Come see my love

This new house of ours

See the wonderful lawn

And, um, the broad verandah?

Come inside my love

See the spacious rooms

And the smooth enamelled walls?

This our bedroom?

And this the living room?

See the sofas how comfy they already look?

My smile was fast fading

For she showed no great pleasure

Um, the neighbours?

They are wonderful too

See my love this shiny kitchen

It has everything you might need

At last a reaction

Me? Or the cook?

Who'll be pleased?

By the way who's this cook

Someone I know?

Yaagh the cook?

I blankly looked

Yes yes of course

I'll get you a cook

Anything my love for you

Hmmph she flounced

I'll see the rest later

I'm going home

My budgie hasn't seen me

Since this morning

Poor thing she needs her seeds

And off she went

I glumly locked up

And plonked the keys

Into the caretaker's hands

And in my best Terminator voice said

I'll be back

Hmmph he sneered

I went back in haste

To my old study

And scrounged up my battered copy

Of Whitman, my agony aunt

It opened as always

To The Passage to India

“Yet first to sound, and ever sound, the cry with thee O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!
The Past?the dark unfathom’d retrospect!”

Hmmph the past

Great

But what about the future?

My soul asked

The prospect is equally dark and unfathom’d

Come sit beside me, she said

I better not, he said

You are so beautiful

I might lose it, he said

Come sit, hold my hand

And I will hold yours

Do not fear your fears, she said

Tell me, what is two and two?

I do not understand, he said

Is this a trick question?

Come place your head on my breast

And tell me what you hear, she said

I hear the beating of your heart, he said

And feel the warmth of your breast

She said, math is all, you say

So, is it four or is it four?

Bless you, my love, he said

Now I know what I had forgotten

It is not four neither is it four

It is you, there are no numbers without  you

The storm raged outside,

Inside, you and I,

With legs and hands entangled,

With sheets and pillows all over,

Took our own pleasures

With each other

Forgive me, my love,

In the midst of this storm,

My mind wondered

What would be if the elements were calm

Did you seek refuge in me

Or were your frantic passions lit

When the skies spat fire?

Did you want me to calm the elements

And provide a settled world for you?

When no rude uncertainty

Would arrive to anger you?

No, I would, if  only I could,

I am as much a victim

As you are

Under the workings of the galaxies

Only this I know

Come what may

I shall love you  for ever.

There were wonderful times

Among other and quite different wonderful times

In my life

When I wallowed in misery

And wished the nothingness would everlast

That I would not have to get up

And go about this Sisyphean task called Life

When every step up

Was followed by two steps down

That I could finally do without her

I call it wonderful

Because I found reasons enow to abscond

From responsibility

And that is indeed a pleasure

But always and anon

Drunk or not

Stoned or not

Life intruded

Prodding me in the ribs

There were tasks to be done

Nothing earth-shattering

Just mundane things

Like fixing a leaking tap

Or feeding my dependants

Or paying the bills

O poor me

I wanted to be the greatest lover in history

I wanted to save the world

I wanted to write famous literature …

Failing which, I wanted to

Crawl into a hole and write weepings 

O me, I am just another human

Whom Life has amazingly accepted as a member

Like so many zillion others

In the fulness of the past

I must do my part

In the seven stages of man

Before I shuffle off the mortal coil

But not before.

What is it you possess

That’s magic on my heart …

Is it your eyes, or silken tress,

That inspires each every start?

Or, is it your voice which, gentle,

Strums upon my senses,

Setting sounds musical,

Was it just yesterday

When you and I, in a clammy hotel room,

Bucked and jumped,

Belly against belly?

Was it only just yesterday

When I plunged like a mad stallion upon you

And you raked your nails

Down my back?

No, it wasn’t yesterday,

But many years ago,

Though I still remember

How we sat apart,

Afterwards.

Somehow self-ashamed at what had just happened

Our faces turned away from each other’s.

You were re-arranging your hair, on the crumpled bed

Me, on a chair, a lit cigarette in hand,

Gazing into some far pavillion.

I had thought then,

As I still do,

If only I had a second chance

To show you I was more than just another lustful animal,

That I could love you as you deserve,

Gently, tenderly,

With a slow-burning strength.

If only …

But the chance never came.

Just as there is no waterfall

Without a river

There is no pain in love

Without love.

Just as there are no flowers

Without roots

There is no heartache

Without a heart

O don't just dance around

Outside my door

Come inside my world

There are countless days lost

More than we care to remember

It's time to secure our future

Below the chaos of the waterfall

Benumbing the mind as it might

A new river always is born

I have supped under the sun

And in cold clammy shadows

The mountain and the plain

I have been husbanding and profligate

I have ever resisted temptation

And I have ever succumbed

I have saved lives

And I have been complicit

I have ever exited

Through the same door

I so eagerly entered

I have been sinner and saint

My philosophies have proved barren

There is nothing

I have to say to anyone

In any case

No one would not listen

Now my days are being counted

By some celestial accountant

So I must make haste

To leave a leaf

For someone

Dearest more than the gods

To read

To you, the sum of my life

The good and the bad

The inspirations and the disappointments

To you I leave it all

As I prepare to board that boat

For I love you, precious dot, more than all the gods

O Unknowable, why do you call?

How can you so heartless be?

If you go on beckoning

I would have to leave all and follow '

Yet you just keep calling.

O you with eyes twinkling,

You are out to cause mischief,

The fire needs tending, baby sister is crying '

Yet you must whisper and call.

My sahelis are waiting,

We are to go flowers gathering,

The air is cool and the breeze sweet '

Yet you must spoil it all and call.

Your flute is full of mystery,

O how you tug at my heart,

My ears I must shut '

O Dark and Radiant One.

The village is talking, Radha is a scandal,

My cheeks are red, my ears so hot,

You have been my ruin '

Yet must I follow,

The other night

 While the sun shone on the opposite side

 I heard a voice

 In the middle of a dream

It bade me wake

And close the windows

Draw the covers over my lover's body

For the cold baisakhi was blowing