For you, on whose
Oil painted skin the stars did sleep
For you again,
Who wept, wept in vain

I’d tie a butterfly to the unwavering sky
If only as a frail worm to
lure the fish
But did we not swear to leave the winged
alone?

Yet, there they are
Causing a reckless havoc
Trying to tear open the blue
And I’d shoot them down
But the ground is ours you see

Wounded and bleeding
The dying, as a fish, squirms
A broken spear pinning him in place

And I will keep on burning this dirt
To bricks
One betrothed to other
With cement,
Your own strange creation
The one you pour out your flutes
And pluck out them strings
Like fresh born weeds
dried and crushed

Songs upon songs
We set free up the yonder

But here is a bubble that will not be butchered
Like our sacrificial blooms
Ripened and fat,
This untouched pomegranate
Ravages itself

Long did our labor weave tales out ruin
To build us a shell
Within which we now reside

Unhatched

How do we do? It is pretty
A sight
The sky chokes on dirt and dirt
Drowns in the blue
Time, a trapped moth, flutters about
It collides around in its blind frenzy
And will not settle

I keep on
Painting our dry clouds
Birds still peck at gleaming stars
And you
You live, live in vain

There is a plummeting within me
I reckon not unlike tumble ****
in a lone, stranded desert

That of violence
so long silenced
That of anger, and hail storms
upon freshly blossomed hyacinths

a smothered baby bird
or a tree towed down
Repressed,
the twigs and shrivelled seedlings
cry out
and dry gusts hear
One upon other lunges

And I, them weeds—
them weeds— and more,
a deafening brawl

Rolled, as wool, into an orb
That laughs an unkept,
dimming painting
Jumps over rocks
this wicked, rotten child,
And descends under still

Perhaps—
A brick that stumbles out the wall of my skull
and down my depths,
it begins to explore

The den
where an injured bird
snores bleeding
And ceramic bars that surround
Down still—

A churning, twisting furnace
Burning all menace to gold
And labyrinths
beneath
Restless as they warp
upon themselves—
Them groaning snakes

It plummets down still
past the stars
past the battered moon

On, on ’til the cracked rocks
Pull it under, under, under

and my steps feel heavy
A fat brick kiln burping within
And steam and smoke
strangely slither

Then one more brick breaks loose
then one more, then—

and there is a plummeting within me
Like that of beads from a broken necklace
They lurk
from flesh to flesh
Climb up my bare white trees
filled with mud

This faded landscape painting
claws down my spine
And ***** its stollen hues out
Like those

of battles
or slaughtered moths
Of old, crinkled terrors etched
with foolery
Hymns of fury undissolved
and those of naked, shivering sheep

a kitten’s skull
stuck down the drain

There’s a plummeting within me
terrifying, and disgusting; angry and
beautiful— all hyped up to scream
I fear the landslides will
carry me along
and I will let them.

There is no blade brighter than the wind
No euphony as lucid
as entranced she sways—
No mercy weaved in her delirious wings
nor any dead lands
caked beneath the lambent scales
In serenity she loves, in serenity prays
In turbulence— plays

There is no blood prettier
—still, I sense his finger stir
Yearning for cords
as he climbs up
the old, darkened minaret

I hear them warriors are on their way
Lured to stillness by
an injured dragon they cannot slay
and the rain
beneath her guard
trembles, trembles—

I relish the cold devour of her excited breaths
swirling about like a Koel’s last song
up, up the boy does stumble
up, up the tallest minaret
Which has long ceased to kneel
for the Imam’s groggy knees

The masjid slumbers in arms of the tired town
and warriors appear—
Swords like withering moons,
shields, extinguished suns

And prayer mats are folded
by her vivid claws
As blossoms smile out the yellowed tiles
A lion yells, his deer screams
and one upon another,
the swordsmen fall

But I sense a stirring in him
He plucks the stubborn of his tendons
his fingers— a strange dance
And notes around him
tremble, tremble—
Too young to have learned the words
His lips tear open to birth a laugh
an Adhan of his own

There is no sacrifice like one of the wind
She paints a trench across her
wavering being
and trembles, trembles—

Through the shuddering lips pulled tight
she, into him, flows
like water, like a storm frenzied, she
into him, flows—
There is a stirring in him
As tunes give themselves to the vessels
and vessels, unwilling,
are pulled

I hear it all them
The dragon lured to stillness
by an injured boy she cannot slay
—hear this, too
His being, like baked bread, relaxed
And arrows, his vessels
release—
and tunes— tunes soar about
As the old, proud minaret
is bled to a viscous death

I watch the tunes, they
tremble, tremble—
I wonder where they will go
Perhaps down a Koel’s scratchy throat
or sway by the town’s unmarked grave

Then the folks rise up
and cleanse themselves,
Water up their faces, down the elbows
Coating their necks, and glistening in the hair
A prayer upon prayer
hatching on their tongues
—dried blooms
crusty beneath their feet
and rain, a coward— away

A boy is lost, they say
‘As if vanished,’ they say
but is soon let lost
among the rows of funerals
passing through the town’s dusty days
Mourners, and mourners
— dead upon the shoulders of dying
Death, restless, still
Warriors, warriors no more
and the boy

still sings over that forgotten tower
A dragon whirling within
mimicking our moon-struck Dervishes
—I swear the boy still sings
as he gushes, gushes melodies
with every tremble

an Adhan of his own—