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

quiet
what viscous a sound

noise
like dust on a wall
the hand moves
and wears it
stills then
and becomes it

this city tumbles
a restless fall

sour sun in my stomach
threatens to rise

1.
salt-caked fingers
peel each other

2.
slimy tongue
toils in vain

3.
soft lips
metal beneath teeth

4.
barbaric generator
clears its throat

5.
on these beaten blue windings
sun keens

1.
wish wish  die
shh, little fly

2.
palm on palm
between, a slender void
mosquito, still alive

3.
sour streetlight
splashes on eye

4.
night sleeps
her jaw slack

5.
mosquitoes got me dancing
an Obscurus

these days, summer sticks sticky
on plastic and skin,
and moss above lips grows fast and fat,
sneaks through muscle to chin, and
leaves its footprints on the nose

these days, ticklish goo melts
out of the bodies of clay and
drips dreadful down
licks the spine with a slimy tongue,  
and opens its dark wide mouths
near hills and pits, it
sputters out snails of staining trails

these days, metal wings stir up
an air soggy with warmth
and mix up a hundred drain flies
that settle unflinching on necks and arms
and bite little
little and sour

these days, sweetest touch is salt,
and faces unpleasantly gleam
beneath liquid white lights
that splash all boiling on flat-faced tiles

these days, March winds march
their banners of sun-softened fruit
and sallow nights
that tumble in tumid vomits of black
and smoke and groaning fans
round
     and round
and round
in an orchestra of mosquitoes
right inside the ear

water down stone
stone
pebble pebble pebble
stone
splash! shatters the sun
quiet

twinkles then it around
in ringlets ringlets

and feet jump in
scare the fruity fish
you know, winds they move
like violins
and rain blooms
grey on concrete
moon on palm
run run run the children
peach-cheeked
and nest hair
through streets
where hawkers make apple pyramids
and orange pyramids
and some spray glitter on flowers

through turns
turns–– one falls! gets up
through streets and streets!
laugh and talk
then halt
exhausted
lips moving–– chests like sea-filled
and then
then
the water topples topples
down the stones
and stars and suns
peep by
and children grow out of their clothes
but through streets they run
run run
laugh laugh laugh
laugh
and rain becomes the puddle
loud and starry
and a frog startles

painting is butchery
is beautification of breaths

as they bubble hastily out

sometimes mad
like suddenly breaking glass
or pond

sometimes springs
tinkling down stones

painting is thunder
slowly rising
or the perfect fury of it

I hesitate, stuck astray,
as the hues awaiting
wait

reap or harvest, must I burn or
decorate?

but, tentative, I breathe
inevitably on

and suddenly
it is all here

I drink in the silence's spicy chill
in the midnight awakenings
and in heavy tides, it gurgles down

and settles a thick black insufficiency
in my legs

I run and run
and all the running will not do

and heat like flickers rises
and sweat runs down my crackling limbs
and something bites off
and something eats

and I run reckless and bare
and all the running will not do
and it is all like charcoal and ash
and a stout smoke

and the night rises rises
till I cannot see it

words elope
perhaps all alone
in nights sweet
and nights black

I am a child
fumbling my hands
on the faces of land
and the world topples
bounces about

this trembling scrawl
tentative almost
as the rickshaw
coughs and shakes

I don't say when I say
I am in love with words
sometimes the dance
sometimes song
sometimes the people
they carry along

I don't say— I don't say
I watch away
it is the child that writes

viscous noise rumbles
churning in a chamber of ****

like impossible realness
its sallow bulbs drip

onto a breathing bog of muck
that rolls its rotund wells around

and bursts bleeding
its tongues of moss

its tumid limbs reach up and out
sizzling shatters on walls

it mingles with the shadows;
their gaunt deformities dance

it drains in ringlets
beneath chairs and shoes
it slides past the tiles
and echoes down down

it leaves vinegar flies
to hatch in a fat rancid air

in this classroom
words are hurled

in air,
the grotesque pencil scribbles.
in air, monstrosity
colour and colour to brown monotony

briefly?
talks tide
throats oscillate
leisure is an angry child
wreaking havoc on paper

listen, here,
just a halted breath:
air thins
page on page does not bleed
but it tears alright

it is like a Koel’s cry
in the midnight tremors of time
it is sweetly sour
like orange juice or an Autumn’s flutter
shrill like a woman’s touch
or day’s gold
on some purple curtains

