India

Hot and humid roadways crammed with
tuks, trucks, scooters,
men, women, cows, bulls
smoke, exhaust, shit and trash.

Lord Siva sits aloft
hordes of Isreal's children
and Vasuki watches keenly
as they burn through Kashmere's finest.

Rich white yuppies scarred by divorce,
eating yogurt with strangers in Varanasi. 

What is life? 

Sun salutations, meditation and ecstatic dance. 
Singing around the fire in Dharamkot.
Forgetting the war...and fumbling for meaning. 

A Memory

In a bathtub,
in a bar, 
in Budapest

I sip a cold hefeweizen 
my legs across your lap
and your hand on my thigh.

Sunlight washes down
through a glass ceiling 
and your voice is music--
not Beethoven or Bach, 
but modern indie rock, 
and I'm in love

in Budapest,
in a bar,
in a bathtub. 

Chinese Elms

"They're poison" Gary said.

They spread out from the roots.

We cut the branches off

and ripped out all the shoots.

When I was a tiny child:
mom, the stroller and me.

Golden sunlight glimmered

through the tops of trees.

Thirty six years later

I found that copse of trees,

and saw they were Chinese Elms

as I examined the leaves.