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.

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

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

Ask of the dagger I hurled at the beast across the room
Its wicked howl vibrating about my being
as it buried its fangs in its own dull heart
Ask of the white stained carcass wrapped in charcoal blood

I could talk of the glorious cliff and the reluctant child
seduced by the oblivion of the world below
But that’s hardly the tragedy I wish
to engrave on the stone made soley for my love's corpse

What of the silent repression of the inevitable sea;
its claws in your throat, its chains pulling you under
The only thing to come out: mere remnants of bubbles
embodying the muffled screams of the dead

I could talk of a caged bird
fantasising the sky being pure definition of freedom
What of its heartless darks that see and unsee the starving stars
What of the sadist winds separating
sons from mothers from daughters from fathers;
hearing and unhearing their pleas

Ask of the endless nights of my quiet talks with the moon
Its wicked words reeking with hope,
blooming and wilting around the night
Ask of the hollow flaw left untouched in the middle of the sky
Light extends her arms and creeps in,
she asks for help but we’re all asleep

I could talk of sleepless nights and lazy days—
vivid afternoons curling up way too fast in the dusk—
but that’s hardly a tragedy you’d like to hear
Ask of the dagger I hurled across the void
hoping to rip open another hole in the sky
so the moon would not be lonely when I finally went to sleep
but it never was lonely, no thanks to my blade

What of the silver blade
He shot for the sky but but fell in love with the moon
kissing open her jagged lips- and banishing away
moonlight bleeds out the scarred crescent
Ask for I'll tell you the stories composed with finest of runes

Like when the girl befriended the beast
not for its arousing shine that felt like velvet on the cobblestone dark
but the scars that she, so lovingly, drew on its body
matching every curve - every bruise - to her own
so painful yet hardly at all, so visible yet not in the least
It was the most beautiful tragedy I had ever seen

Sweet spring gusts decay in my room
They are stale, sluggish, and they
Make the fan very, very heavy
It is loud like a ramble, it betrays me

I lie against the soft spice of sorrow
Small as a sparrow. My calves are childish
The morning looms over night
It stares like a bored God. The night
Is stone. It stoops meek and fidgety
Its little white heart shivers
And pulls closer its fur coat

I am a constant unlocalised impulse
A thousand movements compel me
To try instill a thousand beetle words
A thousand times I sit up to speak
Amidst the endless ruffle of air
Where a crowd of air-people chatters
About a thousand matters of air

No yawning or tossing turn
Percussions play the heart, cautious
It shields itself. Cautious it steps
A little bit back, and cautious
It curls in on itself. Like a flower
I stroke its perfect skin, and pitiful
I let it be. Music in my ears is noise.
The curtains spread their midnight locks
To shield me from the world.

Smother the torches
Burn down the sun
My young boy has died
And his ashes blown
Stomp on their candles
Shatter their statues
No fumbling mourn
Could bring back my boy
No fostered condolence
No faltering words
Woe to the blacksmith
Pounding on the night
His burning stars
Errupting, errupting
Woe, the moon has left
And no jewel of old or now
Could bring him back tonight
No noise of plea, no agony
No mumbling thunder
In my frail blue body
Woe, the room is dark
And empty and empty
Not a shadow, not a light
No one to hold onto
No one no one no one
There is nothing in me
With my young boy gone

So falls asleep
The clock at work
And still stand staring
All stalls of night
Wander shall we
Or lie down to sleep
Shall we dance on lips
Of thought forlorn
Stumbling go ever
Down in dim
Or lead the leaning
Limbs to the lair
Of dark despair
The dear despair
The shuffled sea
To which we see
As children in plea

Shall we then stop
And hear the streets
Go wading on
Or lose shall we
Ourselves to blood
As bumbling it goes
From us to us to us
For there is no weep
That may we stir
As sweet in tea
And beat and beat
May these shrill heels
Forever and free
May once they slip
And then fall far
Into the song
And may the hands
Yield as we
Lay them rest
On our simple *******
And may the land
Of whsiper and chant
Ever go writing
The waves of sea