I don’t know…

in this blue dark,
with silhouettes of a forlorn city on glass
it sounds so real
I linger here listening
blinking with the clock

I mingle sometimes
and sometimes subside also
lost too, and wave too
sometimes; but here and there
there and then
washed up on shore, I am
glancing confusedly around, and I am
pecked and poked and
picked and tossed and turned roundround

and then, then
blue comes
and within it, glittery dust
and as I am slowly buried alright
and as I am alright almost
a tiding comes
from winds’ thick gossips
of a tiding bog
that will claim me again
and then falls, and pulls and it claims me, yes

and so the nights drip down on dawn
and I mingle, mingle almost, sometimes

tried too hard
and I ****** up the poem
moon did not shine a Siren’s call
nor the sea, Icarus rose: I meant—
I meant— forgive
my petty tasteless decor. I meant a yearning
sloshed
against the jagged dry throat
left silvery sensations in its absence of feather, and I
could write sea only—
could have drowned blissfully hazed
had bright strings’ luring pulls I
had wished to flee
wished— wished— but wishes
so lowly true— deceiving, their dullness in
so forlorn the skies, I gasped and
gasped
stuttering wordily

sweet wishes so small
in their impossible distances, they
tickled almost, I trembled almost:
beneath ant-like trails of frisky teasings, I
was settled almost
as if moon on sea’s silk-draped skin
suddenly glittered in a glitching turbulence
and mermaids rose up and out
of their thick black skies of silver tremors
shaking beads out of damp-darkened hair
and questioning questioning around
who dare startle their monotonous dreamings
who dare tremble and
stir all dull-eyed creatures around; and
as if sea dared on
shifting reckless into the answerless air,
frenzied, and grasping at an empty night
causing hundreds strange havocs
for a moon so little

you are moonlight kissed, and—
yes, moonlight kissed
and I, in winds, solidly see

beads of my beloved grief strung
in stranger fingers
spidering around reckless on strings—
and waves waves tiding, in ecstasy woven
by violins I dare not learn, by flutes seeping, and sitars
calling home a bird astray

Vivaldi: a dry Storm sob that will not blossom,
not, not, will not— twig fingers curl to taut fists as— Winter
dribbles down on the ragged red throat and
night like silk
silk silk— silks on silks opaque! Ah—

the troughs and oily hills zigzagging
through the air

and violins turn to pinpricked limbs
and strums strums skipping
tugging cruel and tearing—
plucking tendons, plucking desperate and fast

-

you are moonlight kissed as
the silver blush is teased
by sea-creatures’ scaled splashes—
a thousand good griefs tossed to air;
but I am body only
two woody legs folded in a branching of arms
next to the trunk that timidly breathes, next
to the fist-sized squirrel—

my roots like cold fat moles curled up
symphonies rush by giggling
and I do not tremble

some times,
the simplest song
some, chimes
or brazen gong

swaying symphonies of sea’s swift strings
some times sweep on along

‘bad day?’
no, 502

winding winds weave patterns in my chest
a soft flower like a cloud up my throat
ehem ehem
a clicking swallow: a pinecone slides down
hitting a trembling trampoline stomach, and bouncing
like marble about

a cotton sparrow pecking somewhere everywhere
with its little blue beak of bead
ehem ehem
eye meets eye and eye eye
and winds bloom by, stirring the sky and
low bronze brooding grass, as
leaf leaf leaf laces down, down glittering slow
stumbling midair, stumbling in rays sneaking in through brown
stumbling like lost bee in a pathway of gold

then settling down light as a kiss, as a
curling of lashes on the parapet of eye

I had some tickling words—

velvet quilt round a tongue of damp wood
a tick of skin and tendon and beat
as all the gears in me lock in place
open the mechanical gates and out
the stuttering sparrow, small
with its wobbly chirp that, practiced, perfected,
spills still plaintive in the silence of stone

‘do you have an— an a scale?’


