Rituals

The city does not make it easier.

First there is the house.
Yesterday's leftovers,
Skin turned to dust,
Coating all surfaces.

Pick them up,
Put them away.
Stray socks,
Dirty glasses,
Stained cigarette ends.

Feed the dog
Pick the poop.
Water the plants,
Straighten the droop.

There is also the spouse
Who needs tending,
A little bit of mending,
A constant bending
Of rules, empty codes
You might have made.

Hire a ride.
Haggle,
Fight a daily war.
Knot those thirty miles
Of noise, and fumes,
Speedbumps,
Odours.
Throw them all
Into a blackhole
Of unremembering.

An accident today.
A crashed car.
A jangled spine.
A broken light.
A broken resolve.
A cussword.
Or ten.

The city does not make it easier.

Dark

Days in a dark haze.
Disorienting, this dark.
Partial faces, all.

The Reluctant Custard

"What do you mean,
I should have set?",
Said the custard to me.
"Did you ever ask,
What I wanted to be?

I've had it up to here"
(This with a rise, an inch high!)
"With your mix and whisk."
(And expirated with a sigh)
"That vanilla bean just don't fly!

If you hadn't meddled,
You inexperienced rookie,
I could have been
A world-famous cookie,
On a nutty reality show.

Instead, I sit here,
Bludgeoned on the sides.
Unevenly caramelised.
Your stupid venture making
My slices look like slides."

My quip, you ask?
I obviously have none.
Shamefaced and sorry,
I stuff my face
With the reluctant one.

Of the Moon

Hide in dark shadows
Of the moon.
Phases renewed,
Faces forgotten
Of the moon.

Dive into the valleys
Of its scalloped surface.
Swim in the seas
Of derelict dreams.
Those ones, niftily spun
By the woman who lives
In the moon.

Wax and wane,
Tune your rhythm
To the ebb and flow
Of the diabolical pull
Of the hungry moon.

Sing the songs,
Of loss and love,
Of lure and lust.
Songs with no words,
Songs of fading echoes,
Of amorphous, liminal halves
Cleaving to the moon.

Become, then,
A diurnal dirge
To the incandescence,
The gloaming glow,
Of the mercurial moon.

Snapshot II

At the edges,
Hazy rings of purple.
Overexposure
Or
A sunlight spill.

Inside the lines,
Two pairs of eyes,
Two noses,
Conjoint smiles.
Hair streaming in a halo,
Spiralling into the sun
That peeks from a corner.

Further,
The sea,
Bright, blue, busy,
Threatening
To drown the sun.
Buoying the mad laughter
In those seaweed eyes,
Looking into the lens,
Seeing only the other.

Snapshot I

"Hey!", I called
To see you turn.
One quick click
And you were trapped.
Forever.
In a moment
Of exquisite perfection.

A smile,
Quizzical.
A slight squint,
From the flash.
Two seconds
Before
The smile turned
Into a scowl
Of protest.

For always now,
You might scowl,
Smirk,
Scold,
Scoff.

I'd still choose
To remember,
That fractional twitch
That played
At the far corner
Of your lip.

The one I caught
And refused to let go.

Silk Cotton

It stands there,
Proud,
Vain,
Tall.
Three feet away
from the street.

Like a summer queen
imprisoned in chill walls,
Suddenly set free,
It sheds the old,
Dons the new.

No more green.

A few noons ago
It stood naked,
Showing off slender arms
and cinnamon skin.

Today,
It burst into
incendiary blooms.
A glossy red,
Shiny,
Like a favorite lipstick.
Young again,
Magically,
That old Semal tree.

March Haiku III

The moon sings tonight,
Of dreams, hubris and lore.
Hums in a rain cloud.

March Haiku II

In your arms tonight,
The sentiverse turned axes.
Burnt white with mute love.

March Haiku

Cinnamon coloured,
Tepid, post-spring, twilight sky,
Turns a spiral; falls.