Monday, February 29, 2016

cracks in the sky

when my eyes
sink into
those desolate cracks
in the dark grey
concrete,
your eyes
lift them out
pinning those cracks
onto the vast vast sky
of infinite worlds,
yet to be born,
widening into
endless possibilities.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

stories un-boxed

I want to listen
to stories
unedited
unabridged
unpinned
no rules of grammar
and syntax
no boxes
of beauty and power
opened for effect
no messages
and morals
waving flags
just simple
ordinary stories
of you and your life
straight from your heart
a blob of clay
in a beginner's hands
on a potter's wheel
a tiny stone
held out with a smile
from a child's sullied palm
a rushing rivulet
rolling into the gutters
on a rainy day
yes, I want to listen
to stories
our stories
real
alive
un-boxed

Saturday, February 27, 2016

let me drink your tears

in a shriveled world
where Love roams
like a nomad,
in search of a mirage
to call his own,
let me remember
to drink from the well
of your tears and mine,
where teardrops fall
to my parched lips,
tiny coins of faith
held in warm palms,
kissed with a prayer,
and tossed into
the quiet grace
of the wishing well.

Mining Joy

you bring me to my knees dear Life,
with every step I take or don't,
you hold a mirror to those tears dear Life,
that take me deep into my bones,
don't give me so much joy dear Life,
for I know not how to hold it,
for how do I sit on a mine
with so many shimmering diamonds,
and not give them away
to everyone I meet?

Thursday, February 25, 2016

voice

I fell in love
with your voice.

I closed my eyes
to hear it fall
on my skin -
drumbeats growing
from the bowels
of a dark forest,
the ancient song
of blue whales
churning the oceans,
the soft caress
of a shy rose bud
kissing the wind,

yes, I fell in love
with your voice.

and now I know
what touched me,
what moved me,
was not the sound
of your voice,
but the silent depths
of a nameless fall
into nothingness
between you and me.

I walk around my dreams.....

sometimes
I walk around my dreams
without a sound,
coming to that same place
again and again,
that's waiting for me
to stop and look
and listen
to the sound of no sound,
to the sound of questions being born,
to the sound of paths being made
and unmade
carefully,
joyfully,
relentlessly,
to the sound of laughter and screams
of little children,
drowned by waves
that gobble up the shore
and everything sculpted
by little hands and little hearts
that only know where they can build,
and walk around their dreams,
all over again.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

square window



it's dark tonight
and the moon, she's full,
as I call her softly
to my window,
did she scoop my insides
and walk away,
so she could come back
to haunt me tonight -
a hapless lover
searching for her beloved,
through the square
of this dark window?


the sidewalk

I wish every road
had a sidewalk,
a place to slow down
or pause,
to smell the resilience
of wild grass
growing amid the dross,

I wish every road
had a sidewalk,
a place where feet and hands
can rest in an embrace,
where eyes meet themselves
in silent wells,
dipping into a deathly pace,

I wish every road
had a sidewalk,
where hearts can hear
their own drumbeats,
where nods and smiles
and queer passers by,
touch lives with their simple grace.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

in one blessed breath

I sat with my sadness
planting it into this shell,
I watered it with silent tears,
and stories I could not tell,
I tilled the soil where it lay,
so it could gently breathe,
and watched it every day and night,
as it grew new shoots, new leaves,

and then one day, when the shell was old,
and time had left her many scars,
I found to my surprise that the tiny seed
had grown to kiss the stars,
I still water her roots with silent tears,
and watch her leaves grow, then wither,
I still listen to her speak and breathe,
through her graceful dance in the ether, 

and as her breath moves in and out,
I see the blue skies slowly turn grey,
as wings dart across from her bosom,
to pierce the darkened sway,
and then the earth's suddenly awash,
with tears streaming from above,
as I watch creatures big and small,
dance with joy, singing songs of love.

oh! what a feast this is then,
to a broken heart,
to hold the pangs of pain and joy
in one blessed breath,
a testament to its endless love.


