Sway

I finally decide to spit out my over-clotting pain, 

but in whose face?

I pause to deflect a morbid ray.

There is no raven perching on the rail of my bed

to enlighten my head,

no ancient lore up my sleeve

to defer a bleed.

There are no reflections of a resurrected spirit

at my feet,

I reel.

I paint with kohl my inflated eyelids

to camouflage the tears

that would rob every hardened feature of its blade,

that would erode the charade of invincibility,

meant to keep every scoundrel at bay, 

yet thrown off my balance,

I, but only momentarily, sway.

Animists

And do you understand what the wind intimates?

It is not the mere rhythm that makes branches sway,

the vigorous breath that animates stagnant flags into interplays,

the energy that propels gigantic galleys with widespread sails.

It is not merely the hum of trees that Romantic poems exhale,

the booms of waves with which the Gothic novel resonates,

or the caress that woos colossal mountains rooted to their spheres.

It is more eloquent than the most articulate of foreseers.

My Life Fast Flew

My life fast flew before my own bewildered eyes

and ended up its uneven course 

before it had the chance to thrive.

Dissolving love dissipated like frantic fog

and companionship freaked 

before the shrieks of loss.

Paws

“Apart from the Brontës and Virginia Woolf,

most of the women I claim to know

can hardly attain the status of a wolf.

And they do possess paws,

with which they claw a man

if he cannot prove his financial worth,”

he stated with a spoof!