The night that breeds dark clouds of rankling dolour
Within azure sky of my mind’s great earth,
Delusive affection of thine enlivened fervour,
Of joy of life and lustre triggers dearth.
Thou rememb’rest those fragrant ways trodden,
Back i’th’ longest journey where spring ablaze
Laid the flowers blown down the wood and burden
Our lives like memories galore in craze.
O Fair! Let me know what paineth thee
Such sheer that thou afflictest thy lord.
Bleak is his heart, contriving ‘nother plea,
It haileth thy love to set the erstwhile concord.
However far thou fleest inflicting pain,
Shalt still thou find a peerless love of no stain.
This poem was entered in Julia Ward's contest but I've decided not to write for her.
At the footbridge I pause for one last glance
at naysayers who never gave me a chance.
River rushes in a roar, stronger than my rage,
my anger uncontrolled like the aggression of old age.
I am leaving behind a life gone wrong.
No longer happy where I don't belong.
I have to cross the river to be rid of my woes
and escape the cruel biddies, those jealous foes.
A smile touches my lips once over the footbridge,
I stare longingly at the mountains beyond the ridge.
A deep breath taken, and then two more,
calming me while the river continues to roar.
Behind me shrill voices screaming my name.
I grow tired of hearing them taunt me with shame.
My rankling increases as they hurl stones.
I turn to curse them, those bitter old crones.
With two pointed fingers, an evil spell I cast.
At the footbridge, I watch them breathe their last.
7/18/2016
Will you break off with me,
my beloved,
morsel for morsel laddu*?
My dream doesn’t come to me,
my bed is divided,
my heart – dry,
fire is rankling me.
You’ll regret,
my beloved,
if you taste it –
outside it’s sweet
inside – bitter.
Twice more,
my beloved,
your tear will run fast
if you pass me by scornfully.
In my chest
I wear a diamond of snake,
a lion-hair on my wrist,
a wealth of Brahman
in my head.
Will someone take them, gifted
someone else but my death?
Ah, my beloved,
marry me.
*a round syrup sweet made of gram floor
The abscessed wounds of
a betrayed heart fester
from desertion and deceit.
.
She takes solitude in shadows
gnawing herself red and raw,
rankling in private torment;
gnashing her teeth.
Until pain and grief turn noxious
with a fury justly sworn
to the retributory scourge
of a woman's woeful scorn.
The Week
I have seen the results of such causation in the
Flow; the rankling of souls in the current schemes
Unfold; a swift retribution of all that falls
In timing, in days united by one moment, one
Succinct cause; it binds the Master to some purpose:
To make Him writhe in pleasure at the phases, all
The places Souls must sift through;
He has no responsibility to define love or anger or
Redemption in His name for they will come and go, I say.
They might be movements that guide oblique the
One’s who seep reason through the His doors of circumstance;
The bonds of second chance rendered one, two three,
They hold wisdom glory and valor in place,
The sanctifying grace of all that holds you in wonder,
All that heaven will withstand as we nightly storm its
Gates to shatter blue the moon,
To suck in all the stars on cue and spew them
Rearranged – for that is the gift of breath, in
Darkness rising in our sleep,
I shudder for the week – it has no place here.