‘thanks—’

oh mY JASM—

red glasses suit you just right
and, here, in loud silence of thought and thought
our tongues curl up to fitful slumbers
still sky secretive, chapped with dawn,
nightly gowns suit you just right
but, here, when old moon buckles after long nights’ wanderings
and you stir me no more
I wonder if I will mourn
still, rose serenity will be your name
but I wonder if I will mourn
when marigolds no longer open at your touch
and if do
do so lazily
when hours go by and days then weeks go by
without sweet gusts of you
gentle witchcraft of your swift glances,
and timidly bubbling stews of mine
still, some bits or more of stench
in strange hours of nights will sway
and drag me back back back
and I wonder if I will mourn

an itching, tickling fear it is
that these bees will feed the flowers one day
and the honeyed ache that I have come to like
will be blood and bone again
red glasses
red glasses you will soon replace, and
these words will be yours no more
nor mine, nor mine, oh,
how tearing the future— yet

how cruel the present— yet how cruel
we
you will not talk
and I sneak away into thought
then the spells wait and wait, and the bees
I will myself to forget

cracks in the ground

like a frozen sea
cracks in the sky
like a frozen lip—
                quivering
then,
and voiceless fluttering
of word upon wordless wordy word

a low wind
that
proud wheat
    swept by

                   a bowing horde of gold

like kin on kin erupting
(because root dooms with it the house)
like a festival of distrust
where all centres
   in a tangle of struggles
own throats hold

gyres of limbs
              that themselves ****
themselves make

a ruffled head
that I so long combed
now a sea wild
wild
now slithering babbling streams
now lustful teasing waves
that shore then shore
meet and meet
and will rest not at all

what of—
blind infancy of impulsive beliefs
that through dunes and oases
go and go
(now nothing, now all, now none and all and all––)

a–– many sandcastle homes of childish sight
melt to doubt

— hold it—
this cleaving ground will be bound no more

cracks, indeed, all around

When leaf drips off the plants like dew
I know I have failed
Fog on poor gold settled thick
And knuckly branches grasp at my trousers
As they whisper by

Like a nightmare full of the dead

Sorry, I say
With that same wet-paper voice of mine
My footprints forgotten
On dust-dressed tiles
I cannot water you, dear Pothos
I need not
You have no limbs left to feed and
I know I have failed

Failed.

(And so mine a being
In an echoing of souls)

Failed?
Such pretty your tales
And freeing miseries

Sinking frantic
In a devour of spring
These the tentacles of my beautiful Aloe
These the stout roses
My,
My mirthful Jasmines
And grasses–– alive!

Failed?

Green at last!

You bathe in blues and
Craft tragedies from mud
Ruin your love
And despair a bed-slave pretty

Could I weep–– interrupt or scream
But I am wood and they are not

Failed?
Or would you rather?
For fall for you is an effortless flight
And funeral the only peace
Then mourn!

Could I shut the window and
Bar it against the raging city
But breaks— it breaks breaks breaks!

Mourn and mourn!
Till the daylight goes to sleep
And mourn with your wretched stars
For the night

You mock!
Oh, be voiceless, sessile
Thorns again!

And when in the morning
The moon is dead
And thinner our stems
We will say
With that same parched clinging of ours:
We are not dust yet
Are you?

––

the house smells like a melting wire

and
   outside

city
smoke, leaf–– kite

I lie by my window
an old god covered in age
once painted, now
white is my name

but it is suddenly so lovely

I watch my world grow
once clumsy babbling
it talks now endless

somewhere
     sun subsiding

and I am not rot

I am not rot

this is a whisper I will not let go

I run my stoney hand
on my stoney hand
my hand
the hand of an archeologist
uncovering time from time
and my hand
the trembling power of a painter
unsure fingers with a half-filled quill

I rewrite— strangely— verse after obsolete verse
red and blue and dawn on dust

glittery awakening-– heavy and sour
white sightless eyes on history focused

exit centuries
like lather through sink-– exit war and tomb-people
exit sunken empires where deities go to die
–– exit exit exit!

