Thrust

Religion

that meticulous ritual of

sipping bleeding rust;

born once

torn twice.

The habitations of mortality

thrust in time

lurching like decades

arrest:pause:moment

hands clasp heart

letters resign.

Eyes downcast

like fibrous hollows

deseeded limes.

My pupils contract

black seed spinning

anguish chosen

pleasing,

always pleasing...

Bearing

this stark naked,

dark selfish decline.

And somewhere between love

and futures

surges a sky

screaming ripples,

songs 

in latex white.

This body

This body

Digital decline

Death::divine

Matchstick legs

 Cotton mind

Woozy tea tasting forgettable time.

A blessing

May the paths you tread, always be circled with daisies. 

Spring

The bounce of pollen in my glass of breeze.

A bag of bees

Your wars, their words

our firms

we, us, me, you.

Proposed development--

the infinite agriculture of modern life.

*

Burning stars,

coloured kites

my life--

alive.

Words make love.

Six impossibles

Flickers of life

like light softly, self- unbound

reverberations in glass

built to ground

break bubbles--

burst not.

In red seas, sail

sailor-girl

swimming songs

written in Beast

Sarojini

Kamala

Adrienne

Mary

Alejandra

Debra

Sandra...

hridaya?

Medium, large.

Swings for wings

chains of hair

striking imbalances

…6 impossibles

Six.

Admittedly, alcoholic.

Defiantly circulating--

.Sufi.

.Singh.

.Somebody.

Sometimes, I wonder.

From the house of God.

Brown slush crunch

weaving through kings’ parade

and modest protests

for Tuesday lunch

Nkoko and me.

At St. Michael’s

carrot coriander olive warmth

carefree ascent with steaming bowls

around wooden spirals

in the house of God

we laugh in howls.

Of butchers, babies, heads

lost thumbprints

fast old eyes

crocodiles and dancing bears;

The truth about timidity,

respect and gratitude.

Stones uncontained--

like Gandhi and roses

fitting tributes ,

some white ginger others  watery green

with soft bites of walnut brownie.

Talk of

systemic sucked vitality

the vulgarity of poverty

Animal’s people

A fine balance

the security of predictability

the hilarity of systems

general, profound perversity.

Walk to sainsburys,

spotting seagull with broken wing

following seagull with broken wing

finding people  for seagull with broken wing

meeting

parting

helping.

Apples for 97 pence

kisses for free.

He watches all with a stub warming his bleeding finger

I stop.

Return

offer

…for free.

Spent with spontaneity

finally!

Happiness!!

Sms.

Put down seagull with broken wing

but we can’t save them all

can we?

You

My religion is you.

Matriarch

Morse rewritten

since

Girl became Woman

a devolution

walking backwards

towards

dignities

Such as

words
and

half-past heartbeats.

These

colourful dreams

sieze

when processes defeat

Purposes

Promises

Presumptions

Pleasures

Passports to mysterious satisfaction

Allegedly divine.

Female saints

serve Gods

in the field.

Blessed be she

who balances

on her heart

an ambitious knife

pregnant with ideas

unsuitable for her kind.

Now,

grateful for

rationed melodies

unisex sunsets

that Bleed.

28 Luna

travelled a Latitude

never moving

beyond shunyah.

The duties of womankind

Bind.

Rebba, Amrita, Nirmal.

Defy.

Defy.

Defy.

Big brown cloud

1. Big brown cloud
2. Floating really
3. Raining rarely
4. Travelling me

We were writers once

We were writers,

Once.

Nouveau acoustic,

to crowds of eyes;

hoping to be understood

and maybe not.

Before pens became needles

stitching instead

our minds with verse

colourless repeats

threadbare, brief

crissing crosses

unlearning mama’s...

naive at 23.

And,

so we are

tremulous no more;

Like,

dust stains

on leaves-

on ice-

patches like disparaging concaves

filled with vapours

of failing rain.

Nothing to say?

Bleached shut:

Here rests a writer

Her words beating. 

Journeys

Velocity now

the gasp of spaces

sutured at ends

before beginnings...

Journeys through mist,

optimistic at most.

