Lodi

Let us chat then of thee and me.
Two states. (Not that book, hawked at crossroads)
Two different worlds.
Eigenstates: all of you
And all of me
And all of thee-and-me
In Superposition.
Which leads to that ineluctable question:
Why didn't they teach us about entanglement?
When one cannot be described fully without the other.
Verschränkung.
Spukhafte Fernwirkung,
Action at a distance.
But how far apart? One foot
Or two continents?


Das Rätsel dieser Welt löst weder Du noch ich,
Jene geheime Schrift liest weder Du noch ich.
Wir wüssten beide gern, was jener Schleier birgt,
Doch wenn der Schleier fällt, bist weder Du noch ich.

Me for you and euphemism.
Specular thoughts from a prism.

Let us go then from this place
Lest we collapse back into our eigenstates
On being measured.
{It will be a good half hour if the Czarina summons me.}
Let us then to the thee-me park.
The Flower Garden of my Hart.
I wonder how you feel today.
Are you just a ray of sunshine in a Hilbert Space?
Schroedinger's ket?
Do we seek coherence or decoherence?
{Can there be a conjugal Hermitian existence?}

I have known this place better than the back of my hand.
I have squelched through its marshes and ponds,
And hidden my cigarettes in the crevices of its walls.
I have seen the mists rising from the tombs,
The ghosts from under the vaults.
I have climbed the bat-smelly stairways
With dog, bottle and pack
To do what the young are wont to.
I have scuffed out scrawled protestations of eternal love.
I have leapt from turret to turret
Without a thought of "Do I dare"
I have traced the trellis work with my fingers
Like a lover would trace her beloved's face.


The tomb sits like a Pharaoh,
Its eastern arm a modest serai,
The more ornate western arm a mosque,
The grave torso cradled an amorphous lump.
Brave the bats and their stench
And we had a vertiginous perch (now off limits).
In front, sits an attendant tomb bejewelled in blue.
The sun beats down in its afternoon glory
Feeding the plants while drying them the same.
The stone walls stall its triumphant path
And shelter mustiness from its glare.
And all the infections that it would suck up,


Let us go then through these tombs
Where dead beats deaden their senses.
Let us O my dove.
Let's do it.
Let's do it again.
How say you?
Ma Muse M'amuse

This is not the time, this is not the place.
But there will be a time and place,
Always, where we can.
Where we dip into and cross the linear demarcation.
Breathless? Breathe in deep,
The art of loving.
ars amandi
Free home delivery.

The dome echoes.
This is not the place.
Not the place.
How long has this been going on?

The fading calendula look like
The ghosts of olden daffodils.
I can hear the birds chirping
Babblers babbling, koels kooh-ing
I can smell the roses over the stench of the water.
But where are the dogs?
(I liked it when this park went to the dogs.)
Sam the collie and Piloo's brace of Irish
(Which looked like his wife).
There was a Rottweiler, you say,
And your Tibetan who got away.

I led you not up the garden path.
But garden paths on which sandals
Took us past a thousand scandals;
The first and the rest, the lesser loves,
Created how much by imagination.
Canoodling couples twisted like helices
A to T, C to G.
The first circle of blooming hell.
The second circle, we did not cross.
Was it timidity, that I took you by the wrist?
Awkwardly, not by arm or hand.
Was I thinking "Do I dare"?
Naa cheyyi patti viduvaka
As we danced through the treacherous traffic.

This is the house that Jack built.
This is the room in the house that Jack built.
That is the window, the door, in the room of the
House that Jack built.

No habrá nunca una puerta. Estás adentro
y el alcázar abarca el universo
y no tiene ni anverso ni reverso
ni externo muro ni secreto centro.

A door which has no key
Blocks the stairway to the heavens
A walled up arch.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
Was not written on the keystone.
Enjoy the view.
Dante saw Beatrice but twice.
And yet, he mused.
Would they have texted each other
As teenagers do,
If they could have?

The fortification has always embraced weeds
With the grave of the Sultan.
The ornamentation is spare.
These were no Moguls.
Parapets cracked by the usury of the days,
Here dwelt the num'rous Afghan tribes of old.
And ruled this land, with murdering arms,
Led it in horrid wars accurs'd.



'किस पथ से जाऊँ?'
अलग-अलग पथ बतलाते सब
But we cross the walled-in pond
{Where did that zig-zag bridge go?}
Archways of sweet-peas cover the slope
Is there hope? Is there hope?
Nannu broche.

Me for you and euphemism
Refracted rays from the prism.

An Indian summer follows Spring
Estoy muy caliente y que estan sudorosas,
Or was it the other way.
And what is that I have under my skin? Or on it?
Or was it you who had it under yours? Or on it?
We are seeking each other.
Would today be the last of this waiting.
We're thirsty for frothy and trite:
मैं तेरा प्यासा प्याला
I have seen the tourists smile,
You think she smiles at me.
Thank you for air conditioning,
Shampoo for hair conditioning.
Half step down to freshen up
Or half step up, to dress down?

There is time for tea
And coffee, or not coffee.
Cold, Thank you.
Tea for two and two for tea.
Shall I play mummy?
{She may think I am a dummy,
Or call your bluff, or some such stuff}
Am I being too sarky?
You can pour too.
One lump or two? None for me
I have no equal.

Why do you gaze at me? Are you thinking
Can one small head carry all that balderdash?
(But past is my fame. My fifteen minutes.)
Or that the boy was right, the belly is jelly
The hair nearly not there.
You go to my head with your eyes.
Or are you perplexed by a callous insistence?
A strange persistence. Resistance.

Two lives, a first, a second.
And if they're crossed, where does the normal lie?
When they collide, if they do,
Will they be two tectonic plates
An upheaval, or will they
Quietly slip into familiar imposition?
Eppur si muove.


I see my father's editor holding court.
{Did she pay him for his last few reviews?}
What was that phrase amour courtois?
Nirvana's partner. No, no. That's not it, of course.
There is talk of Hair, thick (yours) and thin (mine)
And the eternal braid.
{Not Goedel, Escher, Bach,
though I have my Escher map in my car}
The braid that twists back meanings,
Turning words into themselves in a hairy pun.

A remark you made.
Of all the things you are.
Or was that me?
Of what do we talk?
It matters little, for we swirl away
Into our eigenstates, disentangled,
Were you disconcerted or worse, dispirited?
Are we someplace else? Here there and nowhere?
A baby chil's shriek rends the air.
The birds steal March from us.
The thee-me park has lost its magic,
It dies a little with each goodbye.
What do those grey-blue circles cover?
The eternal driver summons
Or was he summoned?
What knows he of the pain
Of finite yearning hearts?