Parallel Travellers

Years ago you said to me
You almost bought a boat  
I didn’t think much of it 
Until I think much of it 

I once presented a quote 
Something on American flirtation vs Continental affair 
You didn’t equivocate - ‘believe it or not’     
Until you equivocate every time  

One heck of a night
I shot up, disrobed my head   
Full nudity then, raw stuff    
Packed and sent 
From my Enigma cipher machine 

One as-if morning or was it 
You denounced the pronoun and punctuated sentences  
Like a stern editor
Or a wartime decoder 
Pounding out telegrams, thousands of darts on target 
 
You didn’t say that to me
You said that to yourself  
You don’t prove that to me
You prove that to yourself 

(The narrative bubble I popped   
The polished mirror you cracked  
We did each other great good   
It takes a future to understand) 

What’s the endgame you interrogate 
I want to look at you and sigh, 
My endgame is kinda lame
It is I have you cover   
Bette Davies Eyes

I had a cat for a week


I had a cat for a week
I called her Mari,   
I saw her right away from many gorgeous feline things
Eye to eye, no mistakes

Mari is home for a week
At ease and bold,  
She leaps, sleeps and downward-dogs with me  
And I managed not to flee  

What does she find in me? 
But do I have that question? 
What does she want from me?
But do I need an answer?  
I’d take anything to have her gentle company 
Though I keep a poker face out of necessity, 
Yet my heart is on my sleeve 
I’m so damn sure she would see   

The tempest hit after a week
Pussyfooting slid into a twister of destiny  
How could that be? 
How could you not see my nonchalance is out of necessity? 
How could I only hear an atonality 
And mistake my purring cat for a hat (in the midst of relentless chat), so to speak?
They called the ambulance
I was losing my sanity 

It’s been a minute, as they say
I’m discharged and back to an empty Star Street, 
Where I enacted the gaze but lost the eye 
Over a couple of Gunners that I much regret 

Can’t you see, I’m as plain as pure white  
My colours are improvised to indulge your intentionality 
Can’t I see, you’re as springy as I can ever be  
Together we’ve traversed the fundamental fantasy.

Quilting Point

It’s kinda funny

Like a screwball comedy

Or

A Tango dance

It’s not Romance – a Capitalist plot with Valentine’s Day chocolate boxes or candle-light dinner with white table cloth

Shudders!

But a Badiou Event

Like French Revolution, or Einstein’s Relativity

Master Signifier

You never call me by my name 
While I always call you by your name 
Because your name, as common as it is, dances on the tip of my tongue
Rapidly gathering an emphatic materiality — a weight, a momentum, a fullness   
That can only be released through the larynx. 
I don't call other names orally 

You never call me by my name though 
As if it’s a top secret that cannot be uttered 
As if it’s an impossible melody to hum 
As if it’s a regret life cannot afford 
As if it’s a bell ring that would trigger  
A crumble of you

Acropolis

Saw
a very cute young couple
on the ancient, giant slopes of Acropolis;
The girl was clicking a camera
‘Another one!’ she shouted her order
The boy was Le Penseur in one second
Eminem another

Couldn’t move my eyes away
mesmerised;
Such a fragile, feathery thing, unintelligible
tickling my hypothalamus –
Am fiddling the iPhone angle
‘Paul, strike another pose
grab your crotch!’

Wounded by Language

Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Binary

The literal aching
of this physical organ
That is heart
In the pitch-dark insomnia
Full-bodied pain
Nowhere to escape

Do I have to do this again?
The only counterpoint
The nuclear force, the tsunami
To trigger
A tidal wave of intensity, in equal measure
To soak wounds

Is this my trying to preserve fragments
Of our last love making?
Lilac, eagle twist, spikes that could punch a hole in your heart
Piecing pleasure was mine
The same yet different look in your eyes
Were you weeping?
When turning away from me in darkness

Mum

The thought of Mum hit me

Out of the blue;

I was jogging on Bowen, preoccupied with something else, while having Podcast on

A favourite cultural critic was trashing a one-time bestseller;

About positive thinking with a funny title

She presented to me many years ago, as a sort of gift;

“What a silly book,” then I said

Sent it away to whom I can’t remember;

Now

My heart has grown more capacious and tender

But Mum is gone.