Ode to the city.

The strangers met
on sidewalks and hands
touched briefly,
tumult some evenings
from the enough of affection
and neurotic afternoons,
the skull beneath eyes
and its ocular bones.

The feet that wandered
on even roads
and imagined wheels
across mountain roads,
the rolling papers that
obliged fingers, lips
and smoke that quietly
settled in searching eyes.

The faces that saw,
were seen in sharing
agony and pleasure,
those who hear
or know of email chats
or CCTV cameras
that record the
agitated walking
and contemplation
of suicide on the track.

The numerous auto rickshaws,
cackle in the ladies compartment,
memorizing the writing
on walls, and covering up
against dust and smoke,
the frenzied walk across
to a lover, the masks
sold and bought over coffee.

The delicately heeled gait
of women in the malls,
the glass that shows too much,
heaving through crowds
a mass of sloppiness
and fingering across supermarket
shelves pesto sauce for dinner.

The city entangles the poet with verbs-
she walks, runs, waits, hides, observes,
fails, then talks, touches, finds, loses,
catches, drinks, bargains, then meets,
loves, breathes, breaks a toe nail.





  

Breath

I cannot breathe enough-
the breath tumbles on your bed,
it breaks under your nails,
it hangs on my lips
when its not on your tongue.

I cannot breathe enough-
when left free,
but entangled with your legs.
My breath becomes smaller
when rubbed,
when gazes,
its long enough to keep me alive,
and then on a stair when I look up to see you
seeing me,
it paces ahead of me.

It seems as if the waves entered me last December and now I wake up short of breath on April
afternoons, only the thought of those ruins of Mycenae nestled in the Peloponnese calms me down.
Certain things I know little of, but I have feelings for cliffs.

Fragility

When I look at the moon from my balcony, I wonder how it would have looked if you stayed a little longer.
When I hear the solitary tap of that old man's stick, I wonder if loneliness was the same before i met you.
When I hear the reluctant silence of night, I wonder if I would have been happier without your voice.
It seems as if that hurried leave-taking of yours, that expectant walk of mine, that evening of wait were all scripted by you while I acted unrehearsed...and now with glimmering airplanes overhead I write momentary pains while you seek momentary pleasures.