He's gasping for breath,
by the forest lake,
under a oak tree,
with a knife between his ribs.

He looks at his hands
slick with red
only fear clouding his head.

And in his last moments
he reminisces about her:
her loving smile
bright enough to light a room;
curly hair dancing in the wind;
the way she looked at him
like he was the only person in the world.

He wonders
if she's there,
behind the veil watching him
with the smile he loved
or maybe with a frown
that shouldn't belong on her pretty face.

for the mothers of Gaza and Ukraine

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable to sing.

What songs long forgotten occur to you now—
a babe at each breast? What terrible vow
ripped from your throat like the thunder that day
can never hold severing lightnings at bay?

Time taught you tenderness—time, oh, and love.
But love in the end is seldom enough ...
and time?—insufficient to life’s brief task.

The warmth that bodies bring is
A certain kind of pain,
Filling auditoriums with its unwanted wafts,
Pricking the little skin that is not yet numb,
And I, although being alone,
Never felt the cold until I saw its heat.

For this cold was not the absence of heat,
For in the summer there is sun,
And in the winter, rain,
Strain of freezing rarely accosts,
But, being amongst the heat
The pain turns even lukewarm dew
To frost.
All heat by then is lost.

Wild green sea at noon
wind alerts appear sombre
onshore breeze saline

Here I'm on retirement without you
With the blue canvas of memory

Out of the scene
Crystal raindrops shouting
in the sharp dawn

No Kohinoor of the London Tower is precious
No Gold of Nevada is attractive
But the wedding ring from the footpath hawker
I offered- Here now
I'm a shattered wantonness without you

Dividing absorbent you are in my heart
Nothing else except a fertile harvester
A pen or some dumb words
The seeds on the roots are drawing
a stagnant river or a fission algae

It’s six in the morning
and I got to get going,
I work at an Italian restaurant.
I put on my jeans and
happen to see the tag…
Made in India.
Holy cow! I come half way
across the world and end up buying
a pair made in my own country.
The shirt I see now is
Made in Pakistan—
Ha, the irony of fate.
My shoes come from China, Vietnam, Indonesia? …
Tell me about it.

Well, I have to have the day’s
first cup of caffeine;
Coffee turns out to be from Brazil.

I got into my Toyota…
Yeah, you guessed it right:
Made in Japan.

The sea calls softly to the trees,
Its voice like a whisper in the breeze.
It hums of waves and lands far past,
A song of time that will not last.
The trees bow down, their roots like chains,
They listen closely to ancient strains.
The sea's deep voice, both wild and wide,
Speaks secrets from the shifting tide.
The trees reply with creaking leaves,
Their wisdom is old, their voices grieve.
"Your waves may crash, your tides may rise,
But right here, we'll stand beneath your skies."
And when the earth begins to quake,

END OF SEASON

A street goes dark as the theatre closes
All lights turn off and the season’s done
Productions here have seen better days
A dusty and now empty stage looks bare
No longer shall boards be trodden there
Fame has passed by, but a memory stays
Of all performances, it was the only one
The challenge that an absent critic poses

November is like the gap in a toothy grin
Some local audiences, but hardly enough
The unfilled seats offer a depressing sight
Now actors and stage hands sense an end
The theatre now has no help left to lend