

Nothing pinned




In one flick I let it go
like a knife-thrower at a circus
and it strikes home
trembling at its place
beside your face
but nothing is pinned
it leaves you free
to walk away

 

Did I tell you
my foremothers
were hewers of wood
and tillers of land?
they had nothing to do
with throws of sharp edged knives
at love or life.
Or poetry.




How then have I wandered
into this marquee
in sequinned
leotards, you and me?
distorted blood in my veins
knife in hand, between my teeth
cutting silver arcs
in the air and nothing pinned.



For OPL@dVerse

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Lovers' Cove Challenge #4


 
It's that time again! Time to head on over to apd-loverscove.blogspot.com, otherwise known as Lovers' Cove and take part in this week's challenge! Please read the Guidelines and Q's & A's thoroughly before entering! In short, you must come up with a line of 15 words or less and your line must continue on in thought based on what the previous person on the linky wrote!

 

Andy

"Behold! I am renewed again, for the spirit of love has descended upon my heart!"

  

Crystal

"Years, I've wandered aimlessly through the midst of the shadows trying to elude the dark."

 
Elen

"Darkness isn’t always so dark becomes hope when our imagination wants to look for a light."

 
Radwa

"A light that has been trying to find its sight through such darkness night."
 
 

Kriti
"This darkness becomes me, I am but the light of our shadow that quivers."

 
 
Eclipse

"Yearning for a flight towards the dream, away from the claws of fear."
 

Lubaina

"And I rise, rise towards destiny till what the heart wants seems so near."

 
My line
"Yea, and  so I rise, wearing this darkness that’s also light, like sapphires beyond price."

 

Monday 27 August 2012

Not eternal, but still sure


Whether you are here, or somewhere remote
love doesn’t spare distances a single thought
when you are here, and when you are far
I am who I am, you are who you are

 

I’ve known that somehow, without knowing anything
though days are frittered misunderstanding
the connections between us, but it’s always true
that I am still me and you are still you 

 

Love isn’t frail and it doesn’t waver
whether we’re apart or we’re together
I claim nothing about eternal, but of this I’m sure
I know who I am, and I know who you are.

 

It’s just that these eyes as they get old
well up a little quicker as you cross the threshold.

Friday 24 August 2012

RFW Challenge 43: Romantic Picnic


 
The night’s starry and fine
Let’s not waste our hours indoors
I’ll lift your mood with mine

 

Wouldn’t you prefer to dine
On the leaf-layered forest floor?
The night’s starry and fine

 

Bread and a bottle of wine
Under canopies of sycamore
I’ll lift your mood with mine

 

The learned poets opine
True lovers need nothing more
The night’s starry and fine

 

There’ll be firefly designs
And moon-shadows to explore
I’ll lift your mood with mine

 

Let our laughter combine
And forget your troubles sore
The night’s starry and fine
I’ll lift your mood with mine



This is my first submission to Romantic Friday Writers.

Monday 20 August 2012

The back lanes of grief


Let us go back then, along the footbridge from stranger,
wider roads where the dented single-decker buses
sag with the weight of droopy passengers
breathe out a long sigh and move on. A street urchin washes
some indeterminate materials at the tube well
maybe they were once clothes, no-one can tell
what they are now, sudden onrushes
of winds? exhausts? makes them swell
out in grey and khaki. Messy romances
start and end by the wayside in sudden flashes.



Let us see if we can somehow recover
the same tracks of miracles and mistakes
though a million feet have trampled them over –
the tea-beakers shattered into terracotta flakes
mixed in now with the muddy rainmade brooks
flowing fast and surreptitious in the nooks
of the kerb and the road. But retakes
are rare.  All loving is messy if one looks
close enough, and associated heartaches
need not end though there are gaps and breaks.



The evening closes over the city and us
like the parted waters of the sea come together and close
after the gods have churned them for poisonous
swills and immortality elixirs.  The wind blows
a streamer of scorched smells from the welding workshop
over our heads. We are compelled to stop
at all the places of our past waiting in rows
to be made over into the future. The stars drop
into their spaces overhead, a bus comes and goes
without us dangling from its bony elbows. 



We’ve spent the first mists before darkness
in walking fairgrounds beside the strangely wide road -
the grasses creep up, the clots of people get less
the odd jobber wraps up his mask and electrode
the lampposts switch their lights on in one sweep.
Come now my love, along the back lanes of grief
stories may get messy but must be given what is owed -
an ending, a disclosure, and an unshaken belief
that mistakes too are precious, equally hallowed;
that its gold may be thin but will not corrode.


Linked to : Blog hop Saturday

Sunday 12 August 2012

Missing you


Where are you? I sorely miss the poetry
of your presence, though it’s nothing iambic
and I miss the flick
and flash of your tools, the free
flow words, the offhand trick
of slow turning thoughts, the silence slick
with them, flooding into me.



My days are the vast bare plains
when the bright small spots of the tourist balloons
have floated above them and then left, afternoons
of ancient tombs, honeycombed terrains,
exhausted birdcalls losing their tunes
and a lone heron pacing out flamingo lagoons
among flocks of indifferent standstill cranes.

Saturday 4 August 2012

Closet




The shutter creaks open, peeled paint
flakes into a crude mask of a grimace
brows knitted together in some faint
puzzlement, at any rate a close enough likeness

Why should it take so long to clear cupboards
of diaries and dresses and shoes someone wore
of post-it scraps, scrawled numbers and words
stuck on the back of a wooden door

Why does it take so long to return?
Why do hands pause at the drawer?
before making a bent key finally turn
this last time and then no more, no more

the shutter creaks shut, the sound high and thin
the flakes of paint fall gently. Clods on coffins.