C. P. Surendran Poems

It’s three in the morning.
The house rings with alarms,
There’s someone leaning
On the doorbell. It’s her
...

I had just fought this war and come back,
Minding my own business and drinking beer.
Then I met this girl at Joe’s
Who wrote poems on the back
...

First light on the kitchen table
Breakfast for one. Beer and wine.
Feline eyes kiss fallen tart.
...

A hunt for the royal pun
Took him around the room
Which was not unlike a notebook
Bursting with rough work.
...

At the Family Court
The lift wouldn’t work.
So they walked up
Four flights
...

I had just fought this war and come back,
Minding my own business and drinking beer.
Then I met this girl at Joe's
Who wrote poems on the back
Of napkins with ketchup.
Show me your heart, she said.
Don't have one, I said.
She said hearts were what made her go.

Finally, I dug up the old, dark thing.

And she said, oh, but this is a grenade.

I told you, I said, and bit the pin.
...

He lies in bed, one hand
Thrown across his eyes.
This, he figures, is more like it.
...

Or consider the way we twine our hands
Under the wooded night air
So tight as if they might be chopped at wrist
By an up-sprung axe unshackled from the bleeding roots.
...

Or consider the way we twine our hands
Under the wooded night air
So tight as if they might be chopped at wrist
By an up-sprung axe unshackled from the bleeding roots.

Or the way you search my face as you kiss
Deep enough to know what makes
The leopard's blood leap from spot to spot
And lean back, wounded cub, shaking at the thought
This was the rumoured future
We forfeited
At assigned gatherings and waiting halls
Arrivals and departures
Where the spirit balked
And braced without hope.

And we walk the back alleys

Of this accidental town,
Past darkened doorways
And burning windows,
Between parked cars
And empty little restaurants

From future and past
Return

By land, sea and air
By sleight of hand
And turn of phrase
To this wholly present

Moment of grace.
...

First light on the kitchen table
Breakfast for one. Beer and wine.
Feline eyes kiss fallen tart.

Lunch is a conceit of three. My cat,
Your snapshot and me. Secret rum
In mint tea. Invalidation of the sun.

Last light comes to sup. Dinner is a feat
In rectitude. Water and whiskey.
Campaign of shadows. No despair.

A sliver of music around the ankles
In a dream's corridor.
Endless retreat of inaccessible feet.
...