for you to smile like this

You smile like that
when you get something right,
a smile of small victories,
a suppression of a yippie
a yoohoo a jump a hug;
a kiss if I’m lucky.
I shall secretly gather
glowing bright balls of success,
drop them one by one
from hiding for you
to pick them up
and smile like that often,
a yippe yoohoo jump hug,
and a kiss if I’m lucky.

Again - (an old one edited - does not reflect current state of mind at all!)

I did not know it would come to this
Again.
A song of separation.
Tossed by love and dreams
I am so lovesick it hurts in the gut.
And gut is the depth I cry from
as an old lesson is learnt afresh:
a watched phone does not ring.
I did not know I would be washed
ashore again,
my love slapping me
on another rocky shore.
A cliched nayika of padhams
was the last role I wanted, but
I do it so well: I wait, I long,
I cry and I am alone,
except in my dreams.

-- an exercise --

5-CARD DRAW -- Write a poem of 20 or fewer lines that contains all of the following words: splendid, candle, stony, drink, morbid

That's splendid, she mocked, hands on waist,
her made-up mind shining in her eyes,
pinning me flat, once again,
to my field of failures.
She is always around when I mess up,
bearing bright and burning witness to it all,
over and over, dropping on me
her exclamations
like wax from a burning candle,
punching them sealed with a stony silence
long after;
almost always grabbing a drink
after the job is done. And I always think
she would then stride up to me,
tear a seal open, giving me
something to lick.
Morbid, I know.

Bubble-bursting

Some naughty child leaps and laughs
And bursts each bubble
That leaves my mouth.
She turns swiftly on her toes,
Twirls to her own laughter,
Laughs to each burst.
Wave upon renewed wave
Of wicked breathless laughter.
I am driven to a helpless silence
For fear of setting her off
Sometimes.
Sense is what I make
Truth is what I utter
When I don't stir her mirth.
She never peppers with her cackle
Nor burst with her prickle
The naked truths of my dreams.

Poetic Kindness

Even bad poems cannot be written at will
is the moral of the week.

Stare at the sky at dusk
as long as you want or
as long as it lasts,
eat away at the end of your pencil,
cross and uncross your legs forever,
But no.
The sky's blue-pink smudge does not care
to write itself down and stay forever
on a stupid blog;
it is meant not to last.
The sea might splash and dash and roar
on your page, but it does it all better
in real.
Even personal drama passes
like mint chew on the tongue.
It makes for tastelessly gooey verse.

Friends and family are usually kind
to familiar mediocrity blogging away.
But you must be kind too,
give them something,
a word, a phrase, a line, some wit
they can justify their kindness by.

A little less love

Though you have an endless supply of it,
Give me a little less love.
A steady trickle if you will,
Even in spurts now and then.
Think of me in smaller terms.
Picture me as taking it
In my joined hands.
My hands, as you know,
Are not good with floods and dam-breaks,
cascades and deluges.
Give me love that keeps me going,
that does not choke, does not kill,
does not wash me far away
from you.

Dream Breasts

My breasts were firm tight
succulent throbbing globes
in the mirror,
filling my hands like bowls
of plenitude.
They were not the sad, hairy absences
my hands now grate over.
The mirror's sweet lie look me close
to baby lips - joining soul to soul
through my pointed pink soul ends,
the tickle and pinch of nourishing.
There is a lot more to a mirror
than a boring reflection of imperfections.
It gets playful sometimes,
poetic even, irreal as well,
And shows what is not,
but could have been
and could be.