Poetry

Overnight Transatlantic to Heathrow Intl.

I fell asleep somewhere
Over the mid-Atlantic ridge
Or some small island nation
Whose name I’ll never know,
Rising only as we descended
Into the grey of early-Autumn London;
To check pockets and seats
For things that may have fallen
Or gotten left along the way.
Had I lost my phone in yesterday?
Or was the self I was
Stranded in the territories
Of international waters,
Between the minutes and latitudes
Crossed without knowing
What we may have missed?
And as we idle on the runway,
Gathering the things
I’ve carried along the way,
I wonder whether the dreams I had
Belong somewhere beyond
The border of the horizons.

Crossing the Manimala River

When you first crossed here,
You were not yet a man.
The river went by another name.
You called it things like
Pāta or jīvan on the way to school,
And later, in the soft violence of youth
It was just another obstacle to conquer;
Something to be crossed, separating you
From the girl in the next village.
It wasn’t until later,
When you learned the name for ‘fort’
And saw how scars were formed:
Left and forgotten until
They become the landscape of your life
And that it was not the river
That had changed, but you;
Letting the unrelenting currents
Carry you into the evening.

Mosque at Nighttime

It has been said,
That who abides in love
There also God resides;
Confined to the bleeding,
Beating walls of the heart.
Yet, as darkness embraces the Earth,
The call to prayer congregates,
Flooding the banks of the day
Through mud-brick walls
And open doors;
Refusing to follow a set course.
In the ante-chamber of night,
Song blesses all as holy ground.

Shadow Boxing

 I saw this young kid
Sparring with the shadows
In the alleyway
Behind the convenience store,
His yet uncalloused hands
Swinging confidently in the silence.
You could tell
That he hadn’t been beaten down
By the heavy hand
Of the work week,
Or the left hooks
From lost lovers,
At least not yet.

 And I thought
It’s better to practice now,
Because sooner than later
We all have to go
A few rounds with the gods.

 “Well, good luck kid,” I said
As I walked out
With a pack of cigarettes
And a bottle of fortified wine,
Throwing my car in reverse,
And driving home,
Wondering how many fights
I have left in me.

Dreams

Wind washed,
and given
to flight;

 dreams depart
on the wings
of prayers

whispered
in sanctuaries
of small minutes

wholly untouched
by the hours
between sleep,

where we ask
forgiveness from
the day

for deadlines past,
things misplaced,
or lost. 

Exhaled,
they rise
to fill emptiness;

 returning to us,
noticed only by
trembling of leaves,

as the short
inhalations 
of sighs,

or the soft breeze
beneath your arms
that you could not hold.

Learning to Grow Old

We left your parent’s house
The day after your father died,
Because we had work the next day
And the drive back,
Striped of the hope that the next turn
Might show us somewhere
We hadn’t been before,
Always seemed to take too long.

We had tried to fit back
Into the bed you occupied as a child;
Your bedroom had looked the same.
As did your mother.
The way her eyes looked, giving away
A feeling of always being out of place,
Since the sanctuary of a rural childhood,
In the way they would search the room
For something familiar, but never found.

The paneling and picture-frames
Of the place you had called “home”
Kept the structure since it was built,
Though they no longer echoed the same,
And gave away their age in small secrets.
Like the way the lines on the doorframe
You used to mark you height
When you were five years old
Had long begun to fade and be forgotten,
Or the way a small flaw in the foundation
Shown later in a tangle of cracks
In the tiles on the kitchen floor.

Only your father had seemed to change.
And, even then, it wasn’t until
We had the final viewing -
To follow a religious tradition
That even he had seemed to grow out of -
When you could begin to notice.
He had crossed some invisible line,
Deeply carved, yet nowhere
Any of us could follow.

So, as we pulled the car onto the highway,
Turning the radio to a song
You’d once known all the words to
But were too young to understand its meaning,
We tried to count the number
Of places you had once haunted
That were still left open.
Eventually giving up
After no longer remembering

Their names or the dreams
Plotted there in empty parking lots,
And rode back in silence;
Not speaking of things left behind
Nor the weight of the weeks that lie ahead.

Driving North Towards Cleveland, Ohio

Driving North towards Cleveland, Ohio
to see my friend’s newborn daughter
when I dropped my cigarette,
missing my exit
and losing my way.

 I pulled off the road,
into a gas station long forgotten by the interstate.
Not wanting to ask for directions,
or even knowing which way “home” was
I bought a map and a birthday card.

Sitting in the parking lot,
studying the tangle of veins that tie this country down,
wondering what to write to this girl.

 How do I tell her that so many people have lost
their way in parking lots just off the interstate,
that cigarette burns don’t come out of car carpet,
and that one day, while driving alone
towards Cleveland, Ohio, you might miss your exit
and wonder, how did things come to this?

Sitting on the Front Porch the Day After a Close Friend Committed Suicide 

Summer died again
Same day as he
Jumped
From the 6th St. bridge

The leaves mourn
In red
And golden brown
As they let go
 
Falling silently
To be carried
Away

 By the same whisper
Of wind
That dispelled
The half prayers
From the man
Down the street
Asking
For his truck
To start
One more time

 While somewhere else
God guides the hand
Of all things

Everything in its Place

The blossoms lied
to by the promise
of an early Spring
congregated on the ground
behind the rusted shed
in my backyard,
before they were dispelled
by the wind that breathed
life into every blade of grass
that bends to it,
and I am not the man
I had hoped I’d be.

Maps

The warm, mid December sunlight
crept through the blinds,
before you drew them shut
to stop the glare
on the T.V.;
while I sat in the other room
looking at maps
with names I couldn’t pronounce,
measuring the distance
between two hearts.

I mentioned I loved you,
but it was lost
between here and there,
on your depression,
like on those empty highways
that tangle and tie
this country down.
And it was then, I realized
these inches represent miles,
and sometimes no one knows
the way home.

 I folded up the maps,
trying to touch the city where I was
to whichever place you were.