High Wire Cross Connections

Swimming Pool Blues

Shirshaasana

Place your head on a mat
cushioned by blankets
supported by the cupped hands
that contain your life,
your love
and everything you have to hold and let go of

breathe in and
bring your feet in towards yourself

exhale and
lift

lift your feet
your ankles
your body
up towards the sky
towards a ceiling
that you can almost stand on

stretch your body
firm your arms
and find the strength
of mind
of heart,
of soul
to open your chest
close your eyes
and inhale from deep within
as if standing on your head is the most natural feeling in the world
and upside-down-ness is less than a state of mind

Dream Repeat

In my dreams I find fulfillment
for all the things I wish for others:
consensus for some,
catharsis for others,
hope and healing grief,
sugar-free food for my granmum,
or a vacation for a tired friend.

My own dream vacations however,
never take me anywhere
because I always seem to miss the boat,
the bus or the car.
I can't ever manage get onto the train
that will take me there
because the ticket booth can't print my ticket for me,
or won't accept my fare.

Sitting at the edge of my bed,
watching the train hoot away below,
I say resolutely to my heart
that I cannot live my life for others
If I don't live it first for myself,
but then in a disbelieving flight of fancy,
I break my promises instead.

kaafir

Fog

In this city by the sea
where people once jostled with familiarity
a preponderant fog has descended on
the inhabitants of this bruised, battered town.

In the wake of such terrific days that were -
moments of hope, shattered by rumouring fear -
a common conscience that was wont to lumber,
wont to deny, to drown the thunder
with its obdurate, stubborn - even insipid resilience,
stands chatised for its blinded negligence;
now exposed, stripped and naked,
as it cries afoul of murder in the name of hatred.

Like a veil of widowed, grey despair,
this keening fog hangs in the air,
the southern sun can't pierce its hold
until these mourners have let their grief unfold.

Grief

The City In The Sea
by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters he.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.