But mourn or nor,
Lose shall we
Stale as sundress
In the lap of she,
Loose as tea,
And no comfort coy
Shall hear from us
A single cry
And sweet or sleep
May mend the bleak
But we will not weep
No, we will not weep

Weep we shouldn't
Lest morn should bear
Upon it the stain
Of our meek feat

And weep we would
If but we could
Bear brave the banner
Of fierce defeat

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

So many check out the young, blushing days
Nobody saw this sunflower set
nobody yet all—

and how swift must the ends be
One jolly night and the moon passed out
an impure crescent—gnawed away

the sunflower stumbled and fell
bees swaying by the carcuss; wordlessly buzzed
an obsolete king robbed of jewels
—by his very own lovers

Nobody saw the petals leave
nobody yet all—
Abandoned for the crown could hold no more
pushed away by the wind, sold to dirt,
decolonized

—you'd pick them up; bring home
stir in a bubbling stew
—I'll take a shot, and you will

How lovely do words feel—how gruesome
running down my throat; sneak up my lungs
an old door creaks open—right inside this heart

and nobody saw the sunflower set
Fell and he bled then cried—
and the buzzing lingered but a blink

a few heard the sunflower set
heard but little—
heard still.

You'll look for more petals and I will.
—silently sliding them into strangers' bags.

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)

You know, this woman
Never fails
To astound me

She is mixing the ladies’ fingers
Chopped and fried
With sautéed, spiced onions
And I watch
As she dips the pan
Toward herself
And all the oil runs over
Like a lost child
At the sight of his sister
In a crowd

With the other hand
She pushes those vegetables
Into the awaiting ***
Places the pan aside
And grabs hold of the ***
Twisting her wrists
Working up the magic

She flips the greens
Over the crescent onions
Mingling them up
And in front of my eyes
She has cooked up a dish

Then she spins the wheat dough
In between her fingers
Nimble as a dove’s beak
Tossing it from palm to palm and
All of a sudden
It is a flattened sun

She turns it around on the griddle
Before exposing it to the flames
It rises, rises, then falls
A breathing thing
And
Goodness be ******
She doesn’t even burn it
Not a single mark
She cooked the sun over blue fires
Turned it into a moon

I wonder how she does it
My mother
Master an art she doesn’t even like
While I—
I fiddle around
With my pens and brushes
The smug blankness

Of neglected canvases
And unfilled pages
Mocking me of a fairy-light child
I could not become—

breathe—
like mint shrub under a drizzle,
Ink clawing it’s way up a quill
Like lemon grass growing
Like steam rising from a cup of tea
Like parchment.

Like confetti circling a cyclone
Like a whip kissing skin
a branch cracking
Like chalk against cement,
Like nails on sandpaper
Like glitter.
breathe—

But sometimes I lie straight on my back
Under a heavy quilt—
let my limbs slump away, let my fingers sink
weakly into sheets
And I think,
this is how we die—
Insipid eyes blanketed by skin
A book incomplete—closed midway, without a mark.
They may tie our chin and skull with a strip of cloth
to prevent our loose jaw from falling open,
this— is how we die

Like the carcass of Morning Glory
hanging— swaying in the wind
Like coal left behind by a burning log,
Like a dusty painting.
Like a moor.

No wings sprout out of our jagged backs
they put us in a box and clothe us in dirt
No earthworms spare our clotted blood
Clouds don’t come bowing down
nor does sky break to shards— for our escape.
solid bricks, we never did mind sleep
nor the warmth or tight embrace of our beds
the world's too big anyway— for our shrinking selves

Silence—
Like a beetle crawling down a leaf
the ocean behind a portrait
Like moon, yawning
Like a folded paper, filled with scribbles
Like dusk.

