ROUGE AND GRAY
So much time has passed
& time is a hooligan run wild
littering the streets,
squeezing toothpaste at the wrong end
shredding clothes with a razor blade.
Time is never called into account --
lives like Peter Pan
in a flying abode above it all
scot-free, the surly bandit.
A perilous acquisition --
tiny pinpricks above the eye-brows
crows' feet
-- all too visible rending of
fleshy corners bulbed
to puffiness.
Red-handed,
I caught time
his knife in Youth once more
still-water decay,
brackish trouble-maker
with tint of rouge and gray.
This school-yard tough
still picking on the corner weakling.
braggadocio and upstart
spoiling for a fight
first elbow up,
each foot in a fray.
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CUBITS
A woman is a trough
hardly that -- a river,
a pond to sail a small boat thru,
rapids to manoeuvre.
A woman commandingly tall
receptive as water,
quicksilver to the light
yet mirages all.
Two cubits to an arm's length
a bridge to span,
virgin territory with
the compass needle jumping --
a plane dusting crops.
A woman once, parchment twice
warm treacle to the core --
a marshmellow for a heart.
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