In their eyes
she, is the holy river
and I, am a doubtful sinner.

I drowned myself
deep in Ganges.

Now she, is a holier-than-thou
and I, am a confessed sinner.

Soundless stays my river, still, calm, no wind blows.
Dark sky and horizon, and wave-twinkling bands,
A distant din, faint stars and a crescent that glows
With city lights orange over silver-black water, sands.
Black is the colour of darkness they say.
Black is the colour, at night and in day.
Black, it’s black of many an un-fixed hue.
Some nights there are, when the silent river flows
Under the moonless sky: the black of tar.
Some are the nights when black goes with blue,
The colour of night while the young moon glows.
Some are the nights when lights near and far,
Spangle the river’s black, red, yellow, blue,
Lights hurled into sky black; black river too.

Dancing the swelled
waves of the deep,
swimming clouds
leap out to reach
over the sunny sky.

Blow out a cool kiss
on the bank of the
blue Ganges of the skies.
The lips that kiss the bottomline
play the flute.
Listen, singing chorus rains down,
bouncing back to earth
the only open-through planet!

"Will you marry me?”
     whispered her sly slivers of purple,
          prestige and occasional lie five years later.

And had we not been asunder
     that very same altar we’d sought fallen stars on
          several days prior, I’d have said, “no.”

Sure, she’d brought a bounty oranges,
     but could he, if ever, answer with the hand
          that’d waived like the incense before?

He said “yes.”

I first cried
where freshness itself struggled
to breathe. Outside
the Ganges,
asthmatic,
began to cower
back in fear, in
disgust, in
disease, browning
like the discarded banana peels
on the roadside below.

I first cried
in a dirt town
where kings and queens
drank to grass avenues
and swaying music in the realms
of history books.

I first cried
where those books
aged quietly
in forgotten rooms.

I first cried
where the streets bled
out crumpling homes and
cardboard stores with misspelt names,
spilling children in dust dresses
and hair matted
into rust pieces.

I first cried
where those children hung
babies on their arms
like my mother swung
her handbag, a flag
of Valentino, while stumbling on
crushed cans and dog ****
and foetid mud-water
on the way to the dentist.
And the children cried
out snot, their arms
perpetually reaching
for a rupee
from the traffic.

I first cried
where white-lit department stores
sprouted in defiant sanitation
between eczema-covered apartment blocks
in which washing lines drooped
and parking was always a problem.

I first cried
where many gods and goddesses
resided on the footpaths
decked in glitter
and cloths of rouge
as old men with
skin weathered into mottled
leather shook
beneath sheets of jute
on the roadside below
and offered tiny flames
to their gods
as morning bellowed and their coughs
grew worse.

I first cried
where stareless men burnt
their fingers
on the Chinese noodles with too much
chilli powder
they cooked and fried and cooked
for those who never saw them
but to haggle over a ten
rupee note,
on the roadside,
on every corner.

I first cried
as thread-blanketed teenage girls
with wrinkled faces
squatted amongst cows
in the middles of roads,
chanting prices, in voices
full of tar,
of the mound of peas
they were selling for that week.

I come every year.

And I'm ashamed to say
I'll never live here
but in my verses
because I can't stand the smell
of the place where I was born.

I first cried

here.
I first cried here.

Myself caught in the heatwave sunlight, brown eyes
furrowed in the sun, scarf loose on my neck/
the transcendental Denpasar morning-birds
are playing their melodies in my head still,
three years post-Indonesia.
        All of my soul to India now,
        sky the pink of painted elephants
        on Jaipur dawning,
        my afterlife was somewhere here
        perhaps two generations ago, chances are.
               Vijay Raghav Rao and Alla Rakha
               playing the Tabla/via earphones/treading the
               Funary Box City (Kashi) future Spring
               hands held together keeping calm pace.
               Looking about, my twenty-two year old face
catches humid wind
S
I
L
V
E
R
S
H
O
P
tattered bike leaning on the gated guest house entrance
     PERENNIAL AZURE SHIVA SITS CROSS LEGGED/
     COBRA NECKLACE IMITIATONS ON THE GODDESS THROAT/
     MEDITATING SHIVA/
dulled from years and corrosion.
Brahmin center of the market street
flapping it's tail,
sweat beads from my forehead bleeding
to oily pavement.
At last the months have come for the river Ganges,
April penumbra/savage thunderclap
while school children uplifting the heart
                 AND MIND
are ROARING in their laughter
the CONTINENTAL DISCORD OF JOY
sleeping with their eyes open
while others are too tired for the Earth.
Sidney Bechet floating swan songs during
the black hour cremations/
“Bechet Creole Blues”
CATERWAUL IN THAT              VOID
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF DEATH/
LUNACY OF LIFE
                     (I've arrived at the simultaneous crossroads
                                                      ­  of both)
searing flesh in open air pyramids/
Manikarnika Ghat,
Asia  F
          L
         O
         W
          S
through dreams
like inevitable prophecy
and as ash blends with stars
the CITY seems fulfilled
and mystifying
in it's
                      (((((RESPLENDENCE)))))

a lupine prayer
to bear and bull
cry wolf
cry wolf
cry wolf
now look into his eyes
until you think like I do
and then take a desperate man
for his last penny
(finance options available)
go long on a cheeky Nando's
followed by
no
inflation
constant
expansion
short the small print
and profit from the fight
against pollution by
investing in the future
but as returns don't come cheap
diversify and purify the self
the Ganges is so polluted
it has gall bladder cancer
the main economic indicators
are telling us that
inflation is set to jump, while
British statisticians are optimistic
that the housing ladder
will continue to defy gravity
as it is an export barometer
with a blue eyed quant inside
crying wolf
crying wolf
cry wolf