          open the window!

in a flood thick

awash this skin, porcelain and stone
awash tongue forgotten, awash pupil

an artefact arm
slowly mobile
a hand blooming to veil the light
from wet, blinking eyes

a rickshaw bumbles by
a van singing
even the quiet whistling of a
bicycle’s chain
it’s getting cold

my socks? where did— here they are

the house still smells like a melting wire
but Faizan said
that Saad said that
he is bringing pizza on his way home

and outside
grey-gold fades

slowly— strangely—
I am not rot

        a melting's quiet sniffs

I am not rot

imagine a brick box lined with paint where
zebra and lip-red walls wobble as I
rest my forehead in a coiling of arms
on the stubborn palm of this plastic chair—
I feel you singing singing slow as I
build myself a night wide

where water rises up like bread;
and turn all students to fish and
turn all chatter to bubbles
that slide and collide and settle by the roof
and settle and settle
undying till the room
is a pomegranate cursed with fertility, and I
dare not gasp lest another bubble
should— press and press

imagine a blue sea bubbling like
sugar that melts and melts and
melts and melts
in the slowly-shrinking pan
I shut my ears
and build myself a silence and I
feel you right here
— a few rows behind—
our separate solitudes tangled up

a song faint as feathers, as fire
lit up; as the fish babble on—
your sea-creatures whirling: and
corrals’ tickling devours
that clothe me in Magic—

imagine peach-pink lips
that smile— dragonflies swishing by
imagine buzzes that they leave to sway
in the blushing airs, imagine
grasses fluttering their pompous lashes
imagine— oh, and

a paradox of suns that
pulls me in— prickling eyes
black and brown as cocoa in coffee and
soft as foam— yet suns, you see!
I dare not see, yet return
and return I stumbling do,

skin feasts in sweetness
of a warmth serene, and
the taste lingers all day long—
swear in stars are whispers of you
tossed to constellations' lively tales
and misty dreams shroud lazy mornings
where I and you and all
the unshed covered faces of ours
are free to sprout, where we
cling to limbs and limbs in
the deep rich beds of our soils

I lift my head as the teacher enters
and I know the water you
breathe in too
the churning viscosity presses in in

your swift silver thoughts
drowning in noise— and no one is listening
to the teacher—
my iron neck I twist to glance your way
fast as the flickering tail of a squirrel, yet
you clasp me still
— there—
the clack as breaths lock and hold

you sit all alone and, oh, do I—

I wish I could stand up and swim my
way to you
'hey, this seat’s empty, right?
mind if I sit?'
your orange 'yes' or maybe a leaf-like
nod, or a gust of shrug perhaps
then we talk and talk with
the fish all rest, and maybe we forget the smother
maybe we forget the fish

but I— a statue sunk centuries ago
waves kiss my valour and lure it away
star-shapes settling on my tongue
******* out words, and—

heart a squid blooming and clenching
I curse the idol I have built of myself
sit and sit I sessile a stone and
try not to drown, try not to drown
to boil to bleed or scream a soundless bubble alright
you, the fantastical, faraway land resting

a glimmer motionless where sea
licks the void, where children go
when there is nowhere to go,
where I think I will row one day one day one—
can you tell I have a crush on you?
I hope not

take my hand and bless me a metaphor
wholly mine— or— maybe I could spin you a blossom as your
lovely gown teases the night—

alas, but here begins the teacher

garlands
blooming within themselves
like the fast-forwarded movements
of a gyre’s quiet devour;
splashes dressed in white
that play by my feet

it is difficult to paint
more so to say
the reckless curiosity of water and wave

a little childish I am
stumbling around the banks of secretive songs
—dirges drowsy that move like silk
and violins’ exaggerated tales
drumbeat rains where Indian brides are known to blush
and acoustic plucks—
drop on bead-like drop
upon my clammy palm

I want all

slip and sink I
within the ongoing skies
fish and bird and moon I meet
shell and bone and mud

a little naive I am
relishing the gusts of sand that
through my curled up hand
gush

it is difficult to learn
more so to sing
the reckless curiosity of shimmer and sun

white and greying gold
on the sand-paper shore

head in a garland of arms
and eyes— breathing
all in
blind with the intensity of gaze

a little ragged I am
a little paper-boat astray
a little cloud painted that forgot to bleed

