But hers was a study in modesty.

The smile began long before in her eyes
sanguinely making it's way downwards.
Fingers curled slightly in anticipation of
the tingle she was to cause.
Drawing her shawl even closer
she knew to quickly look away.

An Old Favorite On The Radio

The first note, has her ready to hum

She turns up the music 

When she feels that way

With the softest sigh

She waits for night to fall

Pillow fluffed in anticipation

So she can dream that dream again

So she can kiss and never have to tell.

The Latte Files

No matter the time zone, the insomniac will find an hour 
to claim his own. A ticking clock his willing accomplice, 
the still fluffed pillow a voyeur. And the room alert 
and expectant, like a sold-out theatre. 
It's curtains still tautly drawn.

Counting Sheep

Such were oppressive nights, seemingly laden down

with humid smokey haze of love lorn eyes.

Elsewhere, heavy with thought and drink

featherweight pillows cradle a lover courting sleep.

Homecoming

The city felt haunted, the street like a lingering piano riff

tapering off with a melancholic melody

There was an abandoned newspaper on the road

but she didn't mind, the theme was becoming,

yesterday's news still had a nice ring to it.

She looked out for that house, one that stood unimposing

in a street lined with handsome suitors

her eyes drawn to the desolate cracked concrete

which with it's dying creepers on the walls

wailed another story of another time.

Her eyes gleamed as she willed her heart to be still

longing to rip off the garish sale sign

that stood like a coquettish prostitute in the blistering heat.

The creaky door that was to shelter them from the humid day

made it's compliance rather loudly known with a conspiratorial groan.

She knew she was home and it begged to be celebrated

and even as he toasted the news with champagne and doubt

she drank with unflinching gulps the bitter homecoming

And with heady optimism and bubbly that long fell flat,

she longed to retell a story in a city of ex-lovers.

The Proposal

She hated her fingers

he loved to kiss the tips

she called them fat and stubby

short too

he laughed

and patiently said he loved her still

fingers and all

and even as he slipped a ring

she knew the shimmer couldn't blind forever

not once the arthritis set in

creases deepened

and wrinkles formed

so looking at her fingers

and in a voice as still as the air around

she said 'No'.

She Is A Woman, She Sighs When It Rains

Rain loudly proclaims
of things that are to come cloaked
in dark enveloping cloud
of elemental feelings
which are then dropped in increments
of greedy fat raindrops
accompanied by an ominous sigh.

----------

Its hard to tell when the
mist, the spray and the rising
steam all come together
but in one over caffeinated moment they do
to unravel the most knotted thought
and lie silently in waiting
for that unbidden deepest sigh.

Scotch. Neat And Succored.

He dreaded to hear her sigh,
was it one of deepest content
or that of an unfulfilled desire?

And with those confounding thoughts
he swirled his drink, again and again
going around in circles, chasing tails.

He wondered if the sigh signified
coming to a truce with the fates
a stalemate so to speak with destiny.

It was hard to tell, he cursed for the hundredth time
and poured himself another if only to ease
the growing unrest, if not to quell the rising doubt.

She sighed with a smile in the quietest of moments
her eyes belying nothing of the turmoil
she must know she unleashed.

And yet sigh she does when she thinks no one is looking
or perhaps when sure someone is,
the mysteries hard to unravel.

And with every long drawn in breath,
he strengthened his resolve.
And with every hastily expelled sigh,
he once again was left to refill.

A Life Consumed

Hate was something that rarely went unnoticed
(Not under its harshly whispered guises and certainly
Not in its verbose declarations from the metaphorical rooftops)
And always unquestioningly crowned as too strong a word
Not a virtue in this case you understand

It wasn’t something one did but a state that came upon oneself
(Much like a habit that long seems to have been forgotten
And is now only lived.)
A feeling so exclusive to the bearer, no burden seems as heavy
Or a romance as intimate

And those who claim to have been singed by being in its mere vicinity
Knowing of no such passion themselves only do so out of their
Own inadequacy to feel so grandiosely
And so days and nights are consumed in feeling so fastidiously hateful
Until when finally the fog lifts and its for all to see

The epitaph that reads
She loved. So she hated.
She hated. So she could love.
A message etched in stone so to speak.
Clearly a lesson learnt, a life consumed

And in its four letters a lifetime spelt.

Of Rainy Dispositions

Something about rainy days
And nights
The melancholy and doubt
Contradicting lethargy
That comes from contentment
Or discontent
A feeling as varied and unpredictable as
Intermittent rain
Makes me want to go home even though
I already am.

Exclaim

It was surprises she loved. Those grand romantic
unexpected gestures. Those which at the opportune
moment could be shrugged off with practiced
non-chalance. But also be secretly smiled at,
even enjoy at some unguarded moment, having
first fortified with some misjudged humor
of course.

But she confused. Caught between perceived and
projected realities. Playing charades. She excelled
but no one else quite caught up. And so at the end
when she expected the waiting hoardes to scream
a gleeful and long drawn out 'surprise, surprise'
she found herself at the finish line all alone
Exclamation less.

Acts Of Love

They said they were consenting adults
Of legal age and sound mind

Ones who knew a gin ever naught mixed
With a bubbly of character less

For there is no sin like cheap champagne
And does not a conscientious act make

But what are two lovers to do
When the morality dissolves
With bubbles long gone in the long stemmed flute

So they shed their clothes
As their conscience claims its inhabitancy elsewhere
The clothes fall off as flimsy resolve often does

And lust is consummated
As a toast is raised to the now warmed sheets
As only a gin soaked glass can do!

