O n w a r d

Lately I feel  washed up washed out not yet washed away. The rain is falling. (It's 37 degrees today.)  I watch  my life flash  I watch my flight crash I watch  algorithmic trash. (It makes me laugh.) Every day  a slog every thought  in fog every person  a clog. (In the big bad machine.) What is it all for? What do I want to be known for? Questions to ask three weeks until thirty-seven.  

My heart had its reasons. An email and gifts from my cousin. Unsent letters from someone I would have loved long and deep – A life built within words and ideas and spaces "Meh" t-shirt to a dreamed-of address. It eventually found its way to me after years knocking together two heartbreaks. I was younger then, more hopeful perhaps naive  (I'm still naive  sometimes and I keep reminding myself to dream.) Ah, feet at last in Sweden. It felt like I should have big feelings,  but I didn't, not really, seven years since my past. Seven years since I'd traversed foreign roads but by the time I arrived in Sweden  I had my confidence again, and the comfort of my Korean playlist  in the chill of October autumn nights – the ways we build ourselves back up after being shattered all the way from India long-distance words once again.  The next day I switched ring fingers just to see what it felt like. I took myself to the ABBA museum  this music of my youth...

Birds talking  Dogs barking  Water spraying Trains rumbling   Footsteps falling  Husband coughing  Airplanes whooshing  Conversations floating This poem was (mostly) written on 1 May 2022.

Last March I bought liquid foundation for the first time (the shop was all wrong) to conceal the forever-shadows under my eyes but sometimes I wonder which cosmetic chases away the less-than-hopeful feeling that this is all there will ever be or less maybe pandemics do this to a person or maybe it's just thirty-one where adventures do lie ahead but cautiously.

For the man who loved this poem: From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no man lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. - A. C. Swinburne Farewell, nana. 

Beginnings are the most exciting then the middle, the same the same, always the same feeling stuck, seeing a frame that doesn't seem to change at all. But if you keep going, walking the plank to the bigger picture in time you'll come closer to being a little less unfinished. -- Photo: Naggar, India, June 2015

The whole world is reeling in these dark times. More than ever we need to stand together; point blame where blame is due, but not sink into stereotype and mass mindlessness, not implicate the innocent, and not forget that the world and the media still operate on power structures we've internalised so completely we barely even notice them. "i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt? it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere." ~ warsan shire Baghdad Beirut Calais Paris everywhere everywhere. photo: delhi, november '09

i asked the waves could you take away my pain? take my dreams take my love take them to some island or shipwreck or lonely shore far away where someone needs them more ~ march 2015 --- Agioi Apostoli, Crete, Greece September 2015

settle down like snow and feathers and dust. like his words would softly settle all over my soul and make themselves comfortable and I'd float.

"Accept the seasons of your heart."                  ~ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet "There is no such thing as static happiness ... happiness is a mixed thing, a thing compounded of sacrifices, and losses, and betrayals."                  ~ John Updike "...si poco a poco dejas de quererme dejaré de quererte poco a poco."           ~ Pablo Neruda, "Si tú me olvidas" [ español | english ] Have you ever fallen in love with a language you didn't know? --- Clissold Park, London October 2012

you can hum tunes with me now and sometimes, the same music courses through both our veins sometimes at the same time so i can't tell the difference between your songs and mine two colours speak to me now as i fill up the cracks in the empty winter black for absence, frozen haze white for presence, no rainbow cuts through our days and i think i was an unanswered question my presence in the spaces between people, a spark my absence unnoticed a shadow in the dark still this absent presence with its long fingers of smoke draws spectres from dreary hope dreams from nightmares, from words and touching two-coloured piano keys draws songs from silence, no blackbirds

the idea of you       power       vulnerability             sweet talking             brain baring             bittersweet                       second chances.                       no thirds.                       though life may plot otherwise                               pictures. puzzle pieces.                               songs that torture                                      haze. identity.               ...

