Melancholia

On days such as this
She sits
Throat parched
For want of a few drops of nicotine.

They gaze at her
Myriad questions in their eyes
Is she mad?
Or did the sun just bake her black?

On days such as this
She sits
Lost in her thoughts
Of fallen towers and run-down mosques.

They drift by like leaves,
Few pity her
Most are just curious
Is she mad?
Or did the sun just bake her black?

On days such as this
She waits
For the nothingness of nothing,
Perhaps she has seen
Kali’s dance on the flames.

They don’t see her any more
Even as they pass,
They know
She turned mad
When the sun baked her black.

Was all well
On this end of eternity?
Here she had stood
Beneath his sails,
Singing out to the sea.

Was all well
On this end of eternity?
Here she came
And waited each day,
Eyes searching the sea.

Was all well
On this end of eternity?
In dreams she saw
The face she loved
And heard the summons of the sea.

Was all well
On this end of eternity?
He returned,
Tired of mortality
To find her drowned at sea.

The Blue Lotus

Beneath erring seas
She waited
Cursed by mortality...

He knew her
Only fleetingly,
And all he remembered
Was her trail...

She watches him now
From her watery grave;
She watches him...
The man with the white beard
And the stick.
He walks still
Seeking the petals
Of his blue lotus.

We
Me
Had I been two or three
You would have unfolded me
In your cynosure...

You
Me
Misconstrued vanity
Shona
Yet I keep waiting
Beneath the erring sea.

Mouth in a fish tank
I can't choose not to breathe.

The myth of bound feet
Or tempting saffron.

I bloat to fill up
Gas chambers
And bone-china cups

The world shrinks.

Birth...
Never knew you caused
So much pain
I AM NO WOMAN!
Yet each time you are born
I sink
I live
Each time
Knowing one day
Ill die
In childbirth

I slash at ghost wrists
Memory bleeds
You stick like glue.

I scored a foul
Long ago
And the ball hit my head...

You pin me down, still
And resistance flees
Like turtles on the receding wave

Someday maybe
Nut-like Ill crack
Sideways
Opening up to let you leave.