(a little parched field)

So white
I thought it would tear through
Red revolution, gritting stones
Electric convulsions
And ivory tides

I felt children weep
Soft, long sleeves soggy as lattice
That, flayed to leaf, too long
On porcelain lay
Hisses and gasps—
Were sobs always so volcanic?
Like suns— erupting— quite not—
Wilting— to stars— blinking—
Gushing upon—
Each other; a strange confiding
Nakedness

And feathers
In bronze dressed— stuttering—
Stuttering, bubbling
Would that the flood would loosen

Rather melt—

Rather the moon than Jasper,
— It’s gory quiet
Rather pebble
Rather mud-licked bumbling babble

But melt— melt— Oh,
Never quite full for the night!

I feared it would burst
Crowds of red-cloaked seeds
Into a havoc of fruit and flesh

I feared I a dandelion
Would open— would sway away, away
From bits and bits— of me, but

It hit— hit, hit hit
The jagged black insides of mine
And I was real

I was real

Gasping— gasping, till it—

I care so much, I care yet little
It drives me mad, it
drives me mad, it drives me
ten chimps pulling dresses off the walls
of a posh octagonal hall
six taps left open, and
drain holes, four, spurting and
clogged with thickets of hair and
dirt— all ugly and
bold and
alive

alive too, like a screaming, this home I know,
I know
to be carved out of stones—
of stones that silenced the noises of time now
chattering, chattering, alive
alive; dishes scarred
and stained— sleek
with remnants of hungers strange

a fish bowl lonely and
cursed with obsolescence; poked twice
with feathery causality and
now it bleeds, and
wilt the books, the dusty books
Oh!
I have too heard
of the quiet sky, it’s body carved like
a zero— even and smooth— I have too!

In here, but in here

I care—
a glass-jar, its mouth like the mouth of a fish
spilling, twice, spilling alive
and bottles breaking, of young wines,
of cinnamon and salt
four spices that sting and bite like slaughter

I care yet—  a taut-skinned cat
mewling by the greasy kitchen window
and six locks with key-holes
jammed with rust
that comes and comes in crowds like gusts
to chew on metal's ****** sweetness

It is wild—

I stumble around the echoes
of a gathering of chimps

a key grinding and twisting
in eight stubborn walls
yearning for the quick clack
that would open me up
all answers and answers, easy and slow
all simplified
for introspection— and me

and it is choking
frightening
I lurk from doorway to shadow to
the wet rug by the shelf
counting, recounting the bruises of a house untouched
by all but me—

ten then!
on, on—

Furtive, fleeing eyes
Secretive without disguise
Say naught, and nor
Will they— say, fleeting lore
Upon lore upon lashes
Strung— say, sweet clashes
Of arrows’ white delights
Unsung, into the brown nights
Preserved— where thought may not
Blood and shudder, where touch may not
—In seas dark
Where black moons talk
Of soft wars, and where they await
And await
Some familiar sly bells
Where a gaze intricate dwells

A stilling tether—
Then twisting together—
Breath at leisure, time at leisure—
Whenever, whenever! Wherever!

Clinging—
And ringing,
A dance so sure!
Flush, and rush, a trance so pure!
Oh, talk and talk
A lark and a hawk

Wave at rest, beat and bird at rest—
Parting, then—
                and filled a chest with breathing unrest.

Then slide away—swift, your way
And I too, scuttling astray

Eyes their secrets mirthfully keep
Yet leap on star from star; and too deep seep
And tug and tug
Wild seas— wild tug—

What nonchalant carnage did you leave
To rot on my skin?
Rub and rub, I rub in vain.
A cling so sure
Like birthed for me

Seep then in the rhizoids deep
Sack, sack the village to stream

To river to smoke

As sea, as sea, and only so, I see

You, the circus balanced on the lashes of your feats,
hues yours
Binding, blinding their hiss and shine
Trembling a string I
Spit and spit naught but I

Full to brim, this yonder of mine
Full and choking, homesick a home
Dry and dust— the blossoms of mine

Burn and burst of bone and beast
All onto the beach, bloodless, breathes

And I cannot even— I dare not even
Wash it away—

Mist, dew and rose.

