Ode to leftovers

Tonight
after wave-break and wave-leave
after wait, waiting, intersection and go
I scramble over the rubble
of leftover conversations
scattered anxieties
that step aside
in the manner of respect
to the dead
but remain,
tonight
in the before of the what-may-be
of irrationality and incapacity
the permissible of given rule
I seek re-do of the done
those ancient liaisons
that recover corporeality
in certain feet
that must walk together
or not at all.

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Ode to remnant

Continents and communities
villages and commons
memory and regurgitation:
these are the traditional homelands
of scattered conversations
of love’s gone astray,
the oblivion-bound remnants
of the undigested
the sweet-nothings that tarried on lip
and tongue-tip for a moment too long
of slipped out
out of place
out of time;
but of those other shards
of give and share
the interminable embrace
dissected in a wrong-time warp,
those never-to-be things
remembered in part but in clarity
remembered in separate continents
moving in orbits that touched
and moved from touch-point
to solitude
resident in other companionships
gnawing at life
one heartbeat at a time,
what will be said
but ‘time saw this’
in a consolation-sigh.

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An enlightenment trace

At Gangarama Temple. Pic by Sandra Mack

In the afterglow
of that sublime moment
there was
as there was before
and as there was thereafter,
reflection-moment,
a noting of shade
a gaze of gratitude,
and now
long after the parinirvana
leaf moves to touch with shadow
the remnant chamber
symbol of the shade-taker,
a sublimation
I am too poor to tell
too heavy with klesha
to embrace as illuminating koan.
[inspired by the photography of Sandra Mack]

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The communion of the solitary

There are crowds and crowds,
some suffocate
some breathe life,
there are peopled crowds
of routine courtesy
shrilled with people and event
silent on idea and work
words that layer like so much dust
so much grime
on the window sills of the heart
and there are hosts of birds
seagulls and shells
the roaring in of a wave
and cowering withdrawal
as though anger was knuckled
on the door of a mistaken address,
there are crowds and crowds
some suffocate, some liberate
in the one there’s solitude
and in other the community of hearts
but in one or the other
the air-less will see air-less
breathe and breathe
and solitude is bent
in the intersection of the solitary.
 
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Waxed Containment

Container is for eye
the preference of color and shape
moulded for taste
and pick-me-up pulse;
lighting is for delicacy
of touch and ambience
occasion and festival
meditation too;
burning is for mind
the dwarfing of the tall
melting of the congealed
perishing of wick
unwavering flame
in windless room
flickering and snuffing out
in the timber of wind
but made for decay
for illumination
and revelation
of transient ways,
a prayer of malleability
of wax and wane
to acknowledge nothing
and seek it too,
nothing, that is.

[Inspired by the photography of Chandana Wijesinghe]

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One thing?

‘Say something!’
someone will say, some day.
‘Say one thing,’
perhaps the plea may be.

Say ‘no’

and this is why.

One this leads to another,

like mountains and streams
rivulets and dust particles
clouds and thunderstorms
love and solitude
so give a host
a legion of wrongs
in error of definition
and a heart
that will not be stopped
by muscle or bodily brief,
but erupt and erupt and erupt.

 

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Word and melody

There’s a lyric
with an ‘anon’ byline
not for ignorance
but for multiplicity of author,
written by encounter and loss
hope shredded by choice and chance
abandoned in a war zone
hung from a clothes hanger,
there’s a melody
similarly composed
wrought in temperamental blend
a wayside left-behind,
a free-float in storm
and re-scripting of absurdist theatre;
word met tune
in an impossible hour
the universe stopped
waited,
but word had forgotten name
and purpose.
Melody too.

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