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.

Sorry for sending you poems to read
I tend to forget that poems are meek
And the vagueness that pleases me
May not be pleasing for you

I forget, when I am charmed, I forget
To be quiet, to be quiet, to hold
The words firmly in my fist
Poetry is winged, birds I must keep

A gift for you, but you do not want
I know you want to, but cannot want
I dont get it, i forget it, I say read this
Then this and then this one too

Then you lie, impatient, hum along
And I cannot help but sag down a bit
Please do not begrudge my silence
I know no friend for words but her

Sorry, for sending you poems to read

12:36 am

Lord, this night does keep its quiet
not of our silver gyre does it tire

a thousand times I watch it rise
a thousand slips of its drips

up-down-up-down-up-down town
I watch its crowds black and brown

I watch the trees, the silver bees
Lord, this night is not night quite

12:40 am

this is not sadness
I said wrong
this is pillow, pen
a patience of time
in between its clicks
like a chess move halted
for a carriage of thought
this is books
I never read

this is not the books I read
they sagged
to stale pale stories
but this is a passage one forgets
among a pile of others
like this
this is the stillness that breathes me
in and out
through the night

this is not sadness
this is… like tea

12:30 am

I like poetry
I like the tenderness of it
and how it is like a leaf
I may slip into my pocket
and carry along
into stifling examination halls

I like its thoughts
the gaps and turns
it does not ask for cleverness
from me
as I do
it is not a mother
and not a child

a poem, a poem only
silly and free
like a fly
that does not care for freedom
or like a little gust
in a thousand crowd:

the hair furls
I turn to watch it go
but it is gone
before i do

02:37 am

I have something more to say
frail like a young stem
something just as green

I think if I were to die:
here; now
I would not be upset
and I think if I were told just now
that I was to live
forever here
I would not be upset still

and it is sweetly silly
that love makes
letting go easy—
sometimes, perhaps
perhaps a short love only
a sensation that visits
only in the gentlest of nights

perhaps this will be my lover
and my war
perhaps it will be one
because it will be other
it is sweetly silly

01:10 am

there is a number for everything
all strange surrenders
and imaginative threads
of stars that predicting move
and men predicted on;
like resonating blackness
of a still night,
the numerals scatter
symmetric in their magnet-dance
and then they write

every step,
every tide, buzzing
with possibilities,
burning intensely to one—
why do I doubt the hold of this?
this puppetry Law
and its fingers of strings
why do I think to flea?
I move a piece
on the chessboard of pieces
and something in me changes forever

01:16 am

and this night
things are gentler

pillow - the stuffed owl and the clock,
swivel of silence
and stray dust; white-lit
hands as shadows
moulding themselves around limbs

and sensation:
a simple news
to the heart: a moth-wing
watching the light,
its ticks
timed with the pulses
of time -
it watches slowly
the light

—

and this night
we are gentler
body on body - like mingled wave,
ripples trail
but carefully so
as all fish sleep
or rest

—

and tonight
the weight
is just a weight

—

and tonight
there are no flutters
                          to drown to

11:40 pm

sometimes the night comes early
fast like the lid of a pepper-jar
that spins itself geometric into place
sometimes though it is patient
like the swarm of a moss
or of a tide that turns time
to obese slime
sometimes there is so much to say
and do and wish for
sometimes very less
sometimes, the past nights
become other people
and future nights
become other people
and they sway like drain worms
round a puddle
on a tile
we are a crowd
all of us, a crowd -
body upon body like
an ugly cluster of skin
and shadow and grasp
we write things and we make them poems
then we write more
and we are all naked, but none truer
and sometimes the night
does not come at all
and I linger solidly
fidgeting with my words

11:55 pm

now I will write a poem
I will write no thought
for they lie like silk
smooth and slick with solidity
and its thirst
(pretty pearls fall and fall and fall) perhaps
poetry is hand
the ink that writes it
something of the muscle
subtly moving
to move the words
then this one will be white
for in the light that it forms
is white and sharp

thoughtless banter…

with paper and secret—
we never become so still,
all rehearsals halted
to see the show:

perhaps this one will be fear
perhaps blanket blue
perhaps time
that slips into bed and sleeps
perhaps this will be snore
(I do not snore, I breathe only,
but this time does)

01:55 am

I think that someday
I would like to paint a ghost
like did Osamu
and I too would like to hide
it for no one to find

I think I’d like to paint
like I like to write:
quietly, clumsily
and without eyes

as a dove flies
and as it hits against the window
curious, and fearing
the picture it wears
I’d like to paint mirrors
and not beauty

for many can paint beauty
and beauty is never
without eyes
and though it may not lie
it may too not be true

I think Osamu
never wrote so fragile
as did when he wrote
where does this little path go?
where does this little path go?

—

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.

