this bitter green dawn
does not move the city

that in crisp antiquity
spreads her thighs, her palms

her fingertips licked
with drought and the soft sweet

stink of the night
rubbery skin

flavourless as a leaf;
her armpits and knees

gape with rasping mouths
and the basins of the neck

rugged stretch
striped and on

up the sloping stumbling face
gaunt as concrete

where carts and rickshaws
startle and snort

succulent bulbs part
mechanical and jagged and

through the gutter
sallow eyes watch

cement tunnels
tumble and twist

the taste of thick leather
mossy on their walls

there are feet too
thousand toes

with chipped windows,
stooping they swell, and

there are dry highways
of the calves

where nothing lingers.
it is morn now

the birds gargle
and a thin yellow kite

shivers like a hanged thing
on the spidery scaffold

of an electric tower.
her salty streetlights

stare like iron
in the urinary winds that shoo

crusty litter
in between *******, and crevices

of eyes, sills of the hips
the cracks of the elbows

butter sun scatters
and coats the houses viscid

flies come
torment the quiet awake

her men barge out
hasty and mad

and vehicles shake
a thousand breaths

exit: their CNG sweetness
caking in the nails

and jamming the doors;
pungent liquids churn

and ignite in taut-limbed engines;
now gears tick and click

sweating rancid
and thick

leaking on roads
and roiling canals

gruff huffs and coughs
now the sky is grey

and cool
a cadaver

now loud ears unfurl
bare as banners

and shrill winds
pound hot-metal on skin

—

the bark-wood body
turns

and reveals the moors
of a stoney back

where steel rods
bend

at silly angles
and where they protrude

their same old tang of DC
and the same old

tingling of it
now a sigh escapes

the latex lips
and shutters shudder

over spiced eyes
now all is red

like hot tea on tongue
and the tongue tinkles

with the sounds of the heart
that ripe an onion

pleads to be pulled
out out out

and peeled
layer by layer

until it is none
and now, the familiar viscosity

soothes it again
and it swoons limp

a fat still-born
in the womb

this precious rickshaw
hiccups

it jolts at slightest expressions
of the roads' flat faces
hick!
and my stomach wobbles up
like an astronaut made of jelly
bounces against the diaphragm
disturbing the cuddly lungs and
the lattice pancreas wince
hick!
the sour liver curses and
noodle intestines startle and then
grumble
and the swish slosh slosh
of my kerosine blood
is light and jumpy
in the ancient pipelines of flesh

my hands unlearn
unlearn
they are chubby preteens
then hesitating littles
now my handwriting
is an infant walking
hick!
crawling
hick!
this wash-machine ride
with an inferno of April breaths
hick –– hick –– hick!
my little dog-heart
shakes
its fur all ruffled and spiky

some secrets up the clouds
some gatherings that gleam

lie, artefact
chipped a statue

moving
like the watery movement of a sea

a thousand thoughts
furl unfurl

coral tunes
fish word, hues

as the curtain thins
thins

satin sky
silver sun

swift the whistlings
of drunken clumsies

and stout their wings
with merry and night

gentle
on stone body

that moves
watery

green green
like moss beneath Moon
and Moon is lit up, perhaps
half or more or less some little
as leafy litter tickles the street
and a gust
in riot
solitary opens
with a voice of Autumn and
bronze dust body
that in nails and toes
of alleys and houses
sits and sleeps
old lady knitting spiders
and rats
in antique blazers of black
as a car whispers by
swift like a hiss
or a city’s small sigh
that startles the silver-eyed lizards
and they scatter
as wheat breaths away
into into into the browny blue
and gold gold
like cold sun
that beats and licks all noise to fire

and rises, it rises fatly
with the lone gust and the white

I don’t, don't speak human
when blue comes down to talk
in the clogged old crannies of the night
woman
with ornate skin
moves her arm
her wrist, her fingers
quick like the clicking of a tongue
quick glitter, gentle then gentler
and rippling, a water eye in blue

over hills and over muddles
see the crow fly

when time comes fluttering back to us
tell me again of the war
when mingles the sword with
flowering heart and the reeds
speak up, their
thin throats filled
with lore, and lure the scattered world here
here here
          here

tell me

tell me, on and on the
tingling of mud as it is
lifted, lifted, to man, to callous,
like sun-forged flesh and force,
to his child, and the parting
of two lips
parting! the lifting, the toiling of tendon in the
riot of soul

over the woods! over mountains
see the crow fly, feel her shadow
when throe laughs, tickles the muscle
and even past wakes up
and even the gaunt clutched spine
of a thin sallow voice
perks up keening

hear hear hear

the beating of the feat
the beating of the nerve
when chant them men, and sole
and leather, with rumble
the rumble of war
when slides sly down the sweat and dust
and galleries light up
with walls full of human
and museums cradle little stones
little bones and calls
tell me
tell me tell me
even a crow can sing sing
sing one awake

tell me, tell me tell tell tell
when ducks beat pebbles
a tribal thunder
and beetles scramble stumbling beneath leafs
tell tell, the warm-bellied lady
said birds become children

and flutes the grasshoppers they hear
in warm green sleeps
as out curl curling
the stout sun-seasoned caterpillars
shrill now! now not! now piercing needles
sewing brazen black black to brittle dreamings
tell me tell me tell
what the old man said, said
lyres rebel rebel and
strum, say, strum taut a riot unsettled
even as geese vanish grey
in grey
and ducks pat their way away
to springs of seas where no child sails

even then
the sky plucks her lightening sly
and claps claps claps the day,
the night, the day, down
to a kites sway
as a perfect moon-arc it cuts
and
we heard birth
brings along a dress
that tribe men
and tribe women flower
when they
spin and spin and circle clapping
cursing merriment up the sick old sky

who need fly

tell me tell me, valley-joy on a face of age,
oh human song and human sigh! tell tell
also of koel’s mimic cry

tell tell, tell then
and they pound their feet
together apart together apart and the ground remembers, the ground
remembers!
and then tell this too! we heard,
ducks lurk by listening
practicing
their
drums! and and
and some

some children almost hear

-

loud
so loud

I cease to hear it
almost

but then
in solidity
it is here
in the throat, on the lashes

it becomes a blinking billboard
it pounds
      pounds
like a fist like a fist
        like a
wasp
like a thousand

a thousand a thousand

watching