Summer Time Love

I adored you in Amsterdam
The summer sun burning my cheeks
As I sat languid on the sidewalk and watched you
Count gable beside gable on cobbled streets
And when the evening was split by neon lights
We held hands and laughed at jaded whores behind window fronts
And peeked into sex shops and hash bars crammed with decadent crowds
It isn’t such a lonely planet you sighed.

In Paris I felt posh and invincible by your side
As you decoded French metro lines and sortie signs
Only to abandon Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin for a cafe by the Notre Dame
And we shrugged at the serpentine queues at the Louvre and strolled by the Sienne
Where we picked cheap Parisian prints and drank red wine
That went straight to my head as I smiled, mon cheri you are mine.

On the train to Vienna we practiced German from a pocket guide
You said Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch,
Yes my beautiful I replied
By Stephensplatz when the evening turned to gold
We shared happy stories, strudels and a million thoughts untold
My traveling spirit enveloped a city sublime; my curious soul resounded
every serendipitous find with you by my side

I love you everywhere I discover happily
But most of all I love you by the back door under the creaking tree

Blueprints and Strangers

You walked into my blueprint she mused
Invited, yet unannounced
Now days are measured by
Sweet interludes
Of rambling thoughts in gentle hues
where the equinox did not go unnoticed; and the haiku was not left unsaid
As she shared reckless pixels of an intensity repossessed
And serendipity once forgotten now gently filled her head

The Painter

In the trembling gold of the morning, the painter

Sought impressions of idle sky

Above halcyon meadow slashed with burnt red earth

And pale lotuses reflected in smooth glassy pool

He layered his canvas with tumultuous prussian blues

And when his precious landscape was done

He soaked his brushes and gazed at it but once

Then like the rest he shrouded it in black

Heart heavy, fingers stained, his watery eyes downcast

 

He painted fat ladies with plump arms and dimpled knees

Wrapped in red velvet, eyes hooded with coquetry

Deft strokes smoothing abundant curves without delight

As they sat brazenly for a masterpiece in gilded frame

Petulant lips swollen with crimson stain

And when the portraits were mounted on burnished walls

They clapped their soft hands, gasped and cried

The painter nodded and in his beguiling heart he sighed

 

He turned to surreal world of his masters’ fame

Trapping sullied forms in depths of muted pain

Illusions darker than the ones that lived in his head

Tubes of black pigment violently with purple met

To create ten-foot high visions in which he mocked himself

Yet, in cafes along the river they celebrated this glorious artist reborn

He doffed his cap, scratched his beard and remained sullenly withdrawn

 

Ten years slipped by, his genius he gave to the world

They bid millions of pounds to own a piece of his exalted soul

In galleries like temples they revered his work and life

Museums vied to own his disused inkwell and hog hair brushes alike

They framed his postcards; pinned frayed letters inside fragile glass cases

Trapped him in timelines and printed his fat ladies on ceramic vases

A decade later on a golden trembling morning he died; a gentle recluse

After waiting a lifetime for his beloved, elusive muse

Seasons

It’s a gentle sun that slants
On the oleander we planted last spring
When the hard road claimed your soul again
And I begged you to stay
Until pink blossoms hang from every branch
Smiling as we sip our wine under turquoise sky
And make gentle conversations about other people’s lives

 

Summer breeze came and you surfed the attic
Dusted old shoes and aired your jackets
Wait I said, the lilies are almost here

Straight rows of giant blossoms
Lining the crooked steps to our door
Dancing in tall vases, eavesdropping on our morning misgivings
As you brew the coffee and I make the toast

 

Monsoons brought an ache to your heart
It belongs to the dry plains you cried
When thunder echoed and purple lightning split the black sky
You sulked like a spoiled child
Give me four and a quarter weeks I implored
For the flaming frangipani will take your breath away
When the rain pauses and the garden drips wet
I will pour sweet jasmine tea from our best china set

 

Autumn glided in unnoticed
Long evenings uninterrupted by smooth silences
Newspapers full of grey headlines that bled
You flipped channels; remote, restless in your head
Pausing to say you just had to step away
While I watched for the fire red gulmohur

to burst into splendor and hold you still

 

