Sultry summer

My tired arms sigh

as your summer sweat is drunk

by a jealous sun

The summer bird

Summer bird I beseech thee

teach me a song as free as thee

lend my thoughts your wings, your sky

make my words light and spry

Colour my soul with your sight

mango blossoms and a sun so bright

Fill it brimming with a thousand blooms

of colours and light and sweet perfumes

Lead me through summer's lust

through heat and breeze and swirling dust

Tell me what secrets spake

the pigeon cooing to his mate

Hide my mind in a jasmine's breast

drown my heart in manna blest

Take me deep into her cove

take me into her sceret grove

Show me there her throbbing soul

Sloping valleys and sylvan knoll

Show me there in that single flower

A thousand blooms that live forever

Take me then on a butterfly's lips

humming through a hundred trips

to roses, violets and others untame

a thousand hearts for us to claim

Rest me awhile on a blade

of grass asleep in banyan shade

A dreamy sleep of sweat and heat

drinking noon sun's passion sweet

Carry me then on a sunbeam bent

to some sweet land with pastoral scent

of placid cows and cowherd's song

where evenings stretch languorously long

Fold your wings and sit by me

as dusk dies softly by a tree

Teach me silence that your heart holds

as the orange glow gently unfolds

Then take me home to a sylvan hutch

half asleep in the full moon's touch

Lay me there on simple earth

and let me sleep a sleep of death

How subtle a net do we weave

How swift our mind leads us on

Threads of thought twist and cleave

in fingers of words deftly con

How we tread with dreamy feet

Seeking roads that our desires take

How does the mind ooze deceit

the spider's mouth that web make

How we toil in empty sweat

Hours that run in joyless drone

How the heart does worry and fret

piling with filth its own throne

How we speak sans respite

shedding words that wither and die

Empty branches that take delight 

in eternal autumn always nigh

Away

Dead she sleeps my lover true
A blossom of spring that summer slew
Dead she sleeps all so still
Sans breath sans will

Her eyes don't shine nor her face
It seems she has gone another place
Her heart lies tombed in folded hands
Her garb is greyed like time's sands

Her bosom stays no longer heaves
Her voice is mute no magic weaves
Her lips are parched split apart
like barren land, a broken heart

No tear nor smile decks her soul
No fountain flows nor passion dole
The river has dried; the clouds have left
The bird has flown; the nest bereft

Here I stand; stand and see
The dead half of a living we
I stand and gaze and stand and gaze
Finding no life not a trace

Then...

Dusk does fall; day fades away
cool summer breeze traces a way
I sigh and sing and walk away
My heart grows quiet...

I

walk

away...

Inebria

Drink me this cup of eternal delight

Flowing forever my lovely lover

Drink me this wine sparkling and bright

Moisten they lips, my jasmine flower

Drink of this nectar and fold in my arms

I'll take you floating to my magic bower

Clandestine cove of cavern and charms

Far reaching trees and fine morning shower

There be some birds koels and crows

There be some buds, wild for your tress

There be some dew diamond that glows

I ask your heart and you whisper yes

Secret a lake, we shall espy

Waist in the water nestle in my chest

Cast off thy garb, that doth belie

Thy swelling charms, sweet treasure chest

Kiss me once, O! kiss me again

One bright as day, ten dusky nights

Kiss me an end forever but vain

Feed me thy love that subtly delights

High burning sun, spent passion sweat

Lie by my side, sweet noon's rest

Like sapphire in gold is set

Idyll and still a well painted nest

Then we shall brew us some ancient spell

Wake up some fairies to make us a dream

Fill it with dusk's glow sweet to dwell

Gilt it with morning's rare golden beam

Come, my angel, come to my land

Simple and soft a sylvan knoll

Untouched ever by foul human hand

Flung faraway from terrene toll

Come we shall find us a gray flock of sheep

Sing us a song of enchanted breeze

And in the eve a sweet home to keep

A lamp that is lit and time doth so cease

Sequined dreams

Begone ye pallid skies
Here in my palm a dawn
of tremulous gold lies
Into the void ye begone

Begone ye leeches of thought
Thy breeding broods lie waste
Long has this battle been fought
Flee now lest my blade you taste

For, life's river has flooded now
flowing with her thunderous roar
Beauty runs her oaken plough
Tilling my soul's dusty core

Here she has come again
Lovely Cora to my dying Hades
Beauty my Goddess truth plain
Dressed in life's painted shades

Here she smiles in vixen trance
Casting her spell of Asian bloom
There she plunges a scarlet lance
softly dying by the Gothic tomb

Heed her pipe soft and low
Tunes of a bronzed even Ra
Leading the soul to silent glow
Charming it there in mellow awe

How she veers, with toxin lined
Spring's poison mixed with wile
Into the goblet of a roue mind
Circe bearing her bubbling guile

How she bathes in tears borne
in the moonlit pool of a broken heart
Curing her soul in ancient mourn
love that death has done to part

There she shines in forlorn eyes
of Ophelia floating white on the brook
In Shalott Lady's half sick sighs
Cleaven dreams, that fate did crook

Here I suck her crimson lip
Burning in passion's yellow fever
There I die in her violet grip
Trembling in fancy's morbid horror

Baroque notes of the undead organ
In those she bares her pearly fangs
The wretched Count, the heir of Gorgon
The Phantom genius with burning pangs

How she shines in wisdom's realm
Thoughts bound in genius' cement
Evolved grammar in reason's helm
Sans a stain sans a dent

How she burns in virtue's dais
Rising in Bharata's flaming vow
How she soars above worldly ways
In the seers' flattened brow

Softly she treads with Japanese feet
Lilting and swaying to Chinese strains
Bamboo steps printed on snowy sheet
Dreamy mountains in yawning chains

Anew a thousand times she comes alive
Spring's seed, joy's sleeping storm
Breathing life doth in her bosom thrive
Flowing with blood of dreams warm

Breathe unto me a fresh life my muse
A thousand times and then once more
My thought, your will may they fuse
A thousand times and then once more

Conversations with silence

Nigh is the afternoon sun
blazing down on earth white.
Foreheads are wet.
Throats run dry
Hunger burns a dark flame
keeping sleep just at bay.

Then she slides
into half closed eyes
wearing the garb
of morning light.
The compass of truth;
the ocean of order
Goddess silence.

In language that was
never conceived
I speak with her.

Tell me, O Goddess
What is thy form?
Is thee of light
divine and flowing?
Is thee of flame
still and austere?
Is thee of beauty
brilliant and benign?
The divine nymph
closes her eye.

Tell me, O Goddess
What are thy signs?
The throbbing unrest
is that thy coming?
The thirsting ennui
is that thy flag?
The raging desire
is that thy herald?
The serene sylph
sits cross legged.

Tell me, O Goddess
Who are thy kin?
The spoken word
is it thy child?
The divine music
is she thy sister?
The breath that is drawn
is she thy love?
The queen of present
stopped her breath.

Tell me, O Goddess
where dost thou live?
The hills that are lofty
are they thy seat?
The sea that is deep
is that thy abode?
The still moon in the lake
is that thy perch?
The woman with one eye
shimmered in space

Tell me, O Goddess
what is thy path?
Thus did I ask.

The great arms of the wind
blew the needle away.