KAMALA SURAIYA- POEMSWILD HONEYYou gave me a jar of wild honeyI gave you my loveMy love is so muchlike honey collected from the forestsSeveral springs lie dissolved in it.Each night theweight of your bodywearies my arms.But you lie against anotherwoman's body in a townfar away from my homeHow long is itsince you and I beganto run round the rimof a circle seekingout one another?I cannot guessTodayI do not even knowif I am pursuing youor if you are pursuing me.The thought thatmorning is leagues awaymakes me lieeach night sleepless.Was it in anotherlife perhaps remote thatI heard for the first timeyour soft voice, yourgentle words?2Why do you standsilent outside my door?Your silence thumps againstthe walls of my Heart.Who built a shrineat my feet?Prayer bells trill in my ears.I am a river that flowson, unaware of itslimitations. On anevening after the sun hadset you visited me. It was then that it flowedas if in spate.Who can now stem its flow?At which fated hourdid my arid lifeturn into a playthingmeant only for you?You were a scholar.You roamed aroundscattering shreds of moonlight.Today you are wise.You burn like the Sun.But I tremble fearingthat one day you mightdiscover the transience ofour love. Am Ito get scorched by the sun?We had asweapons only our religions.We had to abandonthem on the floorbefore we could embraceeach other.3Why do youstand before me withthe troubled face of aconvict? Why do youtremble in fear beforethe one who loves you?I admitted you intothe interiors of myhome only because youwere an innocent.Are you foreverseeking in me the lost treasuresof youth? Oh pilgrimlate in arriving, youronly duty is to giveme my last drink of water.Your finger tipsare blunted for you chewyour nails. With bluntedfingertips you strum myheart strings, you liberatestrange melodies. This is tobe our honeymoon. Wejoined the suicide squadready for self-sacrificeAnd if love is nota sacrifice what thenis its meaning?THE MASKHow can I love him without causinghis mask to crack, a mask more cherishedthan his naked face, one of intensepiety that glows like an auburn sunagainst the horizon while the wineof his tremulous voice is poured again andagain into goblets of adorers ears?Transient as the splintering sunin the moving river beside his homewas his love and transient the leapof desire in his burnt sienna eyesBut how shall I survive the aftermathof love and the sudden awakeningin him of reasons, the silence bankedas snow in the Nokia he gifted a month or two agoreturning from a Gulf-land to my impatient arms?LAURENTIAN POEMS: QUEBEC, CANADATHE MAPLES ARE GREEN STILLPerhaps in slumber liesas yet unemergedthe tarnished copper of their leavesand my beloved's tooI remember the red hot ragesthat awakenedunder my gypsy lips.Was there ever a womanable with words to describe the splendors of herlover's body?Ya Allahimport for usfor my silent one and mefrom the heavens abovea language that is versatileand conveys love's anguishand the concomitant blisswith words that resemble the sighsof moments when we clingand afterwards unclingin leisurely detumescenseYa AllahI thank you once againand again and againFor this gift of a manwho is now my sustenancethe draught I thirsted forand the sole raimentfor my nudity, both my body'sand my soul's.THE SEPARATIONAmong the maplesand the pineamong the cedarand the birchdescends the hurricaneof my desire for youan untimely one that mustshake down the limbs of treesand bruise the forest,these hills . . .Your stricken eyestinged redbother me my loveIn the stillness of a Canadian nightI hear the resonanceof your voicecalling out my nameand the body lying disciplinedunder the eiderdown tremblesrecalling our last embraceYou asked for a maple leafto keep pressed in a bookIf this anguish lingers on,lingers on and onI shall bequeath youmy heart, chilled and redso like a maple leaf in autumnto keep pressedbetween the pagesof your prayer booka relic to remind you ofpromises left unfulfilledand happiness dreamt ofbut not realized.Don't turn your faceor look at me, dear oneI dare not gaze againinto the depth of sequestered poolsBehind the layers of cold skinmay lurk sleeping sunsthat might rise out of the waterlike naked leprechaunsto beguileto pleaseI dare not play the gamesadults seem to playthe game of enticementthe game of laughterand the final one of abandonmentA MOMENT'S PAINWords pelted at mein suddencasual malicescar the veneer of my pridetill it crouches like a