AFTER ALEXANDRIA
What an agony not to wake up next to you.
Not to have fallen asleep with your head on my chest.
I made the bed quickly, as you did every day,
sheets that still smell of your hair and skin.
Your pillows, one that you took with you, take
with you everywhere, sandalwood...
The Removal of Sin in a World Without Sin
Turning once again toward the sea,
strong arms move my head
to look at the land instead,
a desert landscape beige, bland
sand the monotonous menu
for my eyes that have seen it all before.
Defiant, I turn to feast on the wild water,
currents pushing the shore...
THE MAGIC OF STILLNESS AND THE CHAOTIC
Some people, lost souls,
caught in the absurdity of noise,
create magical stillness
out of the chaotic
outwitting comprehension.
Other lost souls,
caught in the absurdity of silence,
create the chaotic
out of magical stillness
sidestepping incomprehension.
I, confused by both noise and silence,
adoring absurdity yet not knowing
which is more magical
or comprehensible,
stillness or...
On The Vasettha Sutta
Two Brahmins brought the Blessed One a dispute.
One argued, We were born pure into this caste.
The second claimed, Class is by virtue of actions.
Buddha, who often stayed silent, untouchable,
above such fray, discoursed in no uncertain terms:
Grasses or trees are distinct from birth, not man.
Still twenty-five hundred...
MOTHER COURAGE
I was not strong, rather meek and shy,
Saw my mother catching wind between palms,
Trying to hold me
while lighting the dusk lamp,
The mellow sun greeted her resilience, her bravery,
Stroking at the edge of her Bengal cotton sari,
Not knew,
the reason of sadness flooding her body.
Her voice then dropped to a...
My Guest
There is nothing more important than you, my guest
I will delay my sickness until you leave
And I will cover my sadness with a big smile
I will give my last bread to you and my hungry kids
Don’t worry—
I will fill my stomach with water
Come on in…
My house is full...
I PASS YOU AN EMPTY SKY
I just
love when
I pass you
an empty
sky
and you
spin it
then
hand me
back
a fistful
of stars.
ENTANGLEMENT 1
You reach through
this spiral of settling light
and touch
a drifting,
mislaid piece
of dust.
You lift it
and somewhere else
in time and space,
something in me
rises.
ENTANGLEMENT 2
On this ground I plant
a seed.
I lay by this mound
of peat moss and...
EMILY AS THE FIELD IS STILL A FIELD
Even if Emily is naked in the field
the worth of that dirt is determined
by the season. Though that
has never stopped me from referring
to her as the bloom, as the crop,
as the reason why all of Ohio’s two-lane
highways have been built. I know...
THE TRANSLATOR
You once contributed to a study. You said
what you took seemed superior to what you left behind.
You got the letter but never joined the team.
You put on a different costume, but you’re always a shaman.
You said you would storm the studio
and seize the local reality from the projectors.
You...
True Self
Nameless stands with his back to the wall.
Desperate grappling of an unsettled mind.
Piercing screams emitting from some lost place.
Unsure of any fate, real or imagined.
Looking past a vague blackness,
slowly filling an empty jar on the shelf.
Cardboard dreams crumbling,
while paint peels off in layers of obscurity.
A disease of doubt...
Checkmate
This is how it rains.
A cloudburst
when you laugh and compete
with the spattering droplets
and I
harvest a silence
in a pair of pretentious shades
tears have long muted
consoled and labelled.
Everything has a cure
but no one knows or recalls
what heals first
pain or time?
We possess disintegrated memories
petals, showers, ice pellets, leaves, dust, debris, gust, silence
scattered
in...
SCAR
The love byte is a frozen ripple
seeking the other shore
just as the curve
seeks the circle,
the curly hair seeks the halo
encircling the head.
May be because raw effort is
prettier than the outcome,
sun fondles the dark underbelly
of the forest, floods it with light
only for darkness to regrow
like waiting.
Humans remain banks with the
turbulence...