I stood slumped into the corner
of two converging granite counter tops,
struggling to focus on what
he's remembering next—some bland anecdote
or an irrelevant detail: Larson,
I think, he says finally.

Between pauses—with small, contemplating eyes
set deep, split by his dark, Italian nose—
and dragged uhhh's and hmmm's,
a sowed adoration splits and grows,
a seed (a supernova now).
A man—half my connection
to this world, to existence,
to a trickling, patient bloodline.

He, I; a rambling, scatterbrained mess
of neurons and hard-wiring, sparks and electrical fires.
My father: plagued by anger and impatience,
a sitcom of clumsiness and a tied-tongue,
blessed by conviction, faith and reason.

I don't say any of this. He'll die first,
never knowing how easily I'm reminded
of what I am to become, 32 years from now,
unless he finds me drunk, perhaps after reciting vows,
now vulnerable to cheapening emotion into language.

You are the book written by the mystic eternal,
in sub atomic particles of each and everything
after transcending the limits of time,
on the wings of the thought in the primordial core,
that witnessed the seeds being sowed in the beginning.

I am entrenched in the inner urge of the spread of everything,
the surge of cosmic mind, all the five elements
the Brahman, most sublime, omnipresent,
at once, inert and omnipotent, a feat one of a kind
the waves of music, the subtle "ÄUM" containing all,
even when the symphony begins, and climbs to the crescendo
when self and the Master, my cosmic significant other,
merge in YOGA, the ocean, the confluence of consciousness.

These killer parties pretty much killed us.
That music was loud and pulsating and violently fresh.
There were kids tripping on some stuff
and over some passed out bodies on the floor,
always laughing and saying, maybe just one more.

I always figured we'd out grow these things,
crooked walks home when we were a total mess.
But you got caught up pretty bad in the scene,
and pretty soon Los Angeles had left your mind.
But you were always looking around for a ride.

Suddenly, I found myself in a swarm
of blues, blacks and grays,
funneling past traffic lights and skyscrapers,
up elevators, under railways and
squeezing between shoulders.
But burned into my lips
is a wiped away kiss
(a few hundred, probably),
that maybe we shouldn't have traded.

your boot was turned the wrong way
on the post out by the highway
- sharp toe pointing to the south
away from where you've been

you're no stranger to the rangers
living dangerously on the edge
- sidewinders in the sagebrush
whispering to the wind

the anasazi built this home
stacking stone one by one
- far above the canyon
of petroglyphs and wrens

i knew i'd find you by the fire
talking to the ghosts of smoke and drum
- in the ruins above the dunes
reminiscing with your friends

- reminiscing, reminiscing
on the blue mesa.

r ~ 11/6/14

I wondered for the first time today
about the man that will capture your heart,
like I never could.

You'll meet him at some Friday night party
in a dim living room among wafts of pale gray smoke
and stale vapors from a shared hookah.

Some morning later, when lights stab your eyes,
and every sound tosses your stomach, you'll scramble
for scattered clothes, twisted and turned,
inside-out: your heart, confused and excited.

You'll say it was all unexpected, unplanned—a flight unmanned.
I'll hug you like a friend, and I'll mean it when I say
something vague about being happy for you.

At some white-clothed table, sheltered away
from twisting hips and unkempt ties,
I'll slide my fingers down condensation
of an abandoned, unfinished drink.
I'll look at you, and we'll recount the nights,
circa summer 2008, on my bedroom floor
and hanging from monkey bars,
dreaming of cool ocean nights and Hollywood lights.
And I'll pray he will love you like that.

Her
is a film
      an object  of a verb belonging
to a female person.

I
    am the ninth letter
of the alphabet, ego.

    We
are a marvel.
                        Together.

I took a drive tonight
to the edge of town—
to our teenage horizon.

I remembered how big that wall used to be,
how scared we were to be confined.
We'd stand at the end of glass-frame houses
like it was the edge of all the world.
So afraid of looking down,
we never lifted our eyes across.

I always thought we were too afraid,
not ready, or something vague.
Maybe we just grew farther
apart. We were meandering rivers
flooding over new plains,
carving out separate trenches.

But I don't think you changed.
I know now I ignored that side of you,
that I was blind to your warning signs
and caution lights.

You were bound to challenge that horizon's cliff,
and I couldn't run from the cities we built
on the front porches of our wild and reckless summers.

time -
such care in counting
the essence of

measured twice
- cut once
if wisely

a hole in a rock -
an atomic clock
ticking tocks

aligned in space
light years and dog years
- lines on a face

a living will -
a fleeting baby's smell

- shadows weighed
at the end of the day

darkening sky
drawing nigh -
palms high

- it is time.

r ~ 11/4/14

I stood at the bridge on Monroe,
peering into a stale brown river
hoping to be swept away
by a historic flood.

Reflections of these steel towers
bent, cracked and refracted,
becoming ripples where the water lay flat.
And as I turned, a great roar exploded
like a thunderous train
galloping over a brittle iron bridge.

Slabs of forged metals and concrete
crumbled like an autumn leaf under a footprint.
Mighty architecture burst out in a spectacular grey;
a Fourth of July before 1855.
Everything built, believed and once conceived
now fell like deflating balloons:
slowly, calmly without hurry--only certainty.

And I stood amid the wreckage,
where we once built cathedrals
surrounded by heavy lights and one-way flights.
One step wedged another mile between us,
and our dusty promises became harder to see.

snow comes early this year
in southern climes

- records broken


radio man talks
of a warming globe

- a broken record


seas have risen
many, many times
and frozen, too

- in southern climes


have I shown you
my wooly mammoth tooth?

it's very old.

r ~ 11/1/14

"Trick or Treat"
Clamorous voices demand at the door.
A cry that you've heard so many times before.
You open the door face plastered with a grin.
Wishing you could cull this rabble and stop
their screeching babble.
Sweets doled out,  "be safe" you shout at their backs,
after all you wouldn't want to be hacked by a ******!

Knock-Knock**
Its sound echoes all around.
You hate these midgets at your door
looking cute and asking "give us more"
You'd love to keep the door closed,
but well then you're known as the weird house.
So adjusting face and keeping pace you open the door,
only to be heard of no more.

/
When you are growing as a poet
your pain is pining to born a poetry
where there are too many clouds of emotions gathering,
also a pensive mood longing
then the thunder of thoughts growing,
your paper is awaiting for the first word
as I was waiting for you, my love
when you were coming slowly
then words of rain raining,
automatically,
randomly

When the first raindrop pings on the pond
even you don't know when it will be stopped
how far it will be covered
which path it will be taken
even its density,
dignity,
or the diversity

Your first word inks on the paper
you don’t know when it will be finished
which way the words will be taken
even you don't know
its size or style,
its fashion or the scheme

Either it's a long or a short
or even a sonnet or a verse
even its rhyming
or the rhythm

You should not think about its length
of course words grow as long as
the metaphors can travel
through its thoughts of cohesion
and its feelings moving
naturally,
poetically

You should not count the words
or even you can't stop within a limit
it makes your thoughts imperfect
rather you can tell totally
about the life,
or can tell about
the love easily
or beyond the life spontaneously

The words can grow 3,5,7
lines for a haiku
or even it goes for a mile for an epitaph
or more for an epic  

Poetry executes through words
words come from thoughts
thoughts come from the emotions
and ends with the wisdom
/
@ Musfiq us shaleheen