The Freaks

He talks, turning a sun-stained
Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark
Cavern, where stalactites of
Uneven teeth gleam, his right
Hand on my knee, while our minds
Are willed to race towards love;
But, they only wander, tripping
Idly over puddles of
Desire. .... .Can this man with
Nimble finger-tips unleash
Nothing more alive than the
Skin's lazy hungers? Who can
Help us who have lived so long
And have failed in love? The heart,
An empty cistern, waiting
Through long hours, fills itself
With coiling snakes of silence. .....
I am a freak. It's only
To save my face, I flaunt, at
Times, a grand, flamboyant lust.

Love

Until I found you,
I wrote verse, drew pictures,
And, went out with friends
For walks ....
Now that I love you,
Curled like an old mongrel
My life lies, content,
In you ....

After The Illness

There was then no death, no end, but a re-uniting
The weary body settling into accustomed grooves
And, he said, his soft, suffering face against my knee
I knew you would survive, my darling, I willed it so.
He had noticed the high greens of my illness, the bones
Turning sharp beneath the dry loose skin, the yellowed eyes
The fetid breath and the prayers to unfamiliar Gods
Who seemed to him so much more beloved than he.
Did he feel the neglect while I battled with my pain ?
Did he, waking alone at four, remember? There was
Not much flesh left for the flesh to hunger, the blood had
Weakened too much to lust, and the skin, without health's
Anointments, was numb and unyearning. What lusted then
For him, was it perhaps the deeply hidden soul ?

Sunset, Blue Bird

when i am with my friends and talking i remember him
and suddenly i can no longer talk they ask me what is wrong
why have you turned pale and i weakly shake my head
nothing nothing... .i was warned not to go near the king but
i did go and believe me he was like a man like any man he
clutched me to his breast he said he loved me and i was
happy and thought he was happy too.... after a year two
yellow moons waxed and waned without a sign of blood and
i told him lying on his lap i told him and suddenly the sun set
on that beautiful face his breath was heavy in my ear he said
not a word .... he no longer calls for me he no longer comes
to me or stands at the open window to smile at me
but everywhere i look i see him everywhere i do not look i
see him i see him in all i see him in everything like a blue
bird at sunset he flits across my sky....

The Stone Age

Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind,
Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment,
Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite
Dove, you build round me a shabby drawing room,
And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while
You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep,
You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And
Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink
Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood,
Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities.
When you leave, I drive my blue battered car
Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty
Noisy steps to knock at another's door.
Through peep-holes, the neighbours watch,
they watch me come
And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me
What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion,
A libertine, ask me the flavour of his
Mouth, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake
Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like
A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts,
And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is
Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price ....

A blessed life

True,
I broke a commandment or two,
but I shall not plead for society's pardon,
or God's.
When I disobeyed
I tasted bliss.
Indeed
I count myself blessed
not for the fame
or fortune
but for those wanton hours
of pure abandon