“Allow our friends forever to be near us
Without a reason do not let them pass...”
Rome
Here, in Rome, all the ends are lost -
all the roads here crisscross and merge.
Every path here leads to a cross -
on each corner, there stands a church.
Here, in Rome, every rock is hallowed -
every square, every street, every stone,
and no matter whose footsteps you follow,
every face that you meet is your own.
Here, in Rome, you are bound to grasp
more than photo frames could contain,
as you run your hands through the grass,
as you stroll outside in the rain.
Break up
Lonesome lips lapped stale air.
Feverish and delirious,
I dipped my quill into a cup of coffee.
Gray hands
of smoke
fondled the strands of my hair.
The room crumbled,
shrinking
and shriveling into a coffin.
I ripped open the envelopes of the window-frames.
You’ve left me
and this time,
I’m sure, you will not return.
In the sizzling furnace verses rose into flames
and the heart, dejected, continued to burn.
Angry winds
scattered ashes across the room.
With everything spinning out of proportion,
I fell to the floor
and the forlorn moon
pulled my tears like the tides of a storming ocean…
Here, on the outskirts...
Here, on the outskirts of the major city,
the trees are slightly bending to the west,
and waking up, one finds the nitty-gritty, --
a girlfriend’s forehead resting on his chest.
Here, time goes by unheeded. Nightingales
sing all day long and street-lamps never fade.
And when the sun arises, it unveils
two star-crossed lovers kissing by the gate.
Here, there is no commotion, all is still,
and mild autumn winds, across the courtyards,
chase golden leaves and raindrops quickly fill
the puddles with the juice from Eden’s orchards.
Here, we can hold each other by the hand
and ramble by the pond with pink flamingoes.
Here, we can live in castles made of sand
and whisper from the bottom of the inkwells...
To the Muse
Listen, Muse,--
No more words! Enough!
Twisting my tongue like that! What’s the use?!
Don’t you see -- my whole body is charged with love,
Give me a match to light up the fuse.
Loosen the reins.
Let time -- the black stallion
Gallop unbound, ardent, zealous, hot-tempered.
Around its neck, tie the moon’s medallion
To illumine the nights of the somber December.
Place your head on my shoulder
As the razor of sunrise
Sweeps the foam of the clouds from the cheek of the sky.
And the morning, inspecting the courtyards of Brandeis,
Finds everyone sleeping,
Except you
And I.
Like madmen, we’ll dance on the brink of insanity,
Testing the puddles for the depths of the skies.
On the vines of the roads, we shall find immortality
And with laughter, we’ll write where the ink never dries.
First snow
First snow.
The earth put on her gown,--
at once, both fleeting and eternal.
I watched how fast the naked ground
was changed into somebody’s journal.
My footprints bared a patch of granite.
I grieved beneath the burdened pines
that no one else across the planet
appeared to read between the lines.
Spring Morning
Spring sprung so suddenly that no one
was ready for a change like this.
Upon the bosom of a snow bank,
the sun descended with a kiss
and in a fraction of a second,
the morning changed the world’s appearance
as melting icicles deflected
warm rays of light like diamond earrings.
Venice IV
At night, Venice slumps partly into the water, partly
into the sky that's reflected under her.
While a native gracefully plays Vivaldi
on the violin-nosed gondola.
Sorrow
February’s attire is full of white.
just another shoulder to cry on.
Thus, I’m enduring cold nights.
It’s two months since you’ve left me. Since
the weather turned cold. Since the sunrise
last caressed the horizon
with warmth. At least, so it seems.
Weaving the spider-webs of the constellations,
the muse of astronomy catches my gaze.
Drifting off into space,
I am losing my patience.
People say that the cosmos is vast,--
but there’s nowhere to hide my sorrow
when the moon, like a bookmark, sticks out of
the time that’s long passed…
Bookmark
Live your life and do not look hard
for existence to make sense.
Life – itself – is but a bookmark
in the narratives of chance.
I refuse to love in cliches…
I refuse to love in clichés!
I’ve learned my manners!
I will fall to my knees to caress you with verses…
I will bind your ankles with fetters of letters,
And wait for your lips to yell out for mercy.
Until the mercury breaks through the thermometer,
I will turn you inside out
like an original metaphor,
Press your stress points in iambic pentameter,
Marking each syllable like an energized editor.