Like a still child.
a tongueless nightingale up a bough
Like words in a bottled letter.
Like rubble under smoke
Like a palette, unwashed.
Like a bone.
Silence—

And someone knocks under you—
You dig out the coffin and break open its lid
But it’s filled, to the brim, with mud.

And time spirals on—
Pushing us behind, and we fight against it.
A puppet tied to the sky,
wishing to see the end of an abyss
Like a stone under the ocean, dreaming of stars
breathe—
Like a newborn leaf.
breathe—

But the time spirals on—
and we, with the dirt, reunite.

she comes to me with every star
— every bird
greets me on my creased bed
She smiles—
in the long-silenced alarm clock,
in dry roses tapped on wall,
unkept cots of all my jasmines and shrubs,
— my missed classes,
in the cars talking outside

she says,
the dance has long began
I say, I am not awaited
she says she would like a waltz
I say,
please, go without me
here, I'll leave the window open—

she says,
I live in the dusty shelves
— in your abandoned body
I say,
I’ll clean today, scrub off my skin
I'll pull out the weeds

she says,
the air reeks of me
I say,
I’ll put on a song.

but the song wobbles like a paper-boat in a stream
it sublimes away with my breaths—

she watches me—
bath,
as I strip the bed naked, and redress him
as I feed my plants, as I
fold the clothes and tuck them neatly away

her lips meet my neck, as mine
meet the porcelain mug—
tongue trials down my back
as the sandy tea falls soundlessly in me

and I shiver

and she’s there in the unfinished painting
here on my dry skin, webbed eyes,
my jagged lips

I say,
I want you to leave
out this room— out this dressed up city

(her willowy fingers betrothed to mine)

— out these voiceless books
and feeble veins
my ****** sketch-pencils and
and the pictures you **** hue out of

(swords clashing— she aims her lips at mine)

I want you gone,
here, I'll leave the window open.

(and rips them apart; she turns me to glitter)

tell me to go and I’ll go,
she says, later.

tell me,
she says.

tell me,
she says.

Sometimes, sometimes
I will sit in my own room like a stranger
I will gracefully drag the chair out its den
And run my fingers through the white fur
That is white no longer
It lies there inviting
But I prop myself on the table instead
Head just touching the shelves above
Books kissed by dry dust
College notes never noticed
An empty fruitcake box
A candy wrapper
I run my gazes up and down the walls
Up and down
Up and down

A disheveled slave girl bare—
Still for me
Someone has covered her wounds
With poems ripped out of forgotten books
Her tears slide down like curious cracks
Beneath the silver veil
A bottle of Kerosine oil sits patiently near the pallet,
Rows of paint tubes
Children’s beds in a quiet, orphanage hall

Unfinished canvases awaiting a god
Brushes scattered around
Scattered like arms and legs
and skulls
In a tired battlefield

Sometimes I reread the stories
Scribbled on the doors
Quotes as bullet shells
abandoned
and hollow

Like a stranger
I admire the designs on the wall picture
Leaves of all the races
And the blueness beneath
Like a stranger
This silent, beautiful girl I see
For as a lover I have long ceased
A shy dove scared
Quietly humming a tune
I have never known

I look for the person who smiles in the pictures
The girl who’s known to talk to the walls
But the bed is empty
And folks in the photos
Will not meet my eyes
The verses swirl around in the air
And fumes of the oil
Rise up
Slow as the arrival of blooms
Slow as a withering moon
Till they are everywhere
A horde of soldiers
Marching down my throat

There is no one here
Somebody once taped the roses to the window
And painted suns on pieces of stray T-shirts
hung them up as tapestries
But they are not here now
The walls reek of aridity
A slave girl who will not smile

They like to preach to us to
Always be ourselves
But who are we—
Some fancy clothes wrinkled on the floor
As if passed out after a jolly evening
A fidget spinner
Spinning spinning spinning
In my hands
The fan groaning—
A symphony struggling to scream
And fumes rise up

