Sunday 26 July 2015

Time-warp






It often seems a warp, that time exists
only to be bound up around your wrists
only to be measured by your pulse
the sole time-keeper, everything else’s false.


Did I love you yesterday, before I knew
that I was I?  and that you were you?
I only know I love you endlessly
today and tomorrow, all that’s to be.


I feel that now, but then I also know
a line divides now and all tomorrows;
we each leap over without being aware
and some things come; some don’t make it there.


What stands the test and comes through pure and true
who knows? But for now your wrists, veined in blue.






This one's a response to a comment-poem a reader left here couple Sundays ago.  A question in the final stanza that is quite mind blowing if one stops to think on it. Thank you desk49.

I am travelling and will be offline more often than I like.  Enjoy the poetry here and in the season/world wherever you are.  I will catch up with you as and when I can beg/borrow/get a net connection.  :) Stay well!










Sunday 19 July 2015

Volta in your face






Well, I can’t do the volta to a turn -
it turns up by itself, twirls in at the start;
it won’t sit in its place, it will not learn
that timing is the pinnacle of this art.


It fidgets when I fit it for an octave
and it won’t agree to wait for the twelfth;
it will dance when it pleases, I must waive
all rules, it must decide things for itself.


I must be submissive, it must control
the style and metre of stanza and line.
It’s brash and pushy, grabs the writer’s role
thrusts me aside, writes out this life of mine.


Life can’t be a perfect sonnet for those
whose voltas come in at the start, or close.











I am travelling and will probably be offline more often than I like :)  Enjoy the poetry here and in the season/world wherever you are.  I will catch up with you as and when I can beg/borrow/get a net connection. Stay well!




Friday 17 July 2015

In the moment








What’s happening now, is this a life event
I’m supposed to take meaningful note of?
ignore the bunched up plastics, everyday stuff -
the radio chat on women and consent,


the eerie empty roads, the small sounds made
by a metal bubble as it skims along;
your hands on the wheel, understated strength
of man and machine at one; paltry shade


offered by palms, that the windshield fails to hold
like passing hands unable to get a grip
on glass, inscrutably smooth. Instinct’s fit
just to claw the trivial till it’s further palled.


The turn comes and passes, should it merit
a song and dance? well, I haven’t marked it.







This is the last write-it-as-it-comes post for sometime.  I am travelling and will be offline more often than I like :)  There are posts scheduled of course, and I will catch up with you as and when I can beg/borrow/organise a connection. Enjoy the poetry here and in the season/world wherever you are.  Stay well!








Sunday 12 July 2015

That's all I get to write





I keep thinking - I’ll write this or that
about your lashes, the way your knuckles fold;
how your voice sounds at the digital chat.
But I don’t; all things cannot be told


in neat verses, iamb by iamb, in slow lines
of pentametric perfection, rolled
and wrapped snugly in straight/slanting rhymes,
the syllable counts precisely controlled,


rising and falling even as your breath;
but maybe it’s ragged now, maybe you hold
your words and life back, their length and breadth
concealed. Maybe you too have grown old.


And that is all I get to write for verse:
your lashes; and how our worlds diverge.



Sunday 5 July 2015

Afterwards









It feels like a slight; unbearable snub
that everything’s the same, not one bloom
from the vases has drooped, the garden shrub
you had planted is still upright, the room
just as it was before, the cushions rubbed
threadbare where you had sat.  The planet zooms
on its exact track, no change in pace or hub.
Only you are gone, even your perfumes
linger still in wardrobes and empty gloves.
Ashes to ashes. A deadpan earth subsumes
every flake till nothing is left above.
The house’s strangely unchanged. I resume,
but with shifts in meanings of loss and love.





For a grieving friend, with love, respect and wishes for strength and peace as she copes with her loss.










Thursday 2 July 2015

Advice to a son


Image




If I’d known how, I’d have iced your cakes
with princesses in pink, and unicorns;