Settle now,
you tyrant prince
So pretty your tantrums—

There is a chaos
oozing out of this weaved stronghold
so quiet,
no kings, no servants hear.
Guards joke on of drinks and thunder
Mothers, with children,
wander, and so do moons and ghostly clouds
But you will not sleep,
what is wrong?
(what did you do?)

What old folks’ lore
awaits our fall
to fill the blank of its words—
What dogs sniffing around,
a thousand suns after,
for the long-smothered stench of our bones?

Then, so lovely a waking—

Dare not you stir, wretched bloom! Dare not
you whimper or flinch
Still now!
As rats we stand
to the great shadow
of our unleashed beast

Surely, some doubts lurk inside its head—
Surely, we are the dead; surely, statues…
Never known a taste of life,
surely, tasteless we!

and pleas and pleas fill up our eyes
As, slowly, the beast moves

Hush now!
do not you flutter, do not sing.
Still, still—
as, oh, the shadow
smaller goes.
Oh, far, and now further

so close we were to an eternal night

(and the flock of birds
to sun sails
as winter crawls behind)

Had you giggled a smallest of tides—
oh, but don't you stir now!
Give me your hands,
your soft-skinned ankles
and neck young—

It is alright.

You’ll grow up to paint
wonders on these ropes and
They will not ***** as much later
No, not snakes! Ropes they are. See! Harmless—
Hush now!
Not a whine, precious child,
not an accidental sob

(the winter comes, I know,
but dare not you shiver.)
Still behind a betraying gust
may hide the unleashed beast, so
be done with this excited foolery.
Hush! Don’t you weep—
No, the beast still lurks; it does,
it does, it does, and dare not you move!

You’ll bring upon us a plummet undying

Stop now! Stop with your flutter, your
trembling gaze,
stop, stop, please—

Sepals to skeletal fingers, to yellowed limbs
sunken
She watched the moon, all hazy
and small.
So rugged its whites
as sheets with times stained
Watched it on she did.
(So dusty the skin) Oh, I had loved you
Tens a monsoon’s rosy day;
had loved you dry, as
the suns danced and danced—

So shallow the gaze and the dark’s quiet tusks
So deep she
into her noisy withins.

The forth storey roof with
its precarious railings
and the pitiful, grey street, a wound below.
Its drains and gutters all sawed open
and naked—
In the sudden, spinning fright
I almost held her;

a palm or a palm
or an arm
I almost held—

I knew you so ample.
Whispers of touch, and ballads
such and such
rolled so effortlessly now
on the tongues of memory
As birth her I
though tens a monsoon’s rosy prayer
Bead on bead falls

in this wretched, unending rosary

(With drought-coated of lips) I had loved you a petal
so chaste and unbloomed
and a sepal you had—

Not a blossom I,
still she held, as the winds
As vultures reeled around our beds
So frail our bodies
so terrified and alive,
As dirt bowed, and leaves bowed and all
to the vultures mad

Two lambs us, yet gods we stood

'til whites of her wilted to gold to rust
to dust, and slipped
through the cracked of my hold,
Through a thousand guarding winds
and tens a
vacant sepal
(As crowns and cages
of blossoms wilted unused, they stood)
So shallow a gaze

and the dark’s quiet tusks—
Wade I,
swim I, in the caverns of me where an echo
breathes, and
drown I, undying.
Such windless a serenity
As damp of monsoon’s mornings
rosy,
I had loved you a vulture mad,
but dare I—

no one loves a wild rose
love they may
the boldness of its stench
or sweet blood
that stirs within
at every touch of its teeth

but a rose is not a petal
or its blush
not the sturdy stalk
dressed in laces
a rose, a rose, a rose it is
and wholly it lives
wholly sings
to winds as nonchalant they go
to beads unblemished
an lips of gold

but its words
no gentleness adorns—
no yielding music
in blossoming gowns
its song, as ocean
smashing against rocks
cold
as all around them
glows a sky
angry and bleak

could I say,
no one loves a wild rose
—no one dare
and an infant may smile
to a sunny girl
blush a maiden, a mother old

but a rose wild,
wild stays;
and such simple its lure
I am left a forest
bowing.
and I like you, I
like you, I like you
whole, whole—

I mistook it for a cry
but it rarely ever is
As a lizard
ugly and still a corpse
under the frail dress
of a tube-light old—