As we slowly revolved around the sun
And you tilted further on our axis of life
Winter came and the hibiscus sighed
The giant lily and desert rose died
I walked down crooked steps and held your hand
My winter scarf the only color in our garden of love
I said goodbye and wished you well

In The Afternoon

Sometimes a new friend invites me to explore

his mind

In a room full of old newspapers and coffee cups

stained with time

Asymmetric forms glint in white light; colours clash and clang

On muffled speakers Billy shouts piano man

 

He smiles as if to say here

take my thought

Turn it in your mind

Add, subtract, divide and make it sublime

Catch my words, flip them around;

Resonate with your sweet harmony divine

 

I gaze at purple shades,

Tap my boots and sink into my chair

A silken discovery of a languorous afternoon

beyond care

Sweeping Sorrow

Caught in relentless dance of your will against mine

Endless years roll by fragmented by sullen space and wounded time

Your reticence thrown careless like discarded shoes

on polished floor

Reflecting our lives in future wearily unsure

 

Like strangers we drift in and out

Of rooms that mist and fog in clouds of seething doubt

A haze so heavy; 

visions blur in lingering anxiety

Walls like fortresses of a cowardly king; 

queen gets all, gets nothing

 

I come to you for answers, you come to my bed

Comfort in neither, prayers a long time shed

Face the world duty tightly bound; my existence a 

mileu of discordant sound

that traps tiny voices dancing in my numbed soul

Drowning your silence in contempt untold

 

Demons claim my yesterday, today and tomorrow

Our lives plunge in sweeping sorrow

Fragile

Weft and warp within the tapestry

of our existence

Composed carelessly yet knotted

without illusion

Unfettered weave hold spaces

that explored

your fears, joys, demented soul

 

 

I held my own amid your callous equations

In a world alien to my gentle heart;

While you chose mistakes, guided by

treacherous rules that tore

my sensibilities apart

Didn’t let yourself go, didn’t hear my simple words

But now you want to become more

And inner solitude shatter

Unstilled thoughts scatter

Distilled awareness bring

reason to its knees

 

 

Oh friend, why do you insist

on gleaning sweet daydreams

From armoured shell resist

Seek heavy words troubled to describe

Sullen passion conflicting to hide

Confront unreal world through my hooded eyes

Mock insincere denial in disguise

Cross thresholds that kept us sane

From dancing naked in the twilight when tides wane

 

 

Turn, turn again

Sweet sensibility

Turn, turn again

Fragile identity

Rope in the invisible boundary

Reign in words that set the heart free

Wanderlust

 

Black top race closely behind

White lines ahead chewed;

Spit out miles

Old thoughts hide under bold new sky

Renew faded colors in reverberant light

 

Signboards overhead

Gently transform breath, expand heart sublime

Strange places swallowed and left behind

Jaded mind like byroads breaks free

From yesterday’s promises, tomorrow’s mystery

To find a new self

Elsewhere go I

To rekindle an old lost love inside

 

Tremble and quiver in the wake of air displaced

Solemn milestones gather

moss counting miles traced

Giant windmills tower, arms embrace

Stillness of land, tremulous heart with grace

 

Turn upon turn, mile into mile

This is who I am

This is where I want to be

Borrowing new life,

Endeavoring to seek

Wanderlust never rest inside of me

Happy Discontent

Hooded eyes breathe smiles

infused with languid sighs

Spaces filled with exquisite abandon;

Crunched two thousand miles

Mouth half open

Eyes half closed

Earth disconnected,

madness take control, abandonment take soul

 

For all that she became was made by him

Synapses zapping synapses; reconstructed mind within

Willingness magnified,

Addicted to please

Exploring herself through his decadence

The dynamics of existence trapping release

 

She laughed his laugh

Stole his thought

Consumed herself with ardor fraught

 

Crests of high, waves of low

Joyous yet languishing emotional tides sing

In happy discontent

Detoxification

Purged sounds

Yet silent notes crash 

Through the head;

Recycled

out of emptiness

 

Purged still life

Yet reflections burn imprints

When eyes wide shut

Negatives

Dancing in dark spaces

 

Purged verses

Yet echoes ring untrue

Drumming rhythms

Of intense words

in muted conversations

 

Purged sweet lust

Yet senses reel backwards

And forwards

In stubborn illusion

 

Purged, never cleansed

Purged, never free

This detoxification is not for me