WORLD POETS MAGAZINE

  Be in Awe   Be in awe: language was given to us What a marvelous neural mechanism What a way to send ideas through the air What magnificent undulations, these that bind deep roots without our touching What invisible magic in the frontal lobe What a way to illuminate the intricate tapestry of the exocerebrum   Marvel at yourself   We were granted this body (nature knew what it was doing) Each organ each piece perfectly arranged like a city: an extended novel   A system that regulates the blood: the water in the blood, the oxygen in the blood the most profound and organic technology   Behold these wonders: the viscera, contraptions of living matter the lungs, the kidney, the womb of a mother: mechanisms of flesh and substance   Be astonished   We make decisions every day We improvise routes across thousands of streets (familiar or foreign) We are bifurcations Infinite multiplication unfolding into new permutations   Deep...

      The Trident and the Tea-seller The trident lightning arrestor looks more constant than before—   besieged by discomfort,  bygone joys and pain—a belief flowing endlessly into the future. The creepers cannot offer love to it—no red or yellow flowers. The tea-seller beside the closed factory  never noticed it since the trident  didn’t ever arrest or spear any lightning especially when the radical flags were offering a yearlong monsoon to a sneaking venomous rust. There is now a vacuum inside the gates, patches of love and strife on the trident and outside some tea for passers-by.      The Biscuit Factory     The biscuit factory  still bears a baked aroma on its unwrapped metal.  The leftovers are soil now but it failed to engulf its breath. The blurred slogans on its walls are old bruises—still longing to heal. It feeds on time to shed its colour for the br...

    Bearing Humanity’s Pain I stand amazed And look at me Turned into what I always dreamed of Slow and steady of step Faithful servant of law and order Dogged follower of the straight and narrow I freeze into my assigned position Rusty of joint I struggle to pick myself up when I fall A key bores obstinately into my back Never one to complain I endure all without a word Steely of sensibility Dead of tongue I throw myself on the mercy Of those who scourge me, those who break me Those who beat me, those who reject me Just this, let it suffice me To be remembered now and forever For that which I always dreamed of For that which I have become A little Wind-up Man                                     Doll House   When you were just a young ‘un you played hide and seek with dolls for fun and that’s how one fine day you ran...

  A Kiss   Do not reduce love to a stolen, yearning kiss, or to a bed trembling with desire. Do not reduce femininity to a single smile. Love that melts into sighs is not love… Be the roar of the wind, and kiss the whole world.       Life   The sun climbs toward its own dawn, clerks drift back to their offices, children to the warm echo of their schools, mothers to the cradle’s breath, vendors to the hum of their stalls, dogs to the quiet corners of their homes, cats to the soft gardens they claim, and lovers to the fields of their longing.   Everything returns to where it belongs. Did I not whisper once… that my death would change nothing? Why, then— why did I die?       You Are Not the World   You are not the whole world for me to write that you are the whole world.   You are not the world, nor half of it, for me to say you are half the world.   You are not the world, not even a quarter of it, for me to write that you ar...

  Homage to Kinsale   As nights obsidian curtain lifted, the skylark heralds the dawn chorus in my demesne of duck egg blue. From my balcony, a mirage of matchstick masts navigate the thirsty mouth of the harbour and my skin drinks it all in. Sometimes, when I bury myself in myself, never quite reaching the point when thinking stops, I unlatch the door, drink tea and savour wild berry tart at Poets Corner, or stroll to the Spaniard where the swans dance to Francesca’s mandolin and in my solitude I feel quietly content. I look at life in black and white at The Gallery, buy a chiffon scarf from Stone Mad – peacock feathers with handstitched beads and fly it like a kite on the beach. After sundown you’ll find me in The Black Pig sipping a glass of red, satisfied with the feeling that finally, I have arrived.     The Art of Seeing   There is a place I sit and sketch the still shade before the light fades in and out of restless dusk. There is a place where broken s...