(xiii)

ՔՆԱՐ ( Qnar):


Her ashough caresses her curves;
marmoreal surface limp in prone latitude
of a more laconic repose. Silent, waiting to sough
and sing, to his touch; peregrinating fingers,
probe and tease her supine, slender arms,
stretched heavenwards as if in supplication.


Eventually his digits will run through her taut strings
deftly, as if an aashiq gently his paramours unravelled
tresses coils – and uncoils, around the assiduous inches
of his nail, and bare-sweating skin.


Troubadour – and his exquisitely crafted lyre,
bewitching when quiescent, enchanting when stirred,
resonating with the tuning-forked vibration
which is still primordial to each universe….

and,

her curves, her caresses, her minstrel-love!

 

(xii)

these quotidian phases of life,
these diurnal dimensions we dwell in.
this missing you, the elusive touch,
the feel of your untangled hair,
the smile, slow-spreading like sunlight
on melting snow, and the memory of cerise
lips, wet, eager….unreal.


….these routines we rue,
the lives we choose to cocoon
our twin-souls in now;
all this and more, curvaceous one,
in the unwinding width and beam
of your lissome form, I have felt –
and more than that with you,
I have been.

(xi)

mecum omnes plangite :

…..they say the mountains are filled with crystals,
and good fortune.

Turn off the gas now, the jester weeps;
it is the hour the long-haired croupier
(O Fortuna! Sors immanis!)
in skirt and stilettoes, steps
on shards from shattered hearts.

that which the eagles at night had dropped from Psunj….

“….perhaps I’ll bring you luck!”

(x)

she is the effulgence in the

gathering gloom of loaming,

the scintilla of shooting stars

in the crepuscular and chthonic;

she is beauty,

shimmering sylph of a supernal arcadia…..

…..she is the dark, seductive night.

(ix)

drink:

 

that which can simulate,

(but does not inebriate),

aroma of fresh mornings appropriate;

that which can invigorate,

but does not intoxicate

surely must some ambrosia incorporate.

poured for every potentate,

sipped in every sultanate,

dark-brewed nirvana – siva incarnate!

 

(viii)

 

In the real world – as also in faerie tales –

it is about thaumaturgy.

In the real world Alice is the monster

and the Jabberwock a virginal cherub,

logged on with the user name ‘bruised romantic’

…..and the password – Rumpelstiltskin.

 

 

(vii)

of prompts – and other gimmicks:

 

dear me,

pretentious, pushing phifty;

what once was over the hill, now?

water under the bridge?

 

if i could, i would

love you to death.

because death will part us.

 

and on the burial fern-lilies would sway

to the plonk-plonk of a tinny piano,

chinese-lanterns in the waft of the

muted yet clear laughter of guests,

( she would wear her favourite patent leather boots).

 

like an unwritten elegy on snow,

branded in vodka, singed for weeks,

to none can one say no.

 

for at the end of that long stiletto-pocked night,

the morning would have broken

( like the first morning),

 

dear me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

(vi)

once high upon the sullen rocks

i chanced upon a paradox,

when the rivers fury in molten might

cut through the layers of solid granite.

and all that was trivial turned profound,

in earth-shattering motion laid to ground,

and the great crumbled to eternal dust….

 

 

(v)

truisms and cliché:

brother of sleep,
our common fate,
(be not proud);
no one here gets out alive.
tamam.

(iv)

soft -stepping gazelle,

in woods turning brown;

lambent eyes and lustrous skin,

she wears a diadem of sorrel keratin.

mottled fingers caress slender hands,

soft like her name,

her lips – and the dulcet tone

when she speaks in a shy,

halting susurration.

soft curve against the teak and timber

of a bench; riparian setting,

for pulchritude clothed in the purple of passion….

…and unclothed by a piercing gaze