The worst kiss.....and Happy Halloween!

He had stalked me for days. His lips were rubbery, too large, too wide open, hot-wet and slimy.  Gross didn’t begin to describe it.  He was taking his time too, as if he was wooing some swooning heroine in some crazy version of a Brontë romance.  The worst kiss ever. And his limbs were like bloody suckers, I pushed at him hard but he hung on like one of those tree-huggers. How could this be happening?  Why had I allowed it in the first place? I groped for the knife, found it and slashed upwards. He broke away with a repulsive sucking sound that made even my toenails curl. 

I sat up, my chest heaving, my heart beating a frantic tattoo against my ribs.  My head swam with a potent mix of emotions – disbelief. disgust, outrage, abject terror.  I shut my eyes and tried to get a grip.  When I opened them again, everything was quiet.  Moonlight came in through the blinds and lay in deep slices on the floor. I could see vague dark stains on the bedclothes, they were twisted around my torso in a python-coil.  The rest of the room was strangely and chillingly untouched by the upheavals I had just experienced - my clothes were still on the pegs, my books as I had left them on my desk.  Only Toddy had fallen out of the cubbyhole and lay spread-eagled on the papers. 

I untangled myself slowly from the snarled sheets.  Piled the pillows behind my back and half-lounged against them.  Not to sleep for the rest of the night felt like a sensible decision.

Parsing

It’s the same, yet different after decades,

the smell of aftershave, a fleck of foam

left on the mirror, and the sense of home

ebbs out as you leave, courage fades a few shades.

You’ll say nearness is nothing, I know you will;

once I had said it too, and could ignore

who came in and went out of my front door.

I could breathe a smell and smile and sit still.

And even as time blends and changes things -

love grows a deeper, richer underground seam,

I fidget a bit now in the slipstream

and I parse the patience in my feelings.

I once knew to be content with faint smells;

now I'm made breathless by distance, and farewells.

Write...Edit...Publish : Halloween Fearfest

Thinking back to childhood, long time ago now, I can’t remember any monsters…all very fuzzy…The only thing that I remember being seriously frightened of were masks - they gave me the heebie-jeebies.  The fright quotient tapered off as I grew up - I now have a corner with several of them. But I am still disturbed by the less literal masks I come across sometimes as an adult.  

Welcome to the Halloween Scarefest of Write...Edit...Publish, hosted by Denise Covey (who has just published her vampire novella! Congrats Denise!) and by murder-mystery writer Yolanda Renee.  Read the rules here and join in the Halloween fun!  We are talking about -

Maybe aubade

The night’s fine, and nothing can go wrong -

this cushion of time means comfort, means calm

the winding darkness itself its own psalm

through the valley, the shadows however long

are pushed back at the tip of your eyelashes;

at the steady pulse of your relaxed wrist;

your smile’s proof enough that worlds exist

in one fallen leaf; in shooting star flashes.

The day comes; light uncovers primal fears

bred into the bone of every moment;

the foam of calm ebbs out in one spent

tide, scoops out the solid resolve of years.

Stay please, let the darkness be the morning

light does not always enhance everything.

Mahalaya 2015

The temple gates are far, I cannot see

the goddess from where I stand, only feel

this slight coolness in the air; verdigris

on an old brass lamp; the usual spiel.

The grass’s gone to seed, different feathery

white or less than white, flowers too unknown

and admit it, what’s the temple really -

an idol raised in mud, slight scratch on stone.

Rivers skirt their banks in one sacred sweep,

skies, oceans swoop and swell in kingfisher blues;

far too many lives sold out far too cheap -

the goddess puts her arms to a modern use.

Dreams still come in conch-white and marigold;

but I dream no dreams, the centre does not hold.

It's the start of the festival season back home - happy Mahalaya, Navratri, and/or Durgapuja to you if you are celebrating.

Working late ...and not alone

The door behind her shuts with a loud bang,

disconnected with the force she employs.

A sinister draught eddies, unseen hands

move window louvres in a spasm of noise.

The office, drained of its usual talk,

the corridor emptied of its milling feet,

floats high above the ground. Peak traffic clots

in pinpricks of light in thin threads of streets.

From the ceiling lines of fluorescent tubes

size her up through hostile, slit cross-eyes;

the security’s left, except one small group

somewhere in the innards of the high-rise.

Is it her heels that strike too loud a note

or is it her heart that’s thudding in her throat?