 
 

Friday, February 19, 2016

how trees talk to each other

let's talk like how
trees talk to each other,
conversations billowing
into the uncertain wind,
a song and a dance
choreographed
in the perfection
of one moment,
where fast-held beliefs
tumble down
like leaves past their prime,
where everything's held,
created and transformed
in the deep silence
and stillness
of growing roots,
entangled in a web
beneath the glamour
of being human,
in all things wild,
essential,
and unspoken.

pilgrimage

human sheep packed into buses,
mountain roads wound up
to quaint temples
opened only once a year;
white robes flowing across to Mecca,
to kneel and kiss
a turning, teasing earth,
who laughs at her own joke;
a pair of feet trekking untrodden paths
to virgin beaches and twilight zones,
manna for a tired soul,
journeys that must be made alone,
jaws locked in tireless chants,
breath engraved in stone,
candles and lamps attempting to thaw
frozen minds looking for ways to escape hell;

yes, there are many roads leading home.

and there's one where there are no identities,
only prayers lived and journeys made invisible,
in the explosion of a smile on a child's teary face,
in the large warm palms that soothe a tired baby,
in the deep embrace of a dear friend's molten eyes,
in the broken songs of summer cicadas serenading the moon,
in the slant of rain upon the patient fallow earth,
in sinews that toil day after day under a scorching sun,
in a bird lifting off into a yawning sky,
in a leaf tumbling from an old tree to its roots,
pilgrimages made everyday in silence,
to the centre of this blessed heaven, on earth.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

no words

there is a place
somewhere close
where heaven and earth meet,
a place that swallows
every arrival,
every departure,
a place without a name,
a place where waves
neither rise, nor fall,
a place without shores
or shells that speak
time-etched stories,
a place where you and I meet,
every day,
where the sun and moon
slip into oblivion
carelessly,
where I can do nothing
but watch and feel
the life and death
of every sunrise and sunset,
met and lived fully
with you
without words.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

'breaking news'

so tell me your story,
sing me a poem,
sketch me a picture,
of what's going on
within;
i want to listen,
i want to imagine,
your story -
the one that makes you
You,
I hunger
for those verses,
drawn by your painted soul,
the ones that break into me,
to connect you and me,
beyond the white noise
of empty words.

Monday, February 15, 2016

a course in miracles

"serve me one course
in miracles,
tell me one story
of a life you've touched
and changed,
and I'll make you a saint,
I'll embellish your name,
I'll anoint you with a halo
you can call your own,"
said a man,
brandishing a light
before the eyes
looking up to him,
a light they cannot see,
for they are blind

eyes that haven't smelled
the warmth of a darkness
where fireflies glow and vanish
with their half-burnt smiles,
where crickets beat their drums
for silence dancing in the shadows,
where the moon reveals herself
like an awakened prostitute,
to curious explorers of the night,
where a whistling thrush
chooses to hold her song
until the crack of a well-timed dawn,
where a billion stars take their place
on a dark-lit stage,
playing their roles to perfection,
night after night,
where Life serves miracles
in her horn of plenty,
as I struggle to digest those,
and yet extol
just one course
in unfounded miracles,
one miracle that I choose,
to think that
I
can outshine Life.





Sunday, February 14, 2016

patience

and I sip time
as my heart moistens
with every drop
seeping silently
into parched connections.

silk route

roads to nowhere
stretch
and dazzle,
like tassels
from a stole,
wrapping me
in the warmth
of silk routes
waiting
to be explored.



Saturday, February 13, 2016

real love

I stand among questions,
washed upon
a timeless shore,
torn between
what I think is me
and where I want to go,

teased by the sweet pain
of elusive arrivals,
and a kiss of breath
that's touch and go,
I lie out in the wilderness
stripped to an empty core,

do I have a voice, I ask?
to choose who or what to love?
while friendly waves
caress and carry me,
to the blue depths
beyond, and above,

how can I hold back the ocean,
that drives me, and leaves me
wanting more?
how can I be a virgin,
and escape the pain of love
on this broken human shore?







