Elegy for a Home

Out of its doors and windows, corners, pores
The House constricts itself expelling me out

Left only in the houseplants
slowly dying,
the stubborn parts
of the gently fading upholstery,
the dog chewed cushions not yet replaced
by blue sequined ones,
bookmarked, lined books
not yet lent out and forgotten

The tart green scent of crushed lemon leaves
is the green in the veins of the living room floor.
Marble, like the pebbled bed of a forgotten secret forest stream
dusty from our arrivals every evening.

Only the moon still picks out the silver leaves
As they flutter whimsically to the forgotten spaces
The lipsticked tea cup, the ashtray,
the half read book
that still lies upon its waiting page

The white damask sheet with delicate paisleys
and the far left frayed corner.
The gradually fading spot
fading with careless casual washing
That one is me.

27.10.11

SOMETIMES IN BITTERNESS

Get out of my life, Man
Walk out of my door
Here, take your burden of ‘manly’ concerns with you
Also guilt
Out of my door, out of the gate
Watch it! Don’t trip over haste that trails close behind.
Take your obligatory hand away from my shoulder
Preoccupation makes it sit heavy
It weighs a ton
Makes breathing difficult (I stifle a scream of exasperation)

Let the winds fly away with your words
Nonchalant, they don’t reach the place it hurts anyway.
Don’t bother phrasing carefully
your facile reassurance
Hear it ring hollow when most needed?

Don’t try and hide the glance that slips away
To your cellphone, the TV screen, the waiter that hovers, the people who happen to cross your line of vision
Because you couldn’t see the pain in my eyes even if you looked into them
Go away, Man
Take your ‘love’ with you
It does not ring true

Walk out of my door.
Out the gate
Go.

Hmmm

I want to write but can't. I have no words, thoughts fail me. In the cage of my mind there is no opening for them. Everything reverberates inside, reflecting in the small space and bouncing off the inside upon itself till it becomes a dark, murky, swampy, floaty, mushy, soft, hard, dark, full of holes, cheesy, mouldy, rodenty, ferrety, quicksilvery, shiny, glittery, darkly forbidding .......mess

Plastic time

I asked, wished, for a revelation in the midst of one
How did the day come to have so many more hours than usual?
Time stretched while we meditated
Joining and harmonizing, breathing in unison
Alive
Every moment, every movement, in tandem with the universe.

But for you there will be no crying
Though the sun still glints off the sea that moves at the horizon from the terrace
Though the breeze still blows at the railing where we stood together,
and the gentle day still streams in at the door pooling at the chair on the rug where you had a nap in the afternoon

I ask Oh Devi, that you grant me perpetual bliss where there is no transience, no temporariness
Perpetual because I can feel this bliss within myself, call it up by myself
No longing, no missing, no emptiness created by the absence of another.
Grant that I feel the ecstasy in every moment of my life through your grace.
Grant me more...freedom from sadness and emptiness.
And I surrender it all to you.