Give me new paper. Fresh, crisp
and smooth, so the ink
shall not run if I must write.

Before it is finished...

I have come to touch you.
To put my fingers in your hair - oh!
it must be thick and strong
does it stretch or curl? - run,
through parting until somewhere, there,
I feel little depressions where a crown was once fitted.

I have come to touch you.
To run the side of my thumb down your spine - oh!
It must be straight as an arrow
each vertebrae precisely placed - stroke
and find a story everywhere, there,
written across your back in rivers of scars and hills and mountains of knotted flesh.

I have come to touch you.
To slide my palms along your shoulders - oh!
how strong they must be, they bore, the tree and the world - rub
gently down your arms until there, where,
your slender wrists met the forge, there,
there is my heart become stone.

I have come to touch you.
To bow low and reach for your feet - oh!
how beautiful they must be, we,
deign to wash them? - touch
the tender place there, somewhere,
where in roses
sprung in indescribable perfection of
torn tissue and ripped muscle, spouting
spewing, spitting blood, blossomed
everlasting life.

I know
deep inside, strong inside, unshakable, immovable
that you. have me.
Lungs burning body cringing every hair reaching for you.
I fly for you.

You know
I write you poems because
deep inside, strong inside, unshakable, immovable
you are beautiful
Only, now, your eyes explode me your voice unmakes.

But enough.
of seeing
and hearing.

Now come.
touch me.
Break my sternum crack my ribs rip through my lungs pound
diamond to dust.
crush.

So I can finally give you the one thing you ever wanted.

Psalm 51:17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

We know not what we do

I lie, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed.

I pray,

“Lord,

I cry, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed, screaming

“Do I not hate those who hate you with a perfect hatred!?

“Waiting,

Knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed,

For your wrath as it flows,

River, sea, storm grows

Waves rising, reaching for the sky, scraping, screeching, screaming as

Thunder roars

Pours walls of fire

Devouring everything in its way.”

I am safe, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed, whispering not but

From the depths of my being

Screaming

“SAVE ME!!!

“And in the eye of the storm I will be still and know that you are God.”

And the whip

Not still, quivering dried skin

Is raised, flung

 And I, knees folded, my

Face to the ground

While I, knuckles clenched white

Cover my head, my

Spine exposed,

Grit my teeth, waiting.

And the wind

Is flicked over my back

And I shudder knowing

That I felt nothing

Because it did not fall.

On me.

Steady

In the deep heart of the morning is that moment of unknown
Between sleep and waking on the edge of a dream
The fragile border of transparency
Between black and white

The storm swirls and the dawn will smudge in
The sun might seem not to shine
But in the deep heart of the morning you are there
And I will hold the hope.

Soul Food

The thing you’re not going to forget about this kitchen is that it has a lot of yellow.

Not the kind of bright yellow we usually associate with kitchens, but a deeper, almost ochre shade. It says something about how she loves: happily consuming all, yet deeply, committedly.

At the table against the wall is where we sit long after meals or tea, talking, laughing, teasing, arguing. I often accidently take the old man’s wooden stool before he gets there, and he will improvise. He and the two boys are gracious in this, making allowance in their home for people who don’t have a claim.

They share space and love like the sunlight that streams in, all day long, through the window framed by white-blue-green curtains. It glitters, bouncing off the floor, lighting the place up.

In the late morning and afternoon, when there’s work being done, the place is like a factory. Sizzling, bubbling, aluminum lids tapping against pots, constant chatter and worship music on the radio.

Sometimes it gets so hot that someone must go round the back door to let the bamboo blind down on the outside. This is the only time I am glad to be barefoot, when the cool cement tiles soothe our bodies, from the soles up.

Those already passed on are missed, their padding through, mewing, zipping between the table and stool legs as they get to bowls of food against the other wall.

Funny there were never any ants in their food but always some in ours.