Sorry For The Interruption?

How does one get time on their side?
The treasures of mighty tide?
After decisions weighed
Faith tested, karmic battles waged
And absconding luck mutated.

But a fortune needs to be made
So they said, "Spin the wheel"
Ill luck goodbye bade
Changing destiny but assured
A guaranteed good deal.

But then the spotlight goes off
Drowning all in a pall
Of all that is reality
Only to come alight again
Reflecting off of cast away hopes.

Gloomy it may sound but isn't
That the owned truth
Time makes its inroads
The 'suits' are the fortune-tellers
Money is to be made
And splendor to be had.

And so, the genius of programming
Every commercial, interrupted viewing
Rings a cash register somewhere
And such you realize is life
Interrupted.
But commercial free.

Of The Man In The Lighthouse

The man in the lighthouse
Stood in mute testament, which now may
be attributed to being passive aggressive
Isn’t that after all what a lighthouse do?
Stand resolute to the forces of nature
Which of course goes not unaccounted
Fate he calls it, after all
A tempestuous storm may only
Be a deliverance of karma he says.

Fear of weather is for those with roots
With land under their feet and those
With the fear of being uprooted
He lived with no such illusions
And if he did, he timed them to the tides
The rise and pull was temperamental enough
Then there was the famed moonlight
For the man in the lighthouse
It was hard to separate the man from the lighthouse.

He did step out, out onto the shores
Sustenance was an inconvenience
To be dealt with periodically
Just the way the lulls had to be tolerated before the
Drama of a storm unfolded.
Patience is a virtue to be cultivated
Skill at solitaire came with it
As did imagination laced with fortitude.

So between glasses of tea and
An aging deck of cards for company
He looked out for ships that long since
Stopped to pass, picking out shapes in mist
Conjuring characters central to plot
Watching for the perfect storm
The man in the lighthouse every night
Lit the beacon, sounded the gong
And perfected his game of solitaire.

The Imagined Secret

What is it about secrets?
That give a woman her power
That no stiletto can. Or red lips.
The ones that add an extra shimmer
to the eye. Or to the beginnings
of an elusive smile. A lazy wink.
A long drag on a cigarette
Or the extra clink of ice in
the now almost empty glass.
Secrets that are harmless as
long as unknown. Harmless
if come to be known.
As long as the knowledge
lies within the woman in
question, she thrives.
Almost as if secrets
and her go together.
Even made up ones.

After all,
intrigue takes imagination.

An Unexpected Muse

Thunder. Incessant rain
The day started with chai
Adrak adding the spiced nuance of course
For the tired palette
But now, its way into the night
Thunder still makes its
Presence felt and rain
Refuses to let up
Its onto gin and tonics now
The plural being affirmative
And as rain pelts forgotten
Morse code upon your window
Stories come pouring out
And you thought nature had
A whole other agenda.
And you might be right.
When with the torrential downpour
All it looked for
Was the drying of ink
On a wet, wet day.

As with any other story
Is it not a question of
Mere perspective?
Of seeking the ever
Unexpected muse.

Night With The Girls. And Bowls. Of Fishes.

You had to have a birds’ eye view to see
the glass bowls were many, each with
its own gold fish, each looking out on the other.
Perspective weighed down by weightlessness, the
proverbial greener grass looking clean as water. Or smoky
as water, it was that perspective thing again. So each felt
stared down by the other, and others caught up in their own
swirling waters.

Bowls that liven up a lonely woman’s life, bowls that hold another’s attention when nothing else does,
bowls that act as a muse to one
and bowls that are mere accessories in the
grand scheme compared to none.
But who was looking in on who? Confidence building on others’
secrets, bonds fortified over liquid promises of the alcohol kind, they
too in their own glass bowls.

Call it dinner with the girls, or a far more fashionable girls night
out, but its that perspective thing again,
when the stillness of the night
could only be compared to the quivering urgency of a
fish out of water.

Cityscapes

It could be any city and any view
but it is this city and this view
the rain has let up
a bit finally today
the light comes on
the penthouse across
not enough to tell much
the rain hasn't let up that much
but there is a faint glow
and a silhouette
a flickering ember which can only be
a cigarette
you imagine a high ball glass
along with gin and tonic
and spin a story
its a climax you are looking for
but you have your
own stub to put out
and head back to the party
across, another stub has been put out
but not before successfully
charting a climax
Rains. Parties. And Cigarettes.

Of An Unacknowledged Muse

She had that voice
jazz'ey and smokey
full of life like its never been lived
more Ella than Aretha
except that she didn't sing
she told stories
recited more like it
a muse you could call
but she was real
except when you saw her
there was Chet Baker in the background
or for the purists, Duke Ellington
she reminded one of a classic martini
not the fruity excuse
of an overture
of a classic rendition
of any red-blooded woman
of passion
and only as the dawn breaks
or as the night darkens
you see her for what she is
a bit of you
you could call her a muse
I prefer dreaming up her story.

Paradoxically

What is faith?
When someone says
What is true
Is it faith to believe it
After all a precedent has never been set
When does it change to trust
And who do we have faith in
Trust needs to be earned
But what has faith done for itself
Oh I have faith
This is no despondent melancholic rant
But when reality plays
Summersaults with circumstance
Faith needs to stay
Stock-still and in place
That’s when dilemma
Makes its entrance
As does irony
When is faith enough?
Fate has its own
Answers, I trust.