Red wall, a ladder leaning against it, garlands of bluebells, marigolds and red peppers hanging from a rusty nail as they dry under the blue window

From which hangs a planter of geranium, bright red as pin pricks on the thumb pressed to a square piece of glass

How odd these thoughts for I am sitting under the sun only to remember walks by the hospital at nights, with its lights blazing

like those red skulls painted on a box of explosives, over the sallow faces of smokers gathered in tense knots talking in low voices as if the grim reaper would overhear

And all the while I kept listening for the low horns of freight trains that trundle under a bridge close by, To summon sunk thoughts

Which must have sunk back into the darkness that lies under the span of thinking Soon after

For I don't know I don't know what was I supposed to write down now Of then.

[A]

Clouds elided from An unstained direction. That is remembrance.

The rose weaves on the wall A story, in the green alphabet of tribes Whose language I have never learnt.

This is the story whose shadows You study over there, Pausing between an infinity and a poem.

Here I am the wall, and my armor & my crown Are the thorns. They scratch Symbols for fresh letters on the wind.

I never post these letters to you. They are written For clouds, which as I have said sometime before Are remembrance.

After they depart, I stare all afternoon At the blue sky, wondering at how it manages To say so much without saying much at all.

[B]

A prism of water brought By the night rain.

Wind moves over the windows Twisting the kaleidoscope of thunder.

Wet penetrates through the wall And into the body leaning against it.

The room is desolate. The body is a desert.

This open story is an oasis. Ghosts (are they cold?) dance around the fire.

Breathing is a palanquin. Death is its destination.

Feet thud through the dunes. Eyes scan the stars.

A woman is oiling her hair, Pouring saffron between her breasts.

Someone should reveal to her the constant distance Between earth and sky, even at the horizon.

[C]

A body tinted coffee Murmurs in a chamber In which an orchestra is playing An adagio on strings.

I have often wondered How similar the human body is To the bowl of music chiseled Out of wood by a human hand.

[D]

A sixteenth century Sufi wrote: Without love what is the difference

Between heaven or hell? Between god and devil?

I can assure you We were not acquainted.

[E]

Your soul wants To embrace my soul.

My cricket soul chirps In this box called the body.

This box called the body, according To an ancient book, is pulled

Hither and yonder by five black stallions, Which are chained, in the case of few boxes,

To a yoke called conscience, Whose wood, however, is rotten with desire.

Your mouth wants to swallow my tongue Like the sky swallows a flag or a bird.

My tongue coils and uncoils. My fingers climb up and down your spine

Slipping on red sweat where My tongue must have lashed your body.

Our sleeves are both wet as our souls summon Huge rain clouds through our tight fisted eyes.