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Barbara Agarwal Poem
Whatcha Thinkin?
by Barbara C. Agarwal
If you're thinkin 'bout me
Then I'll let you be.
But you're thinkin 'bout her
I'm gonna change your thinkin, Sir:
Kiss you all around
And up n down til you beg me
Beg me for more sugar--
Sugar sweeter than mercy--
You'll beg me for your brain,
Beg me to recall your own name,
Beg me—you'll see--'gonna,
'Gonna make your mind whir,
'Gonna do one thing for sure, Sir:
'Gonna letcha make my body purr
So you just think about me,
And no more thinkin bout her--
Copyright © Barbara Agarwal | Year Posted 2015
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Barbara Agarwal Poem
Small Summer Cabins for Rent on Lovegrove Lake
by Barbara C. Agarwal
I left my chance when
A chance I did not take
When I saw you long, long ago
At Lovegrove Lake.
Do you remember per chance also,
Me perched on the wee porch there?
Me, dangling my silver sandal?
And sipping my white wine with care?
The blue chiffon band of my straw hat
Blowing in the river-lake air?
Me, sitting on a pink-coral rocking chair?
Me, focused and scratching out a poem to share?
You stood tall and out on the river dock
Of the lake. You stood wide-shouldered, as I recall:
A happy stranger, fishing, leaning against
The railing of the driftwood-grey quay.
I could hear you whistling, though afar.
I can hear you whistling still, by the song
I was won: “once there were valleys,
Kissed by the sun....”
Then—after some secret bless-ed
Moments of wonderful watching
I saddened to hear The Four Brothers'
Notes and your whistling cease.
But then you drew yourself together
With a sigh, to return
To your cabin, near and yet far:
Up the hill from mine,
Drew near enough you did
On the brown graveled path,
Near enough that I could see
The smiling creases aside
Both your boyish brimming
Brown eyes, barely shaded by
Your beaten tan angler's hat,
And you were coming my way
In that plaid musky-looking fishing shirt,
(Your rod used like a shepherd's staff,
With the metal lure clanking --ting-tinging--
Against your pail) you were coming my way
Near enough to me that I
Might smell that primal scent
Some sensuous men emit
After their hard days' work.
About to pass me by,
You slowed your step.
You paused.
Perhaps just for breath?
Or was it just long enough to wink
That well-and-wanting wink at me?
I smiled but put my eyes back to page.
You then continued up the way
To your cabin
More far away than hope.
It was then I think
That I stopped living
Or began dying from lost delights:
Reveries of what-might-have-beens,
There by Lovegrove Lake
On that Tuesday afternoon.
“Gone are the greenfields.../
Where rivers used to run.”
Copyright © Barbara Agarwal | Year Posted 2015
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Barbara Agarwal Poem
You Dream
You dream me a dream.
You and I careen,
wide-eyed and screaming
wild cries, clutching the sides
of our Thunder Mountain cart
on its rickety wooden rails
that fail
and we swoosh--like a flume
into a silent lagoon of silver water,
our cart transformed:
a sleek Venetian ebony gondola--
there with my long-dead brother singing
old familiar camp songs--we must duck down,
head-to-head,
to slip into the ribs of a skiff in Capri,
lying so low, to enter
the fluorescent Blue Grotto.
We emerge breathless in time.
You have lost my passport.
No one speaks our language.
No one understands.
We run away together, away and away
but the drunken brutal border guards
rip me from you, make me naked, take me to a desert
where I shall be shot, shot
because you lost your wallet.
You cannot pay my fine--
the fine demanded, extracted, exacted,
a sane insistence it seems in dreams,
all reveries in sync:
until the brink comes:
you terrorized by the Universal Dream of Descent,
you fall, fall, fall--unready to meet the Morning Star.
But you will not today:
today you will wake to find
the digital clock and the leather block--
your wallet there before your eyes--
yet oft' you wish you might return
to sleep, to complete
just one serene dream,
just one
ending without the threat of death..
perhaps to still, to cancel,
the silent screaming,
the greater fear of Finality:
me having to be here
without you
or you having to be here
without me.
Copyright © Barbara Agarwal | Year Posted 2015
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