Firestone

I remember the first time I wrote you a poem,

You thanked me as if I had given you a bouquet
to be placed by your bedside for two days
until it wasn't impolite to throw it away.

I remember being hurt as an artist and not a lover,
because your eyes held proof of our love on days
when my words weren't tender enough
to coax you out of your hiding places.

I remember your messenger-pigeons
and everything you said touched me without warmth,
I wondered whether your heart held flame
that lost itself on the long way to your lips.

I remember showing you all I never became,
I was the foolish bird that plucked stars
and while I lamented not having the Sun,
you taught me to search in darkness.

I remember telling myself with pride,
"This woman is fire that survives storms,
I must carry her like a Moon,
and if the skies refuse to give her room,
there is space enough in my chest."

I remember how I fell in love with you --
it was when I stopped writing couplets
of a fair maiden who stole my heart,
See, you are sorrow that teaches strength,
you are the stone that ignites hearts
until they stop sighing for home,
they lick the sky with fondness
enough to burn all the cold in their blood.

I fell in love with a firestone.
Gods above, I fell in love with a firestone!
and there is nothing left to burn,
I am an effigy that roams the world
with phoenix songs of long lost sparks,
I die, I live, I die.

Image Source: Delawer Omar

Cold Amidst Light

Your silences ask "Why do you bother?",
We talk about the fire in black skies
that steal your peace on open eyes,
I weave long lost memories in jokes,
open bottled laughter, vintage and musty,
and invite you to break bread with me,
I tell you how silly your misery is,
that problems are made of sterner stuff,
I drown your excuses in my darkness,
show them my demons, let you touch them
until all my sharp edges prickle you again,
your fingers are blushing with my living,
Do you remember descending into me,
your softness brushing all my dead,
all my forgetting, all my unforgetting?
You were the promise of beauty
that made grief out of emptiness,
My dear, you are blackness and you fill voids
like you were born to possess them,
dress everything in meaning,
teach the broken heart the fear of losing again
when everything is lost,
"because nothing is ever lost,
nothing will ever be lost",
you told me that when I couldn't see
the price of my peace was paid in dreams,
you walked over them and made black clouds,
it rained all night and all morning
and even as I drowned, you told me to swim,
told me to find strength that defies storms,
you told me to befriend demons.

I know the fire in the sky scares you
but that is the color of hope, my pretty,
and I will teach you to look at it
until you laugh the way you used to,
You will hold my hand,
and we will be cold amidst light,
Our cold will be the color of the night,
Our cold will be the color of moonlight.

Source: http://carts.deviantart.com/art/Depression-60274662

Evening Skies

I look at you the way I look at evening skies,
Awestruck at the beauty that never wanes,
with a violent urge to hold everything still,
press thick paper against liquid purples --
the darkness comes too early every time,
and every time I stand out in the open,
until the night closes itself around me,
That is how I learnt vulnerability,
when I did not understand Time well enough
to wait for mornings and their soft reds.

Reignition

No red-lettered date marks
the national holiday on which I will step outside my house of cards
built with razor-sharp memories,
But I trust that day to come.
And then I will not think twice of its random collapsing on my flesh,
Of being buried under metal edges,
Of losing old skin.

I will have sewn myself together
And made a backpack of every patch you kissed,
I will stuff all doubts in it, carry it without choice,
and search for broken people that have reconstructed themselves.
I will scout for love so hot
that it burns your hands just once
I worry that the scar-tissue on my fingers refuses to understand warmth again.
I will look for brazen gamblers
Who can cajole me into investing my life's savings into untapped opportunities
after having slept on streets
through cold nights.
I worry I have become a miser.
I will dig their backyards with tired hands and find skeletons we can bond over,
Ignoring the smell of your gardens beneath my fingernails.
I will trust the pepper in their lies
The way I did yours
when all your footsteps were the correct direction.
I will crush the chalk in their bones and draw on their living-room walls
Until the misery of our experiments with other people
Become the preface to better stories,
I will add your name to a blank page
And be grateful for being the flint
That taught me ignition.

Image Source: Delawer Omar

Innocence

I see my unbroken self in children,

their eyes are forever tied to the world
and they will look at the sky with glory
they allot to the ground in the same breath,
their freedom hasn't learnt the biases
that instruction carries in its structures,
But the brain of a child is a fickle thing,
it knows to err without reproach,
the face does not know to fear itself
and therefore does not wear masks,
it will be years until its learning in sighs
and delicate praise and copper smiles,
and then many years to earn the right
to wear the nakedness that challenges
the world and its artifices to find God
in its innocence worn with deep cuts.

Schoolday Morning

Waking up to Mondays was cold feet
on the marble floors of an old home,
my eyes locked as if morning would burn
the innocence I wrapped in my blanket last night,
my eyes locked until cold feet were warm
under hot water amenable to philosophy
best suited to the space of an empty mind.

Dressing up was an exercise in lassitude,
my red shirt was hypnosis made cloth,
and the steam over my tea was poetry unrealized
in the rush of a monsoon schoolday --
my mother's voice has turned sweeter
since the years she drove my punctuality.

