A Meeting By The River
We meet by the river, your hair dripping wet
Because of the rain which has been falling all day.
The river’s rippled skin splits Your face when you lean over And shake your head to and fro, A happy puppy with your easy smile.
How have you arrived here? Is it because of gravity that propels Everything fluid to a river? You flow ceaselessly now.
Half submerged in the water, You are the river Carving its name on the rocks. And I am one of the edged pebbles You gently smoothen.
The grass on the bank bends Towards your body in the rain. My head has woven a nest Out of that grass which laps Your curved lap. It is raining, As you bend over my head Obliterating the world.
I wonder: Where do you end? Where does the river begin?
Note The music playing in my head as I was scribbiling the lines above was the lovely Vishwa Mohan Bhatt & Ry Cooder's album, with the same title as this poem.
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Found Fourth Instant Sher
Her gaze turns outwards
From my face to move over
The far wall. Never mind,
I say to myself, if not
Its finger of light, the warmth
It throws off is sufficient.
Note: I thought this sher in which I channel myself was lost but "the gaze" I speak of in these lines kept it, and gave it back to me this morning. For this, as one of my fav poems by Adam Zagajewski decrees, I will "praise the mutilated world":
"Praise the mutilated world and the grey feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns."
Searching for these lines in my Big Book of Poetry, I discovered I had written two "poems" off and for Adam Z's poetry, one of which I am not ashamed of, and the other being a non-poem. Also, statistically, this is the 435th "poem" archived here.
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Four Variations From Instant Shers
[1]
When you fix your half annoyed stare
On my turned back this morning,
I recall the Sahara of your body
Which pulsed in my arms last night.
[2] Your eyes in mock anger and half sleep, This morning, resemble sunflowers That have turned their petals inwards, Towards their rich dark hearts.
[3] “Why are you looking at me like that?” You ask, turning your gaze downwards. How do I point out the waves of those interior Seas which break on the shores of your eyes?!
[4]
I watch you read, the pauses
Of your walking eyes as you
Turn the pages, the way they circle
Over certain words such as proclivity
As if they were gathering shells,
The quivers and flutters of their lids
As if they were flags planted in a meadow
As they pass through certain passages,
And the very quiet singing heard as words
Sink into their luminescent depths.
Note: I came up with a few instant shers earlier today to pepper a conversation. The first three Variations above I derived from the memory of the first three shers - I forgot to write them down on a piece of paper. The fourth is entirely different because I have forgotten that earlier fourth utterance. Also composing such shers explains why the business called dating is/has been such a disaster in my case - women flee or have usually fled in the face of such an assault. Thus, this is not a strategy I reccomend if you are interested in sucessful outcomes.
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