Three songbirds rose
Their wings quiet—
Weaved a riot—

Breath, then bone and blood
Whispered to noise from, for mud
Let them grieve, let them—
Yet another young note
On the hard-baked stem.
Restrained do not

Cry
Nor bleed or melt a flushed blue
Pearly melodies of sky
Do no do, do not do

Ask of liberty—
Pretty, petty property.
What of birds?
Clumsy drip-dropping words

Only a breath weeps
Only bone shakes
All ballads, the blood keeps
Only the carcass wakes

And silent, silent goes
Into the blooming blue goes—

A soft, bruised apple your pretty absence—
I loathe— this bickering, bitter adolescence;
I miss myself unripened, myself sour
Where clung to anchor, I asked for more
Oh, more, and gave it cunning and cold: joys
That lovely ruin bore. Then your dragon eyes
And how I built built you out of lone
Now from me, to me my grief well known
Take you and on and on you go
Oh, cursed be your laughter: yellow and so
Sweet as stout it plunged — so quick a shine—
Into the sulking waters of mine. Oh, swear, was mine
The tremble, decay; yours the glittery dust.
Now parched, still patient pleads this lust

Return, O seamless, sodden salve, you must
You must—

It was so quiet there
I could’ve cried out sturdy
And all the sounds would’ve returned to me.
I did not though
The windpipe clung to my lungs
Wrapped round and round till they gasped
Just a huh
Too pathetic to be pitied.

That giant tree, I will remember always
Out and out it bloomed
And stayed with me all along
However far I hazily stumbled
I looked so mad
I felt so—

My brain lurked where it desired,
Lingered wherever; and I
Followed, I followed:
Always a step behind
I said, where are you going?
Just…
And into the towering corns we vanished
So dark, so dark

I said, it’s dangerous here,
Anyone could come from anywhere
And quieten us anyway— anyway—
Just a moment…
And we sat, listening to the insects together
The crops so high up and devouring
It wasn’t much different from crowds
Yet silence— so ringing and shrill
Scream, I offered
Scream?

And we sat there for a minute or two
Listening in to the eternity forever.

Tomorrow hatches a cursed sparrow
Her pink-spotted wings and red-stained beak
They say, she ****** the song out her mother’s marrow
Her eyes, of gold and shimmer reek
Her voice is bleak and shrill an arrow
And a patient dawn she comes to seek

As will stumble her kins towards old light
She, scrawny, outside my window will sit
And sing and sing and sing on alright
Clumsily wake and my teeth I will grit
Squint and stare at the silhouette in bright
In sky alight, her little small being will sit unlit

Sleek with lone her innocent song
Though ugly and strange, I will hear on
Through rise and noise; however long, however long
Spring-kissed birds and the battles they won
Then I too will sing— what for I wish and what for long
Till, ever rushing, the flushed dawn will be gone

Then giggle she will and whisper a verse
A little advice from a little bird
To love, to love and never curse
This fine, fine, wretched little world
Then smile, and into the sky she will disperse
And I, serene, into the crown of dirt

The Magic dripped out of the night
Out of the holed hold
Of its frail, fence-like fingers
The Magic slid onto and past me
Kissed the cold, cement floor
In its drip drop dripping ecstasy
Then vanished under still
Though no deeper depths I had known

As a towel hung out to dry
The night melted onto its grey shadow
Till the moon was just a moon
And the quiet— piercing shrill and bitter.
I felt my fingers go dry
And my body
Sensed not the silky speech of my palm
Nor the whispers of sneaky light

And the city
Was a song torn apart—
Every horn upon me lunged
I slipped through the silence, and fell, but
Fell not enough
I said, Magic, Magic, take me along
But the floor for me was a circus uninviting
And in my wretched solidity, I lay limp
Listening in to the echoes
The echoes, the echoes of a laughter so far away
(I said, Magic, Magic, take me along)

And the moon was just a moon
The evening star I could not see
And sleep was a ragged little thing,
As the sharp dripping,
With last and last of the Magic, was gone
I sank, I sank, immobile —
Oh, In the ever-stirring city
It was a night lonely

Strike— bare, boastful light.
Snakelike, your silver serenity
Strike with firm, flaunting fatality
Surrender then, to specks flush-light.
Split asunder, your thriving fragility
Shuddering then, a humble complexity
Shimmering so lovingly bright.
Spin I the crystals; your dancing simplicity
Simplicity— oh, so generous in its creativity
Scarce old stars rather I,
                       than sun’s lifeless white.