straybeside the sewers ofdark consciousnessWithin a flawless formthe invisible trappings hurtand I see myself a cripplecrutches under armsbegging with eyesfor kindnessFor love ...I must ariseI must departto the yellow lights ofprosceniumsthe din of crowdsclosing in on meand the deafening applausethe embrace of rusticsthe unlearned oneswho give unquestioninglytheir loveand their underarms' smellto these I must return . . .To the maplestaking their own time to reddento the elephantine rocksto the pines and the birchesto the glimpse ofsilvery lakesto the thrumming airof the forestto the birds crying outtheir creator's nameI discover that I do notbelongand that I shall not ever belong.SCALPELSYou gave me no wedding ringor even a promise laced with hopeYou held me in your armsand passed on your cough to meAfter half a year has passedthe cough still lingers on:Love too endures, I hope...On the phone at your hospitalyour voice, a steely scalpelprobing my innards,drives me to the farthestperiphery of your worldI shiver like an outcasteI taste the cold metal of defeatPerhaps only in my armsyou softenadopt a human formAt such moments you serve meladles of silencein a leisurely waythe silence of old treesadorning your family homewhich remember you as a childthe silence of birds that roostinvisibly in the treesthe silence of distant hillsin the wake of a storm. KATIE - 2000Katiepink as pastrylaid out at a children's party,ageless and exquisite,wept in my embraceat the doorstep of her home.I had not thought I wouldsee you again, she saidin a voice soft as the sighof wind in the lush foliageof the Laurentian woodsThe passage of years, the years between my first visitand this, had not crochetedher skin or dulled her eyesShe spoke freely nowof the topics women fancied most,of the love stories she readavidly each dayto chase out the alonenessof one who had performed her duties wellhad nurtured a robust offspringand had watched her descendants thriveMERRILYThis timemy friend Merrilyhas got herself a boreas houseguesta love struck womanwandering blindlythrough the maze ofa new found lovewhose eyesnow opaquereflect not the verdureor the skybut the swarthy manshe left behindin exchange of girlish prattleaccustomed tofor yearsFrom the beginningof the friendship to this dayshe stops so often to pauseand then changing the topicnarrates the fond detailsof her maleBut Merrily braves it allshrugging her shoulderscrinkling the corners of her eyesand uproariously laughinga laugh of fiestasand fairs, a laugh thatrides a ferris wheela laugh gaudy as a circus tentThis is what brought me herepriceless onethe laughing waterof your voiceand the way you haveof pulling outlike skeins of woolone by onemy dismal memoriesfolding each sorrowand putting it awayin the cupboards of your room.SUE AND JOESue, light as a featherhas a springy gaitall her ownand walks briskly to herniece's homenimble feet crunchingthe gravel and the grassShe moves as a fawn doesleaving the forestmore or less undisturbedalthough her red blouse alarmsthe birds that hide in the boughHer face gleams like a well-lit doorand behind it loitersa laugh rooted in affectionThere is within her the warmthof carnivals where children larkand couples in love waltz halfthe night away.Does she not still recallevery now and thenhow she danced with her Joemaking a conspicuous pair?It will be folly she thinksif I invite him now to dance with mehe has screws in his pocketsand nails in his mouthhe hates to leave the work undonethe fitting of a lintel therea hinge here, a whole windowto be squeezed in.Joe works on and onhis work is never donehe is unaware of spidersclimbing up his armsunaware of the fierce summer sunbeating down on himJoe hammershe tightens the screwsand polishes wellthe polished ledges of his home.ALIEN TERRITORIESToday I leave Merrily's homefor a land that's far awaywhere I shall not smell the birch leaf and the spruceHere I was the owner of my timeeach tranquil hour my ownnone to make claims on the vitalityand the depleted assets of agenone to plead with sunken eyesfor permanent sustenanceor for a roof above her headYa Allahhow long can I aid youin your ordained bondage of love?How brief my earthly sojournhow eternal thy pursuitsIf you have visible feet my LordI shall press my lips to themI shall dampen your toeswith my tearsthat seem to flowfrom a remote interiorthat is perhaps within meand yet seems aliena territory bequeatheda territory unearned