warming to the heart

warming to the heart

an urge
to speak
for words
to be heard

for face
to face face
unhindered

for sharing
of dreams
and worlds

a miss is as good as a mile
it’s said
distance is wait
but need not be weight

lightness has an advantage
because after all
light is easier to carry
and faster than sound

 

shapely

so much time
in the air
suspended

and there to be spent, taken,
saved, killed, passed –
ushered into the past
and divided into
irregular shapes
that float about
in the air
and our challenge is to
jigsaw puzzle them
into place

as soon as the pieces join
they vanish into the past

hanging in the air
the shapes collide,
merge, bounce,
squabble with each other and
strive to align –
before they drift and fade
and become
the past

 

plant

why did this never happen before?
all at once the midnight windows
were flung open
and the cats were dancing
and secrets were uncovered
and spirits exchanged

to reach and to hold
to walk through a wall of
unlikely moonlight
that then rearranges itself
into these little patches
of from-time-to-time sunlight
that coax a willing smile
and the echo of
why did this never happen before?

240 Street

the tamarind trees are bushy with green
after their recent pruning
so the street still retains its leafiness despite

it now has traffic lights but
the midday bustle is
still a quiet one

it’s the first street I knew –
when arrived I was first a neighbour
to the ghosts of the king’s elephants

where once there was a large corner building
that was dismantled almost overnight
and has been a vacant block ever since

where still there is what looks to be
a hotel about to open

where there are still a few tuktuk drivers
that I’ve known for 11 years now
clumping about

shops shift and change to the rhythm of
the business cycle, or whatever mysterious
lurching economic mechanism it is
that propels such things

behind the streetfronts,
the small villages,
the Brownian motion of life in
constant resting restlessness that
never seems to change
except for the children getting taller

not so many motodops now
and yet I only walk a few steps
before one recognises me
as a user of motodops
and pulls over for me

coming soon: mind the gap

exhalation

yes: a week of slow exhalation
reaching out purblind for the usual
rails to run along
while the better angels
tango on a pinhead
unfading smiles linger
in the parts of the brain
associated with the future
and the delicate networks
of love gain their strength
the silver thread is a beam of light
a faithful guitar string
a willing tightrope
a steel cable
a chain of atoms
that stretch between
as long as it needs to be
no more no less
and we say to life: yes

anticipation

something silken
has been draped across
the scattered mindscape

for so long I’ve been
fumbling through my hand
looking for appropriate trumps
then laying them down
intermittently
and finding the cards spell out words
and songs

and the thing about waves is
there is always another one
and the tides come in
and the tides go out
and everything changes
but nothing does too

every morning it’s a new world
but some mornings are more new than others

I savour
and prepare