acrid sweetness
collects in the crevices
of our soapy grey clouds

see, this winded winding
bell of a city
and the porcelain blue night
that guards in its curvature
winds that giddy waters
shuffle their feet,
and clouds the lather
that slowly thins away;
there is a pattern here
a Van Gogh swish-slosh
of silver and black
this is the ecstatic dance
that they talk of

a movement that starts a thousand chains
spiralling unspeakably swift—
a mantra of colour and script—
flicking wrists, and ankles turning
(and the crickets: tch-tch…tch-tch…)
and then all meeting
singularly, before the silver sun-washed eye
of the sky

pretty
this ripe peach moon
I wish to bite

these winds mimic the sea
with stalwart droop and a cape of silk threads
the very worms became them: slowly working
a criss-cross play through the night,
through its zenith and sombre blue, a simple silhouette
before the whispers of clouds—
then tiding parabolic back into a smash
of feathery scattering, these winds are the fireworks
that leap upon us
voiceless and stark, slyly soft, softly silver
dandelions themselves as they break
(leaves trembling in their fervent furore)
and this night stands, its feet dipped
in the shallow rippling of the city
it gazes over the horizons
reflecting into itself

01:00 am

if right now
I were to tell
of a thing that I’d do
for the rest life on
you know I’d say this
—
this is… magic
poetry is magic
and in this
I feel like only in this
am I ever true
and good
—
good
it is a strange word
one does not hear words
this simple
a lot now
—
good
it is so honest.
in its mediocrity
it leaves room for nothing else
—
right now
I think that poetry is good.

12:38 am

think I fell in love with a poem
when I fell in love with her

for she was pretty and I never thought
pretty, silly, aren’t they all?

think I painted her up
and then I thought I had lost her all

—then she smiled a knife’s edge
and I never thought— I never thought—

slowly pulled;
and then she did not quite;
and then all at once she did

then she became small again
a collection I liked to see

and then I stopped running for touch
and I thought I had written her then
thought I’d finished her in word

but she nears sometimes
and she never leaves

12:45 am

everything passes
winds disperse
to clouds scatter

wars dissolve
to remnants and
pinpricks of song

everything passes

and Osamu did say
everything passes

everything passes
winds run on, scatter
to cloud on the sky
electrons
through eyes of streets
oscillate
between days and darks
and then they too tire
say
Osamu believed
before I could:
everything passes

wait and—
would we wait and see if everything passes?
we will pass in the waiting and it is so so simple

Osamu
everything passes…
Osamu
perhaps we never will

here
love tides
through age
and knowledge
just as shiny
comes, lures, goes

Osamu…
here

perhaps not your humanity
but this was your curse
that in every passing moment
you stayed
and to no staying
could you hold

everything passes
it’s funny
we will too
it sounds like a lie

12:50 am

everyday
the words accumulate in me
and at night
I shoo them out
I never know what they are going to be
it is like a smoke
one sniffs all day
but does not smell

how dreary…
how unaware we stay
of all that makes us
what is it that blinds us,
if not the gaze with which we see

sometimes
the words become dreams
sometimes
tossing turning wake
and emptiness sometimes—
or like right now
they become it all
sometimes
I turn on Faizan’s brutal bright lights
and I uncap my pen
and I watch this page
and I pick my nails
and I think think think
it may sound silly
but those are words too.