to verb a haiku

A lifetime of love

haiku-ed

to a one-night-stand.

my people

My people said there is meaning in the movement of trees.

They said there is meaning in the flight of the eagle,

meaning in the mood of these streams.

When swallows fly, rain is sure to follow.

But, fettered to the comforts of wide-screen-mode,

my people have forgotten;

and for twenty years now,

the swallows have stopped coming, flying in from across Horse Riders’ Creek.

my private poem-the 24th of may, 2009

Poets and writers

around three candle flames;

the Holy Grail.

And I, an outsider, among them.

Each word read

accuses me of mediocrity,

nailing the point like flesh to a cross.

Being no savior

I sheath my pen

before Pilate can wash his hands.

st. peter’s anthem

Far beneath a billboard

of the blueprint of my death

Whores in World War-II helmets

stand waiting to unfold

Far above a tired sun

is sinking over yellow fields

In twists and turns and ebb and flow

I lose myself in them

     Here, the body broken like bread

     Here, blood poured like new wine

     Here, the heart still as stone

     Here, love crucified

     In the space where nail meets flesh

     echoes of the name I had

     Long ago before the world began

     when I was a seed of God’s love

Hair upon your shoulders pale

like sadness deep and dark

Soft the fog that chokes the dawn

Dark the silhouette on the shore

Hollow sounds of fishermen

luckless under tired skies

Stranded in the shallow end

afraid to be free

song of st. jude/autumn

 www.myspace.com/nakedandinlove

In a purple top with a black handbag on a golden Sunday afternoon

the leper butterfly sold colours to the blind

Bruised hands holding yellow beads and first class tickets to Calvary

she danced to the tune of the Salvation Army band

We were on our way to St. Jude’s Coffee Shop where all the sinners go

for love of dreams, for company, for redemption in a paper cup

We stir up revolutions

We choke on dust and love

     Now over white tea cups there’s conversation, under blue eye shadow soft brown eyes

     she murders sleep in a thousand soft methods

     Twisting in her solitude she could peel the paint off the evening sky

     then we’d go back home to dream in black and white

     Drowning in our naked lust, dying for the thousandth time

     we bring champagne for Jesus and violets for the bride

     Then we spread them on a picnic blanket

     under falling stars   

(autumn 2003)

www.myspace.com/nakedandinlove

in memoriam/after the rains

Kar hmasa zawng ruah a sur a
tunah ni a rawn chhuak leh ta;
tlai ah chhimbal zam hnuai ah kuhva kan thial sen,
Thangzovi khawr ngei kha.

spring

Burly woolen clothes

all packed and ready for the dry cleaner;

while outside my window,

as if bashful about being born, 

3 peach blossoms revel in the softest orgy.

film

 fade in

          pine trees

          like warriors in gothic motif

          ready for battle

tilt down

         a lone black cart in a field of snow

roll credits

          ‘god’

(laitkor, april 1997)

monsoon

an arc of windshield wipers

a meaningless blob of colours becomes you

(te, as she walked by)

incompetent haiku

Lonely cotton dress on an autumn clothesline,

like the ghost of a long dead summer.

(through Joy’s kitchen window)