You

I find you in things that don’t make sense.
In cries of the spoon when I stir my tea
In traces of melting sugar on its steel.
In the eye of every glass
I find I don’t see myself at all.
I find you when I am faceless and I lose myself
In dark corners and paths I walk away from
And never stare back
In creases of my unironed clothes
In threads that come undone and unravel like the seasons
In dents and curves of my misshapen body
In the dust that rises from people in a hurry
And settles back, like time itself.
Sometimes I talk with insanity
At times I give my thoughts a name
And sometimes she comes to me with faces I knew
In silence that I break too soon
With my unkempt words
On empty pages that always win
In melting wax gathered next to a flame
In tears I shed over those I don’t know
In a yellow moon, half eaten by the sun
In words and gestures I don’t hear and overlook
In strands of hair sticking to my skin
Like an ill-treated memory
I’m afraid, my love,
I’m turning into you.

Ugly

What is age when your skin is a pearl
Unlike mine, love,
Stretched out
As a dry riverbed
Ghost flake puzzles.
Yet your mouth quivers like an arrow
Stretched upon a bow
Reaching out to catch me.
Your tongue lashing,
Like a bird in a cage
Violence, pain and love
In the tunnel of your eyes.

What good are my arms, my feet, my legs
Forever inching closer
Nudging your ribs
Colliding like ungentle waves
Like the only place I know.

What good is my hair
Thinning out, tied
In knots by the wind
A tangle of tension threads.

What good are my words
When they only pierce the past
Thin as paper with bullet holes
And the future dissolves
In promises of tomorrow.

And as age shines on you
Like a dawning sun
Dry leaf, I should know
I’m unworthy of a green stem.

Page

There are no tears or songs,
Shades of blue and violet from the sky
Locks of your dark hair caught in the sun,
The emptiness of smoke escaping your lips,
Filling the void in between
But words that make this poem.
Words and distance.
Words and promises.
Words and silence.
When i rise no more,
From your eye or your storm.
From a dusty cupboard.
From a torn page.

Naming the Void

The ropes are gone
Lost in a garden of wretched believers
And I, vigilante
Let my dreams soar
For a clear, white day.
Like a string less kite, departed leaf
Like a lonely wave
Washing your feet.

Only mere strings remain
And I, lost in a maze
Of vile beliefs
Pour labyrinth into my cup
Swallow it down the abyss.

And in the distance, as far
As the eye can see the grey
The box is undone
The walls are bare
The mirror is empty
For her reflection is gone.

And the threads, the threads, threads
The threads grow thinner still.

*awesome photo by Ipshita :)

Home for Norah

I walked by the forgotten home
Of her youth
The wind sailing through broken windows
Beckoning the aged, blackened wood
To speak and sing.
I walked by ghosts and
Through the sun
Lighting a dead lamp with life
I took a page
Wet with yellow light and walls and
I wrote this down,
Not by the sweat on the brow
Of your weather-beaten blue eyes
That haunt your lovers and have
Seen too much but never enough.
Not by the river that flows
Through your skin, flooding with rage when it rains
Leaving lines of sand.
And not, by your wise hands that
Hold these green, breathing mountains
That rise and fall and make
Roads along the moon.
I will heal by the soles
Of your ashen feet
That mirror the land
You call home.

Across the Inch

The rains chase you away to shelter
Away from childhood
Away from puddles and all the children
Away from the promises
Of a rain swept road.
As we dry with our rhymes and our rants
With our lethal habits
With our music and all our secrets
With a fear of growing old.

Flow

Late night
2 am
Woman's footsteps
Echo regrets.

There is no poetry
In being alone
There is no solace
In a heart without a home.

Elegy for an Island

Once I swam
In a sea in your eyes
Where memories of fear and longing
Passed me by.

Then I came to a shore
Where your lips did rest
And I quenched my thirst
And never left.

Perhaps the wind knew
Where time was going
I sat in the shade of your hair
Dark and flowing.

Your breath lulled me
To sleep and I
Sang songs to your name
And closed my eyes.

And as I slid down your smooth your neck
Your skin, it did gleam
And the island of your body slowly swayed
In the sunset of my dream.

Perhaps the wind knew
Where the birds were going
I sat in the shade of her hair
Dark and knowing.

Then I ran, on a field on her spine
And found my reasons
Sheltered in her breast
The seasons will forever be unkind
To you and I, who wander aimless.

Soon, the clouds gathered
And a storm did come
Where the armies all departed
With their bugles and their drums.

And I made a raft
To brave the tides
When sun set, as
The light from your eyes.

If you find me drifting
With my planks and my oars
Leave me like the wind
But guide me to the shore.