I jump off the table
And slide the window open
The city, a worried lover, rushes in
It kisses the room
Its beautified bruises
Washes her with light
Air jolts the calendar awake
“Are you here?”
“Are you here?” It seems to ask
Are you here, are you here, are you—
And the walls nod their tired nods
A practiced, perfected ritual

Sometimes, some nights
I will tread through my own writings
Trail touches down
My own drawings, looking
For myself
Looking, looking,
And forever on search

Sometimes, sometimes I will realise
that no matter how many plants I hang
And words
I nail to these walls
To make them mine
I will always be a stranger to this room
Searching the stalls for another anklet
that will smile a star
in her next alluring dance—
A slave girl
And her golden crown.
Dah

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

“Where is the assignment?”

You ask a question the philosophers have argued over

“Didn’t do it, sir.”
“Why?

Because..because…
Where do I even begin—
I usually begin with stories
They fly in through the window, peck at me
Until I emerge out of my cotton caverns
Today, they brought along a fox, orange like melting sun
She hid under my bed and didn’t crawl out until
I sacrificed to her some of my food
had travelled villages and trees in search of her child
Streams and bridges and bushes, she had asked

told me of a little, blind boy with a ***** sack
He wandered about streets, and parks
Every turn memorised over years— every fortunate bin.
His scarred hands searching for softness— of
half-eaten fruits and soggy breads— of cloths.
Dry papers, he collected and sold to people unseen
He slept on the grass, sang songs and gave her food
Then one day she waited but he never came
Then one more, and one more, then—

But you don’t want a story, do you?
right.
Uses of crystalline solids.

“I’m sorry.”
“Were you sick?”

Sick?
Yes, I was sick. But not like that girl, over there,
With a runny nose and funny coughs
I was sick with strange blisters just
under my skin.
they itched and burned, and I could not calm them down
Instead I winced. I curled up like an injured worm
And when the doctor asked me where it hurt
I said nowhere
I said there was a campfire inside me
I said the fish hanging over it had turned to coal
wild-grass soup was spilling out the ***— it’s hisses in flames
I said the people had fought themselves to deaths
And now the fire was alone, and the camps too
And the mother fish calling for her son
And the moon,
And the bodies—

But he said it was just my brain talking

“No.”
“Did you have to go somewhere?’

I did. Past the raging seas, beyond all mighty peaks, I followed a jolly fairy to the hidden garden where all dead flowers go.

“No, sir.”
“Any guests?”

A guest, I did.
But I didn’t invite him. I don’t even know his name.
He banged in through my locked door
A hazy grey shadow with two horns, four fangs and many claws
He ate nicely and didn’t judge my dying plants
He made a blanket fort out of my unfolded clothes,
we had a tea-party,
I painted his claws pink, braided his fur
he crafted me a paper-sword
And we duelled till our weapons creased and sun stopped burning
Then we sang together in our husky voices
And I’d tell you more but I swore
to protect him.

“No, sir. I did not.”
“Then where’s the assignment?”
“I forgot.”

I didn’t forget. I sat down to write but my brain
started talking. It talked and talked
and didn’t cease. Not until I hid back in my caves
and walked away from the night.

“I’ll give it tomorrow.”

Uuh...

“You sure?”

You ask a question the philosophers have—

“Yes, sir. sure. I’ll give it tomorrow.”

Bless tomorrow.

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

Privet! You are that
puerile, puffy
no longer the outline
that they had cut of you

Bold like a spider
smaller than the white spot
on my nail
I slam the book shut
you are faster
you skitter about on the table
mocking as if
but I like to play too

What is this new-found lust for madness
Marching hand in hand with my blood?
Does Moon know it is shrouded
In the sky’s black love
When it is?
Last night, I tossed a rope up towards Jupiter
Tossed and tossed
Till the hook, like a talon,
Took hold of the peachy pearl
I climbed then
Clumsily up the sky—
Up and up I went
And watched the dusty city,
Its flickering lights, and glorious glamour
All beneath me
Oblivious in its slumber

