POEM - THE MIND & THE MOMENT OF MURDER

What is murder like,
and why is it always called cold ?
as in fish or collation,
as though one word, a name,
in a small elasticated notebook
could be neatly ruled out in red pen
and returned to a pocket, coldly
without thought, without care, without mercy,
without anything,
where must a mind be
in that moment
of bringing trembling hands
and a shaking head to death ?
where has the icon of beauty gone,
amongst the shudders, shivers ,sweats ?
fogged in a blizzard of responses,
persisting like bees at a closed window,
a sharp intake of breath,
a cascade of no,
a necklace of teardrops,
a tie dyed bruise of purple ships
skirting around a neck,
a ruby bead on a lip,
in a stab, in a slash, in a shot,
as the trigger clicks,
what is it that flicks across a mind
or mutters in a heart
at that moment of taking,
to take, not loan or borrow,
to steal, rob and remove ?
what flavour had the moments before?
from which closeted vault,
if indeed it was closeted
and not a grubby delinquent cave
perhaps tidy or clinical,
from which neat recess
are blood crimes unlocked ?
what power emerges through
and what is erased by
an unshackled rage ?
where in that tangle of arms,
in that theft and violation,
amidst an act of love,
did the purpose and desire
shift its shape to a flailing pandemonium ?
ending in the pyrrhic body blow,
of a triumphant animal,
but there is no ceasing
or stemming to the stream of intent,
which stumbles but sweeps on
over the murderous rapids
until all is expunged, becalmed,
or unclamped
from round the throat of love,
what flavour has the moment after
when everything has been extinguished,
quietly relinquished,
and the burnished glow of hatred
rapidly dims ?


VIDYAVAJRA