For Love of Mirabai

a series of poems inspired by Mirabai (an Indian princess who lived among hermits & holy men, passionate and obsessed with Krishna, writing ecstatic and wild songs on love and loss and such)

 

     (1)   With sandals heaped on the carpet quiet,

Meera sweetens pale afternoon hours

riling  with clouds, rain & perfumed

Madness --- letters twist in

wisps of raven's blood.

 

Her songs mindless from their meaning,

a lover who never even breathes down to earth.

Flute strains ribboning clear, tearing through

with icy precision

and longing.

 

Life after life we’re left breathless,

shaking in confused loss, with Him never here.

Biding brokenly, salting the lake with pearls.

singing out

snatches into the dark.

 

 

      (2)   A raven flies smitten

Over & through depths of dark boughs

While the white sky eyes overhead.

 

My window bruises easily

On the air, it blackens like a corpse..

While ungiven secrets still rustle

these roads.

 

Cold hills panting from the sea

Rise unbidden out of longing.

I wandering, a lost whirl through the mist

He has left this cold ashroud me.

 

 

      (3)   Summer as little reason for peacefulness.

cricketing lilacs line the sidewalk,

& the sky echoes endlessly blank.

Summer’s sunny countenance assailed.

‘playing the Fool and entertaining Madness’;

still a good phrase to bide by.

 

Today I could be the lushed-up bride of Hamlet

in my bloody-red and black dress.

Smiling gums, Vampiric

ridged collar white in eyelet fringe

dark lace with rich red undercoating

slips down my legs

 

as I drift

soft through night woven streets

lit off on my heels,

dead as snow

in the passing headlights snarling

with dust & flies... eddies      

on the moon.

 

 

      (4)   A dark girl twists in Mirabidian forests,

Chasing the dawn-borne deer

Leaping liquid-white

in silent flurries down the hill.

 

An aching head crowned

in mist, slick spiderwebs catch my neck

between the branches as I pass.

gloom tips over and seeps

sweating. Wetly gloss’d leaves

shine with the last of the day.

 

I emerge, padding tipp’d toes

down a leaden slope paved

in streetlight.

golden lamps, candl’d windows

& the glow of rich white houses alight

at blue dusk.

 

the moon rises through

steepled lights & the flashing windows,

breaking open in shivers upon the lake.

Over, a bridge, hands held to rungs

rich with grit and iron…

 

A dark girl twists in the water,

legs newly painted

splashing in the moon.

All tooth, eye, and beaded

hollows kissed in moisture.

All skin sought to the light.

Reviews

[Michael X]

Phenomonal piece, it is amazing. it tells the forest tale with such vibrant detail
the reader finds it impossible to pull away from the words, great job :)

"in mist, slick spiderwebs catch my neck
between the branches as I pass.