New Forms of Prayer

Bend over bend over,

Let me see what bit of Heaven,

Got left behind.

Slide over slide over.

Let me wrap my desire,

Around your warm, crazy feline.

Crawl over crawl over,

And show me the meaning,

Of poetry and rhyme.

Tear this shirt, pull me close,

Let me send zephyrs along,

The shadows of your jawline.

Let's shake the world,

Let's rattle the cages,
Set fire to your fear and pain.

Take my breath away from me,

Push it back in my mouth,

Oh my darling, do it again.

Turn around one more time,
Heaven ain't hard to find.

Turn around one more time.

Let's move the couch to the corner,

And the bed out of the way.

Let's crumple up the curtains,

Find new meanings to words,

Like sublime and intertwine.

My perfect portion of sin,

A fantasy so damn complete.

Take me further than these words

Ever could.  Down into the deep.

Move to me like the champa tree,

Rises to meet the burning breeze.

Fold me into sheets of secret parchment,

Fold me inside and squeeze.

My deliverance, my trial,

My moment of liquid languid ease.

My endless storm, my sinking ship,

The tossing tumult of my seas.

Let me see what piece of Eden,
You happen to be.

Let's create a new religion,

Bite every apple we see.

Let's pray a while together,

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Let's bring ourselves together,

From our foolish eyes,

To our penitent knees.

Perfect My Night

Oh this blessed winter, 

That lingers because we, 

Told him we loved him. 

The wind who knows my name, 

The sun that reflects my light, 

As it sinks into a crimson yonder. 

And I can see the evening star. 

Smile and say she's so glad, 

To find me here waiting for her, 

Joy in heart and pen in hand. 

Oh let the words dance, 

Let the ink learn the rumba, 

Let this Sufi soul unfurl, 

Like white canvas on a ship, 

On eternally swelling seas. 

I hear the chime of the temple bells, 

Hear voices raised in prayer, 

Voices made strong in song. 

I see lovers getting married, 

New lovers on their way, 

To one of those perfect nights. 

Where even perfect strangers, 

Get heady and carried away. 

And if there are any lovers fighting, 

They're kind enough to do it elsewhere. 

Make perfect my night. 

And just come on over. 

How can any night be perfect, 

Without my smile pressed, 

Into your bare naked shoulder? 

Oh make perfect my night, 

Let this music never end. 

Let me howl happy at the crescent moon, 

Let my every word be a poem, 

Let it smile at everyone and show them,

Life is worth more than your, 

Silly little dissatisfaction. 

Listen to the wind tonight, 

She knows your names. 

Let go your sorrow, 

Disentangle the joy from the shame. 

You were born to be happy.

Learn to remember. 

Live every waking day, 

Like the end of December. 

All that you've seen, all that you,

Thought had meant something more. 

Leave it all behind, 

Shine through the cracks in you. 

Because I know, one thing. 

I love you. 

I love you. 

I love you.

*********

This and That. But Mostly This.

I've been writing a lot of poetry lately, and most of it has to do with Love.  Which is kind of stupid because Love's been doing a good job of kicking my ass lately.  Maybe that's the point.  What do I know?  I just sit down to write and this is what's been coming out.  I know I act like I got it all figured out, and sure I can fill out a suit nicely and be charming and make girls giggle their vodkas out their cute little noses.  And even, on occasion, manage to beguile one enough to make her show me how she looks without her vestments and pretensions.  But the truth is I'm lonely.  And I've come to realize, looking around at the circle of people I know and love, that I'm not alone in this solitude.

So many of my friends are in the middle of one kind of emotional crisis or another.  And the strange thing is that we all seem to leave each other alone to deal with our own shit.  Sure we try and talk to each other, we hang out and play music and watch movies and eat out and consume much wine.  But then comes the moment when everyone takes that short deep breath, as if preparing to jump off a cliff, and stands and begins to head their separate ways. 

I watch the couples with their strained body language, as if his body's speaking French and hers only speaks German.  They bump into each other, they ask each other if they should leave, some of them even drive away to separate homes, alone.  I watch the single folk like myself, take that moment and glance around the room and find not one face smiling back at them with that twinkling, mischief in the eyes.  The light that doesn't need a name or a label.  The one that leads to rumpled sheets and giggling midnight snacks.  And I watch the lovers, who are out the door before the rest of us, at least for now.


