If Only

If only you’d told me
You loved me
Instead of proving
Yourself my superior
Then
I’d have told you
I loved you
Instead of proving
I was nobody’s inferior

If only you had told me
You wanted me
Instead of wanting
To be my father
Then
I’d have told you
I wanted you
Instead of wanting
To be nobody’s prisoner

If only you’d told me
You needed me
Instead of needing
To own me
Then
I’d have told you
I needed you
Instead of needing
To be nobody’s property

If only you’d have known
That love was enough
If only I’d known
That love was enough
If only we could together
Have learnt this truth
We would not now be apart.

Love’s Wake

If sweet be a curl
To two straight lines,
And autumns unfurl
More gold than mines;

If there grow roses
Other than red
And meaning reposes
Where none is said;

Then take, oh take
All I long to give:
For in love’s wake
We may learn yet to live……..

Proliferation

Down through town, Sunday cracks
Amorous birds, preening whiskers,
Pecking at passion fruit and mulberry
Buckles on shoes, embroidered skirt,
Gold clasp on waist and lovely bones
Draw the curtain for the sun

At Mercy’s hospital
Anaesthetized patients subdued in green gowns
Flock in fields of death
Shun the sky
And stalk the earth

Elsewhere,

Virginity circles coyly
Within woolen garments
As desire rises
Child bearing hips heave;
And stocking the sun
When black and blue with cold
Is a frog!

Skyscrapers rise to comb the sky, the clouds
And for the wealthy living in tall stories
That doubt the sky
A palette of rubies pins the damp weather.

Technology hallucinates
Crucified on disposable diapers
Ozone layers and flying cockroaches

Tombstones flourish with arms and ammunition

And man dreams of natural death
And silent guns
Marriage to women and pink gummed babies

Sisters make love, fathers rape and teachers abuse
And in downtown, Clara’s aborted foetus
Joins the trash in black plastic bags
To be recycled

Vulnerable to the sweetness of tongue
To flesh eating viruses
And to loaded guns in hands.
The leaf bud quivers

King Island and Cleveland amuse
Counting on roller coasters
To dilate pupils and churn stomachs
And on the way back on I-75
A fading pulse of a wild rabbit
Or a crossing dear

And tonight again we shall lie
Thigh against thigh
Panting furiously into the night
To bring forth yet another child
Blotting out the naked ferocity
Embossed in this city

Sloppy Slob: Flaming Licks: Dressing Down: Term Time

You have entered my life uninvited. You were not supposed to come in inspite of the incessant airing of your thoughts. But you did or were it me who allowed? Don’t know. The boundaries where you crossed and I permitted are bleak.

Your arrival brought about sensations that I didn’t realize still resided in me. An unusual stance for me who tries to be stoic. Cant grapple with the feelings; trying to grasp for reasons to overcome these thoughts but coming up empty. For once the heart and the mind seem to be singing in unison. The operative word being ‘seem’.

The energy palpable from you has morphed in me and you seem bare. The love that emanated from you has resided in me and made you barren. The adoration that you showered has engulfed me and left you desolate.

Besides the love, the energy, the feels, the sighs of smiles, the slight touch of the hand grazing by, the glances when no one is looking, the pecks that get goosebumps rearing their heads, the continual exchange of expressions that we indulge in, the one thing that I have derived out of this unusual stance is the return of words to me.

Words I love, words I breathe, words I lie in, words I sing, words I skip on, words I spring to, words, words, words. They are quintessential to me. And since I have professed to you, I humbly offer you a few of them.

The Pilgrimage

Contemplation

Diffused
Enormous
Heated
Putrid
Worn
Wrecked
Wretched

Depart :: Evaporate

Milestone

Life keeps moving on surely and silently,
Nothing stops the wheel of life until eternity.
Absorbed we remain in our daily pursuits,
Our fear, our passions, our loves and dislikes,
Remain as tangible as our silhouettes,
Soon we only exist and forget to live our lives.

Brushing away a child, too busy to stop
To listen, to ponder, to understand, to assimilate,
Taking short cuts, in a hurry to be at the top,
Soon we forget to love and learn to hate.

Making maximum usage of time and energy,
We burn the candle of life at both ends,
For these days of instant success be,
Why worry about the means, just secure the ends.

Forgetting to appreciate the finer things of life,
A glorious sunset, a starlit sky so blue
But time cuts through your consciousness like a knife
Relentlessly with it comes the feeling of déjà vu.

Making you falter, stumble in exhaustion
The cost of undergoing stress and tension
Life has walked past you, comes the realization
Leaving you with a score not worth a mention.

Making you stop and take stock
The lightness of step, the laughter and gaiety

You find replaced by seriousness and maturity
Nothing is the same, time mocks.
What was bravery, is bravado now
What was adventure becomes risky business
What was fun, de classe now
What was innocence becomes childishness.

Feelings torn asunder, you are struck by thunder
There is a shifting of gears, a change of priorities
Then a taste of freedom, a sense of wonder
Freedom from the need to prove, to compete.

Peace comes with identification
There is no need for justification
The wonder of the starlit sky
The sunset, the birds that fly.

Regain now shades and meaning
A new discovery every evening
Jazz has changed to a waltz
Life has slowed, not come to a halt.