Thrills
Let me introduce beauty in a non-physiognomical form:
A ripple lapping reclusive toes
that have shunned the elements for a century or so,
that never graced the ground with silken soles
for barefootedness is only common among the low
in this sad part of the globe.
A tremor running through my bones
Upon meeting the eyes of a life-sworn foe,
having repented his gall,
replenishing his ocular liquid with sheets of gold,
intricately woven by a contrite soul.
A shadow that was banished decades ago
before I could utter my very first words,
before I could even walk,
conjured up from the other world,
gliding into my dreams to illumine their void.
Downfall
Of all his traits, furtiveness repelled me most,
a secretive nature that coveted moss,
that concealed the truth,
and cloaked every action with a surreptitious look.
I could never digest his oxymorons,
his classy puns and tinsel tropes.
I was straightforward. I always spoke
not from the depth of my heart
but from the bottom of my stomach.
Un-arrayed, the words came naked,
unchaperoned by punctuation modes,
with un-softened tones,
unfiltered by social codes
or decorum protocols,
unabashed and bold.
This capacity to divulge my innermost thoughts
brought about my downfall.
Domestic Eloquence
He wants her utterly silent around the house.
She wonders whether her utterances are full of discordant sounds,
for his persistent repudiation of her voice
has begun to aggravate knots of nerves.
He says she is always very loud,
but when she softens her tone,
her words produce the same impact:
a face full of repugnance and some articulate spite.
She recalls being once told by the only man
with whom she fell in love
that he would be contented with listening to her voice
for the rest of his life,
a relationship of the verbal type
if it should come to nothing else.
Others had intimated that she possessed mellifluence
suited to some public broadcast,
or perhaps singing if she had the gift!
Such remarks make his revulsion even worse.
She examines their daily interchange
to see what stimulates his undisguised disgust.
She usually speaks of long-needed repairs
that derail the orbit of their life,
of grease-stained plates that he loves to pile
for his favorite germs,
of expenditure that taxes her every hard-earned pence.
Now she realizes after years of domestic eloquence
that what unsettles the parasitic in him is not her voice:
It is finance.
What About
We tend to dwell on the sorrowful
what renders us lachrymose,
what piques and wounds our pride,
what robs us of cheerful discourse,
but what about the precious moments
that we snatched despite all vigilant foes,
the bouts of hearty laughter
the cordial episodes,
the communions we held with surroundings,
the ripply warmth,
the feelings that no matter how fleeting
can buoy us up until our final repose.
Burdens
I wonder how the Swiss can cope
with their surplus of annual gold.
It must be a burden on one’s thoughts
to have much more than one can hold.
I wonder how the glib dispense
with their surplus of sugared words.
It must be a burden on one’s tongue
to feel the trickle that audiences shun.
I wonder what Arabia would do
to its surplus of petroleum fuel.
It must be a burden on one’s secretion
to pump such liquid to warring nations.
I wonder what new world orders can do
to combat their surplus of nuclear feuds.
It must be a burden on one’s mind
to save the planet from spurious wile.
When there’s so much
When there’s so much ugliness in our daily norm
where can we purchase beauty in an undiluted form,
neither canned, modified, nor cloned?
When there’s so much hate in our daily debates,
where can we excavate love that’s not outdated,
neither a relic nor reincarnated?
When there are so many fumes in our modern rooms,
where can we distil pure air into our tubes,
with no filters sticking out of our throats?
When there are so many creeds scattered like seeds,
where can we worship without excludees,
a temple for all, at home and overseas?