Why are we all such strangers to ourselves and then consequently to each other?  How easy it would be for us to be easy and free and loose in safe company.  So why aren't we?  I haven't been able to figure this out.  The closest I've come is thinking about the darkness that comes before us, the stuff that motivates our actions, defines our responses to stimuli, the dark strings of experience and thought that make us their puppets.  We are all strangers to ourselves because we are all strangers to the darkness that comes before us.  We are moved, we react in ways we are not aware of to point that we even react to our reactions.  We don't own the ground we stand upon.  So how can we ever be trusted to take a proper step?

It's strange how everything in my interactions with the opposite sex comes down to just the sex.  Is that all that one can gain from one another?  Is that the best we ever get?  Clearly not.  Look at some of our parents, or family members who seem to not only have survived in long marriages, but even managed to thrive.  Why can't we do the same?  Why are most of us great at the sex and the flirting and that initial high-school phase of things and then just fall into the comfortably slow spiral into hatred and loathing?  It's like we want our relationships to fail so we can get back to that heady initial phase with someone else.  It puzzles me greatly.

Why does the woman I loved call me when she's lonely?  Why does she feel lonely at all?  Why do I even answer when she does?  How many poems will I have to write before she either admits she loves me or just leaves me the fuck alone?  Why does she make me prove to her over and over again that I love her?  Why does she then turn around and tell me that she's afraid I'll stop loving her soon?  Why the hell am I still writing about this stuff?

Important questions all.

I just recently made a few new friends.  Wonderful, wonderful people.  But all suffering from self-esteems so beleaguered it takes my breath away.  I look at these people, who are so beautiful, and young, and full of potential, and intelligent, and vivacious.  And I wonder: Why do they allow the world, and its mediocre hordes to dictate how they should feel about themselves?  All our lives we put other people's opinions of us before our own.  In school we worry what the teacher's say, at home it's our parents.  On the streets its the friends and the boyfriends/girlfriends, in college it's our lovers, then our co-workers, and on and on.  We make ourselves feel constantly judged because in our minds the measure of the world is unceasing.  But it isn't the world that measures us.  The world doesn't care.  We do it to ourselves.  So why can't we just stop?

I spoke to a friend who's going through a breakup and I found myself entirely at a loss for words.  Me.  But what could I say?  I don't know why he never treated her like she deserved, I don't know why she never realized what she deserved from him was more until after so much of her heart was already his.  I don't know what she should do.  Hell I barely know what I should eat for breakfast most days.

And Facebook.  God do I need to rid myself of Facebook.  Do you know how many times I've checked my page as I wrote this?  I lost count after ten.  And no one wrote or updated or any of that shit.  And I don't really even truly care, so why do I check it?  When did my solitude, which was always a friend to me become so damn lonely?  It would be funny if it didn't happen everyday.

Well that's all for now.  Not exactly the most coherent of posts I'll admit but I was in the mood to ramble it seems.  I've not yet quite managed to yoke my thoughts to my words.  They both still storm against each other like armies in a siege.  I'm the just the bricks and mortar in between it seems.  The battleground for the their conflict.  The ground that has to hold the bodies and the blood.  Ooh, what a cheerful fellow I am this night.

For The Girl Named After A Star

............

She walks to me wearing a smile,

With her arms thrown open.

There's o much joy in her eyes,

You never realize that,

Her heart lies, hurt and broken.

She speaks to me like a queen,

Pretending to be without a care.

I hear the words all the same.

The softer, more painful ones.

Deeper than any prayer.

Bright Lady, Bright Lady,

Named by your mother after a Star.

There are oceans left to cross.

So many wonders left to see,

Beyond this messy little bazaar.

Get lost in the world a while,

Rediscover your gypsy heart.

You don't need a man to tell you,

What the script should be,

Or how to play your part.

Show yourself the way back,

From fear and self doubt.

You've lingered too long in shadow,

Learn to be as bright within,

As you are to me without.

Learn music from the wind,

And poetry from the tired sea.

Sing to your plants everyday,

Be your own great love,

Be as reckless, as silly as me.

Bright Lady, Bright Lady,

Walking this path all alone.

Your mother named you after a Star,

So even on the darkest roads,

You'd find your way back home.

...........

Heart Skipped a Beat

.....

Heart skipped a beat.

When I saw you standing

On my kitchen floor.

Heart skipped a beat.

I caught it only after you

Were out the door.

Where do you wanna meet?

Anywhere under this,

Sky on this starless night.

