Alone

I share too easily, I leave myself open. This is not good. Wish I could unsay some things I said. I know they'd come back to bite me. There is grief, and a sense of nakedness and a feeling of aloneness. Not lonely, just alone. I must learn to live with that. I must learn to live with myself.

Remembrance

Winter evening

Soft jacketed evening

They were lost to the world

You mocked them with your song

I walked quietly along.

You mocked them

With your tender song

On that wintry soft jacketed night

Lost to the world

I remembered it differently.

In the Library

I saw her once seeing me
From between the stacks
Of Drama and Dramaturgy.

She shifted her eyes
To the dusty spines,
Even pulled out a book to read.

But in the flash
Between this and that
I saw her seeing me.

Was it deliberate
The split-second delay,
Did she mean me to see?

Or did it betray
The heart of someone
She didn’t want to be?

I think of this, and her,
Lying awake at night,
Does she ever think of me?

Today we shall be friends

Today we shall be friends
And tomorrow
I’ll wait for you to come down
From downy cloud nine
When you have eyes again to see
Your ordinary face.

I have it all figured out now.
First I’d avoid all the regular haunts
Where I always run into you
Seldom by accident.
Then, I’d find other hobbies
Than our shared film class.

I’d meet you still
Occasionally,
But then we’d be
Nodding acquaintances
Who knew each other well
Once.

Today we shall be friends
Because I cannot let you
Sigh your self-satisfied sigh,
“We’re not in the same league,
Of course she’s jealous”
No, just annoyed.

I’d be nice and cheery and play the fool
Wait till you remember who you are
I’d be discrete and gentle
For old time sake
Today we shall be friends
But tomorrow

Self-love

We met like old friends,
Casually asked if we could
Maybe sit and have coffee
Our work could wait a while.

"Two sugars please."
"Oh put away your camera phone!"
We talked vacuities
And laughed at each other.

Both knew why it happened,
This carefully planned chance meeting.
Charted out the previous night
In the minds of each.

The calculated conversation,
Insistent casual small talk.
The maps of our brains
Silhouetted on the wall.

We didn't call each other's bluff
Didn't poke at each other's cards.
Was it for old time's sake?
Or for each other's nerves?

Measured talk and coffee and not coming to the point,
Not stripping down to blood for blood.
We kept our clothes on
And kissed our own mouths.

Caught

He was in control right from the beginning; he proclaimed the fact in subtle ways that he didn't give two hoots about official hierarchy. She didn't mind. She found the naivete charming. She didn't care about the project anyway. She was taken on board for her nominal value in the first place and she knew it. She was not too ambitious in these small matters. Actually she was far too ambitious to even think about any sort of professional investment in such small matters. Or at least this is what she thought. It probably was her justification to herself for not caring.

She sat in her place all by herself conscious of the gulf between her and them, the eloquence of the awkward silence engulfing her. He sat between the door and her furiously typing away at his laptop, comparing data, compiling assessment sheets, doing his job. She looked at the door just so she could steal a glance at him. She was scared of looking at him for too long for fear of being seen staring at him. That would be disastrous. Any gossip about her making eyes at a subordinate could permanently seal her CR in the "No Consideration" drawer of the filing cabinet. She didn't want that. Besides this was probably just infatuation. And there were hundred other things that screamed they were not a match by miles. And he was so conceited. She looked at the door again.

.................................

He was slumped over his chair, his hands resting on his camping gear. He had promised himself a weekend getaway if he could get the project approved. He is so child-like, she thought. Heck he IS a child, she reminded herself. But she couldn't get her eyes off him. She caressed him with her eyes, drinking up his physical form, taking in the heaving of his breast, his sinewy arms, his big hands, his long fingers, his serene, tired face. His face. A feeling of tranquility enveloped her in a sense uniting her with him. She stood their mesmerised, like a Hamlin mouse hypnotised by the Pied Piper. The difference was that he didn't even have to so much as open his eyes. She felt vulnerable suddenly as she realised the extent of his control over her. She hoped and prayed he didn't know. "He looks adorable like a baby, doesn't he?" She was startled as she heard these words piercing through her consciousness. It was his secretary. She looked at her to see what she meant. But the secretary was inscrutable. She came away blabbering something about the project and explaining what she was doing there. No one asked her for an explanation. But she couldn't help it. In her eyes she had been caught in the act.

On College Poetry

There was a smile in that eye.
Was it me? No, it really was
A greener field, a bluer sky.
I should know, I know the laws
That when it's spring or you're in love
Bright stars shine in the dark above.

And good to better, better to great.
Things appear relatively raised,
The heart spills out its doggerel freight
Of jagged rhythms and rhymes unpraised.
Then in the realm of the blogosphere,
It seeks you, reader with an iron ear.