Death no longer jars, nixes,
and rattles mine sense and sensibilities
without pride or prejudice
no matter (even with marginal persuasion)
wit and wisdom of Jane Austen ill mixes
with what emotional state my poem fixes.

Father long since journeyed
into afterlife destination alone,
October 7th, 2020 mid afternoon
with Earthlings ministration did attone
where night enveloped and stamped
his lovely bones
rendered devoid of any groan
courtesy Roxanol (morphine)
and Ativan finding him prone

to experience painlessness, and no

It’s Diwali & there’s a feast. Snake tablets grow
into black unwanted things, bitter molasses-like
statutory warning-like, visuals of oral cancer

& other burning birds. Conversation-like,
like conversations, louder words, smiles put on
bright rivals for the rocket clawing at the night

with its final breath. Its final breath a whistle.
Chakri, whistlingly, spins like an angry little galaxy.
On third street, a car honks before a 1000-wala

both strange to waiting-
honk, boom.
honk, boom.
honk. boom.

On a shattered pebble beach my soul,
becomes this dervish dancing to the tune,
of inchoate monsoon grass beats that’s dimly frowned on,
but words like the moss tide sea sweep in currents,
I gaze with indigo ocean eyesight at sheer rock faces,
where faculties plead for awesome phrases,
from eternal  page beyond deep well sand dune,
verses primed and pumped by ebbing sotto voce streams,
gust smitten lighthouse solitary pulsing wink always welcome,
grammar whose genesis scorned geo form cliche,
I scribble quatrains in a quandary that ooze magma inkling,

We walk an hour on pathways with our dog,
unmindful of the smog
and clamor in the nearby urban jungle,
an hour with hawks which hover with their ungual
feet to impale a squirrel
or snatch a bullfrog from the mud
when cool amphibian blood
quickens as ferns uncurl.

The mutt has spotted something fast and furry
and sprints. A bit of worry
shoots through us as he vanishes from sight.
Most likely famished, speeding through the bright
broad day, the fox consists
of no more than a scattered blaze,
rufescent, like the rays

“Must I always be posting transactions and extracting trial balances?”
I said to myself, Landon Croaker, an accountant, adjusting the padded compartments of my backpack as I rambled up a ragged winding woodland path.
A granite strewn gulag odyssey that’s  second nature to me now.
There was the usual green stew of ornate plants with enthralling names that fascinate the tourist.
Ancient Fir Clubmoss which grows into a chalice like shape 
as beads of moisture drip sluggishly from its toothless emerald  surface.
St Patrick’s cabbage, a dessert

Endless confusion, mirages of light
Bright rays of darkness transcend the blue skies
A war torn mind, a battle worn soul
An unknown hero, for he fights for no goal

Forks in the road but both sides are no
Questions and answers but neither is wrong
Long years of journeys, around and around
It's always the same, gray skies for a crowd

Just want to smile, to share a joke and a laugh
But those voices inside, they choose their own path
Those gentle eyes flicker they glimmer and gasp
That precious mind fissures it crackles and cracks

I rummaged through the ancient ruins
and scoured the carnage of our times.

I scanned the infinite realms
of the firmament,
Searched the scorching expanse
of the arid deserts,
I peeked into the crevices
of the broken hearts
and probed the dark domains
of the deranged minds.

I looked in the ashes
of the funeral pyre,
I ransacked every nook and cranny
of the cemetery
and forayed into the desolate womb
of the barren woman
But I did not find death.

I then looked at the first flush of spring
the rising robust sun