Grief is good, O naked shivering—
Grief, the last full blossom
In the rich, rich ***** of spring
Laden with hues, their gentle smother;
Reap it they and morph a shrine:
Grief, the violent girl of a silenced mother.
Grief, the first decay of decay old
As the sky beats down and down,
Burning all green to gold.
Grief, the cunning god
That quietens, and teaches the art of scream.
Grief then, the ripe fruit’s bitter-sweet cold.
The first fall that a thousand follow,
Crystal chambers of the first frail flake.
Then, hues that all white swallow.

On, on swirls the necklace.
A countless tyrant beads
Still, countless laced with grace
True, shrines tumble, and daughters weep,
Falls then burn, and summers melt
Thirst and ash into fruit do seep.
This despairing tickle in so deep—
But suns to snow and sweet still on subside
Own thus the jewel, and, hush, be off to sleep.
Oh, in here a faceless sky long stubborn stood;
Years blank, till snow and sun lit up from soot

O naked shivering, grief is good.

Still they lie on the river-bed.
Unforgotten; daughters of the sun
their itching, prickling, stabbing beams
And dusks that ran ran red
But tread on, the circus just begun,
The ripples— mote by mote— by seams

The sands stir and rocks twitch
Dull-eyed creatures still non-living go
Roses bloom, say, roses rise
Once lively dawns to sacked towns switch
Body and body and body we sow
Roses bloom, say, roses rise

Say, still they lie; still sessile
Of tens a blooming heart we plucked
Still some more we knew as our own
Stumble on we desperate while
Lie we still in the river-bed tucked
Oh, those parched pieces that once shone

and these wretched blooms undying

The silence stabs, but not painfully
So; intruding, its sour and soft luminosity.
I felt a thousand things ooze out of me
Dream-dipped drops dripping so drowsily,
And each ticklish sweetness echoing; to sea
I sank— past lids, through lashes, all. With glee
Snaked under I under I furtive; faint and feathery.
To dark I fell, to naught, to white monstrosity
One, stream of plea, two, agony, and three
Well three— I filled, filled with scarcity.
When all the ripples quiet lay, I in melody.

Dissolved in traffic
we forget ourselves
Metal and muscle of bone, of beast
Marrow of bloom
and whip-quick flapping of pigeon wings
When father coughs his crackling logs,
we know he arrives, we hide away our games

why don’t you study, why don’t you study, where have you been

So terrified of the world he,
with his sky-shaking speech.
father, father
what have you seen?

My limbs twitch and eyes flee
He knows not what to say, and we
never learned.
Taut skin aged to crease, and all that clover smoke

and dust from road,
It sits so stout in his placid gaze
I sink, I sink.
Say, father, father, will you not leave?

Dissolved in traffic—
Gyres of grey and their loosened rings
mimicked by the reeling of kites
So long he roamed
Within those slithering maps
almost became,
almost them.

Memorised the city on his very palms.

