Five Poems by Gopikrishnan Kottoor

And So To Dream of You

And so

 to dream of you

And to tell those mysterious streams in me

That disobediently

 flow back to you again,

To stop and think,

Of what you said,

My breath on your cheeks,

A quiet after spread

What you did

To sculpt such loneliness

In me

Among the garden trees

Where we once  together were

And to tell you

I have no one else

Cast in  that lost spell

Where  to be with you again

Is to  turn aspen

And  sing alone

With all the trembling  nightingales

Once

Between you and me.

Such days, such nights

That you gave,

Those  corals  that

Blind  me with your eyes,

 thrown by memory's waves

 this sea  I   drown in

Day after day,

So night after night

I rise, a  full moon

To linger in the  torn  sky

In  love' s after play,

Still dripping with you.

No One Again

I shake myself,

But I am not free.

The one I was with you

Is no more.

Why are you, all gone away

Still perfuming me?

The deer of  that laughter

I still can't birdle.

What were you after

And in  all this thistle

Your leaves, now all thorns,

And  in your eyes

Where i blushed,

I shed my skin,

And turn me over

To no one  again.

Sleep

I  slept with you in my mind

Your milk white hair was  milken enough.

In my dream i wished

My  last sleep

Where,

To touch your hair was love

Peep hole

You were the expert

To look through the peephole

Of my door and laugh.

No one else did

That simple trick

Flooding all that water

And then you came in

Swimming

As though

I was all yours

And I had nothing to say.

Now, to see you once more

Chirrup your face

At the glass peephole

Of my door

Your long hair streaming

That milky grey

When

All things have

Been washed  away

Prem Nazir

Prem Nazir

In your heart

All the girls have turned

Bright bruises.

And in your touch,

Those  tiny  shoulder

strokes, in between song,

You  left them

To strange nights,

In languid bloom

Such enveloped lotuses.

What is this trick

Of handsomeness

That the gods

Bestowed on you

For the jealousy

Of this world?

Yet you do not pretend.

 You filled poetry

Of black and white  beauty

On all eyes

That set upon you,

And that  musical Nazir  laughter

Had  the bursting   cluster

Of  waking honey moons.

There's none other

Like you

That'll  ever come again.

And though you now lie, somewhere in a grave  corner

Where the grass

Spreads  small white blossoms,

No one comes to see,

Their  tiny petals

Shimmer,

 Your face

That  once beautifed

Earth.