The rain
is dancing down
like angry temple goddesses
from forgotten ancestral attics,
decked out to see the world
on elephant tops only once a year.
-cymbals clanging-
heavy breasts and
flat feet
claiming earth
in vengeance
to extinguish pyres
burning from past
ember by ember
drop by drop
deluges of desires
answered only in her prayers.

Where should I hide you, my love,
now that the goodbyes are told
and the moist kisses have dried?
To which wind's abandon
should I let my heartstrings fly
now that you have set it free to conquer
other provinces of desire?
At least leave me with a street's name
where I can park my pain and strew my words
which streetdogs can sniff and taste and
curl in on moonless nights.

I am the river
in which you drain
your poison.

I don't complain;
I flow, I flow
like blood from fresh wounds.
But more importantly,
I feed you myself
for your incestuous deaths.

From the corner of my eye

I watch him make black tea,

opening and closing drawers

searching for satchets of sugar.

I make a drama of not noticing,

flipping through grainy channels

& letting an old song play,

to which we had once made love

much like playing in the rain.

When he is done

we sit on the edge of the window,

and share a cup of kattanchai

mingled with dregs of rum

unwashed from last night.

And in disquiet desperation,

I decide not to forget

the yellow magnolias

looking bright sunshine

against curtains of fake lace.

We then remind each other of things -

flight tickets (got on a discount),

brush left in the bathroom sink,

underwear thrown in a haste,

charger  with a crack in its pin,

bills to be split and cabs to be booked,

and flaccid condoms that had to be thrown -

All the while careful,

not to talk of love and other such silly things.

I was always amazed,
at the ease with which you said "love",
like it was 'fish' or 'rain' or 'blood',
"What is there to it" you would ask,
and repeat in my ears
like a chant,
Love. Love. Love.
and I would carry it afterwords
like a talisman tugging at my throat.

On my tongue the word tasted of death,
of loneliness residing in the center of my breasts,
Yet I  look for ways to show you ,
the countless times it foamed the corners of my mouth,
Like when I look up from my book
to watch you sleep with eyelids half closed,
Like when I feed you two white round sugar pills
and steal one for myself,
hoping to feel your ease after breathlessness,
Like when we are away
and everything could be forgotten,
how I can close my eyes and hear your lips brush my ears,
and inside of my eyes like a dream
I  can bring myself to say it all aloud.

My poem is down in the list,
read your way to it. :)
http://ourprivateliterature.blogspot.in/p/issue-1-poems.html

Loneliness walks in, stealthily on his feet,
like the black cat in my alley
crouching in fear at a stranger's footfall.

He hovers around silently
and sits at the windowsill of my heart
like an obedient child
looking on at his recuperating mother.
Together then in silence,
we listen to the strange cries of peacocks mating,
as if they were Morse codes waiting to be deciphered.

And finally when I turn to him tired,
and yearn like a woman in love,
he wraps me warm
a wounded soldier's homecoming.