Poetry

From the rib

~ thotpurge ~ Leave a comment

This too is a kind of eden.

There is bewilderment
and temptation,
sin and sine qua non,
there is exponential loss.

From the rib of the first eden,
countless edens were spawned,
deliberate, inadvertent,
the devil running crimson
through their veins.

I too had a god, before.
Before snakes.
Before fruit.
After light.
Until the emptiness
became imperfect.
Until the imperfection
turned into cause.
Until the cause
demanded a rib.
Until the rib
sacrificed a god.

This too is a kind of eden.
After snakes.
After fruit.
After dark.
Until a god
reclaims the emptiness.
Until the emptiness
becomes imperfect.

This too.

For the midweek prompt at Poets United: ‘Garden’

 

Water to Water, my first poetry collection, is now available on Amazon – US, UK and India

 

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When I missed the 09:55

~ thotpurge ~ 24 Comments

there were furrows
on her forehead,
disappearing like subway tracks,
lines that climbed out
from her weary dimple
like trains out of City Station;

she was softer
under the naked light bulb,
incandescent matter
poised mid-whirl,
a momentary flicker
in Rumi’s eyes,
an afterthought
caught in the maelstrom
of an incoming chant;

her face translucent,
the edges blurring
into the aura
weaving round her head;
inviting me to read
the empty pages,
words like thoughts
had pulled away
over the years;

i met her
on an empty platform,
a long way from today,
the me that i could be,
standing alone,
with a smile
and a purple umbrella;
in her bag-
the book I am writing,
weathered and lonesome;

she watched me run
towards the 09.55,
shaking off raindrops
from an imagined ache,
her wrinkled hands
held my arm
for just a moment,
not so fast,
her trembling voice said,
not so fast, my dear,
go craft me
in your own time,
one unsure step
trailing another,
just feel the lines
cross through your heart,
they will come,
for now
just slow down
and mind the gap.

Posted this poem way back on Jan 3rd, 2016. Seems like a perfect time to revisit it.

Water to Water, my first poetry collection, is now available on Amazon – US, UK and India

 

The Bridge

~ thotpurge ~ 30 Comments

Everything is in free fall. There you are — standing on the bridge between life and death, between being something and becoming something else, between anticipation and foreboding, between then and thereafter, between what you were meant to be and what you will be when it is over.

And every word, every breath, every thought, leaves you to flutter downwards into the snaking continuum, not belonging to you before it was yours, not yours after it has belonged to you for that one moment — passing through your presence, changing you, changing itself, drifting rushing, reaching into the ever-moving. Still you wait with hopes and dreams in your sad eyes as if the tumult of the shuddering universe has taught you nothing.

sky or sea or wind –
who owns
this first monsoon cloud?

 

 

Water to Water, my first poetry collection, is now available on Amazon – US, UK and India

 

My book!

~ thotpurge ~ 8 Comments

Very pleased to share that my first poetry collection – Water to Water – has been published by Notion Press and is now available on Amazon.

Here are the links for:

India: 
USA:
UK:

 

I can’t thank the wordpress community enough for their encouragement over the last few years. I now look forward to your feedback and support!

We talk peace

~ thotpurge ~ 43 Comments

They tell stories- toys pulled out of rubble, burnt
trucks, body bags — we tremble a little, pull the
covers closer. This is the new normal. Our way.
Our destiny. We are not gods. We did not come
with answers hieroglyphed on our thighs. Our
sins are our humanness. We talk peace even as
our factories spew arms. We talk about saving
ourselves even as we bleed the earth. We smile,
we nod even as we cross our fingers behind us.
We build new temples. We bow to new powers.
Information floods into our souls through our
fingertips. Still, on the day of judgement, we will
lie. We will say we let it happen because it was
not our choice. We did not know. It is our way.
Our destiny. We will reach out, fingertips stained
with the price of our apathy. Our make-believe
gods more omnipresent than the war stained sky.

 

For the midweek prompt at Poets United: “peace”

 

 

The lines that divide us

~ thotpurge ~ 35 Comments

The lines that divide us grow redder, welts
on the skin of sufferance etched by
concertina wire as we escape the last
pretence of civility. How do you grieve in
an us and them world? How do you
account for grief when them is the face
of a friend. When them is a hand you have
held. When them is a lip you have tasted.
When them is the scary moat that surrounds
us. And us is a star looking out into the night,
seeing only what it can imagine. I look into
their eyes. Eyes that cheer a frenzy. Eyes that
are boundaries. Eyes that deny mine. Eyes that
harden faith. We look away. We die when we
refuse to be reflections in each other’s eyes. We
die when them becomes a different dawn. We die
when us becomes a star their morning cannot find.