In the cake cooling on the stove, in the ceramic jar of sugar, in the juice, with the cookies, the chocolate. There is obviously too much sweet stuff here, tempting the ants. I keep spotting them, like the boys sometimes joke they find funny stuff in the food.

“Oh, it’s alright to eat,” she says. “I pray over it as I cook.”

The old man laughs, his voice booming, and the table erupts.

In the Dark

In some distant
Neglected part of
Somebody's brain, an
Organism throbs,
Mulching fear and
Negative
Identity
Against her desire

About the other man…

 

It’s crazy what a song can do to you. I want to apologize.

I haven’t been exceptionally horrid I guess, considering I’ve been sick. It’s just difficult. You know, how you have a million things planned and you find that all that can actually be done is precisely nothing. First you lie on your butt, then you lie on your face, then on your favorite side, and then on your other favorite side and then you start wondering if you can lie on your head or something. And the sweating? It’s supposed to help get the bug out of your system but its just infuriating to be first cold, then hot, the cold, then hot, first dry, then soaked, then dry, then soaked. What happened to the middle ground!? I forget there’s no grey areas with you.

I know I should have been waiting for you. But its difficult. And sometimes, it’s just plain boring. So I start thinking. And when you’re sick, you don’t think straight. No, I’m not trying to justify myself or make excuses (only YOU do that) I’m just being real.

I tried to keep my mind on you. But honestly, I can’t remember the last time I saw you. I’ve forgotten what your voice sounds like. I’ve forgotten what it feels like when you touch me. Well, almost.

He’s just so much closer. And that makes it all that much easier. I’m sorry, but you’ve see him, you’ve seen what he does to me, and I kept you in the loop, so I might as well let you know – this is all your fault. You should have stopped me before it was too late. Why didn’t you do something? I mean, I don’t pretend to understand what you do, but I let you do it, don’t I?

Yes, I am petty. I am petty to blame you, I am petty to not take account for myself. I am petty for being a woman, petty for wanting a man that will stand next to me, hold me, smile at me, laugh with me. I am petty for loving that he’d hold my hair tight and kiss the corner of my mouth where I’d forgotten it burns. I am petty for finding reassurance in a voice that I can hear, petty for being pleasured by a form I can see and touch, petty for being a human with a body and a soul apart from the spirit that gives me life.

I am sorry I looked at what I saw. I am sorry I stared, and made him speak. I am sorry that when he spoke, I had to touch him and make sure. I am sorry that this still all about me.

All I have of you now is a vague memory of something I never perceived. Help me remember. Please.

misChief.unCut

 

Wala Sathiya 2012 at UOP

In Equilibrium

Monday morning was super weather. The sun was out but there was considerable rain also, and the heat and humidity of Colombo mid-morning was lifted by the coolness of the drops of liquid breaking free of pregnant clouds. Such a long and ineffective sentence.

I sat on the front steps leading up to the old Walawwa where I’d spent the night, gazing through the lush mango and jack leaves now greener and looking heavier, for the water. Once in a while I’d suddenly find myself staring into the rays of rotating sun whizzing momentarily through the foliage to stun me. The gravel is purple-brown-orange. The picture is simple and serenely gorgeous.

Closer to me is a row of little plants with dripping flowers and rebellious buds. The tiny leaves are so gently and effortlessly curved that I wonder, as I often do, whether God caresses each and every one to just that way each morning. What love that must be!

The rain has stopped. On two of those God-finger-curled leaves I find droplets of water growing. This is an amazing thing. I think, “how many photographs I’ve seen with this exact image focused, shot, color-balanced, brightness-edited and published!” There is something so lethargic, stagnant and still about these pictures; even the ones with the bright sparkle hiding inside the droplet. How they all fail to capture the energy and intensity of the connection; the inevitable dependency.  But this leaf and this droplet are so flabbergastingly alive!

I am jubilant because there is life!

And then I think, which is it? Does the glittering droplet cling desperately to the thinning end of the leaf, or does it strain and strain to be free? Does it alone, or do they both?

“This, too, shall pass.”

