When the world was lit by lightning

You know how the clouds sing in thunder When you walk into a room Yesterday on Diwali the night came ablaze Fireworks enough to make an arsonist cry The world was lit by lightning The sky had cast its eye on you Seeing you for the first time

Like Earhart

Ever since she left she keeps being gone. It is as if we were notBut if I am unrealWhy is my flesh stained by reality The shy part of my wrist a plum-blue and yellowSkin she has known as obscenely as her fingers reaching inside of my mouth. This is not a case of distance…

Amour

This beauty your smile – like a piece of the sun, Laughter thick as cream Days endured I wait for you an unanswered prayer

Almost Holy

The longing for you is almost holy. Warm you sleep; your eyelids closing are the night coming for me. Inescapable love of lives,  my lingering ache is the origami crane tucked in your breast. Doing undoing wills and possibilities: with each breath, life raises itself and with every exhale it returns. As it is with all…

Postcards from Istanbul /9

“You are always my concern. Nothing has happened to me to make me suddenly think more intensely of you… you, beautiful things and gloomy things are spread over my fleeting days” – Ingeborg Bachmann to Paul Celan May 1949 (unreceived letter) Mosaics are works of art comprising thousands of broken pieces. They are perfect symbols…

Postcards from Istanbul /8

“She was like a landscape you see from the train, and you want to stop just there.” – Graham Greene, ‘The Living Room”   What a difference a smile makes. How it shifts landscapes and ruins the topography of the heart. And how it does and undoes the shoelaces of our reserve, our restraint, and…

My body sends you letters

I miss you. From the rumble inside my gut I miss you. From the wince and gasping ache for your heat, I miss you. From between my tendons, from the twitch of my muscle, from the creak of my aging bones, I miss you. From the soft dark of my hot heart, the steady rise…

Postcards from Istanbul /6

“She inspired you, you loved her and sang of her; her task was done.” – Franz Liszt in a letter to Hector Berlioz, 1854   The give of a soft pear surrendering to my teeth. The burst of plum in my mouth; juice dribbling down my chin onto my helpless blue shirt. The tickle of…

Postcards from Istanbul /5

“Or give me back one shred from our hundreds  of days – a forgotten word, or look – that I might lie here counting  them, like sheep, waiting out the dark.” – Greg Johnson, Insomnia   Dear, sweet one. Gratitude today for the precious few moments I received to see you. Your face that I…