New n Old

 

Bring me no roses, however deep their red,

they bloom for a day, the next morning they droop,

don’t get me orchids in mauve and violet -

none of them are watertight nor weatherproof.

Plant me a night jasmine or a fig instead,

something with a longer arc, a wider sweep,

a deeper tale, not just a trivial vignette,

that will outlast us both and won’t be so brief.

Of course it's Valentine's Day, so I've been writing love poems. This one's an obvious response to roses are red... Apart from that, I've also been looking at the early V-Day posts on this blog. Here's one from Feb 2014, gosh that's 12 years back..

Loveweak I

did my love merit marks - commas, full stops

did it fuel business, make rhymes flow quicker

magic freedom into crystallised hope,

weekend loveshot irises, did it flicker

once in your blingflamed veins and quietly die?

or was it a recurring decimal

sung offkey though holy, strung through your “I”

candied on your tongue like a capital

pulped in your bone in the sponge of marrows?

it asked no marks from me, I can tell you

safely, nothing punctuation, no close

and no throat grabbing start, I never knew

 

what begun and if it’s finished with me yet

it gave no period at this close of sonnet

Well, I was certainly more experimental with my language then! However, the message is the same I find.  Underneath all that drama with no punctuation and portmanteau-ed, coined words. Some things don't change. 

Which one did you like better?  

A Worm's Perspective

 

IV.

If I had nine, and I was aware of that

number, exactly how many and their span -

I’d try some perspective, just like a cat.

I won’t do something just because I can.

I’ll leave the mountains to the mountaineers,

burrow deeper underground, try the dark,

for once stop equating light with crystal clear.

Try if the earth itself can strike the spark.

I’ll leave it to the birds - the clouds, the skies

and I’ll stick closer to the ground, as close

as the grass and the worm. Nothing king size

but the minutest I can curl to. My toes

crumbed by the soil, no flesh showing, not a hint.

And I’ll wait in all nine. For your footprints.

~^~*~^~

Last week, somewhere on my feed was this idea - love is the sure basis for a more equal, more just world. 

Universal love. The kind of love leaders, prophets and mystics speak about. Love thy enemy, because loving thy neighbour is no big deal after all, there's no virtue in loving what's familiar and therefore, not feared. Learning to love those we fear, now that's something that takes effort, application and discipline, we must get out of our own heads and get into their shoes - if successful, we're rewarded with a glimmer of understanding and compassion, even if we can't get to love. Love is the strongest force the world possesses. Love is a bridge to everything. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Every religion preaches it. Easily preached, near impossible to practice. 

But suppose, for the sake of argument, it were to become a reality, would it lead to social justice? Does love automatically lead to fairness? Are we always even handed with those we love?

And how do we hate the sin and love the sinner and be fair at the same time? The racists, the rapists, the paedophiles, the human traffickers, the swindlers, the gloating creators of unending human misery, the architects of monumental corporate frauds, the corrupt megalomaniac politicians who'll do anything, descend to the lowest level of remorseless dishonesty, to cling on to power - how is loving them going to bring about justice for the law-abiding, compassionate, open-minded citizenry, the non-toxic, non-haters who make up the quiet majority everywhere? 

I know this has strayed a bit from the kind of celebrations I had planned for this month over here, but still...I'm on topic even if somewhat at sea... 

More than I've cared to admit

 

 

It so turned out that love wasn’t a uniform rainbow
arched the same thickness over lands and oceans.
That was hard enough, but even harder to let go
the stereotypes of rigid, unbending notions.
It was difficult to find its ultra-violet edges,
the infra-red loving, all that’s invisible.
No smooth spectrum here, disjointed waves and ridges
and way out of earshot, just one whispered decibel.

 

It turned out that love wasn’t a rushing river
trilling down the mountainside with its chant
of what goes on, or doesn’t go on, forever.
It chose to dry up sometimes, nonchalant.
It was a shock at first, but more of a surprise
that even dehydrated it can hum a tune.
that it sings somehow, even though it dries,
or suddenly stops into a lake or lagoon.

 

II.