I'll do everything but cheat,

Weave every joy I know

Into your morning light.

You sat on my balcony,

Like a piece of the moon,

Sculpted into a forbidden dream.

You're enough for me,

To take ever moral I clutch,

Apart at the seams.

You need to come tell me,

When I can make it,
All the way to you.

You need to come tell me,

You're the proof,

To my every truth.

Heart skipped a beat.

And I know you'll always,

Be just slightly out of reach.

There will never be a kiss,

Where the ocean and our feet,

Dance on a forgotten beach.

Looking at you there,

Sitting in my favorite,

Wicker cane chair.

Watching the cup in your hands,

The wind play the violin,

With your tightly strung hair.

Heart skipped a beat.

And you sipped your tea.

Oh my oh my oh my.

My life is not ready.

I need some time,

To make empty my sky.

Nothing left to want.

Nothing less will do.

Nothing I can ever have.

Nothing else but you.

Heart skipped a beat.

.....

For The Lovers In You

...

Winds blow like dancers

Across this restless city.
A bat flits by my window,

On his way to a hot date.

All the stars have long 

Since give up 

Their thankless vigil in the sky.

They lie amidst us,

In our carpeted homes,

Like tired siblings
Finally come home.

I see them laid out

Before me,

Fallen fires and dreams

Across the black carpet

Of this tired city.

A lady who's name is Vidya

Called me this morning

To tell me she loved me.

Does she know

Because she's lived

A life full of song.

Her every word comes

Out sounding like a 

Piece of music?

I am one of the blessed.

And so are all of you.

Stop yourself for a moment,

And breathe in the divine

Completeness in you.

Cease struggling to breathe,

In your rivers of doubt.

Make faith your breath,

And dive down into the

Silent abyss.

Serenity awaits you there.

Flow as this wind flows,

Zephyrs of contented motion.

Love like the child loves,

The ground beneath his

Father's feet. 

Love like the sky,

Loves the ground.

Learn joy from blind musicians,

And poetry from the sun.

Sing aloud and often.

Let all fear be undone.

Put on your dancing shoes lady,

Let me strike up the band.

There's music wherever you are,

Come take my large happy hand.

One of the Loveliest Songs I've Ever Heard

And I wanted to share it with you lovely people on this quietest and deepest of my nights.

Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard

LYRICS


I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice

You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing it loud

Lucky Me

Every night you lay down to sleep,

And think of me.

Every heart you'll ever break,

Begins and ends with me

All the times you're out with friends,

You think of me.

You want me.

You know you do.

You want me.

There's nothing you can do.

But you want me to want you more,
So you stay away.

Until you hear my knees,

Hug the floor.
Then you run to me,

Like a nun to a beggar

Claiming sanctuary.

You lift me up, you hold me,

Whisper all the right words.

You wrap your arms around me,

To remind me

Of all that delicious heat.

Then you leave,

Claiming impropriety.

Lucky me.

You laugh at all my jokes,

You call me.

Everyday, to see what I'm up to.

To hear me say I love you,
Even when I say nothing at all.

Is this how love should be?

Is this what your mother taught you?

Or is this because your father,

Is angry every time he calls you?

Every time the world makes you cry,
You call me.

Everytime you're happy,

You call me.

And then we fight.

You hang up. And I'm left feeling,

It's all gone wrong because of me.

Do you want me to stay,

Alone and unhappy?

So that loving me,

Will make you feel like a saint,

Am I to be your charity?

Lucky me.

Short Letter To My Heart.

Oh my dear heart.  You're a child still.  So quick you are to soar, to let the flicker of the meanest spark ignite the bonfire of your dreams.  So high you fly, despite my warnings, despite my attempts at bringing you under some sort of control.  Like a child running down the beach away from a concerned father you go, right into the surf, where all my dearest wishes wash ashore only to retreat again, away from me.

Whatever will I do with you, heart?  Why can't you be constant?  Why does every little piece of news have to excite you beyond reason?  Why can't you stop smiling and preparing seven speeches for every nomination you get for an award?  I sit there and berate you, and tell you to be humble.  I tell you not to be such a fool.  But you never listen.  Every night I sit with you in the disappointing aftermaths.  Every night I listen to you flutter.  Trying so hard to return to that strong steady thrum.  The hopeful beat, ready for the world, ready for any reason to begin to leap into the sky again.