Father, father, I never could learn
the twist and twists and turns of its trails

The city got lost and I,
And I, oh— I

The whispers fade
of footsteps strange, and closed are hearts
in breathing reliefs
father, father,
What have you learned; father, father
we become ourselves
father,
The birds all settle, the metal melts, the
noises die, the traffic, oh, the traffic
your good old mistress, we forget of it—
father, father,
What have you learned

Not still, no, the rumble still plays
With thunder
And vehicles onwards go
There are so many clouds
And albeit too far their talks
I can almost imagine

No poems or music
Weaved upon lyres
Today, they too
Are polluted with normality
Such treacherous natures
Of this ever-stirring yonder
The surface speaks art,
And in depths aridity crawls

Cruel, so cruel their lightness
How I painted and sang
Of their rich tummies
How I danced in their blood

They chirp now a vacant gossip

I should’ve known
I should’ve lurked away
From their shows
Breathe now I in the rue and in a dim, dim fury
So cruel, so cruel the blue
So cruel and cold
In its silence
I hummed my throats parched
In mine, it vanishes, vanishes to grey

But tread on
The car stops and I slide out
Back in my rehearsed role
My stinging skin melts beneath the mask
The classroom roars

It is awfully quiet today

dancing off to The Beetles’ tongue.
there is gloss on lips and all features rest
for nothing else
of decor could be found
in the sudden haze, the sudden haze
of that mad devour

we have stumbled on the edge of order
and now tumble we—
beneath, beneath, under
these treacherous waters with masquerade licked;
a calm— a calm shimmering
like them Sirens almost.
come, it cooed, and went and went we
to its feather-light lure

and jumped and swayed our arms about,
skipped and laughed then laughed
till stomachs winced

loathed
and we have loved on the lips
on the lips, but slipped
as smeared, pink hues;
oily and glittery in their innocence

there lurks chaos in its smothering, wet mouth
and we moths flutter
closer, still, still...

and for us ripped
the golden lake its skin
and us it held, held till took from us
all

we have lingered precarious and
surrendered crumbled,
and crawled out dying, dead, undying

still to those chapped, glossy
banks we go
and dance and dance and—

But deceptive blood-robed pomegranates
With their piteous decay, and sullen seeds
Packed as kids’ taut skins in sand-tinted crates;
With bloom, with ruin, and sweet as reeds
Them reeds naught know of plain parched mourn
As wails it and yields to their illiterate lips;
As stumbles then snakelike out— thin and worn.
Begotten unwanted, poorly fathomed, forgotten wisps
Of old, odourless leisured hours,
That scrubbed, so gruntled, and scratched the fruit.
Then white silks soft within parched blue days;
And no heirs birthed, sublimed the flowers.
Touch it; the crumple and crêpe is not yet soot
If it could bleed, it could bloom alive, ablaze.

Here is it
Another quiet march of words
I bring no rhymes,
no fragrant tragedies seasoned to fable

The teacher speaks
and walks up and down the narrow aisle
All eyes upon him linger
All but those frozen on text
as if lost within it
Some somewhere nowhere
Some then
left right, left right
dance
One line, one line more

and so far away I lurk
So hollow this echoing of being.
I lay
a shell drained of warmth
In a deep, dim cavern

and it is it

What more could be said without I
ripping and shredding my skin to waste
Still may not stir
those angry animals beneath
Still I may twist and shrink
Naked and full and, oh, so, so lone

But the teacher speaks on
and I feel the weightlessness
of all the faces of which I am one
Pressing down and down

and write and write I might
Skin upon skin of an undying hum
But anyone can do that
Thousand men before me bled
What fiery pearl I, moulded from dust and
their dry, abandoned ash

but lone, but lone is lone
however it may sing
However we may—
In this little, little world
tossed, left right, left right

It is strange and scary
To think so,
Still, I do
If I had not known music
I would’ve still known you
Still would’ve heard
The inarticulate whispers of your gown
Still then,
Gentle lashes silhouetted
Upon a sharp gaze

For the moon does not rise and set
Merely for its night
And the Mayna birds sing
But little to boast
For who dare boast but I
Who speaks and speaks, on, on of you

And they tire and groan
Who is this?
'Bet we could flicker a tad bit prettier
A sea’s sigh gentler than this leaf
That lives and lives, on, on in you'
Try then, I say, just try

Every dawn and dawn, they sing
Every dark and dusty blue
What do you think?
Curiosity tilts their heads
And I smile through my laughs
Still not, still not

And they wilt a little
Quietening down for a new show
Before a new sun’s birth
Before another shadowed sky

It is sweet and smooth
The envious mimicry
Of silver and song

Still not though, still not

No music I wish to wade in
Just the touch and touch of her breaths