Storm light over palms—

still water trembling with a new sincerity.

Fingers glide along my back,

and the pond’s surface,

like those of a pianist's who taught herself

Moonlight Sonata at twelve.

After so much rain—

soft moans, cigarettes among

the banana leaves—

the pond remembers sky.

Difficult histories shared,

promises made, even as the shadows

of what is lost, and of what has been snatched away,

migrate upward, as still-black clouds,

ominous, unwilling to forgive.

But look—

a solitary cloud shines through...

ce qui est conçu en ourdou se transforme en français,

puis se transforme en tropiques,

puis se transforme

en Violence d’un nouvel espoir.

Bon, mais euhh... what is to say

it won’t rain again? Rien.

Je m’en fiche.

Once again, clouds drift apart, legs part;

Face deep in it all again—there is new 

light, not rain. And somehow,

because that is the way of the world, the

Day begins again.

 BISCUITS

Rain darkens the door

Again. But it is only 

March, you say. Sure,

it is always March somewhere.

Somewhere, surely, it is March when

Accounts are settled, plans made

before you skive off for some fresh juice

and check your phone again. Bad idea:

WhatsApp messages from last summer 

when the world almost declared ceasefire

at long last, and promised to deal

En flores.

Turn up, turn up again and again.

And it just might happen again.

It might not, of course, but it might!

Discipline, love, a search for something…

…she might turn up as well. 

You know better, of course, but you never know...

...reassuring words are 

a Professional Requirement.

Enjoy your biscuits for now.

TRENCH FOOT

 

The important thing is to keep your socks dry.

The important thing is to

keep your socks dry, as the cold seeps

into your bones, and the damp.

Somewhere an old woman in a cramped hut

watches television, and you are called upon

to buy her a larger house.

 

Not long ago, you tried in vain. To show up

and proclaim, ‘I am not a cannibal!’ Yet to grow up

among them in libraries, monasteries, and the local philharmonic

is to develop a taste

for flesh and fatalism. What could be done,

what indeed. The mogilizatsiya of the soul:

 

After a while, you even enjoy these games

Yourself. The blood tastes sweetest

when they are little, dripping

from the green of a surgical gown.

Yet there is also the tiredness

of Monday mornings, of the din,

of stale cigarettes amidst the unquiet

Crossfire.

 

You think of Shostakovich,

Who stood up to one kind of moustache

and not so much to the other, Our kind.

Easier to be brave in the hypothetical…

 

…on one side peace, on the other, land, flat-screens and washing machines.

 

Naturally,

I chose

The latter.

 CIGAR

I have lost the capacity 

for Art. But of course, 

unlike her 

I have never had the capacity for

sincere, unselfish tears

and honest Anger. Isn’t that

where it all begins?

I watch as the oblong of her mouth moves, 

I watch those lips that often part and give way

to a toothy grin. I watch those lips- intently- 

as they let forth words that speak of war, 

Of the unspeakable: 

31257 butchered and hospitals mined, 

lives torn asunder; families torn apart

In the bitter cold. 

And them that do it suffer nothing. 

She speaks of grief and defiance, of

ice cream in summer in a field of red viburnums.

So much to know, so little that can be known, 

but the daily miracle of revelation in that voice

that reads to me.  A voice that returns,

mercifully, having stormed out yet again as though

it were for the very last time. She laughs, and sunflowers

bloom. 

Am I needed? Will I ever be? I want more and am beset

By tears and yearning. No importa: the only thing to do

is to Wait.

 

One day, the Guernicas will cease to multiply.

One day, justice will be served.

One day, I will bear witness

with my own eyes, on her lips, 

at long last: Peace. Hakuna Matata.

 ECLIPSE

Between the sun and me stood the moon, as it does every so often. But I, who am named after the  Midday sun, had my loyalties chosen for me of course. Nonetheless, what was eclipsed was neither day, nor night: on this day we debated Food. Not recipes, nor keto diets. But whether

to starve, to feast, on fruits or on meat, what is permissible, what could be policed. That old Sanskrit word Dharma- both duty and divinity, that river of blood ironically named Daya…lo ‘tis the gods at our door at last, and nothing more shall remain 

blissfully Godforsaken.

Through

faithful repetition 

one seeks to find a way out of 

The disorienting miasma of the everyday- personal and political- 

while acknowledging 

that no such exit route may ever yield. 

Never mind: exhaustion, anxiety,

Shame: our balls of yarn, gifts from Ariadne, 

to unspool and to get on with the Minotaur slaying, clock's running, chop-chop, and to follow the thread back to her, 

escape Crete, and make love in the distant dark.

At last. 

In tears. The true measure of absolution: the permission

to grieve. 

As you kiss her shins- if she lets you- permets-toi de te 

DÉSINTÉGRER.

 Femme mystérieuse,

tu es entré dans ma vie comme d'un rêve de délivrance.

Comme si

tes silences nuancés,

tes petits gestes de chaleur,

tes sourires doux et incertains

étaient tout ce que j'avais cherché.

Tout ce que je pouvais légitimement rechercher. Pourtant je me rends compte

quel mirage c'est.

Comme toujours, tu suivras ton chemin, je suivrai le mien.

Et rien de tout cela n'aura d'importance,

ces sentiments,

cet espoir,

rien.

Et nul ne s'en souviendra,

aucune trace ne restera

de tes yeux bleus obsédants.

Des yeux bleus qui se sont drainés dans deux éternités d'oubli,

espère passé et espère encore passer à côté.

Comme toujours, finalement, je t'ai repoussé.

Ma sentimentalité bon marché, mon avidité peu aimable, mes fantasmes présomptueux.

Tout ce qui reste

c'est d'attendre que tout s'envole, et que l'anesthésique de l'inévitabilité

pour me droguer pour dormir.

Peut-être que je te rencontrerai enfin dans mes rêves.

Peut être pas.