You and I

My blue jasmine blooms under the silent full moon light

Draping vettiver-velvet smells of the dark balmy night

Dense woods sway with gentle winds of the half-lost 

And stars compose lengthy love letters to the past 

You held my eyes in a shimmering soft-focus space 

Daylight dims my vision, you and I, where is that place? 

Unsaid Moonlight Musings

I gave something away on a silent balmy night

When the breeze stood still under moonlight 

Can you hear those words unheard, unsaid?

As when stars cross, they remain unsung, unwed?

A Short Story

A short story 

"Please I need your help"

He is all alone and the rain clouds have gathered

All the darkness of space will enter him again

It's been fifteen years and yet, darkened skies 

Pour all of the world's emptiness into his being

There is too much of "all" in what you are saying 

Nothing is as dramatic as you seem to imagine 

He has it all - kids, paid workshops, the works

If you want emptiness, welcome to my lonely flat 

Emptiness seeks its own, perhaps that's why I am here?

There is music left in life, as much for you as for him 

Hold his hand, I will splash blue water colors all over

He writes books full of empty lines, you dream in rhyme

And when he leaves, dear stranger, will you seek me again?

But in you, he will find me, his lost agony and pain

Words will flutter around his spirit like holy butterflies 

Hold his hand, fragrant forests will bloom in beauty

Sweet tingles, goosebumps, endless wait, all will live 

Why would he leave?

Sweetest muse, words trace edges of angst, of loss, 

As does the truest music and all is lost, if pain leaves

So leave he will, to find his muse 

For it is loss that creates, not possession 

And what of your empty rhymes, then?

Fine, will text him again 

Goodbye

And so here comes goodbye, sweetest dream, just so;
Far away from rain clouds, hearts and wombs, you go
Such a long journey, alone we must set on now
Here, take along, my sweet Sudama bundle, love
Parched grains of star dust sprinkled on our kiss,
Crusted rock candy memories of swirling bliss
For every palace that your destiny draws you into
There is in my bundle an all-forgetting-embrace,
I fear you will some lonely day find amiss
Until the dawn meets its dusk and asks for its due,
So long, farewell, goodbye, adieu

And yet

This world is not for us to win
And yet our stories beg to begin

Alas we hang not neatly on weeping walls 
Nor stay silent at Mountain dew falls 

Envy, ego, ecstasy churn alike in the basket of tin
And drench our souls in the neatness of sin

I know as well as you do that somewhere within
This world surely, is not for us to win

And yet

Chicken Soup for the Vegetarian

So many things to do: do your best,

Do that, do it so, not so fast, do not rest 

Smile, hide, pretend, confidence is a dress
Invest, buy a drink, flowers, bear-hug card- fuss

Read a book on the hoary ways of making out 
With a manual, why boats? Fly a plane, dig a moat

Books to win friends, books for the soul
Papers greased with greed for control

A leader negotiates, learn how to bargain,
And thou shalt be a leader too, learn the jargon,

Another sunrise, rain cloud, moonlit night to the mountain's south?
Lazy wind blown dandelions, full kisses on the mouth?

Join the dots in the reverse but keep running along,
Hard work pays off, grasshopper is plain wrong

To run is to arrive, stones can stand and stare, 
So many things to do, ease your through fare

Karma's Capricious Land

Hang on, hold on to hope's longhand

Smile your way into karma's capricious land 

Macaronic moral fables, these maddening mortal lies:

They claim you were born, once, mountains and oceans too

The universe they say was never here, who knew?

You live a day, you live a night, but seasons, years –

imperfect circles those-drawn in invisible tears

Of a blue planet counting it's aeons to null

Spinning to death, no moment too dull 

So I say, hold on to hope's longhand

Smile your way into karma's capricious land 

The heavens hold today secrets of your tomorrows and yesterdays

An arrowhead of crushed iron dispersed the blue god's haze

This hunter and his hunted is all but one, time;

He sang of love, death, rebirth and all within 

One tiny moment, your eyes held mine and therein 

I said, hold on to hope's longhand 

Smile your way into karma's capricious land 

The Ganges descending from your lips, these heavens,

Ah, such death I sought from nowhere but you

Tangerine layered in nectar, your embrace

My words swaying to your pulse, this dance

Ah, such life I craved from no one but you

Tiny tributes to eternity, our tumbled kisses

In them, I hold on to hope's longhand 

And smile my way into karma's capricious land 

Sullen Days

Clothes we throw with gay abandon 

Unabashed we stand in sweet tandem 

In the naked confines of an open sky

Two flames merge as you and I 

But when we text in our separate ways

"Please and thank you", what sullen days!

Cinque Terre

Each nerve, every cell, drops of unshed blood,
Eyes sinewed lips in an unformed tear flood

Soaked in wine, born afresh, these sacred mystic sites
Or colored bubbles? our Cinque Terre nights

We built laughter-fences around each other's hearts
And drove creepy love from saturnine fantasy arts

But I crawl yet again into your Cinque Terre loft
And ask for bubbles to be blown and to be lost

When sultry shadows of fresh rain clouds
splintered those Cinque Terre night shrouds

Promises never made, lessons never learnt
the ending of that which never began was burnt

Oh for all those leached colors, my Cinque Terre bubbles!

Calendars

Up there in the dark rain clouds

You laid nostalgia mattresses for us

We lay there speaking of dreams,

Dressed in silk, drenched in sweat

Clinging to dear life in each other's breath

Open skies laughed and poured

Cozy sheets, cushioned tantrums

All of me in all of you, and more

And yet we asked for just a little more

There are those that collect flowers,

dry them in treasured books

and on such a day laden with dreamy clouds, 

Run their fingertips along the contours

of solidified time, each other's arms;

And then there are those

who use their calenders

Miracles are not Magic, ask the White Angels

Faith creates miracles but who said anything about magic?
Is a poor woman's flight to Rome truly so tragic?

Gas leaks and great escapes, I forgive it all, that's love
I take in the dying and if they heal, it's the one above

But have you watched people die? So beautiful! Just try  
And all that's wrong in you, will heal thereby 

It's the end that truly matters, not means,
green papers have no sins, no dreams

Come guns or crime, love doesn't cease 
But abortions stand in between you and world peace

White angels have come, don't run
Poverty is god's love for you, my son

As for me, this Satan's cursed golden throne  
I bear the brunt of your sins, all alone

Again

A family on a sunlit shore

drenched golden in picture-perfect light

Peers out from a yellowed frame

full of needs, hopes and delight

Chivying out trails of angst and fright

I need your wings, need your flight, 

need those first rays of day light 

To go beyond blue mountain skies

silent strawberry fields

portraits of a crumbling church

and snitch from time's haggard palm

this needless holocaust, this untold remorse

I was alive. I lived. 

I was born again. I lived

And on a hundred sunlit shores,

chased those trails of angst and fright

But no photographs ever brought back

your wings for that one last flight

nor will there ever be another first light