People Slush

People slush

sculptures in light

passing by

quick

mechanic

a hierarchy of

elbows and knees –

these faint

peculiar ammonic memories

featuring

you, me

and

a thousand-thousand

we’s.

Free feet Glug

                                                                  We are who we are

and they are them.

Quick new steps towards saras baugh

past pungent worlds

following stray eyes

dismissing the bony and hairless

circling reds, yellows and pinks

a synthetic pause of petals

for mothers, sisters and lovers.

All that is fat

flies and crawls.

A little under

these free feet

glugs an amalgam of

waste

next door’s gums, cakes, cheeses and wines

mingling with their rice, lentils, meat and mangoes.

Perhaps hell isn’t too far down.

Perhaps nothing is.

Is it all too heavy?

Is it over yet?

Is it?

And

I smell--

Surely,

poverty is

human decay.

Hmm.

The ultraviolence of feet.

Marigolden Miserab

Petite perversions

such as white bangles

encircling the vapid vigor

that flies in blue veins;

Centuries that we abided by

built on a single warrior’s

valiant destiny

while fire factories

are wrapping me

in marigolden miserab

a lesser half for life...

As fortune suggests

Shh.

Switch Off

Holes in my elbows doing things you did for me

 karmic cycles, they repeat

sleepy seven singing sweet

baby laughter pausing too brief

rap my own

missing Cindy

but kinder by noon

like dew between twin toes

and these pomegranate purples that heal.

I run too fast

finding centers in circles

too steep

switch off shinjini.

Buttons all green

lists of vacant priorities

golden mango ponds

dry summer thakurganj heat

fuelling desires

I  flee.

To places I may never know

to people I was

to people I could be

to things that matter

and I think

what about me?

Pachydermata

Toy twin

hold still..

thick skin

'tis true,

we are all within--

Beautiful.

Brave.

Brief...

in our most dexterous whim.

To fly,

four hooves splitting

air to lace

bodies like scalp

defeating breezes from

poles magnetic.

Bobble humbly,

like a wave--

infinite in Grace,

impervious to

the tragedies 

of speaking eyes

and thinking noses;

these rheumatic spines

spitting vice,

paining

whole hearts.

But elevate,

my pachyderm--

spirit magical

vector forth.

For our

polyphyletic beginnings

and

holophyletic ends

are

semantically the same.

Mai

I put a river on fire
with wishes
like White flashes
these black Gangetic puddles aflame
with
my thousand, thousand desires.

A hull--
molten,
goldswept,

with
swirls that velvet
Being.

Ten toes,
now cold
with

stripes of
mehendi receding
green, orange, yellow.

Do new mothers ever love
like old?

Still wishing,
...I comb her black waves

with

fingertips numbed

finding stars in curves
of dark, black, unending
curls.

My fingertips wet
I miss
mama’s angry old comb
scraping my
young, little girl neck.

far-gone

Turquoise cuspidate

things fall apart

the centre cannot hold

things

things

things

the rich restrain
of velvet dove wings
a soft steaming stream
trickling parch

like cherry fingertips
feathering kohl
lashes leap
rescuing warmed opals
the fire of a thousand consciousnesses


the trouble
of constrictions
of conflict
of certainty
conditioned caresses
compress
and

alike
we be,
far-gone

...baby.

Cccroon.

Art--"The Character of Mercy" by Carrie Ann Baade.

rHead.

Red coughs

dry decline

my mind a bee

bleeds

your hard, heavy, hundred desires.

Ours

Vivid shadows
dhol scattering
carnation reds
obscure umbras
trodden dry.

Heidi skips
tripping through wires
thief, friend
mouse
brave...

But,
possibilities of not
when rejections abound
and happinesses sell- a childhood past.

If you leave.
If you do not.

Are our lives
ours?

I am now awake.

Girl Swirl

Pound, rotate
Replay

Me in mentha earth
You up above

Two eagles
Our storms

Us

Comfortable
Softened slime
Combine

Salt watery beads
Surge

Mosquito symphonies
Whispering in red ears

Girl swirl

Trickles of black light
Where we collide

Evening skies
Sudden mounts
Sublime declines.