GALLERIES IN THE NIGHT
Abandoned by all kindly lights
To gnash their teeth
In penumbras of their own making,
What half-bitten talk
Peoples the dark galleries
Between masterpiece and masterpiece,
Restrained from lawless combat
By gilt-edged police
Or the garth of mortar?
The greatest allegories of art
Are secret journals kept
By that gossip Night
Whom no historian of art consults
As they...
Haiku
1
The flowers have bloomed
and the locusts devour
any sign of life.
2
Oily dressing with
the pit-marked spinach leaves on
my baby-blue plate.
3
A doe has died on
the searing blacktop. It still
continues to smile.
4
My gaze, downward, with
all the plastic faces here;
coffee stains shirt brown.
5
Break up in tiny
distinct pieces. Now, your heart
is not the same.
6
Please and...
Pinakbet
A dish I watched my grandma cook with
zest. I was six or seven.
Bitter gourd because I’m diabetic, my
yearns for sweets squash-yellow.
Canola oil sizzles, the air adorned with garlic
expressions, wafts of red onion.
Drizzles of black pepper, and I
wonder if this spice will let me live longer.
Eggplant will tell me if...
Sanctification
The pimples on my face
seem to have an identity
of their own.
As if, those are my sins
penalized to be worn.
However, they make me look
a graceful lesser mortal.
Thankfully unattractive
like Sycorax.
A rose infested by fungi.
Oddly, they seek a lot of attention:
Hormonal imbalance? A digestive disorder?
A passion pimple! A dispassionate cycle?
Innumerable diagnosis followed...
wisdom
fire burning to coals
poet looking past embers
seeing distant world
before existence of light
coming of god
untitled
poet on edge
meds not refilled
lost in black silence
static white noise
echoing around skull
deafening suffering soul
seriously considering
ways to kill himself
answer me
telephone without voice
no caller id
broken-hearted poet
wondering if ex-lover
quietly bagging
shrink
routine family counseling
necessary before divorce
doctor’s dark office
framed degrees on the...
The Widow’s Nights
“Days are not so bad.
My volunteer work.
Lunch with friends.
Gardening.
All of these fill the daytime hours.
But it is the nights—
they are so long, so very long.”
I don’t know how to respond.
We smile at each other in
a moment of silence.
Then, she adds, “If you have
any alterations you need done,
bring...
BLOOD
1
I see the blood
in hands of others
faces of others
smeared like fog
or smog,
I lift myself from clouds
a thin line wavers
as I walk into the existence
of blood
2
I ask questions
the voice is silent
asks questions
can you rape an eight
year old, six months
the voice is silent
of course, only at
the cost of blood
3
I saw a...
Tarmac Labyrinth
Have you ever forgotten a road
only to travel through it
years later?
The old smell of it coming back,
the same branches leaning towards
same shadows designing it
weaving nets
The same emptiness and
potholes.
Doesn’t it make you reminisce
about the things you passed?
Left behind?
Glanced at and Ignored?
If you haven’t tried to recollect
the stops you made...
The Final Draft
I've started living after my death!
I was killed
Some four years back—
Stabbed and drowned!
’Twas a shallow stream;
I quivered out,
(Ah! Blessed ghoul!)
Was yet again
Earth-bound
With the hope
Of new love
And assassins
For my carcass soul!
I've lived and died
Many times
In my secular half
And your non-religious (w)hole!
Faced umpteen deaths,
Say, in Mohenjodaro,
And in the Mayan...
Jalebi of Mani’s Shop
These semi-precious ornaments
Of liquid golden hue, they filled it with the sweet sap
Of sugar—the very outlook causes watering in mouth
That melts and crackles under the tongue and dissolves
A forgetful evening. Home-bound passengers from local trains,
As they return, all in a hurry like with a puff of...
The Touch
Last night I woke up
to a dream. Foam in the sea
trying to catch time
in myriad forms;
my limbs drenched in waves
my hands outstretched.
A dream touching
the timeless
Alone
The street lights greet me in benevolence
when I look at the night
with a watchman’s eye.
Traffic pauses to think
how busy the road is,
and I become...