I ruled it all
The yonder, the earth, and beyond

Then the gusts came and kissed me a storm
Have you forgotten your place
Little human?
And the rope wavered
Harshly so, as a dead man tied to a bough
I feared that Jupiter
Would flutter out of my grip
And send me plummeting
To the pitiless land
Where I am from—

But climbed on I did
Through all the havoc
Such was my desperation to soar
And the moon tusked
When I dared try kissing its light
A laugh so pure
I forgot the numb of my hands
Keeping me there
Where only the clouds are known to roam
Forgot the small, small
World below
And slipped I then
Out of the short-lived ecstasy

I was a child lost in a lake
My limbs moved and moved, immobile
Down and down did I fly
As winds above me rushed
Darkness was the blood of a lamb
Unwashed
And clotted
I whirled around myself
Till I did no more

What is this new-found lust for madness
Marching hand in hand with my blood?
I fear I will drag myself to my altar
And spill whole all
That is known of me
Till I am one in the silent night
Kissing my sick Moon to sleep—
Swaying to the faint sounds
Of the orchestra of winds
A dead dove tied to Jupiter
Far, far in the black
What is this new-found lust for madness
Marching hand in hand with my blood
Begging for war—

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—

‘bad day?’
no, 502

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

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—

Carnal is she
Leaping at me
Swift and free
Sleek as tea
Whispers thick
And then does lick
Ick ick ick ick
She sticks
The blade
Down in bed
And then she fades
As soul from dead
And fed am I
On nerve and song
And lie I long
Shivering along
To barren currents
Of our ripe night
And harvests she
The crop, and stops
To smile at me
And further drops
Me into fright

Bold is she
Carnival and cat
A mocking flame
To my dear wax
Tumbles my body
In her shrill hands
And lands in mercy
Of her mischief
Then melt I
And fly I falling
And follows she
To watch me come
Alive again
Again. Again she goes
And scares the skin
Tin, as tin
She laughs away
And if sin this be
Then sin we may
Till the sun should come
Alive again

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

What a cold night to cry on
And I do not even love you

I do not even feel the presence
Of myself in this sorrow

What absence forms me
Jolting me out of sleep

Why do I leave the bed to wander?
Where do I long to be?

There is no remedy for tear
And you cannot soothe me

Here, simply: grief gallops
On horses of terror

It sounds its divine horn
Through the white halls of me
And there is nothing to give
But myself to the breaking

12:43 am

the glide
of a good pen on paper
is like freedom
like the graceful slide
of a kite
as she searches for fruit
sometimes
writing becomes a predator
and I become its gaze
I watch, yes
and I see too––
but come to the strike...
that is not mine
sometimes
tens prey I see
but it will not stop for them
and sometimes
it wants all
and will dive before I can focus.
and it is like ageing
this motion:
with every word, I know
a little more;
and freedom
it is a lot like freedom

Morrow, morrow, city of dreams
Turpentine, slowly sifting
Invades here in sashes of silk
Sounds through bone, bone
Fluid, lures the brain:
It follows coy, curious
Shuffling its thoughts, like one
With fingers, like you
with seasons— blue, and then bold—

The crows shift on the wall
Linseed a moment, and then acetone
I can only overhang and see
The stretches of the city
Forever overspill, overkill— overt
And covert— sounding through
Its buz-busses and snorts; crickets,
Cats, night, white, night
An ox-y-mo-ron, you
Are an orchestra, a tryst

Sweet mo-no-to-ny, a
Platform in a plaza
A plaque on a platform in a plaza
I ransack the dictionary in search of you
The road to lead to the relic of you—
Feed the retrospect’s imagery away
Then the crows look at me
Like I killed their maa
Lit up a June solstice in the beautiful light
Pollution and sound pollution, you
Are homecoming, I say
I say, nothing blinds like home, I say
And I cough the air out like a slang
Your city is ****, a skullduggery
To last the brazen evening
And sag by the night, you are slant
Static, ruthless to the stone come for moss
A slap on the face
Of my sentimentality
How I love to draw you: this way,
This, however I like, since you
Are sightless like a TV, hive of bee
You jig like rain, like sun, woe to me
Like sen-su-a-lity
A satin city, itty bitty pretty
Silly, let me study!