But I know you won't listen.  You will always leap with delight and laugh like a child and hope so fiercely your grin cracks your face.  You will always do that.  Every disappointment only increases the height you climb the next time you soar.  You will always be a child, my heart.  Always.

And I love you for it.

Statutory Warning

(Started whilst listening to great song called "Cardinal Song" by the National, my current go to artist for a soundtrack while I write.  So the first two lines are from their song and then I just flow...Enjoy)

Never tell the one you want,

That you do.

Save it for the death bed,

When you know you kept her,

Wanting you.

Hide your love away my friend,

You really should.

Let her know where you keep it,

And she'll have to take it all, just

To know she could.

She'll treat you like a criminal,

You'll treat her like a priest.

Just never let her know

She's the only one,

That ever tamed the beast.

Never let her change her mind,
Whenever she chooses.

Never let her see your scars,

Or where it bleeds,

And where it bruises,

Never let her see your eyes,

Always tell a lie.

Never tell her she's your True North

Or the constellations,

Across your sky.

Don't let her ever see

The fabric that makes you.

She'll just end up making

Fancy fancy dresses,

Out of you.

Never let her brush across,

The warp and the weft of you.

Never let her learn your patterns,

Or she'll knows which strings to pull

To unravel the rest of you.

Never let her fill your day,

No matter what you do.

You'll be left smoking alone,

When she's gone. Even when you

Have better things to do.

Never tell her that you love her.

Especially if it's the truth.

Or at least learn how,
To love yourself more,

Before you do.

You Are

My perfect night you are.

One prayer answered

So unexpectedly you are.

One divine moment,

One sublime pizza.

One cup of coffee,

And giggling fits you are.

Magic I forgot existed.

The easing of this heart,

She left so twisted.

Glory tossed in your hair,

My goddess' favorite child you are.

Paradise held in the cup

Of your depthless smile. You are

Blessed shelter on a horizon,

I thought too far.

Electric hands brushing mine like

Perfect chords on my dusty guitar.

Skin poured like honey,

Eyes holding scripture you are.

I don't have any questions,

To all of the answers you are.

I'm here to take you now,

Out among the empty streets.

You're here to take me down,
Into the still waters of empty sleep.

Winter come unexpectedly where

Only heat and humidity meet.

This quiet drive home you are.

The silent splendor on this balcony,

The full moon in my sky you are.

This music and this smile you are.
This cigarette and this poem you are.

An empty dance floor and,

The perfect song you are.

The dreams I had and didn't believe,

The ones they said were so naive.

I climbed every mountain I found,
Calling to you from afar.

I crossed continents for you,
Only to find you waiting,

With your door ajar.

For Shruti Who Said, "No More Sad Thoughts"

We surge against it,

Our forbidden shore.

Everything we can't have,

Needless to say,

Is what we want more.

We walk away every time,

Insolent in our pain.

We whisper tiny,

Ugly, little prayers,

Only to sin again.

We are lost children,

Of a tired Father.

No matter how far,

He tried to reach,

We only turned away,

And walked farther.

We were perfect once,

We smiled at mirrors,

We lifted spirits,

Held faith dearer.

Tired we are,

But faithful still.

Joyous were were,

Virtuous as well.

And we'll be so again.

You know we will.

Tired we are,

But still unbroken.

Loveless we may be,

But poems dance,

On our tongues unspoken.

Forget Heaven.

Pay no attention to Hell.

We need no endless Eden,

In which to dwell.

We need each other,

And bottles of cheap wine.

Laughter in the rafters,

And your smile walking,

Wrinkle in wrinkle,

With mine.

By this Lake Too Tired To Sleep

The wind moves across my skin,
By this Lake is too tired to speak.
The fires burns bright for now,
The new year begins its quiet creep.
My darling sleeps alone tonight,
Leaving me a stranger to my sheets.
I am the unquiet heart of her,
Where her prayers and her confusion meet.
The night is no longer a friend to me,
The Moon sighs to watch me stumble.
Mine was a terrible, foolish kind of love,
And it's absence left me wise and humble.
The riddles that we are to each other,
Like books so archaic and obsolete.
The burdens we're too afraid to bear,
The secrets we never managed to keep.
My wisdom sinks into her depths
Like a quiet little stone.
She's in the starlight, she's in the winter,
In every shadow in my secret home.
I loved her, so impatiently,
Now patiently I have to wait
For her to say those words again,
And end her silent debate.
Let's agree that we were foolish,
Let's admit that we were wrong.
We love each other in ways that still,
Pull us together and move us along.
Every night you think of me,
I feel it, dear, even in my sleep.
You are the words I search for.
You are the religion I long to preach.
I'm sorry that I got it backwards,
I never noticed when you got afraid.
I should have told you everyday,
You're every poem I've ever made.
I'm every twitch of your curtains,
Every pirouette in every little breeze.
Read these words I write every night,
Don' t make me live on my knees,
But you don't seem to hear me now,
This shuddering truth I speak.
Why do you make us wander thus?
There are no shelters for us to seek.
There are no answers left above.
There is only love. There is only love.