Virgin bed sheets will wrinkle like failed poems,
Candle wax will drip slowly onto the mantelpiece,
And if I write nothing else after this moment,
Then, I hope you remember me, dear,
by this masterpiece.
The sky was paler…
The sky was paler
than the cheek of a melancholy romantic.
The streaks of the melting snow
bulged like veins on the lonely rooftops.
There was something about the view that was quite enchanting.
I walked,
reciting “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,”
smoking Marlboro Lights
and admiring the spiraling smoke.
The morning was wonderful and I couldn’t put my finger on it,
but it seemed out of the ordinary,
as if I awoke
to find out existence had meaning,
and I stumbled upon it.
No, it had nothing to do with either of us.
This wasn’t the point.
It was more about scattered rhymes and iambic pentameter.
As a whole,
this city resembled a well-written poem
and I picked up its rhythm on the cobble-stone avenue.
The whole street seemed to rock
like a ship in a stormy bay.
North End reached out for me with its stretching tentacles,
and strangers smile
d at me
from the windows of every café,
as if looking at some strange and remarkable spectacle,
they couldn’t decide if I
was a poet, a lover or simply mad,
My eyes glistened with tears,
illumined by the sunrise fire.
I was screaming poetry at the top of my lungs,
with all I had,
as if no one was listening
so my voice went an octave higher.
Her love
I swept the asphalt with my feet
I walked below the dark gray skies
I turned and faced the wind to plead,
“What do I need, what do I need?”
And it replied, “Her eyes, her eyes...”
I heard the wind and froze in place
The world around me seemed so bleak
I faced the sun and asked, half-dazed,
“What do I seek? What do I seek?”
And it replied, “Her face, her face...”
It seemed my sorrow had no ends
Behind me, gold foliage dragged
I asked the cloud, in a trance,
“What do I lack? What do I lack?”
And it replied, “Her hands, her hands...”
The sky was dark and winds were rough
As lightening struck and thunder groaned
I asked the rain from high above
“What do I want? What do I want?”
And it replied, “Her love, her love...”
Venice V
The sun was slowly sinking under the
Horizon's line and there, beneath
The frozen sky, a lonely gondola
Still trembled like an autumn leaf.
A foreigner, and thus a loner,
At night, in Venice, on my own,
I wanted her -- my Desdemona --
To be with me and me alone.
Poet’s Prayer
I’ve given you my flesh and blood
And still my name remains unmentioned!
For this, you’ve crucified your God
And I demand the same attention!
To Pilate
The sky grows dark and silent.
I’m weak but I won’t show it.
At last, my case is closed,
But tell me, Pontius Pilate,
How many arms have crossed
The letter “T” in “poet”?
Advice for a Friend
When you’re miserable
And overcome by tedium,--
Admire yourself in the mirror!
Like a mermaid,
You emerge from its medium
Like a miracle!
When you’re meandering
In and out of the murky memory
Where the mercury’s frozen at zero,
Do no listen to the same old melody,--
Admire yourself in the mirror!
Even when sorrow is imminent,
Conceal it in your demeanor.
As long as you know you’re innocent,
Admire yourself in the mirror!
When you’re feeling morbid
And insignificant,
And your fire burns into an ember,
Let the mirror light up, magnificent,
And illumine the world with your splendor!
I’ve never asked you…
I’ve never asked you to pose before me,
But you sat in the chair, -- eyes closed,
And your body just froze before me
Like a statue of bronze.
I wasn’t daring to play the sculptor,
But to lose this moment, -- a sin!
When I heard you call to me, “hold me!”
I did not know where to begin.
While I stood, bewitched and bewildered,
Overburdened, unable to speak,
Your reflection was cast on the window,
And a raindrop appeared on your cheek.
Beginning of a Storm
The troubled sky changed its complexion,
Appearing somber, sad and bruised,
While on the busy intersections,
Piano keys endured our shoes
And wailing notes were slowly oozing
From sheets of clouds torn to shreds,
But only street-lamps heard this music
And humbly bowed their metal heads.
Creation of Adam
A gentle draft and You appeared, Almighty!
Our fingers barely touched. You said, “Arise!”
I gazed at you with then still frozen eyes,
drew in a breath (a breath!) and trembled slightly.
A man without a past is but a ghost.
Thus I awoke to life in mild delusion.
Thus wakes a dreamer, smiling in confusion,
attempting to recall the dream he lost.
