In the Shadows

To where shadows
and road wind as one,

I descend,
testing my resolve

against the steepness
of the mountains,

looking back at you,
the sun gone

leaving what we have
between us obscured,

those parts of you and me
unenlightened.

Dismantling You and Me

The instruction was
in the one page manual,

of us in pieces
and disassembled.

After inventory of all the parts,
of wood and screws,

we located where we need
to hold fast together.

We were happy then
with what we have put together.

Today, with a different tool set
on the floor

we pull out each screw,
as in a rush,

uncaring if we damage
the threads

or splinter the wood
or hurt ourselves.

We just want
to be dismantled quickly.

A Small Factory

Outside the window-
the children watch cars, vans, trucks
fill up lanes with soot;

under the floor-
black water, still like stalled automobiles,
their mufflers blowing carbon;

in the floor-
black with flies blanketing
a baby lying on the mat;

home-
a human factory
in two square meters of black space.

Starboard

Tonight my eyes chance upon,
on this starry night, your star's glow
just above the horizon of this plain heart.

You fell onto this orbit, my love's weight
denting space where you spin. I studied you with maps,
to predict your journey across my sky

while sleep agreed to let me be intoxicated
by your sight. Your reflection starboard side,
made me grip the railings

lest I fall,
into love's unmeasured depths.

Alterations

You probably know
what an emptied seat means.
How blinking an eye could miss
the minute changes in the shadows,
and be burdened by what seemed
to be a desertion.

I am still here but yes I've changed
my seats, desiring a viewpoint
on how I can look at things, or you
not with loss of interest, no,
but with never ending wonder
of how you remained the same

despite the alterations
of the visible.

V-Day

Here comes Valentines
like a deadline,
and I've got nothing
to show for a result.

Unable to secure
a scarce resource,
a lover, for example,
it has all been a struggle.

I think I know
what's up for me come V-day-
a pink slip on my desk,
minus the chocolate and roses.

A Promise to Keep

The heart is treacherous, but by it our love we pledged,
wary of its fickleness unraveling what we held.

So, I promise this as God demands of me
to love you with all my mind, will, and integrity.

A poet wrote, 'i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)'.
I will carry yours in mine so you can fill up all its space.

So, declare to me this-
Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi qui*.



* My dear one is mine and I am his.

(w)Age(s)

"Stipendia enim peccati mors gratia autem."
Breath-deprived, the marriage is given up like doves
let go on wedding day. Where before the bride wears white,
now black is the motif, the sun eclipsed by clouds.

Soon, we'll reach the terminal
(si non sola mors me et te separaverit)
but the road is still bumpy up ahead.
We haven't paid ours

but the debt collector will soon find our address
and he might not care about the house or the old car.

Moved by a poem

To agitate the eyes, drive them fast
first here and then over ... there.

Between the distance of a millisecond,
was there consciousness of Newton's law?

To be conscious,
does it require conscience?
or science?
is there a con and a pro?
or a quid pro quo?

Is there a poem incapable
of moving a reader,
their eyes,
by a single letter?
or space?

This poem has traded
its abstract existence
for death.

To Lose Weight

Stepping on the weighing scale
is a sanity check for him
this morning after his head overflowed
with sound bites, moving images
and snapshots of her.

He tried many self-help books
on losing weight, compared the risks
and gain. He agrees it helps to have less
of her clogging his system,

that it takes time to lighten up,
to remove the weight of her arms
around his waist and love handles,
but he will do it the smart way
not looking damaged by the loss.

His new year's resolution:
Lose all of her this year.

Defaulted

This blank paper
is my report

about the poem
I meant to write.

I laid off words
when thoughts defaulted,

sans attachment-
clinical, precise-

to keep the piece afloat
in this difficult time.

But, I failed to live
within my means

and so the rest
had to go.

Priorities

Intervals of flats and depths
are irregularly spaced
but their frequency is high enough
to cause vibrations, for shaking
the water bottle tilted to pour,
dislocating its contents
from mouth to pants,
now wet, with its presence passing
through fabric down to skin,
even as he raises his head
while colors shifted from green to red,
the car stopping in the intersection
like water on the leather seat.

Your Exit

You are here. There is no site map as guide
to find the nearest exit.

A scan for the familiar (I am no liar),
will not yield the path. Stay

and check each words instead.
Get drenched in the meaninglessness.

Don't look at your watch wondering
when will I point the way out.

How much time do you have? I only have
one more period coming up.

Next Mom

She says she is in the city
whose streets are valleys of honking,
between buildings of glass and steel,
to work there long hours.

How long has she been out? I can tell
by counting the stars popping out
in my sky and the number of buses
dropping off other kid's mom.

I wait for those hours to run out,
for the next bus to open its door.
I am sure my turn will come next,
to welcome my mom (again).

Half-Open Door

I do not know what to expect standing before this old house.
The dust, rocks, and leaves of my memory are no longer here.

The breeze is still cold, on what is now a paved road, clean
but stiff like your eyes, but your welcome is only for the pet dog.

Soon, it is going to rain and I am still here looking at you.
I can still see some trees left from my childhood but without fruit.

The breeze has gotten stronger, slapping me outright, as if demanding
why I had not moved on instead of lingering by the still half-open door.

It's alright. I will leave, you can close the door.

End of Line

I see the light
from firecrackers dim,
as if poured into hidden spaces.

The sky is a blank wall.
Not one star blinks
or glows,

Like a poem whose thoughts
are unexpressed, halted
past the end of line.

I hear the horns fading,
isolating the echo
of a breath.

The air does not waver
like you do,
words stalling in their place.

In the powder-filled air,
my words were clobbered
by the mist.

Fill of You

It's never been clear to me
how close we could have been,
no matter how many times I rise up
at dawn to engage you in the light.

I walk just close by
everywhere you try to reach me,
pushing little rocks out of the way,
and teasing me with your splash.

We never had any conversations,
just quiet promenades until the sun
was golden in your skin, in my eyes
until they hurt with golden tears-

That's when I knew
I had my fill of you.

Threads

If life were measured like a thread, who will cut off
the fly from a spider's fiber, dead and swinging like a pendulum?

How many threads can bury a spider with legs dismembered
by soldier ants crawling over his upside-down body?

Stirring the mud, the rain digs on the earth a shallow grave.

My Diary

is cycles of fragments,
reflected like mirrors
of clouds, water over water
pushing forward towards water,
lost in a crowd of aggregation,
thousand details and choices
to look for. No wonder,
the breeze keeps pushing away
the present picture,
like clouds that never settle
in one place. They group and re-group
like false memory whose pieces
are from different puzzles.
In the end, they get recorded
like Egyptian history.

My Holiday Plans

Be like a timber, fallen on my earth,
and wet by the early mist

Or be like the vine, spreading out and creeping
across my length.

I could be the water seeping
into the base of your feet, rising up to your knees.

I could be the sun, peeking at you
from the clouds

Or the rain, pouring down on you,
or the shirt, wet and clinging tight on your body

Or the soil, dried on your skin
if you would only let me.