The weight of geography dug into my shoulders
and if I would've known Atlas, I would've smiled,
but I simply stared up at the Ashoka trees
and the blotches of indigo fading behind,
I knew only to look upward in those days
and would let the sharp chirps seize me,
until every broken façade felt right where it was,
every bicycle trundled at the speed of my waking,
my waking would come, I knew, in minutes,
but all of the world was a hallowed portrait until then,
the black road shone with uneven cuts
while the vendors opened their stalls
but the aroma of chaat and dabelis was to come,
the old lady by the tiled cross was to come,
the confusion of noonday industry was to come,
and with it would come the many lives
that made me smaller and less defined,
but I wore the morning like a blanket,
wrapped it about me until evening came,
and I was nobody but for the Ashoka trees,
the aroma of chaat and dabelis,
the chirps of retiring birds in their eaves,
rains now claim all my memories
except for the one cup of tea
that still looks like poetry.

Image Source: http://animescenery.tumblr.com/

The Fifth Night of June

Philosophy cannot survive a woman's touch,
This I knew on the fifth night of June
when bruised elbows held us on a wall,
we held our breath like a canary agitated
while the white horses trotted beneath,
long metal slurps on the treacherous land,
Our cheeks grew closer by degrees,
touched,
and if the moon weren't bright in the rain,
my eyes wouldn't feign to trace silver lines
where rain met our pursuers and blanched away,
I would've given to the blush that stole me,
but we redoubled to the churchyard behind,
I winced as she stepped over gravestones,
her muddied cloak was the ink over marble
that stole me from my sleep to shadow her,
find the unworthiness behind her charm,
her casks of French liquor were stowed
beneath the apple tree of a cousin's field,
I tailed her and knew her tainted with dubloons,
but her eyes had a softness her fingers did not,
I whispered protest but she was stone
like the potter's wheel beneath warm clay,
she was the spruce fever that visits ambition,
The ethics of my sermons could not stay her,
she was the spray on livid cliffstones,
her waves did not pass custom-houses!
The crown hunted for smugglers' coves,
but did they know to hunt such beauty?
would they know sin garbed in silk?
The books had nothing to say for this:
when the good that heavens wrought in her smile
frames the quick strokes of her trade,
what survives for expostulation?
what law was writ to judge paradoxes?
what do I love in her when she is unbecome
into sundry threads of baser means,
but the flax in her dress is perfumed
with the summers she left in her wake
and I do not know which must prevail.

I strike the stone beneath the roots,
and sure as the sun there is the loot
that will fill goblets of pastors' homes
and the policemen call them hallowed,
but my sweetheart is slow poison to coffers
that are born to violence and usury,
but I will survive her hunger just yet,
Come dawn, the sun will colour her cheek
but it will not have the same honesty
my lady wore under that waxing moon
when my philosophies were torn asunder.

Image Source: Delawer Omar

Give Me Your Fingers

Give me your fingers,
see how I tap your knuckles softly
with the grooves on my fingertips,
You are lost to the silence inside you
but I will talk to you,
I will talk to you of the rolling in my days,
the cracks in my shoes, the film on my eyes,
I will tell you of circuses and expect fake smiles,
but I will keep visiting your darkness,
tell your fingers to telegraph my starlight to your ribcage
until your heart cannot ignore
the fact that there is crimson in the sky after sunset,
there are flowers that grow so far away
that the eye does not know they color the world,
The dead in you tells me something lives in you,
you are where things grow and kiss winds
until everything around is in bloom,
You are allowed to shrivel and fall down,
that is what struggle looks like,
you push against shadows like you were born to do it,
You are the ocean the night doesn't leave,
I will tear the sky open until it rains its auroras unto you,
You were made to shine, rise into mornings,
become the rustle of autumn leaves,
I will drown you with my waters
until you become the whisper of old rivers,
Talk to your sadness until it becomes poetry you wear on latenight balconies,
and the moon will call you beautiful
and you will not believe it because the moon is unfaithful and changes faces,
Look into my face and tell me you're not beautiful,
I will tax those words until your lips cannot afford them,
You will become the smile you wear today,
give me your fingers,
I will remember you until you remember yourself.


Image Source: Antoine de Villiers

Talk To Me, Please

We don't talk anymore and I don't know why,

Silence would be difficult if I had reasons
This is rollercoasters in pitch blackness,
This is impossible!
I cannot see what goes on behind your sad eyes
and I do not know if I am supposed to wait,
I wait behind closed doors with warm palms
but every twist of the doorknob is ice
I do not know if I am supposed to keep feeling
Tell me to be numb and I will do it
Talk to me, God damn it, my legs ache,
Remember all those days
when I whispered through closed doors,
you spoke to me then in breaking anguish,
I told you how to find stars in the darkness,
I was a blind man but I knew the stars  existed
because you were beautiful and you existed,
and the universe knew beauty in that moment,
I knew it in my bones because you made my heavens,
you made the rhythm I carried all day long
and please, I know you don't have time now,
but talk to me for five minutes,
you promised that you would always talk,
I counted on your words to reach me
I do not care for what empty shore they come from
but I counted on the air of your breath
to feel familiar when everything else isn't,
I need to be brave today and I need you,
I need to know that someone cares I exist,
I need to matter in your eyes,
Tell me your silence remembers my hums
and I promise to bend you into songs,
Tell me your ice remembers my warmth
and I promise to set both of us on fire.

