A Tree Grows In Me

for VK. But Lakdas, something about your dark fury resonated with mine. Your black mood — ensnared within the bars and lines of a self-imposed cage on the yellowed page; it paces like a panther to and fro, and pauses only to bore into my soul its yellow eyes. And now it rattles the bars of iron words, and tries to push its way through: to me,   to me —  and I feel it! Your black fury pulsing — it sings in my black blood too.  How I never knew you for years —  you were dead and I was not born; and I did not live until the day I heard your words in the mouth of a man —  swollen, blackish-blue like bloated sour grapes, held carefully between, teeth and tongue to stop them —  splattering  — In the mouth of a mortal man I watched them turn and move; and suddenly through your black-grape words, I tasted you  —   Tasted your barely-congealed rage, your brooding black-tar mood hot on my tongue: I knew you then. and now the bars of your cage I reach towards, while the black panther seethes behi