hailstone tea

hailstone tea
a patch of purple crocus
by the ninth green

.

judy blue eyes

there was a time when judy didn't dribble.
a time when her eloquent voice echoed the sharp flourishes of her mind.
slow now. so slow now.
the ticking of the clock measures the dreadful daylight hours with clipped phrases. a pendulum that travels one way.
the wrong way.
she can't remember raindrops, nor the brittle light of early spring sun with its watery kiss floating in the sky like a promise.
hot days ahead. summer shine.
she cannot use the simplest of utensils not even a spoon. and that is all they feed you with in here, plastic spoons. you see you can't slit your wrist with a plastic spoon and you cannot penetrate your chest. you can gouge out your eyes though. just ask henry.
old henry.
blind henry.
he knows how to use a plastic spoon does henry.
there was a time when judy didn't cry all the time. a time when her laughter ran like the sense of water running. powerful and strong from the tributary of her heart to the ocean of her soul. no more laughter now though. just pebble stone cold tears.
'she doesn't know anything poor love'
'nothing?'
'no, not a thing. her mind is a total blank'

how come she weeps then?

Being born

My Country Tis of Thee

 

Sometimes I don't know what it means to be an American. Then I look out the car window, and all is revealed. God save us from our bloody hands.

Multiplicity

I am a father of two.
I am a daddy to one.
I am a caregiver at work.
I am the lover to her.
I am a husband till death.
I am compassion's embrace.
I am a friendly face.
I am empathic by design.
I am a predator of the weak.
I am a monster in the ring.
I am a sociopath for defense.
I am acutely attuned.
I am ignorant.
I am arrogant.
I am the silent enemy.
I am a god among men.
Be wary of my presence.
I can't control some of them.

burning

a fiery obsession that'll burn a civilization

Backdoors

Chrome vessels maul her thighs. In jaundiced clucks and and serrated stabs. Perforated breaths torn out of her chest. Hollowing covers. Shivering spirals echo the rape of her absense. Dead clouds in a dead sky. Crying tears already wept so often.

The vacuum of her cunt devours him. In monstrous heaves she chokes him all the way inside. Until there's nothing left to swallow except the slit of moonlight that decides the difference between them. The comma in every sigh that comes after this.

Insinuations scattered like dog shit. Willing us to step in them. His touch like cum on her face. Only serving to make her a victim.

He never loved her until she cried for him.

But by then it was too late.

Templates, Smemplates!

Guys, now that we are on the much improved beta blogger (NOT!), I can do all sorts of funky things with the template. I did try the other day, but for some reason I couldn't get the colors to change and it came out black and white. So I switched back to the classic template. Now I can just stay with this template and play around with it or do the beta thing or leave well enough alone. Any thoughts?

observations 2

she wears a teepee on her head.
i mean it sits there like it is giving birth to her.
like it is pushing her out of itself.
large.
shapeless.
woolen.
she looks like a hobbit from a vision of the shire conceived by Tim Burton.
wrong.
she looks wrong.
less of a gamgee and more a gammy.
not a baggins but a bag end.
a very bad end.
the hat doesn't fit her but she fits it.
it owns her. she wades and wallows beneath its lofty weave.
the dog being wagged by the tail.
she seems very proud to be the lamp stand to the resplendent shade as she shuffles to her seat with innocent feet.
and even the breeze outside the bus seems to hush its rush to a whisper as if to confer with the tyrants of trees the idiosyncrasy of milliner fashion.
they concur with me.
that ain’t no hat, it’s a bin liner.

Untitled

"what did you want Meryl Streep to do?
Tell me from your heart.

searching for your heart?
i bet you left it in some long, steel corridor"

you never answered, but I wanted her to leave
and join Eastwood in his truck...
I would have, had I been her
but you never answered

you remained my early-morning sleep
when i had a bus to catch . . .

so i never caught you . . .

holding

G and C

grim store grime store
growing grey by the green shore
grubby gelatinous muck.
given G's are better than C's
and C's much better than B's
do any of you give a fuck?

A New Year's Party

That there is room for other conversations too
is a thought, a double-edged sword
for me,
and for you.

My friend on the next bar stool
is mesmerized with your heaving breasts,
your slender frame sitting straight,
laughing, sipping wine, while the world waits
to genuflect to the moment
when the woman in you will glow.

“Yes! Yes! I know what the world has come to!
Hunger, intolerance, head-butts, Zizou!”

Please! Please take note of what I’ve become too
but I don’t know how you do that
I forget my misery; laugh at your jokes.
You caress my cheek, playfully pat.

“No seriously! I mean there are more bombs than childbirths.
Ask a man gone casual walking in Baghdad, Madrid.”

Somewhere the ghazal singer croons Faiz…

“Aur bhi gham hai zamane mein mohabat ke siwa…”

Ah no! I remember “dukh” in the original work.
“Dukh” is stark, naked, intensely painful than
“Gham”; a ghazal singer's mellifluous, melancholic version.

“Ha! Here speaks the poet
whose only tool to a woman’s heart
is semantics!”

Everyone titters, I feel naked.
You giggle, wink, blow a kiss.

“Don’t you think it was chilling to watch Saddam today?
As if he’s walked into a bar asking for a table!”

I feel a shiver up my spine.
Raise my glass, toast the wine.

“Long live America!”

We all laugh.
“I love your sense of humor.”
But I wait for the inevitable.

I wait for the moment
when your own thoughts
conspire, chain your heart.
I wait for the moment
when my poetry's logic
play tricks, seal your lips.

That there is room for other conversations too
is a thought, a double-edged sword
for me,
and for you.

Ah! She sings my favourite Momin ghazal now…

“Ulte wo-h shikwe karte hain aur kis ada ke saath,
betaaqati ke taanein hain uzr-e-jafa ke saath.

Maanga karenge abse dua hijr-e-yaar ki
Aakhir to dushmani hai asar ko dua ke saath.”

© Dan Husain
December 31, 2006

Two views from the Black Hill

The hill was windy and the clouds were scattering light over the land in very odd ways. To truly see changeable weather, as opposed to just experiencing it, go up a hill.

{For some more pics I took yesterday - please go here.)

observations 1

she sits on the bus using her hand bag like brail. enveloped by a dowdy, drab coat that shapes her.
ankles drip with lard like indolence that hang flesh pelmets over her broad shoes.
i cannot see her face for she sits in front of me staring steadfastly at the rain speckled window. the back of her head shows a life of routine Monday's and Friday's.
of washing days and fish.
linens and starched creases.
i imagine her arms, elbow deep in suds as she wears out the patterns of her chipped crockery with soap and cloth.
chubby arms and red raw elbows.
a lifetime of potato peelings and sour gin.
i wonder if anyone has told her that this is the twenty first century?
she, canute like, defies the tides of time turning, this lady on the bus, this totem of camphor and womans own.