*photo by Piret

Shadow dance

She raises a wall of unheard gestures, vacant words, of silence...instead of building a bridge of voices. I try to replace a void shaped liked her with her shape. I dance with her shadow while she avoids the spotlight, vary of the light, surrounds herself with her dark hair and forgets the world holding a cigarette. I collide with plans i made yesterday, colours i played with and often wore while she tries to barge that door that would let it all in and wont let her sleep.

Black and white's good for now, played with grey for far too long.

Ache

To not hear her gentle breath
Going tender still with
The aching of the sun.
To not trace the contours on her skin
And to watch them change with time
As the candle melts.
To watch the clock ticking slowly
And day turn to night again
To carry love like a stain, after
Waving love like a flag.
To call out and receive only my echo in return
And to speak with little tongues,
With a wicked smile, as trouble does
Is not a gentle death.

*photo by Suzanne

Outside

I came when the wine had flown
The sounds were silent
When the colours were dead.

I came
When the words were spoken
When the match was lit
When ashes remained.

I came when the clouds were gone
The earth was fresh
And the sun lay hid.

I came when the wind was tired
When the birds slept free
When the trees stood still.

And I came when you sang
When the wound had healed
When new colours ran
When words began
In circles of the well
From a broken shell
With not a soul to tell

So I come to you
Let me in.

The Morning After

What shall I say to save the night?

If we go in circles,
This cut will never mend.

But round and round
Like wind and dust
We twist and turn and go,
As we must

To find ourselves again.

Flame of You

My hands yearn to touch all that is you
Moon flesh, scattered Kohl and a bruise

While you take flight like desert sand
And unfurl the rain to
Wash our feet with summer.

And soon, when the stranger, that is you,
Departs
The sky falls silent with the sun
In the corner
And I watch the birds douse their fire
Beneath a silent shade.

Grant me a day to watch
The colourful armies at your pillow
Your skin and your waves
And your eyes that speak.

And like the new season
You don’t say much, but
Your tales are true and
Your words are fresh
Plucked from the tree of memory
Washed in the river of tomorrow
Thrust between your hesitant lips
To be consumed slowly
Slowly, like your flame.

The Cynic

I sometimes feel
Most poetry is
Devoid of a poem.

Interesting, random, unimportant observations

I’ve always thought most women do not look good with extremely dark lipstick or really bright nailpolish and that they usually get the colour wrong. When they wear the wrong shade of lipstick, I don’t know why, but to me, it looks like they have bad breath.

I’ve never been fat so whenever I put on a little bit of tummy weight, after bathing and seeing that my navel can hold some amount of water deeply unsettles me. Maybe I am a little bulimic, I don’t know.

Shaving my entire face makes me realize that I have dark brown/pink, almost purple-ish lips.

Old

This is getting old, and maybe, so am I.

But I am not tired, and I am not done.

Four

If there were four things i could do today, they would be -

to burn, to burn, to burn, and

to heal.

When You Are Not Here

To you when you are not here
Words cannot contain your small hands
The curve beneath your eye, turning of your little toes
And pink lips like petals.

A page cannot hold you
The lazy river that you are
Beautiful, you curse and make your way
Through different shades of the evening moon
It cannot seize
The fire that you breathe, like
A crimson planet
And the threads you spin
With the needle of your fingers.

This is for you so that it stays with you and may
Touch you when you are not with me
And as I watch the curtains sleep,
In my cold, cold room
Silence speaks your name.

This is for the time when, in the unspoken language
Of glances, smiles and slight brush of your arm
We forgot about the sun and every clock
A time when we were
Mortals in our Eden
Looking for a place to fall.

Fade

I annoy everyone. I guess sometimes you have to put up with me. It sucks to be confused about little things and memory bringing me down with forgetfulness all the time. I don't impress the ones i love with mostly anything i do anymore. Maybe just strangers who don't know what i look like and get confused about how to spell my name. I am going to be such a burden when i grow old.

Roads

One thing I have learned - the way back is always easier.

Pieces

Everyone finds somewhere to fit.

Woman

The woman is born
Somewhere in the sea
She sleeps till the tides rest
And shudders in her dream
Like roots in winter

In a world where she falls like rain
And breaks in puddles
She takes the stars
In her eye
And casts them into the water

The woman breathes, and
Her voice and soul are silent
And her silence speaks in tears.
Nothing illuminates this heart
And her body made in silver.

Sheltered in her breast
Is a thirst or a word
A question and a bruise
A flame and many wings.

The woman is the sea
That speaks with her eyes
Submerging forgotten cities in your mind
She listens and overflows and speaks in waves.
Birthed into form by storm, sky and heat
Of the sun
She washes and summons
Your ear to the wind
To watch, to nurse your trembling fire
From where words will begin.