Sunday, September 15, 2013

London 2013

I flit through the cities as an embodied ghost,
Here in the shadows of spires kissing stars,
Or along mews still fragrant with fame,
An invisible shadow that sways along waves
And sings with the leaves of Notting Hill or Hyde
That chime with the footfalls of time's studded stars,
Here along banks of Thames and its nymphs
Who dapple my feet with uncertain beats
As I gaze into its depths, unsure and cross
Calculating fractions of ecstasy and loss.

Blown by the gusts that rush through my pores
I stand almost dazed on Westminster pier
And walk towards bridges with Arias in feet
Buoyed, yet conscious of memories of skin
That grope for their roots beyond towers or waves
And sunder my soul to a thousand new bits
Which gather on the wharfs of our time.

Puzzled though I am, I shore them in grace
And search for the patterns of faith which'll smell
Like cardamom and cloves along Bayswater Road
And frame me new constructs of culture and self
That spill beyond squares of immigration forms
And scatter into pixels of sense.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

For Us

Borne in the attrition of steel-drilling rocks
As abrasive pebbles that are utterly askew
We clash in the doldrums of small dried air
And let flow of volcanic ash.

But what better bedrock than granite to sustain
A mansion with decades in its length?

So undaunted still amid sparks that'll fly,
We mine our depths for ores full of gems
And laughing at sugar-syrup blockbuster tales
Give all those dolls a big lie.