 

I’ve loved you more than I’ve cared to admit
too much loving is also a character flaw.
It’s all about moving and rapid transit
to love one world and then quickly withdraw,
little to do with ultra-violet and infra-red
banded into one single width of a rainbow
and listening for songs in a dried-up riverbed
and waiting for stagnant lake-waters to flow.

 

And I have loved you more than I’d like to write
in careful poems counting out the syllables
on parchment pages held up against dispersed light
read low in whispers of uncertain decibels.
I have loved you in this arid desert dawn
and seen the entire possible serrated bandwidth
without a drop of moisture. And where the sun has shone
down on the dry river bed from its zenith.

An old, old one from ten years ago, when the blog was in its infancy! Floated up and felt right so reposting. Back here on Wednesday for WEP. 

News from Nowhere III

You know, I stop sometimes at an unknown town

and every market place and every street,

the parking lots, the concrete ramps sloping down,

the face of every stranger I chance to meet,

the sudden lunge of a voice by a window,

the rising noise of an approaching bus,

its windshield gleaming, mirror worked leaf shadows –

they are all you, all of it's about us.

The lampposts blink in the dark – power’s out,

the stars too blink and gulp in unison,

a blind busker tap-taps to the roundabout.

And even though I’m far from the river mouth,

I’m still with you, and still with our horizons,

however far east or west, north or south.

As in most other years, I'm doing my own version of love poems to mark the month, though I'm not a big believer in V-day.  But I'm perfectly fine with anyone celebrating V-day, love and let love is the general policy around here. And who wants to argue about getting more chocolate, right? It's all good, whichever way it's celebrated. Love can run deep in an aquifer, or it can be a gushing hot spring, or a steady-serene, glassy surfaced lake. If you want to splash out, splash out, and if you want to be free, be free. 

To paraphrase another great - there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the beloved. Just keep the knees flexible. 

Happy Valentine's.

Write...Edit...Publish : Is love then so simple?

It's time for the first challenge of the Write...Edit...Publish blogfest for 2016, hosted by ubercool bloggers/authors Denise and Yolanda.  This month's prompt is naturally themed on Valentine's Day and celebrations of love.  I am back with some poetry and a...well, a rant, but don't worry, it's a mild one :)

~~~

If there is any form that positively leaps into my mind when anyone says 'love' it's got to be the sonnet. The sonnet is a fourteen line poem, a 'little song' that originated in 13th century Italy.  Over time it was adapted into English, and many English poets wrote sonnets using love as the theme, the most notable being Shakespeare, of course. A Western form that has been widely associated with love, its object, and its celebration, so it feels super-apt to use it here.

In sickness and in health

Years later, the day’s definitively spent

in illness, in cradling a vaguely odd grudge

quite certain this isn’t how it is meant

to be - festive boiling down to the sludge

of sickrooms and maladies and medicine.

Temples where love’s expressed now quiet, passive;

a travesty of differently fevered skin,

grubbier shades of meaning to live festive,

the usual flowers forgotten, left to droop;

the petals of the hours shredding, wasting.

There are offerings of silence and soup,

unremarked and consumed without tasting,

till a brief, lucid break when the fever lifts -

what if this version is also a gift?

Lost & Found Valentine's Edition

Today I am participating in the Lost & Found Valentine's Edition, a special blogging event inspired by a collaboration between Arlee Bird and Guilie Castillo-Oriard, co-hosted by Elizabeth Seckman, Yolanda Renee, Denise Covey and Alex J. Cavanaugh. 

The guidelines for participating in the event are:

Do you remember that special feeling of love found? And who hasn't experienced the emotional experience of love lost? Some of you might have even lost a love only to find that person later for another go around.

Tell your story about love lost or found in our special Valentine's blogfest.   Your post can be a short fiction, an essay, poetry, or even a song--let your imagination run free. Any genre is fair game, be it romance, historical fiction, memoir, or even science fiction. After all there are no limitations when it comes to love.

    

My post consists of a two part poem.  

Revisit

I.

The tobacco shop where you bought your first -

soft eighties music tinkles from somewhere,

but the rest’s changed, we’re not so well-versed

any more with the buildings in this square.