Poetry

 

by

Vaneshran Arumugam

 

 True Within is Beauty

 

Truly after my mind is the imagination

That has you saunter in on cue

Without warning

Late Morning

And the Sun is playing games with no rules

And I’m surrounded by fools

Surrounded by jewels

Dull to the gem that is you

As you surely fill your shoes and pay your dues

- and this is the tricky part where I feel familiar to your gait

But I must wait to hear your beat

Or at least for our four eyes to meet

And, like Romeo, I’ll touch your feet

You’re a picture so complete

I feel cheap

Though I’m bouncing back the same lights as you

But my body’s lost too many fights, it’s true,

To be too strong for your too strong delights

You have those eyes

That light some faraway dream

Easier to follow than a laser light beam

If you’re looking

Or just king for a day.

Because something like a princess crossed your way

Then your voice breaks your picture

Up like pebbles on a mirror lake

And I take borrowed time to make purchase with these pipe ears mine

You sound divine

Cut from very truly fine

And your lines are delicately tight

Fragrant like harmless spite

And summer night

I’m more or less

But you’re alright! You’re alright, so things for me

Can’t go wrong

No, not tonight.

Forward in Time through a backward flight

Aviator’s plight

Schedule is tight as it ever was

You enter me like duelling guitars

And smoking cigars the way cowboys done

You look like a lot of fun

Beneath your depths

You are the pretty smile on your lips.

 

*

 Her Going

 

I descend the stairs in my towel

To meet her at the door

She is leaving today

And I realise

What poor neighbours gratitude and desire make in a heart

How may I fall out of this hole that I’ve dug?

If only you could see me

Without this security gate between us

She hands me the keys for the last time

And I’m lost in the sparkle of her eyes. Bright Eyes

The door closes

And I watch her for as long as I can

Through the keyhole,

Looking forward to another day -

Just not this one

 

*

 

 

Let Us

 

Let us go to bed at the same time

Let me listen and see what is mine

that is yours. Let me take pause

I’ll enjoy the cup of tea you make me

and drown in my love of your grumpy way

I’ll love me without you and let you

have your say

Let me truly be happy in my love for you

So there’s nothing I want you to do except be you

Let me be me and let you love that

Let you see my love in the purr of our cat that I bought you

You’ll enjoy our love if you believe it’s true like I do

Let this illusion pass like all other things

Let us fly in each other’s eyes

With no trace of wings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

I have met with you

again

for the first time again

In your eyes

a subtle confirmation,

difficult in these days to acknowledge,

of the time that came

before this first.

In our together we are suddenly something else

which fills in and up

where blank void exists

in our apart.

You're not with me now

and no further than the nightly moon.

 

 

*

 

 

Valentine’s Day

 

Nine months on

She’s still gone

And he’s still left

Not right

What synergetic coincidence

that in the time

their love’s expression took

to grow in her belly,

he would rear the pain

of that same love’s loss

Will he give birth?

Then will he know mirth?

It will out

 

 

 

 

and his connection to her

and all else can express –

beyond him as centre –

like mother’s milk

miraculously there when required

He doesn’t want this job

but has already been hired

Would the work be less hard if he were less tired? More inspired?

Maybe he should just let himself get fired

Since he’s already burned

The tide has turned

And he’s dizzy turning.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

More Me

 

You have those eyes

that take sense

when it makes no sense

 

I lose me in their glist

(and the lines of your wrist)

My heart forgets its valves

and becomes a pumping cyst

Expanding with visions of love

and memories yet unmade

 

Then I lose me again, staring at you

And my vision starts to fade

for your smell is a warm kiss

that compels the eyes to close

and my heart to open once more

and burgeon like a rose

 

You have those eyes

that take sense

And it makes no difference

how long this Nonsense lasts

I am more me in your beauty

than I could ever ask.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Knowing – I

 

What little seen by eyes

Is believed by nervous centres and minds

Even when hearts are convinced of more substantial truth –

Proofless, with reasonable doubt.

 

Which could be the path of courage?

What may yield the prize of Legends?

 

 

 

 

The great minds offer only clues we may recognise,

And they recognise that.

Knowledge comes with knowing

As the heart of the soul exists with loving

If after everything

I love you

It will be so

 

*

 

 

Knowing - II

 

There are tastes

that are yet to find your tongue

And places we are unable to go yet

But I know you’d like them –

at the risk of presuming to know.

 

Something knows something about you

And me, and the dribs and drabs of our clarity

And I claim no responsibility, intuiting what it might be

(I lie – I wish it were me that was for you!)