Streaming Consciousness on The First of January

Thus ends the first day of the new year, with the soft rocking of this chair, and the sounds of the forest.  My mother's always divine cooking sits warm and rumbly in my nicely round tummy.  Her apple pie is even now doing a delighted tango across my soul, calling all of my demons forth and making tail wagging puppies out of them all.  There are many things wrong with the world, many things wrong with me.  But tonight they all feel inconsequential to the great truth - I love this life.  I love the Goddess that chose me to be the bearer of this Sufi soul.  I've wrestled with something I've been writing for three days now.  And all I've accomplished is one brilliant paragraph that I forgot to save when the power cut off like it does so often in this part of India, that was lost forever to the hatred of my battery, and the ocean of positivity that surges within me.

It's been a hell of a year.  Full of inexplicable lows and unexpected and expected tragedies, and highs that burned like wildfire and then disappeared like morals in a whorehouse, so infrequent and so fleeting, they barely left any lingering traces.  Or maybe that was just me this year.  So many things I did I wasn't proud of, so many things I thought I was better than only to realize that life brings us all to our knees sooner or later.

But whilst I knelt I learned to accept, and to turn that acceptance into the will to stand again, and brush the dust off me.  I shall stride into this new dawn like the Gypsy of Faith I was created to be.  Nothing tells me I'm on the right path like the joy that comes to me just as my eyes close and sleep wraps its arms around me here, on this bed in my room on the edge of a sea of grass that whispers softly to me all night long.

I am a foolish man.  I am a dreamer.  I am a grouch.  I am a poet.  I am an actor.  I am a man searching for a quiet lasting happiness.  I'm a man who found home in the heart of a girl only to be told that home wasn't for me.  I'm a man who will find Home again.  I am a joy.  I am the laughter that won't stop, I'm the tears that come from that.  I am the music that fills this house.  I am the wagging of my dogs' tails.  I am the frenzy in their barking.  I am the amused giggles on my sisters' faces, the look of fierce pride in my father's.  I am my mother's arms around me, I am the contented sigh she gives when looking up at me from the shadows of my chest.  I am Hope.  I am Love.

Goddess forgive me my missteps.  Guide me back to the center of the dance floor, and I'll get the steps right this time.  Let this year be filled with the warmth and the friendships that have made Bombay home.  Let me not trouble anyone with my complicated mood swings, or my occasional misanthropic spells of aloofness.  Let me be honest with myself, and with the girls of the fragile hearts.  Let me be a better man, the man I look for in the mirrors.  Let me laugh long and true, let me write things that will only make you smile.  Let me finish the book I began.  Let me learn what love really is.  Because I know I've gotten it wrong before.

I hear the winter pull away from the clouds, and gather all of the rain drops glistening on the leaves, and carry them into my room.  He knocks and enters, then stands on the floor and smiles.  It's good to be home.  I love the winter, and he loves me.  I love the Lake, and she's always loved me.  She's smiling like an indulgent mother as I write this.  I hear her stroking the shore my house sits on, like a lullaby.

The National and their miraculous music fills my room for hours, as I sit writing, as I dream, as I laugh at myself and all of my insecurities, as I remember to remind myself to remember who I'm supposed to be.  And that that person is quite a remarkable guy.

This is going to be a great year.  The world shall not end in fire, but be reborn in each of us like the seed of a magic beanstalk, carrying us into the sky, making giants out of our dreams.

We are the happy heart of this world.  We are what give the Gods some hope.  We are broken and alone only until we look around and within.  We are perfect as we are.  We are all poets with Sufi souls.  We are the music that makes the world twirl.  We are exactly what we need.

Bless you all.  Look in the mirror and smile.  And say "I love you."

One of Many Thoughts

Can I just say that I miss you? And I,
Want you wrapped in this winter coat with me.
My own little universe nestled,
Between the lap and the throat of me.