We first saw you as children when we first tasted starry nights and dewy greens on our palms, and drank the shades, so many shades, of purple that had sprung in feathery wisps and flakes and striped petals near nettles and firewood and cow dung cakes. We learned how to make ladders from your leaves as tall as dreams. As I sit here staring at four white walls in a dark city claustrophobic I remember you and the tingle of the open sky under my skin, the smell of wood shavings; the sound of cattle herders calling the cows home; the fluffy white clouds of smoke from a chimney and a few cigarettes between steady fingers. I do have a few photographs of you purple and green; pale imitations for I smell nothing, hear nothing. There are only  white walls in dark cities. Written in 2013, first published in Miracle magazine, issue 7, October 2013. Himachal Pradesh, 2011

Is our whole life a quest to be heard, to be agreed with? Do we respect difference, or do we lose respect when someone turns out different? Are these masks over non-malleable faces or do they hide the weakness of indecision Or do they buy us time to "deal with it"? to come up with answers To draw boundaries around our argument To point fingers and take aim with words But things said can be fought with Things unsaid hide behind mirages of tolerance the promise of quiet simmering A tsunami, an implosion on the surface justice, a punishment above the ground But beneath the soil the roots grow deeper thriving in the dark away from suspicious eyes And above the ground branching wide the same tree.

Delhi echoes with the screams and sobs of countless women Delhi's lanes drenched in shadow and blood have no mercy.

You with your guitar and violin and voice You on a cold grey morning stand In the corner of a square by choice No smile, no dance, two busy hands. You who play to no one and everyone You who watch the world blur by Eyes that pause and feet that run And through it all you sing, but I I see you, and I hear I see your eyes look nowhere and everywhere I see you thank those who drop coins in your case I see you count them with one sweeping gaze But I always have places I need to be And never enough silver for every song So I just let you make my day for free But maybe that’s what you wanted all along I hope someday you’ll talk to me Through words or just through melody So I hope someday I’ll make myself stay And watch you enchant the world away. Dedicated to every street performer I’ve had the pleasure to pass.

Planning a future ups and downs precarious apprehension, baby steps and a dream. Splashes of color night time wanderings on the last bus running free, tiffs and smiles an hour at an airport and a book. I have no regrets, no hate since the day my tears changed into laughter while reading our messages we had some good times and time can't take those away. I'll probably spend my whole life wondering why but then maybe it was me maybe I did something wrong or maybe he was just meant to be a chapter in my story and I in his. A new world of neon cyclists and cobbled streets and lampposts and freedom precarious apprehension, surer steps and a dream came true. My friend, she wrote me a letter that brought a smile to my face and I read and re-read live stories, she said and try something new each day. I took a train down to a sleepy little town I took myself to a concert and sat there in a daze sometimes it just takes a familiar song in a shop ...

Someday I’ll walk into a gallery of monochrome And I’ll know it’s you. Castles in ruins, people in ruins I’ll hate them and love them Because it’s you. And I’ll take three turns Around the room Acclimatize, taste, decide I’ll leave behind an elegant name I’ll leave with the frame Tucked under my arm And melt into the sunbeams And you’ll never know It was me. Someday I’ll wish upon a snowflake And think of you In my dreams I’ll think of your hand in mine And the way we were In my dreams And you knew me Like I know you In my dreams And you saw the world Through my eyes You were happy again In my dreams. Someday They’ll ask me Who these lines are for And I’ll say They’re about someone I used to know Once upon a time.

Tiptoe in the line Of a fire-breathing Sleeping dragon You’re almost across And days have passed Since it last Opened those eyes To attack In the calm of sunshine You’ve forgotten What it was like Ruby shine A heart beneath Beating for everyone You tickle And things poke The eyes open You’re under attack In the calm of sunset You try for calm But it’s lost Reason in frost And madness Flows like lava You’re scorched, melting Helpless. It takes a while To get back on those feet The calm after the storm A few days, then repeat Is there no escape? No abyss, no well? Nowhere to surrender No flames of Hell? I can feel no ground Beneath these feet And I’m falling I’ve been falling A long time No rhythm, no rhyme No warning bells chime Rock bottom Receives me again Familiar faces Divide my pain I’m broken and confused Vulnerable, abused And the tears Flow like lava I burn, I melt I’ve never felt So helpless. Cloaked in sleep Hea...

And suddenly, all that's left are dried-up paints and filled-in coloring books And dalmatian emblazoned money boxes Filled with coins that no one uses anymore And scrapbooks with peeling newspaper Cuttings of beauty pageant winners And stacks of free gifts collected By opening packets of chips. For when you're grown-uppish, you look down upon Pageant queens for playing into an ideology And become a coin collector because They don't hold a candle to a cheque And you don't paint anymore. And all this lies half-forgotten, buried In a shelf in your cupboard and A corner in your mind that you hardly visit Gathering dust and fading color But when you excavate, the associations remain And the people and places play out like On a TV screen. A reminder of things gone by but also of things to come Of why you became who you've become All Dominique Bretodeau had of his childhood was a metal box Stowed away behind a forgotten loose tile A box that r...