Category: Poems

Don’t assume
I don’t appreciate
Your little-little kindnesses
Are all that I can now endure
These growing piles of gratitude
Unsaid though not unfelt
Are lost
My deepest thoughts
Unclaimed though not unowned

Bird song plays ping-pong
Around the misty valley.
Wings miss the spring’s kiss
And snakeskins slither slowly.

Sir says, “Do surveys.”
And turbans turn to tally.
Dozer comes closer
Into the hardwoods holy.

God staffs His odd laughs
And tribals come to rally.
Hills fill with kill spill
Of stifled rifle volley.

So what if I am Patroclus
Pretending of Achilles’ strength?
Achilles lives through Patroclus.
Would else there be an Iliad?
And can an average person be
Enough to wear Achilles’ helm?
Does that not take an equal strength
Of mind, if not an equal skill?
Is it so wrong to ask for more
Than what I’m told I have in store?
The exile is what makes the man
In every hero’s epic myth.
I am the hero of my life.
There is no other narrative
As meaningful to me as this.
And so I must adhere to this.
I know I’m not Achilles born.
And yet I am Achilles-trained.
It’s arrogant to humble be
When I am not afraid of me.

The air is sweating! Air is…come!

It’s just the dew. I told you, na?

No, no. It’s sweating. Come, na, come!

Uffo! Put on your monkey cap!

No, no. No time! Come out, come out!

Uffo! Don’t crush my spinach plants.

No, look! The air is thur-thur cold!

Of course. It’s winter. Winter’s cold.

No, no. The air is sweating, see.

It’s just the dew, love. Vapours cond…

No! When you sweat, your body cools.
And not the other way around!

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
– Ernest Hemingway

They say it’s penned by Hemingway.
It may not be for all we care.
It shouldn’t matter anyway.
What matters is the story there.

Of course, we have the lump in throat:
A baby, dead. Its parent(s), poor.
Though not a word the author wrote
Allows us to be fully sure.

Perhaps, it’s one of hundred gifts
They got but couldn’t use in time.
Perhaps, they buy in bulk at thrift
And eBay it at premium dime.

Perhaps, they found it on a train,
Or nicked it from another’s bags,
Or had to buy, on shop’s complaint,
When doggy ate its seller’s tags.

Perhaps, they fell for “iPhone sale”
And got it in that pristine box.
Perhaps, they found the voodoo nail
Before they pulled the baby’s socks.

A million other stories fit
So snugly in this Six-word line.
Then why, then why go kill a kid,
When our imagination’s fine?

Because it’s not a “Six-word” tale.
It has two more that make it work.
The “Ernest Hemingway” detail
Is making all our tears jerk.

The man is god of brevity.
He wouldn’t write some frivolous prose.
Of course, it has more gravity
Than any that we can propose.

And so it matters if he wrote,
Or if it’s from another’s pen.
For they must have our louder vote
Applauding at their magic, then.

Who goes?
Who knows!

A spy?
No! Why?

Then name yourself.
To frame myself?

You are to blame?
No, no. For shame!

Then why?
I’m shy.

You want something?
To see you sing.

I do not croon.
You speak too soon.

Away, away!
If so you say.

---

Again, you freak?
It’s been a week.

I still don’t sing.
Or so you think.

Go on, get out!
No need to shout.

Your nerve!
I serve.

Away!
Okay.

---

Why haunt me so?
I think you know.

It’s gone. Forgot.
I’m sure it’s not.

And risk all this?
Is this to miss?

It’s everything!
Or so you think.

Who are you, man?
I’m just a fan.

A ghost?
Almost.

Undead?
Not yet.

A voice?
A choice.

I will not croon.
Hmn. See you soon.

---

You here?
I hear.

Okay.
Okay.

---

You here?
I hear.

Okay.
Okay.

---

Hello?
…

You here?
…

---

I’ll sing.
…

You’ll hear?
…

I’ll sing.
…

The underdressed are overclothed
In either insecurities
Or blissful, misplaced confidence
Or manifold preponderance
Of things to deeply ponder on.
It seldom is a poverty
Of means, but meaning, that prevents
The underdressed from arguments
In favour of being favoured by
The ones who dress for favouring
Themselves than those are neighboring.
And so, I won’t go shopping. No!

It’s best I do not know her well.
Just Lust. No whistle, nor no bell.
No see you later, call me, text.
No need to answer what is next.
Just breakfast – coffee, loneliness.
Just loathing self – I’m such a mess.
It’s best she doesn’t know me well.
It keeps intact her private hell.

I wake up to her fevered lips.
The nape? The neck? No, shoulder curve.
No other touch. No other place.
A kiss of Love that’s only Love.
No other string. No other name.
I say her name. The lips depart.
I turn and see her be the dawn
Intruding on my Sunday sleep.

When Socrates “apologised”
With hemlock pints at seventy,
His Plato was but thirty years
As I was when my Socrates
“Apologised” at seventy.
As Rumi whitened silently
At setting of his solar Shams,
I daily whiten violently
In self-inflicted choler tongues.

They suffered as I suffer now
From painful knowledge of the truth,
Of knowing that our sheltered lives
Have taught us nothing worth a tooth.
We suffer knowing we don’t know,
And just repeat what we have heard,
With no originality,
Except in eloquence of words.

But then, the two didn’t give all up.
Accepting their deficiency
They humbled into writing down
The wisdom of their gurujis.
And through the years of writing them
And much mythologizing them,
The older Plato, Rumi shone
With brighter wisdoms of their own.

And this is why I am not them.
My eyes are still on my own fame.
I want to write my father’s words
To piggyback upon his name.
No Plato, Rumi fate for me.
Just fatal anonymity.