Letters of Verse - Part II

You were mine, only till twenty-five

but the world swept you away.

In rolled the charcoal skies, to have you abandon that sparkling ray

I recognized, but cupped these ears

only to muffle the roar

The wind now whispers their plan:

the overcast has decided to draw away

to let the yearning sun have its way

I spot the shy streaks of golden too

curving a grin in the once graying realm.

I know and I always did.

I'm glad that Spring is imminent

though the knowledge wrings this obstinacy,

(Forever is nothing more than a word)

Forever this spring will never be.

Though this Universe never promised balance,

It's still an unbalanced trade.

This scheme was not hard to unravel;

I know and I always did

but acceptance, now, dodges this terrain.

Impulse to Scribbler

Spin spin, entwine entangle

(sway selfishly away)

wheel, reel.

Then twist, turn and roll out the carpet

while all that was invested, divests.

Bore the tips into the knits and grits,

twirl and flex these bones 

through the coarse, prickly fibers

(cuts, cuts, cuts!)

till reams unravel and expose under

the streams, beams and gleams

A trap! Scratch...snap! Catch, catch, catch!

Then plunge, pitch, sink

into heaving oceans of sighs.

Letters of Verse - Part I

It's a void, this inactivity.

Spent.

The sap of satisfaction drains from your limbs.

Each finger falls numb and yet the cup is held

for illusion to be drunken, 

for a sip of merry when all mirth has sunken.

Velvets of the dark wrap away at this solace,

enfold their arms and embrace this form so limp.

Mourning is delight. Drown you, further in despair, in shades of grey 

unless, flicker in time, the pale shadows of day. 

Glimmer into your pupils, a beam of cream and white.

A quick warmth rushes to these naked arms, bare toes

to have you recover from your woven woes.

The cup to tumble will be gripped. 

It's a slow repair till loss is not all,

till the self will suffice to pour into this void. 

Posthumous.

Something twinkles. The blades of this grass are dancing green. They waltz with the wind. I think it is the eye of a hare. The fur looks immaculately white.  Did it just wink at me? It's soft, pink paws reach out to me and a slight grin is discernible on it's round, puckered mouth. The mouth does not threaten me with the razor-edged teeth that dug into a seven-year old me. It left me pricking and aching with disease. Funny it should've pricked considering I had lost every inch of hair that had ever grown out on my soft, young skin.
The smell of perfume, a sharp rusty, singed scent of Ittar. A scent of white, holy, sacred sheets and clean bathed women. The smell of pilgrimage and prayers that jumped into your head and wrapped around like the sacred, white dupatta my mother shrouded my sanctity in when I bled for the first time. It's purity claws me in. I feel thirteen again.
The shadow of the setting sun is upon me now and I feel this grass will be green no longer. I can hear life being trimmed and sheared at its edges. The sun wants to snake its last last rays around me but there is nothing to trap any longer. There is no flesh and nothing that can bleed tears. I want to touch myself. I am the air now. I can see myself, the dust buzzing in the last light of the sunset. I can see my life in particles and I know I have left it all behind like I've always wanted; Like I always envied the feather that simply parted from a fully functioning body and flailed to its destiny.
I spread my arms out. There is silence and loss. Something twinkles and I can see it grow, expand and welcome me but this luminescence does not hurt. Maybe because I don't have any eyes that will face the hurt. Perhaps hurt was never more than a word, a rolling of the tongue, a melody that broke and crashed into shards of numbness when I took flight. I don't remember any hurt anymore.
I can see the man who left me alone when I tried to learn to live like that flailing feather I have always wanted to be. A thirty year old me flashes onto the theater screen from the grinding projector that gurgles out my entire life on this black, smoky screen.
Marry me. Kneeling, smiling, feeling. The girl beams at him. She knew he would propose today. I always knew. Even when I screamed at him for twisting my heart and breaking it into two. Even when I banged the doors wide open and walked out of his territory, I knew I loved him.
This warmth, this smiling, feeling light blankets the inside and does not let this strange, dark, Sad Man near me. I would shed tears at a time like this but I don't want to. This light is too warm.
It's drawing me in.  Music caresses my ears and wraps its symphony around my head. I can hear giggles and  white laughter, snowy white laughter that sings youth to me. I don't remember exhaustion. I don't think I may have ever felt tired. It's like the cosy, green and white afternoon where all my friends chat and live over a cup of warm, brimming tea. I can smell the rich, foamy tea pouring into a cup and I can smell friendship.
This moth flaps, dances.. The sweet, honey-coated moonlight is her majesty. The river sparkles blue and splashes itself into the sea, head-first. There is nothing but breath, and exhaling, royal, blue skies.
One moment I am the jiving butterfly. In another I'm the liberated sea.

Return to Sender

A sordid rusted track, railed upon for miles

the smog folds at length 

every shovel of coal sends the fire roaring, burning in its own agony.

Trundling carriages wail
A puff of sad song into the Departure air.

Souls are thinly lit and veiled, 

the winter tugs at every desperate tobacco fume;

Charring, twisting, crumbling

I can hear the gravel crunch beneath your torn boots, Jimmy.

The wind bellows and falls back on itself

Voices war and buzz red

While at the Front, the rifles pay their respects

A flower turns restless in another sleepless moonlit night.

Every triumph is a battle on land,
Sirens of tears lost

Every war is a battle of Hearts shed.