As its eyes
alert and quiet
A sleeping village
where every whisper
every rustle
is tossed around
from dark to dark

and a tail
As the burnt edge of a leaf
Curled up on the wall
once white
—flayed to grey

I mistook it for a cry
Readied a sword
forged by dawns
Carved and beat
a shield
out of nights’ sleepless
eyes

But when ruin descends
it binds the dark’s calloused hands
and every whimper,
every crackle
is smothered
In its rusty, dry throat
(Restless tongue, a guard-dog above)

When ruin descends
it does so a flower.
A stone rolled and rolled
pitifully
down the road—
It does so lovely
and patient;

As a blossom taped
to the cement wall
watching the smoky light
for unfortunate flies
That may appease
its ablaze pyre of a mouth

While I sleep,
I sleep a dusk’s last breath.

Sun-catcher of a child,
Ever crushing light to mirthful specks
—Hue-kissed,
One pebble you jump from
To the next, where around the grave
of your glassy eyed dove they sit.

A candle in hands
yielding to the flushed flesh.

On one, then another, you jump
Muddy soles and tears
dried to a wakeful slumber.
Ships, donned with innocence,
set sail;
papers withered and wet
by the lips of this hazy stream—
My, how many letters did you write?

Sun, hold these eyes and sun,
cry they out,
Pearls and pearls
And pockets filled with melodies
of your long-hollowed dove,
You leave your prints
on the worshipping pebbles—
Deserted this desperation, is it not?
Then, run, I hiss, and—

You— you, naive, moon-loved of
a weakened rose,
Round and round you skid
(A ritual learned from the ballads of a dove)
A flicker in your palms
Try you
birthing yourself a god
Resurrect your dove, you will, you say.
You will, you will, you will!
How foolish this sorrow;
foolish more the hope it feeds.

And, tread away, I hiss.
Oh, tread away!
The haze is rising, as the old sun
shrinks—
That ******* of your chaste love—
Would that I
could mold ruin out of hatred,
would that, (but I am dry an angry cloud).

Tread away—
Oh, I shout a forest gone mad.
No frenzy, you have known, none
can you fathom.

Crystal waters of lakes dawn-licked,
Round and round you whirl
your ****** beloved dove.
(I will, I will, I will!)
Oh, but,
honey of my aridity,
the vultures are here, and— and
it is not your cold, grey dove
they desire.

Then you, so adorned a dream,
Softened to a violent idiocy—
Would that I
could grow cages out of despair,
You would have had enough of these doves
and their skies twinkling with tales

Then you,
honeyed tea, and sweets
with gold shrouded—
A tasteless devour—
The vultures are here,
Precarious sun-catcher!
Vultures! Vultures—
But did you ever really learn…

Yellow in its fury, the fiery of tide
comes hissing down
A dome above us it roughly weaves
A tent, a shroud, then a restless tomb.
Seals, will say nothing,
and fish as unfathomable go,
This, I must say, before the sweet pyre
is lit:

Last dark, I sank in and clawed out
the gentle song of this sea.
Not a creature shall stir with voice,
as we, ghastly, love—

The town’s folks sleep on a heaviness
unknown to the night
Unknown to all, but your luring sway,
as tugged of strings;
the puppets, they lay—
Snoozed off to oblivion at the command of your hums.
Not a grain shall
mimic our melody,

Now with winds all harvested raw.

Yellow and grey, and blue
in its curious interruption, not this darkness,
nor that one, shall speak.

This pearl I say, that one then,
And a glitter-kissed sky we—

These marble walls, so soft their press
and smothering churn
Thirsty—so thirsty; a pink, dusky fire
it aches.
In I, her, through skin and flesh and vessel all;
Through lymph and blood, its quiet march.

Not a gnawing gust, no tossing tides
shall mimic
this black, black show—
This— Chords, with flicker,

with ash and plea,
with fight, with brutality,
So lovely, plucked.
—all is lulled to slumber.
All, with its sea and
yonder opened wide,

Bone to soot to pollen
to dust.
Settled, settled in us.

Red, then purple and green, the burn.
Then skin, then whites to a black, black show.
(Curtains drawn, and strings cut)
Its thirst quenched,

the sea,
leaves I, her
on its ashy bed.