Thursday, February 11, 2016

freedom

a feather trapped
in a web of blue,
feels itself shiver
in the hush
of great winds
carried across
infinity.

Trust

I plant myself
into this moment -
fertile, loamy,
moist with the richness
of a tilled past,
dark with the uncertainty
of infinite worlds
still undiscovered,
sinking into a prayer,
a quiet devotion
to the well-oiled wheels
of timeless presence
and the inherent struggles
of my growing sensibilities. 




pregnant

I feel pregnant.
thoughts kick
against nameless walls,
a gush of blood
pours into
nondescript nooks,
words explode, churn
and dissolve
into a shifting unease,
floodgates open and shut
flapping aimlessly
into uncertain waters,
a seed clings faithfully
to itself
and life-giving walls,
biding its time,
digesting the space
within,
an unformed form
waiting for that
perfect moment,
to arrive
and find its place
in the family of things felt,
not seen or named;
I feel pregnant,
I am pregnant
with a poem
that cannot be birthed,
not yet.


Tuesday, February 9, 2016

the cry

when you listen to me,
I want you to hear
not the song of my pain -
the blood and gore
smeared upon
this earthly form,
but the song of those dreams
that give this womb its shape,
that first primordial cry
exploding into
the breathlessness,
that first gulp of breath
that renews our faith
in this blessed world,
and our forgotten
humanity.


Monday, February 8, 2016

a new love

and we find
new ways
to paint our love
upon the same
emptiness,
everything's perfect,
inspired
by the joy
of a limitless sky,
who never gets tired
of creating herself
afresh
in the dark
and the light.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

time-lapse

lips once sealed
now open out
slowly,
with the faintest kiss
of a raging sun,

fear glistens
and trembles,
wearing the light
of another
unborn morn,
touched
by a remembrance,
a little bud unfolds
dreams captured
in a darkened womb.

alive!

walls fold into me
becoming the door
that beckons me
into the light
of uncertainty,
what lies beyond,
around,


I look for a way
to get out of this womb
alive,
a home I have to leave
if I want to live,
the passion to thrive,
midwives the birth
of forms still unknown,

a river doesn't stop -
flowing, gushing,
even under pressure,
carrying the seeds
of a new life,
a new world being birthed,
where the only thing possible
is to feel held,
in every moment,
to feel truly alive!

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Give

'give what you wanted to get'
words like stinging rain,
to a flesh that still remembers
what it was
to give like that,
to give what it wanted
to feel so much,
to give because it hurt
to not feel,
to give because the pain
of not receiving
was stifling, heart-wringing,
to give because it could
keep alive that dream,
to give because,
not
simply give.

September Sky

I stood one day
upon the caked earth,
a little girl with two braids
feeling the wind
sculpting my timid face,
and I just knew
I wanted to fly like a bird
into a timeless September sky.

today, I feel
the firm earth give,
crumble and vanish
beneath my very feet,
over and over again,
with every step taken,
while my skin quivers
remembering that dream,

perhaps Life listened,
choosing to bring me
that September sky,
by taking the earth
upon which I stand,
so my feet could grow, into wings.





You and Me

and the Wind said to the Earth:
"everything comes to you,
everything belongs to you,
the measly worm,
the mighty river,
the dancing trees,
the rolling hills,
the vanishing raindrop,
the roaring fire
from deep within,
but look at me,
I own nothing,
I belong nowhere,
I have no colour,
no form,
no smell,
no taste,
no purpose,
until I am moved
by the things
that touch me,"
and the Earth,
she smiled and said:
"it's the same with me.
what you see
is what gives me life,
that's why we belong
to each other,
that's why I belong to me."

dance among equals

rivers flow.
rain falls.
mist moves.
steam rises.
ice thaws.
lakes stay.
oceans heave.
dewdrops rest.
water seeks its own level,
in a dance that quells
all firsts among equals.