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

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—

In dream, abundant
As roses to a girl
Whirl, pool, whirlpool
Wool, wisps, tickle
Taunt. In dreams, awake
Wide-eyed and red
Haunting choir, your joy
Multiplied, magnified,
Colourised. Shimmering,
Hung up to dry, to drip
In beads, as grief
On ground. In dreams,
Alive. Rattling, rumbling,
Merciless as a train
Touchable, unstoppable
A body of metal, of human
Full, of child, man, woman
Well, I – I I stand
Like a beehive at work
I – I – I curl my toes, my fingers
My bones. Contort. I am
Gyre, turning, turning,
Gyre, astray. You sigh
And it spreads like a scream
Hot, smokey, the steam-engine
Churns. Limbs move, move and
And the sky moves with them
The sun blinks between
Your windows, the ground
Mumbles, disturbed, grumbles.
And I, well. I – I do not
Give to the flight of soul
I do not limit myself to
Sweet. I am full on sweet.
On infatuation and yearn.
There is no music, no disection
Of beast. The violins move
Without their kin, and with them
Moves the world. I am
No pilgrim, O pilgrim love.
In dream, instilled, a storm at work
Red. Blue. Green. Red.
Blue. Green. You move
the birds. You do not
move me.

What’s with the bees?
You’ve asked
    several times now
What do I tell—
   I had not noticed them
Maybe, it’s because my lamp bleeds honey
  all over the floor and the walls

Maybe, it’s the soft buzzing of the fan
or the colourful paintings
        that are now anything but.
Perhaps all these thirsty flowers I’ve hung
  Or leaves on the wall paper
Maybe, it’s the wooden texture
of my shelves
  Maybe, it all screams ‘home’ to them

a break from those gossiping towns
    and manic roads

What can I tell— I don’t even know
Maybe it’s me they desire
—though I doubt it
                 Ask the clock,
ask him what he knows of me
I put on some music and
  it tickles my soul
—It pinches
I turn it off and all the world is left alone
  Birds ask if they can join me
I deny—
Foxes invite me to their hunts
         I deny
Owls have stories in their wings
              but what good are stories in
   a world so loud—

Sun dances from east to west to east
—untiring
I’ve lost count of her rounds
She asks me about my hues. I say,
I cannot read
    I say, I cannot write
I say, I cannot will myself to flutter
         I say, you see those wilting blossoms?
I think I’m turning into them
       (What a cheesy thing to say)

She sings me songs and paints up the sky
—I smile pink
though, why, I cannot tell
I tell her my hues are smiling, too
     She pats my cheek
and gracefully glides away
   and it is

        all still grey
the houses grey, people grey,
cars, plants, towers and stalls grey
Maybe that’s why the bees prefer
  this quiet cell

   It is still golden here
and blues still weep in the curtains
   This is us—
          I and the bees
they live on the silvery walls,
In the sheets, under the bed,
     behind those empty canvases
and inside drawers
          next to the books,
      next to the clock,
           —the picture frames

    over the fan,
the pillows, the carpet
—inside, inside me
Around me, around the poems
    taped on the door
around me
What’s with the bees?
   maybe, they’re
maybe, they’re just my friends.

