Sun Rise Over India

Sun Rise Over India

Before the rise of angry sun,
When every little bird and beast,
Is still behind the unseen veil,
Is still upon the wings of sleep,

As if the world had just been stopped,
By some unfearful godly hand,
In awe of things half tangible,
The silent beauty of the land.

Your restless soul has been consoled,
by an early morning wind,
Frozen for a second here,
As children smile, as devils grinned.

Washerwomen crouch in rows,
Reflected in the pinkish light,
As pillars of the working world,
The ones who wave goodbye to night.

An elephant gently kneels to wash,
Expressive eyes are filled with joy,
Splashing water on his back,
To wet the laughing black haired boy.

A boatsman in a tiny boat,
Slowly dips a dripping oar,
Watching for a darting fish,
A silhouette, nothing more.

But ripples of the coming day,
Disturb the silver chested river,
Change is in the antique air,
Some people wait, some people shiver.

Some people run for distant news,
Peering over vacant seas,
To cut the grass and start afresh,
To bring tradition to it's knees.

To burn a path of metal bright,
And grow a western women's dreams,
To hunt a royal furry pelt,
And pull apart the rotting beams.

Change is in the antique air,
A billion people sense and feel,
This is progress is it not?,
Or just a turning giant wheel.

Comfort Clothes And Creeping Vines

Comfort clothes and creeping vines


Comfort clothes and creeping vines,

Get juxtaposed, become entwined.

To a book of brilliance his thoughts led,

Onto the white pages he bled.

He cut back the jungle growth, macheted nine times, elusive rhymes, to pay for his crimes,

To win his bread.

Tread softly my sweet around his prose,

Be wary of his scented nose,

Its him they want, instead.

It’s not the greens that make him smile,

It’s not the olive branch he proffers, for a while,

It’s the crawling, it’s the reds, it’s the courtesan he weds, in the end.

In the end he becomes a pile of sticks in the mind, or on the forest floor,

You could burn them, with a flame, in a second.

You can keep whatever you find, from behind the polished door.

Twice a day he swooned, with a pile of bones that sit watching,

Waiting to be exhumed.

Memories

Memories

The best ones we saved for last,

And locked them in a tinsel tin,

Stowed away under cupboards of dust,

And the creaking skeletons within.

Too afraid to watch the burial,

We are too afraid to presume, that one day children

Will explore this secret place, and with their voices consume,

The dead things that lie untouched, but once themselves were touching.

That once were angry and sad, and embarrassed,

That once in the forgotten past said, 'can I share with you, your umbrella?'

And she with the dimples demeured.

That once on a pillow used to lie,

And long for dreams of insanity,

Slipping past old fashioned doors,

Breathing calamity.

Didn't we wonder at times, what was under the stairs?

And the drought of cold air, that came from the attic,

Chilling our home, we left alone.

We moved on to shiny things, angular walls cut thin,

See-through gaps in sky lit halls,

And we forgot the tinsel tin.

Obsession

Once in a dream she touched my thigh, and said tipsily, you have a tasty look in your eye.

Your ears are like chocolate, your tongue milk, the gap in your teeth, waved me goodbye.

Now nibbling my lips, and sipping, takes my toes in hers, an animal fantasy.

She smiles wastefully, groping the corners of satisfaction, two antennae drunk at dusk.

In the desert I've heard it gets cold at night, but the stars, but the stars could fill a man with zealotry,

Turn a fish to drink, or a dog from devotion.

Out there the wind howls in semitones, crotchets and quavers dance over France,

And in the Netherlands they have big hands. I've heard. I've heard that in India for a fee,

Monkeys will plait a women's front gate, and in the states there is no time for dinner plates.

I'm told. I'm told that boys will be boys, that men will be men,

That revenge is not bitter, that gold does not always glitter.

I know many strange things, but in Bombay they say, birds flock ravenously.