Image Source: http://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-close-up-Catherine-tear/298693/2111616/view

Mischief in Rain

There is mischief in the ancient rains
that strands friends across concrete plains,
makes blankets toasty-fire tent-cloths,
and of men makes nostalgic fire-moths.

Prop an old book the third time over teak,
pretend bedraggled pigeons don't seek
the fractal of your emotions worn too soon
like ornaments to define the rainy noon.

These winds have travelled over fountains,
and snow-rimed hunching grey mountains
to quench the stove-fire beneath pots of tea,
to render romantic breakfasts an impossibility.

Watch washed towels fly into certain doom,

force mothers to pin bright layers in dark rooms,
draw them taut like prisoners of war,
torture out the water from slow showers.

But 'tis a season for nostalgia and gloom,
I spill some Iron and Wine over my room,
and when the dreambugs come again,
I will tell them I found my Muse in the rain.

Image Source: http://florpurpura.deviantart.com/art/Coffee-rain-338518813

Drawing Blood

The third night she sucked my nape

and tied sleep beyond my bedpost,
I decided I was not kind enough to give
and receive nothing but long welts,
fading scars that prickle without her,
when nights do not hum with her vim,
audible whispers that make me turn,
guard my nakedness with quick hands,
throw frenzied shadows on ceiling fans,
to sweep her down before she flies into
a night that will sweat with anticipation,
I will capture her with sticky palms,
squeeze out everything alive in her,
feel my labour make her ruddy and soft,
see her blush between my fingertips,
nothing but blood where she once was.


Image Source: https://www.colourbox.com/image/abstract-background-watercolor-beautiful-hand-painted-on-a-paper-pink-red-orange-violet-yellow-image-3028930

At The Foot of My Bed

She sat herself at the foot of my bed
where my eyes could wane with distance
and hit her chatoyant pools softer than
my ratpacking gaze would hit otherwise
even as she tried to balance a smile
on unsteady lips, her hands pursed away,
as if their opening would flood my home
and I would bloat with ancient waves
that travelled a thousand dreary miles
to break at my shores of sand and shell,
break me into seas within small conches.

I parted a curtain and pointed through
at an old tree I would consult in rain,
let a smile daub my face with melancholy
even as she pretended to not witness
the calling of free songs in empty days,
songs that visit shores of sand and shell,
and become polite smiles across beds,
their storms hidden in closed hands.

Image Source: Fanny Nuska Moreaux

The Girl Who Came For Poetry

She was the fury of midnights noone sees,

I saw her waft through my marshes
(a drying stain on her blue sundress)
to taste the words that fell off my lips
every time my room reeked of poetry,
she came with shoeflower perfume
and sat across with eyes large enough
to be filled with my words, let them leak
into unmoving water with twisting colors,
like a rainbow that forgot to stretch taut
under the leaking beams of a lost home
where memories come to forget humility,
sit on paper like stubborn black forts,
raised letters to read with closed eyes,
she kissed them until the edges confessed
all their umbrage, all their fierce yearning,
and something broke in her then
with a sound she wore between fingers --
she knew the riots I lost old dreams to
but needed to hear them in my voice,
close her fingers around my messengers
and shake their nightmares over my rug,
and something broke in her then,
her eyes suddenly on marble elephants
in the darkness above the sooty hearth
as if to wrest away all rhythm from me,
from the ankles of inexorable tragedy,
and recede to the world beyond my window,
slow winds in the vacuums behind her feet,
She was the unspoken word,
ice-crusted trinkets left to thaw
and she will not come again.

Image Source: http://www.tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com/2011/11/agnes-cecile-1991-roma-italy.html

Rejection

Rejection feels like forgetting

everything that made you solid,
you were dangerous, rugged icebergs,
only smooth floes swim in you now,
There is no tragedy in rejection,
you will not bawl into soft pillows,
but lie half-awake and wonder
if all those glories were a dream
spun on wheels faster than Time,
Your mornings will carry promises
but you do not know how to trust,
how to leap into dances for eyes
that might not remember you,
all of you is wispy, hollow smoke
and you are afraid of winds
as if they know your emptiness,
a secret you did not know you had.

Image Source: http://www.tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com/2011/11/agnes-cecile-1991-roma-italy.html

Flooding Forges

Your lips feel like pulling leather
when I kiss you and bite down
into the scented pulp behind them,
your breath is mist behind waterfalls,
the calm washes over my face
but I will not stop to stare in awe,
my fingers are quicksilver in darkness,
feel them slip between your bends,
become iron that stokes your furnaces,
while I drink your defeated smiles,
quiver with your mouth on my ear,
feel hammers fall on red-hot steel
as my body shudders and every wave
reaches your shores, meets your fires
and extinguishes with loud hisses
and long sighs.

Image Source: Antoine de Villiers