Pour another one

The first leaf blows on the pavement.

The sun tilts a little in the sky.

An official makes a statement.

People sleeping in the open die.

Somewhere the heat’s still incandescent.

Deadly shells and grenades still fly.

A supplier firm eyes the net percent.

People at sea cross to drown and die.

The world is just one continent.

The razor wires are sharp and high.

The public elect their government.

People, breathless at borders, die.

Expandable

It has its own pockets in the backpack

and carries its stuff quite independent

of what you might want – the old cobbled lanes,

the bridge over the darkening blue-black

river at dusk; and petrichor; the ambient

shapes of trees weeping softly in the rains.

It’s one of those bags that unzips down its length

and expands to fit in all manner of things -

stuff you thought you’ll never need again:

a foreign square, the citizens out in strength;

the lilt of the azaan as it parts the evenings;

a public bath awash with laughing women.

Each departure is a rehearsal of sorts

for the final one with zero allowance;

you sort the stuff, prioritised, precise,

pack just the tent and its vital supports.

You shed things as you go in accordance

with the scriptures and what the wise advise.

Yet in some pocket of memory, or flesh

a small coin, some stubs of minor events

are overlooked and travel everywhere;

what you thought you shred tumbles out afresh

and the morning’s raw with what it represents

to trash it again is more than you can bear.

So you put it away again in some flap

where it won’t obtrude or escape meanwhile;

thrust it deep behind some or other task.

The minutes move in tiny tip-toed recaps

and your eyes are moist even as you smile,

but you say, “It’s nothing!” if someone asks.

Try it

You can.  Fall in love with anything -

a voice, a certain slant of phrase.

A dark velvet night-sky sequinned

with stars, the drape of galactic lace.

The calligraphy of dancing rains

on the fronds of the smallest fern leaf;

the gentle fingers of light on pines,

the clouds a chiffon handkerchief

ringed round the sliver of the moon.

A vagrant waterfall kicking

up pebbles and spray in the monsoons.

You can fall in love with anything.

Step lightly

Turn then to face your own light, so shadows

fall behind, and wherever the path goes

uphill, down, or peters out, stay the trail

even if the odd constellation fails,

even if the coppery moon never glows.

Paths and poetry both come to an end,

words fall and shatter, useless to pretend

otherwise, their edges sharp as broken stone.

Step lightly into yourself and go on,

turn up that wick that can’t be darkened.

Enough

Maybe it’s no longer about

watching coloured buntings flutter on

buildings, no more rushing out

and coming back to youthful haunts

speckled with scents of night jasmine,

fallen in the dark hours before dawn;

no more about where the trips begin

and where they end, which lines are drawn

and which left broken and blurred;

It’s enough that you are upon

this pebble-strewn path, anchored

by wind and earth and these watersongs.

Enough that it’s your hand just above

me, stretched out in silence and in love.



Back to being my usual mouse- and couch-  potato self and happy to be back :-) 

Write...Edit...Publish...August 2015 : Spectacular Settings

Happy to report that one of my favourite bloghops Write…Edit…Publish... is back again, hosted by Denise Covey and Yolanda Renee. Thank you, ladies, can't stop smiling! I am rather partial  – the prompts are thought-provoking, meaty, delightful, and stretch one's writing muscles in undreamt of ways. Oh, there are a million more reasons to love it :) This month’s comeback prompt is on Spectacular Settings, click the link to read the rules and join in. 

Shells

The laughter’s gone from this heart.

the lamplight’s gone from this home;

the threshold, the corners are dark,

the ones who’d lit it up depart

for cities from where no letters come;

for cities that no one returns from.

The water’s as tall as the crops -

the river’s too full of herself,

ear by ear the grain starts to rot,

the young scatter in search of jobs,

the old watch unable to help;

the lamp stands unlit on its shelf.

The fathers can keep their eyes dry

and keep their words clipped and brief;

but they pause far too much, they sigh,

and their lips suddenly pull awry;

the mothers are too bowed to weep

gone to places even beyond grief.

The water stands as high as the rice

the harvest has stopped in its tracks;

the lamp flickers once before it dies -

the light lays its head on the thighs

of the dark and the young men pack

for cities, and they don’t come back.

We’re become the shell of a house.

We’re become the shell of a loving.

See how our garments fall loose.

See how our proud heads are bowed.

Once here the bulbul used to sing,

she’s now fallen quiet, there’s nothing.