Life is beautiful!
Take a walk. On the corner, the pigeons --
How they blend with the morning grayness!
Look! There’s beauty in broken hinges,
In the light-bulbs that hang on the staircase.
Life is beautiful! – Come across this,
And you rush to the bathroom, gasping,
Just to stick your head under the faucet.
There are cracks in the evening asphalt,
There are colors forgotten by artists
That have ceased to appear on the palettes,
Muddy sidewalks collapse on your eyelids --
Black and brown, so perfectly balanced!
Learn to worship graffiti, adore the homeless,
Feed stray dogs from the palm of your hand.
Once your learn to accept it with openness,
Life will meet you around the bend.
Out of nowhere, when you’re least expecting it,
It will dawn on you in a simple metaphor.
When you’re late and the traffic is hectic,
Search for grace, style, beauty, etcetera…
Separation
Life will one day return to normal.
There’s nothing that time can’t tame,
and her name,
on the page of the daily journal,
will dissolve on the fiery tongue of the flame.
Somehow, I’ll have to adjust and forget her.
Love is neither eternal nor constant.
We’ve parted.
I’m sure it’s all for the better.
Her features will fade with the russet sunset.
Why do I lie to myself? It’s never that easy.
My head is tolling like a church bell tower.
Bumping into the trees,
I’m coughing and wheezing,
and so far it’s been only a half an hour.
The onlookers watch, not daring to help me...
Get out of my way, I’m a raging elephant!
Don’t you hear how my soul is yelping,
gripping the bars
of the trembling skeleton?
Don’t you see how I’m stumbling,
sad and wearied,
with the weight of affection around my ankle?
Clearly, it’s love... clearly
it’s love that has me this mangled.
I no longer believe in the power of calendars,
time is no medicine for separation,
and hours scatter around like scavengers
eating, eating away my patience.
I must have a fever, I’m shaking and quivering,
Talking to no one, conversing out loud.
Isn’t that her
crawling across the ceiling?
hanging up overhead like a dismal cloud?
I’m hallucinating, I cannot escape her...
Leave me alone, don’t you see I’m grieving?
Her smile appears on the face of my neighbor.
She mocks me and whispers to me,
“Good evening.”
Wherever I turn, sh
e appears to follow.
On every face, I seem to notice her grimace.
Everywhere that I look, I can see her shadow.
Look, up there!
up in the sky, she shimmers...
***
Look at the sunrays, people!
Those are her stretching
fingers,
I am almost ready to leap now
toward her from the roof of my building.
Look how the sun is crashing
on the blade of the glowing horizon!
People, I’m stoned by this passion,
I am lost in light of her eyes now!
On the fork of a thousand roads,
drunk with the smell of the pines,
I wander
and hang my sorrowful notes
on the nerves of the telephone lines.
Hello?
Answer me!
Anybody?
What can extinguish my love’s scorching flame?
Every night, waiting for her, I cram my body
into the window frame.
You, who’ve had a lot to cope with,
whose lives have long turned sour and dire,
know that
the doors of my ribcage are always open,
come and sit by the fire!
Do you hear the thunder of my whisper?
That is merely love begging for help.
People,
I need her, I miss her!
In her absence, I’m losing myself...
These walls box me in.
Feeling lonely,
on the mattress, I curl like a snake,
and depression collapses upon me
with more force than the body can take.
Burdened by the weight of the silence,
I recall from the past,
gasping,
and abruptly, two overcast eyelids
shut at once with a bang of a casket.
But even in dreams, her vision,
appears in the night and remains...
and I catch
her brief apparition,
with the butterfly net of my veins.
***
Though this bliss may appear unending,
both, the night and the dream must cease.
She is grinning at me,
enchanting,
as she vanishes into the mist...
The gray beard of the mist fills the alley,
raindrops beat on the drum
of my window.
Autumn mimics my sweet melancholy
and transforms itself into winter.
Homeless winds sing from under the bridges,
as the morning embraces the land.
There, I ramble,
feeding the pigeons
out of the palm of my hand...
Once more, I am one with the landscape.
Like the valley, I’m covered with frost.
Like the shivering branches, my hands shake.
Like the trees,
I’m standing exposed.
Have you noticed your son, Mother Nature?
In you sight, I still wander perplexed.
Separated from love,
I am raging,
Is it true that the spring will come next?