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

What good is all my love
If you wish not recieve it
Use it, use it till torn, cast it
Aside as coat to a hanger
Woolen soft and sagging in lone
When its body be far far

Far is beauty, in flavourless
Riches, halls of boney ceilings
And pillars of God, you
So glorious in your indifference
So irresistible: merciful your gaze
As it grazes me by – myself, meek
Cottage, of anticipation and dust

Myself mumble, mug of night-
Old melancholy. Throughout
the stars

***** at me, waiting for agony
To spill out its reticence
I paint, paint, cheap commodities
Fuel for your warmth in those
White countries. Rag-clothes,
Castoffs, rugs if you may
A fable for a table or two
A momentary exhibition
If you may. Yet I I warp
Over myself, restless in
Scarcity of grief... how you
Play at deprivation, clever
And careless, coy as a bird

Out out out to the blue with
Your pretty laughter and mist
And never again a flutter
To drag me from dream
Violent in your quiet, your
Absent saturation, running
A little red boy, alive as violins
Round and round and round
Me - nothing of you
To boil or brew, no leftover
Sight on which to chew

on and on it goes
deep into the past— and forward.
  Still, on and on it grows
a spiral unfolding 
                                eternity
sideways, upwards, downwards
   — inwards
                  on and on—
and where all— that could be imagined— meets
       is this now.
Is this now?
    there we all sway
        there we’ll all stay
shallower than light
empty— empty—         emptier yet.
and there we’ve been.
shining fires— vanquished stones
betrothed, sundered;                        
carved into our very own       e n tr opy
   and deformed back to cosmos.
we’ll be there—
when we are; or are not.
scattering like pollens.
      Unseen.
                       far—

far away from this now
this mesh of a single thread
         on           and on which goes
On— on still
as strings long passed whirl around us again,
and what’s to come late

— comes already.

Frozen lakes, a little more do freeze
Frenzied lovers love once again
A bewitched battle we dare relive
A spear we’ll take, a spear let go

Such are the deathless hours killed
A thousand ashen folks forced to live
In ballads eternal, etched in stone—
No mourning, no worry
Shall dig us a way out of this dusk
No morning, no chipping sparrow
Betrothed to spring
No sleep awakens our drunken peace
No ghosts unfading in need of slumber

Withered we weep, withered still our waltz
Withered we love, withered still still

How beautiful is our desolation
How recklessly brave

Oh, what star kissed poems rush
Though the blood that gushes
Out of ravaged bones—
How lovely do we ache, how lovely go on
So profound is this torture and its pleasing touches
The breaths leave us for the blue above
And we, shivering, lie

But so, so beautiful we slay
So brutal stay—

Frozen lakes, a little more do freeze
The beaten bards out again on the streets
To preserve in blooms
A thousand wretched tales

Oh, how valour never became a being so well

I am, I am.... please!
A death so strong it wavers the nerve
Wind, quick! A turn of the neck to stare down the world
We dance as wheat in showers of green
We weep between, between the breaths
Between the breaks of fluent feet
Between the feat that dares the sea
Come, deity, beloved, small, yield
To palm of clammy ache
And slip as darling unchanged at day
There is no mercy from stars that watch
Amidst the blackened smokes of song
No applause to soothe the bones
No stir, blink, warmth. God
Is a tremor in the skin, and there is no leave
There is no leave for the dance to rest

Move, move, move as wretched rats in mills
Move as mills, as the thousand legs in mills
As product, as carts, as wheels along
Death, a child’s glittery dream, wrought
To soothe the eye to sleep... come to lure
As a mistress in secret. A stale scent to
Startle the morning, and nothing more!
Nothing to weave the veins in sweet,
Nothing to free. Nothing, nothing, move
Move! Move lest the sun should
Spread the word. Move from shadow,
From gold and bleak, move! Move!
There is no death to spare us this!

you write like a sea
I see

gyring and free
stubbornly

flapping only
to be

easy
to see

your profanity
holy

in its naivety,
wholly

scanty,
heavy

with plenty,
empty

like sea,
pretty

for me
for me partially

for you only
hesitantly

for world boldly
bare to see

you write like a sea
lady

toiling sweetly
to monotony

and plea
howling all free

free
ah, lovely

like the slavery
of a sea

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

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