Sometimes when things go wrong – or right, just not how you planned them – it’s a good idea to deal with shit before it hits the fan. Most times, it’s good to leave the world alone.

I develop this idiotic urge to verbal-puke when I am in a “rush”. This is what I am doing right now. Technically this is not true, since I am not quite in a “rush” right now. I just want to be, I want to create some drama for myself. This is usually just my personal universe of boredom escaping via my skin, but today it is utter dissatisfaction. No. Disillusionment.

It was not there.

I knew it was not there.

I knew it was possible it could be there. Now,

I know it is not there. Because,

It is not there.

How boring when you realize you really were not expecting the unexpected. How utterly drab to find your self among the masses. How blah that your imagination can’t run riot in your world anymore and turn your biology into a whirling cyclone of blood, bone and muscle. How clear that all this is so unimportant!

What’s done is done. Tough *ish.

The First Day of the Second Half of the Year.

It has been a long, long time since I last experienced this twisting in my stomach to such an extent. It quickens the blood even to my extremities; the palms of my hands are prickly, and the only reason my fingertips don’t itch is that I am typing. My eyes refuse to focus and my mind sleeps. I am going into nervous-system hibernation.

But I must stop this thing and break out. The more dramatic moments in my life have been preceded by such perceptive shut-downs; and I am not enthusiastic about most of the “more dramatic moments in my life” so far. I need some clarity.

But this heat will not help. Kandy is warm these days, but Colombo is just oppressive. It is not so much the heat but the humidity. This is not news to you. I don’t break out in sweat, the droplets themselves fear the sun and struggle to remain hidden under my skin, and so I am bloating. My pores are begging with their bulging eyes to be allowed to open their mouths and scream. I am not saying no, but the atmosphere is. And I have no control over the atmosphere.

Hara-Kiri must indeed have been release. I want now only to slit my stomach open and let the guts flow out so I can carefully sever whatever connection they have to the rest of my being.

Choices. My toes curl at the thought. My teeth itch.

But I must decide.

My second thoughts on the future.

I have been called stupid and irresponsible among other unpleasant things. And by general standards I probably am*. But even by these “general” standards (forgive me for generalizing), I can twist my words about decently well. Now while I get paid well enough for a growing child my age, to do this thing with words, I have other uses for it also.

 

We used to live very high up at the very top of a little mountain called Upper Hantana. It connects to one end of the Hantana Range and – needless to say – commands a lovely view. The drive there, past where I live now, takes you by the little muddy lake which sometimes homes demure manel pondering the clouds, up the quieter and quieter tarred road watched on either side by the towering forests of pine, to cooler air. On an evening, one inevitably meets villagers traversing up, down and sometimes simply across the road – furred ones, quilled ones, tusked ones, spotted ones, and all generally inoffensive and shy.

The thing I remember today is the mist. Mornings up there are freezing, cold at best. To splash tap-water on your face is to have it slightly numbed for some time or stinging at least. To open the front door or even windows before the sun is clearly out is to invite the clouds in to gulp the warmth right out of your tea. On a bad day, to step out of the house at dawn is a thrilling adventure.

I can see the upper step, but the second is only a shadow. The lowest one is completely invisible. But I know it’s there. I can’t see the flat stones that pave step-by-step the eight or ten yards between the door and the little swinging gate that leads out to the pine-carpeted vehicle path. But I know they’re there. I have only to stretch my arm out in front of me to lose my hand, although I know it’s there. It is cold. And despite the thrill of the dewy air teasing my blood, making my skin tingle, my brain is hassled by the familiar unfamiliar.

If I venture off the first step onto the shadow of what I know is the second, I will begin to see the shadow of the third. If I step off the second onto the shadow of what I know is the third, I will see the first stepping stone. I can make it to the gate and beyond.

I can have a whole adventure.

All I need is a shadow, without a doubt.

