One, two, three days, we speak of you, my children, dying in agony under the rubble of your homeland, ...

Three Days, Max.

The memory of innocence nags me
Like lost keys ...

Marinated In Sepia

Everyone wants to find a pink island
     I alone seek the amber. ...

Vacation

I scan each page for names
I do not wish to find; ...

Faits Divers

Spades with cheerful rakings pierce and shave
The frosted clay ...

One and twenty lingering tastes embrace
Each fresh name ...

The madness started with the Children Three-Houses-Down screaming “Yayy! Nathiagali!” in all innocence ...

Spring Blooms Over The Exile’s Grave + Tut-e-Firangi + Valises On The Doorstep

The bottle spins. Our darting eyes follow
Each turn, wishing ...

Dare

Inside the dream you have this morning, I
Lie, half-hatched. Cradled ...

Yesterday you were all green and grubby
  Leavened by ...

Twist and Turn + Zombies Made To Mesmerise

Usher me in, whispers chaos, grinning
Wickedly. The earth rails ...

Usher Me In

She used to spin potatoes on a knife like a vase on a pottery wheel, un tour de potier comme ...

Kerosene Kindness

Must anguish hover darkly on my brow, 
   And I be absent, ditzy, dithering? 
  Is it enough ...

“You Don’t Look Like a Poet”

In the dawn my scrabbling fingers
Seek the lost poem-seed. Along
The soft cusp ...

Dream Journal

Sara stood at the edge of the crowd, looking at the doll. Brunette curls, impossibly long lashes drooping over warm brown eyes, bright red frock with white lace at the throat ...

Keepsake

Here are the fuming chairs of a round table made rectangular ...

Not Such Happy Days

You turn away from the screen. You half-shrug. Time for a cliché to cut the tension, ...

Right Now

A single blade of grass
  Drifting upon the sea
Dreams ...

Nostra Ossa

I am watching water well up inside
    The roof, and seep ...

Questions

Seven whorls of stiffened cloth on plastic 
Twigs, the white rose laughed ...

Xerarch

True winter does not make you dream of spring
 Only of more snow. 

The Snow Promises

Misery mimics maladies
Like a monkey trolling tourists

 Zee and Zed

Once upon a time there was an old woman who put buttons on everything. ...

You are all my joy and my only despair, she wrote, ...

hibahshabkhez

Selected work