 

Like the old movies I’ll carry on

Never be gone

Like the sun, shining

Never shone

No moment’s separation

Only one

This is how I found you, this is how it’s done.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

one day

 

One day

Not so far from now

You will remember how

Daddy taught you Elvis Presley

With you always on my mind

Understanding will sink in

Like with me and my daddy’s drinking

You’ll look back

And note the size of my heart

In the depth of my sorrow

You’ll see the meaning of the songs that I now borrow

 

 

To teach you

what no school possibly can

 

One day

Love will move you too

Beyond your plans

In and out of your hands

And you’ll know

As we walk some beach

And I sing to you without a band

That Daddy’s love is in every grain

Yes, every grain of sand

 

 

 

*

 

 

Accumulative Fullness

 

I should shudder

to think I may be on my way

to completing the task of my days

I may shiver

to know all that has gone before

adds no weight t the more and more

that life becomes –

The more colours you add together

the more intense the dark result

Black is full

- This can shake the most,

mostly does,

But I rock in my boots

To know the walking never stops

‘til it does

is and was

good and bad

we pile and pile it on

until the pile is gone.

 

 

 

*

Camps Bay Beach

 

The sea is far out today

And blue-tinged froth rolls in on waves

Like ripples on Earth Mother’s tongue

 

She licks my toes

And resumes her splendid dignity

No pause between plays

 

I want to move with her

 

 

 

Whole

Body and soul and mind

 

I watch the mountain across

Stand portentously still

And register the constant love affair

In between the Stone and Sea

And the fact of a lack

Of any in between

really

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

here

 

 

I’m here again

where I’ve never been

new alive

in among London’s thrift now

I take new breaths

to digest the gifts

given me

Weeks of delight

magic and fright

teach me I’m alone

in the eternal company of the world –

this many-jewelled thought

sparkling and pearled

and dying to be truly appreciated.

Every moment

new alive

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

Ocean

 

As troubled white horses on an anxious sea

We are parted

Though each of our droplets are of the same ocean

Separate in form and direction we gallop to the shore

Over the same submerged scenes

Sculpting our cycles through

time and tide

Ferociously pretend we that our parts are not even in wholeness

Are not without their own will, independent of the main

We spit and spray our songs of “ I am what I am”

That are heard in children’s ears with shells clasped close to them –

The troubled thunder of white horses

who pretend they are galloping their pace

yet each of all our drops

are of the self-same place,

the self-same divinity of Ocean

forgotten in self-devotion.

 

 

 

*

 

 

New IDea

 

I smoke like a fish

and dance like a dog

my ID is dead

and I am not gone

 

She buries her head

with my heart in her hands

my ID is dead

but I’m not with the plan

 

Who knows that I’m here

when I play fortune’s fool?

my  ID is dead

and I feel a golden blue

 

I drink all alone

 

 

 

and smoke another one

my ID is dead

though I still know the sun

 

I smell like a dream

her eyes are still jewels

my ID may be dead

but it feels kinda cool

 

I smoke like a fish

and dance like a dog

I’m the princess’ kiss

in search of a frog

 

I feel like a dream

beauty is the rule

my ID is dead

and it feels kinda cool.

*

 

All Divided

 

I break gently in waves

with the churning of the turning of the world

deep within me

And the magnet moon pulling at the heart of me

I am not the ocean alone

while the light fills me with colour,

silhouettes the flights of birds

and details the billowing columns of thunderclouds above me

 

I crack through centuries

with the molten burning of the world

swirling within me

deep in the parts of me that click like a Rubik’s cube,

and reverberate through everything

we know

I am not the massive puzzle of rock and plates

nor the mountains alone

I infect like a virus

with the speed of a trillion thoughts

that course into action from cause

like a mountain spring to the sea

 

But not alone

am I this me

this grand history still being made

I am the you that tells the tale

and we are played –

notes in a paragon symphony that knows no composer’s hand

 

We are not the airy wind

fiery sea

Are we too solid flesh and not the land?

 

We break as waves

Us all

We crack like rock

and turn all to face the sun as the Earth does

casting shadows like paintings in motion

dark and light and ethereal.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

for a friend departed

 

while our time is brief

and I feel the grief

of having seen your lifeless shell in a box

I just don’t know

                          what you now must

Where are you? May I trust

that your spirit still moves with every one of us

as we eat and sleep

           love and live, and fuss.

 

Your impression has been made

and the ripples glow as they grow

though Death cannot be stayed

                                                 Life will not be stopped in its flow

and we will look to your path as we go

hoping for your peace and the passion that you showed

Ah! Memory is a heavy load

when you feel that time is owed

 

But you go on

your exploration is not ended

                                                and we’ll go on

                                                richer us that you’ve befriended

 

*

 

The Light of a Play

 

Round on the floor

deep down there

stark, surrounded in night and whisper

a thinnish beam of broad daylight

spreading wider as it escapes

its pinprick source

Defied by the floor it cannot penetrate,

defined by that stage as it luxuriates

 

 

illuminates

radiates, the bulb does, and buzzes faintly on the other side

Burning brightly in the hallowed dark

creating the necessary divide for identifying Magic

normally inconspicuously ensconced

among us

Right among us