 

If, after this whole artistic harangue, you still hold the opinion that my policy on “planning the future” exposes a character that is stupid and irresponsible, let me bring your notice to the fact that there was an asterisk (*) – gosh, Live Writer turned that into a orangey-balooney-cartooney-graphic-monstrosity! – just after “I probably am” in the first paragraph (it’s alright if you absolutely must scroll back up to check). This, dear uneducated reader, denotes what is called a ‘footnote’. See below. FAIL.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt” -- James 1:5,6

*disclaimer – my standards are completely different and by those, people who think me stupid and irresponsible (and let me add irrational also, for good measure) are just failures.

In Praise

In the praise of a man…

 

In the praise of his flowing hair

I forgot, O Lord,

a crown of thorns.

In the praise of his mellow voice

I forgot, O Lord,

the breath of Life.

 

In the praise of his strong arms,

wrinkled elbows, the tender crook

I forgot, O Lord,

shoulders. bearing weights.

heavy weights.

burdens.

sin. fear. shame. anger. lust. hate.

 

In the praise of his fine hands,

tap’ring fingers, the shocking touch

I forgot, O Lord,

wrists.

skin bruised. pierced.

flesh torn. ripped. shredded.

bone cracked broken crushed. shattered.

 

In the praise of his shining skin

glowing soft coveted honey of bees

I forgot, O Lord,

a back.

lashed.

red. lashed.

cut. lashed.

blood. lashed.

open flesh. lashed.

gaping wound. lashed.

throbbing muscle. lashed.

screaming nerves. lashed.

naked bone. gleaming lashed.

numb.

lashed.

lashed. lashed. lashed. gasp lashed. lashed. moan lashed. lashed. teeth chatter. lashed. bladder leaks lashed. lights. lashed. blur. lashed. black.

And we are not even half done.

 

In the praise of a man

I forgot his maker.

 

O Lord, have mercy on me.

* “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator – who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:25 (NIV)

I couldn’t find the Word.

He is like

            thehaironmyskin

the world

tells me I should remove.

             If I am woman,

             I should be ashamed-

to love?

 

And then, I am not of this world.

A Light Parody

Fire! Fire! Burning bright

London Bridge is falling down

                    falling down

                                   falling

                                          downnnn

In the darkness of the night

My fair Prince.

 

Will you build it up with wood and clay?

Or then bricks of gold?

Wash those piercing eyes away,

and the smiles that speak of old?

Singe that darkness, smoothness, brightness

I know.

You caressed to life.

      wove those locks,

      carved those teeth,

       lit those eyes so bright

They died.

Bitterly, sourly.

 

If you see a speck of dust-like

glittering, glittering

as you walk along a long bare road

as you snuggle up against that couch

as you grip that steering wheel…

 

stop.

only a moment.

Put it in your pocket for me?

 

Maybe fingers twisting

locks of curling hair,

Sweaty palms

Songs in an ethereal falsetto

rare smiles… hide those speckled monsters;

These random lines.

 

I’ll write

them back from you,

soon.

 

My mind is

Peacing itself

apart.

 

“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” Matthew 7:6 (NIV)

Breakwater

I am a fickle-minded woman.

Journalist, poet, actor, pianist, singer, model, celebrity, evangelist, counselor, composer, inspiration, instigator, intellectual, academic, corporate bombshell, director, leader, mistress, girlfriend, friend, follower, hater, lover, rapper, critic, social-worker, straight-A-student, role-model, radical, revolutionary, strong, upright, appreciative, fucking perfect.

Why must I be?

I would rather sit in a pool of sweat scrubbing floors and beating rugs because I love.

I am love.

Masturbation

I'll scream if you deny me
the throbbing-pulsing-hurting-hair-raising-uplifting
I burn and burn to shatter these glass walls of
social, moral
norm.

Here are my insides open:
the pushing-pulling-engulfing-mind-numbing-freeing.
You search and search to scatter these thoughts of
social, moral
harm.

You and I were abandoned;
the gliding-flowing-coursing-streaming-life-destroying
left holes and holes to batter these times of
social, moral
play.