Buoyantville

Plane Song

aqss — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:03:04 GMT

The plane turns at the edge of a city

(where true darkness begins - it is allforest below; perhaps a few hikersare sleeping against the soundsof owl hoot and foraging bears)

and follows the curve of the river

(the undulating water in half-moon,a paino keyboard calling to be heardover the herd of TVs flickeringat the end of suburban cul-de-sacs)

as it rushes towards an airport

(a car's headlight nosing the mistis as clear as a skylight towardswhich a blinded eye looks, stopping,sometimes at the curl of a rhyme)

where you are supposed to arrive.

(with a mind that is racing away likethat car next to the river, deepinto a wild beyond the hikers' sleep,with a hunger greater than the bears)

Note: I could have easily titled this "After Tranströmer", as I wrote it falling out the sky last night, for the debt is there.

After A Year of Marriage

aqss — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:56:29 GMT

When her eyes crinklelike crushed crocuses,the laughter that followsis the color of saffron.
I will call her Pratikshafor her gaze movingacross a room towards me,still pins my voice to the throat
in want that is waiting.Doesn’t desire complete itselfwhen the tongue of a candlefeeds on the body of air?
O, coming to the suburbsof her body is like walking intoa spring meadow from Troyafter the Trojans have set sail.
So I wake and walk into anotherApril, under trees haloed in bud,praising the wonder that is a singlesheet over two lovers in bed.
April 17, 2011

Ghazal: Snow Man in Sakura Park

aqss — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:55:00 GMT

The mind in winter retreating into itself knowsHow green sap is held in the embrace of snow.
Blue-black (of her memorized eyes) is how the graveStatues gaze at his passing shadow, shaggy with snow.
In their farewell, nothing left really to tell or showBut his x-rayed heart, inked with shards of snow.
What does the dead general dream in his icicled tomb?Wind off the river etches memory on his brow of snow.
“Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is”:So is the dark one hidden to Radhika by the snow.
After Wallace Steven's "Snow Man"