NARRATION

yester night- I re-invented myself

as a poet,

created by the dalliance of words

with my muse in her schizophrenic sojourn

between surreal, real and imagined life

as she narrated her love

in the tunnels of cloistered alcoves

somewhat labyrinthine

and long nights of disastrous affairs

demons playing in the delight of deadlock

in her mind, distorted

nevertheless,

she let in poems, new words

set in rhyme

into my arms-

in the anatomy of jasmine nights

in a serpentine slide

in a glass of wine

I knew the silent haughtiness

her mind’s disguise

as her eyes welled with tears

she said my poems are lies-

lies in an empty notebook

in a boudoir of shadow stars

in the darkness of the autumn

in the careless subconscious

I heard the wind turning the pages

the whispers of Muses,

and shifting sand dunes…

EXISTENCE

Your names once belonged in soul to me

The seasoned, spiced wanderings of nuances

In the abysmal depths, in unbridled chasms

In the mirrors, murmurs became vapors

Shading the identity, the face

Quiet places, the arbor of sensual thoughts

Sunshine and shades, the trails

Intense wants, sometimes narcissistic

Knowing this was you- and you me…

Yes insane with wants, desire aflame

Names? Why wonder, is this my existence?

Mala Fide Malady

1965
Milady was our malady,

Madam Meddly Mala Dee

Once the threnody

Pretty faced

Misfortunes milled

Mala fide breezes

In many hearts

Mellowed memories

In my innocent stories

Was she my mistress, yes-

Fresher’s English class, no less!

Milady memorized, ready

With Pygmalion- My Fair Lady

She would talk Herrick

We would sometimes pick

The passages that most embarrassed

Malady- oh yes, she handled that

And turned cherry red

Stirred and coughed, perhaps inside she bled

Milady, malady, oh Mala Dee

She squirmed in our glee

We even asked if she had a neighbor

Lady Chatterley, she turned sour!

And she had an affair

A man with a family somewhere

Mala Dee’s malady- her cups of woe

Like monsoon rivers in spate overflow

As she entered the coffee house

She declared to none in particular, “bloody louse”

She was crying, we gathered around,

Somehow we no longer found

Malady, Mala Dee as the object of our perfidy

It was obvious she was ours, pretty

Our mistress in distress

She had our hearts sharing the mess…

Years went by, we graduated, strayed low and high

Yet our English Miss, that Malady Mala Dee, sigh

Unfazed memories she brought, mala fide

We craved her, we cried

2011

Mala Dee died a year ago, at her death,

Rose a threnody of a heart break

She stayed a spinster, for nearly fifty winters

Hardening to Herrick, Coleridge without fears

And of Mary Angelou Octavio Paz, Saul Bellow

She had taught well, lived life, speculations did flow

We remember you, roses to you, Miss Malady

We loved you like no one did, mala fide, Mala Dee!

Mala fide, Mala Dee, with melodies in our hearts

Roses for the Mistress who gave to us a literary start!

Snooze

Snooze

I wish you were an adolescent,

In need of adulation and feelings

Of whatever morsels that of you I could get-

I would then be your sugar, lover and bread, even board…

If you perchance called me to be more,

I would have vaguely made an effort, to find wings of wax,

Touched your red, kissable lips, freckled breasts

Like rye, simply illicit alcohol!

But you chose to be complete by yourself,

A woman hidden behind the thatch door,

Waiting to settle something-

Waiting for what?

It was just a thought that I knew,

Tying up the irritant-

The frayed laces on my shoe,

Hoping those were the strands that tied cups…

That made you look adult, grown…

Would you believe all this-

I made up while on snooze,

Waiting forty-six years,

And never awakened enough,

To say I loved that adolescent I found in you?

I know the scars on your breasts,

The stripes- veins, turning blue!

Unnamed Yet For You

…

…

It is never the time

To deny myself

The joys what was brought on a sword

That smote

Love

We got fucked up

Somberly, dreadfully by us

And by the demons

Why regret?

Why regress in the dreadful pits?

I know

I am bound by bounds, I am too old

Just that I forgot to add, for you…

No, why escape?

Barbs sometimes choose to be irritants,

And men are thorns

When they want you in the morns

They do speak out and leak

As they kiss

Orgasmic feelings come undeniably

I do have an inclination to ask

Or lurk around

Tell me, why do you cry? Or dream?

There are dreads, immature felicity

And alacrity, in thoughts that say

Our tomorrow in temporal frames

Is all you dread?

We are just there,

Love bares breasts

And exodus!

We have promises,

Betrothed, before me, in death

The moon waned,

The Muse wed to Hades

Lingering undressed

Instincts pledged

Solemnized on speeding throbs of a heart

Who would ever know

What the drunkard dreams of-

His yes blurred, slurring echoes

of darkness of love lost

reinforced melancholia

We know inadequately

What was played in the subconscious

Signals stuck amid

The sex act,

As we cursed and said,

Fuck!