Philae

“May the troubled wanderers who have lost their way
Meet with fellow travellers”

Shantideva (Bodhicaryavatara)

Philae, my love,

fall with grace

into silence

while I wait,

riveted.

Ride on the surface

of the comet

and look back –

we are but dust,

reflected by the Sun:

see that blue speck?

we are there

where what has happened

will. Over and over;

some wait in the cities

some wait in the factories

some wait in the classrooms

some wait in the fields

some wait locked in their

endless regrets

where forgotten dreams

sleep – nothing new under

the Sun

the computers blip,

the coffee cups grow

cold

faces tense

what are they thinking?

What will they gain from the toil,

but the journey?

Some think of the data,

some of the food they

left out this morning

by mistake

some of their mothers,

their fathers or brothers,

their lovers

or the book they left

in the bus – by mistake

as you fall, my love.

I wait.

So long, Mister Leonard

“It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.”

Jack Gilbert “Horses at Midnight Without a Moon”

What will astonish you first is the singing,

the singing – no less than a Godsend, a seed,

a remedy or a boat,

a flood of crossings, a sacrifice

first hand

like a dusty garbage-bin:

an emptiness so hollow

the very fabric of it –

dead to the world.

I guess this is what is called

being blissfully lost.

Like when the morning rises

and still sleepy,

we feel the tinge of joy

at the possibilities;

our nightly quarters receding

into the spaces

where memories sleep,

the unrequited prayers,

sedated for a while.

The moment,

the here,

the now.

You are not God

You are not God,

you are the English I dare not use –

the humble whisper,

my frustration of the limits

I find in the fading light

of the afternoon,

just before secret words

are spoken:

You are not God,

you don’t speak.

You take it.

Published in Eunoia Review

Homeward bound

In memory of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013)

Yes, the world has grown a little colder,

a rainbow-coloured spectrum

of light bulbs shedding a crude light

on the gated communities of our minds

congregating as one, in this hour,

this severest form of reminder –

the great man is no more,

he is no longer

present to guide, yet to be remembered,

like a shaken leaf of insignificant

proportions announces the echoes

of the future winters to come in which I,

the lighter brother, may also mourn,

the one who ate in the dining room,

but whose outstretched hands you took

out of the closet;

and allowed to stand beside you

without fear; rest gently, sir.

Rest gently, unconquerable soul,

homeward bound.

Elegy in blue

for my stepfather, Peter

I screamed it:

at the top of my lungs,

facing the Mediterranean Sea,

and looking down at the subway tracks,

where broken memories dream.

I screamed it loud, at night,

in bed when I here you approaching,

and in the daytime too,

when no-one knows.

I screamed at the dead-lit stars,

at the crucifix.

I screamed it to the Lord Buddha

and to Jesus our Saviour

I screamed it at the reflection

in the fridge where the

prescriptions are;

at the empty medicine bottles

and the O₂ tank

I screamed it at these empty hands

that took your cane,

and at those that laid you to rest

on the operating tables.

I screamed and got the echo back,

the foreclosure of an unrequited prayer.

Malaria in December

I tried spinning
reality round its axis
for a while but
the old remnants
of dark December
seemed to work
their way
into the very fabric
of things.
Tell me
what to do
against the dying
of the day –
and the ghosts that
go with it?
A margin of poetry
in my life.

Published in Eunoia Review

I heard you died this morning

I heard on the phone

that you died this

morning.

And suddenly,

my chair was

a piece of wood

with cloth on it;

My book

a block of paper

with black ink on it;

The TV a plastic

and glass object

with filth flowing through it.

And all the food in my

fridge was cold and damp;

rotten.

Then the day lifted,

and the sun came out

and November was here.

And you:

a lamp turned off,

melted into the light.

Published in Rose Red Review