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

12:30 am

today I am not
what I was yesterday
and I know it sounds bold
but it is really
a simple thing to say

as a vine coils a little bit
with every wake of day
so do we children
slowly on the way

and something of night
always remains
even as it turns
from us away

and something of sea
visits unchanged
upon the changing bay

so, today I am not
what I was yesterday
but some of me lingers
and in future it will stay

12:45 am

everything passes
winds disperse
to clouds scatter

wars dissolve
to remnants and
pinpricks of song

everything passes

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

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.

What is wrong? Why do I turn
From the face of grief?
Why have the houses stopped talking
Their eyes droop, their spines bend
They are leaning as friends over each other
They are sleeping

Rain combs her hair through the air
Too long, they fold
As darlings on the ground
Then she shakes her head
And the chaos stirs the trees

What is this bored suffocating silence
Sagging in my mouth
It leaves a bitter taste, coats my breath green
I am suddenly ashamed to speak

12:47 am

I like poetry
I like the company of it
the gathering laughter
the calmness of it

I like silence
and the lightness it wears
I like its chest,
the full embrace

and I like the night
especially its eyes
as it blinks itself awake
and as it sways
like an old woman
in her prayer

I like body too
how it tires
and how it jolts up again
its sweet sleep,
the strangeness
I like the geometry,
the dual nature of it.

I just keep reading my own poems
At 3 am, over and over my words
Carnal is she, leaping at me, leaping
One, two three  bee  tree oh ******
Rhymes to thin down grief

No, grief is too fancy, I flatter myself
It is      maggot of the soul munching
Loudly scratching... my thoughts
Are anxious fingers, finger-tips torn
As war ridden boots, my feet make no
Sound in the world.. they startle but
Themselves, they leave no change

I am       wallpaper boiling through
Months of moisture, slowly stripping
Myself cement and repulsive and
Whitewashed... flat as the belly of a table
I lie like a dog with my limbs raised
To a friend

O God, love me. Overturn me.
I am tired of my stale riots,
Of my resistance, my revolutions
I am nothing to build upon
Nothing to build with, cats and
Cars sound through the walls
Like footprints into sea
I am deaf, redundant abundant,
self-centered misery and dull defeat

I pick my nails and sit
Boat in a stagnant sea
Jigging as if itchy, twisting
Twining tweaking tingling
Even time stops by to tusk

Sun in the night sky
erupts like laughter
sweet, old
but not as loud
tips around in splashes
that scotch the sky
and turn its blackness grey

I am haunted through hours
by the grotesque sounds
of its pain
people gape and smile
at the firework show

But I cannot still my shaking
I am too quiet to quench
the growing silence in me
I watch the show like all else
I fear I’ll never speak again

02:20 am

need a poem be good
for it to be true
good poems resonate
but need all always do

were the heart a still
forlorn principle
need it know no moving
of a tinkling ripple

what of machines—
do the gears not rhyme?
and must they really do
for the flowing of time

for how a young girl
lost in fear
so intricate delicacies
of secrets must hear

if a poem be hard
to achieve a task
where must one turn
to evacuate the flask

that bubbles anew
every new day—
need a poem be smart
to hold it at bay?

need a war be fought
to sing of a war
and need warriors,
comparing, spar?

is not a poem alone
as is a man alone
must then we all adorn
the sounds of a mourn

12:15 am

now the paper
feels as gentle moss
beneath the feet

and now I have
no words to write
for the night

is the body ever quiet?
now the wrist moves
and I become a crowd again

and
now
one

and now
I am a sea
(I have never met a sea)

and now sad—
swear I do so
every night

and it is not even mourn
but just a hue
in the hues of the sea

01:00 am

it was faith, I think
it never left me so lonely
as when it was mine

say— prayer
like a dance I did all alone
grasping limbs
in an auditorium of echo

my sajdah
never mine—  the
surrender of ruku
and the chant of Fatiha
my tongue moving
with the coded keys
slurping, slipping
tumbling over words
that like malignant came
incomplete and too many

it was faith, I think
it was like love
of paper
dampened with blandness
it was sugar
that turns mouth to moss

it lingered
after I was done

and it was faith, I think too;
for while it was mine
it haunted, and haunted too
with a haunting
of something lost

and all age long
I chased it reckless
grasping in takbeer
and forgetting
before the salam
had even opened its wings

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

11:25 am

some stillness here
that I fear to break
some gentle memory
of the body
some luciferase show
of a little plant
something still softer
and still small
like the tickle of an ant
before it is revealed
or the startle
of a single hair

say

I spent years trying to break
the horrible spell of past
to free myself
from its shame
but such nights
bring it back
like an abandoned baby
in their cautious arms
and when I take
it does not cry
or scare me with frenzy
it sleeps beside me
chubby-lipped and pillow
and the nights do to
beside me

I don’t know…
some stillness here
makes us one

02:30 am

something of tiring
soothes the soul
lemon eyes
lettuce body
and yield

when thoughts swivel,
as vision bugs, in moving mind
when the cradle of the heart
rocks
and bed
becomes an anchor
a tundra ecosystem
of surrender:

the breaths
faintly white like
gentle ash
ruffle around,
and something little of the jaw
lets go a little,
and the fingers
stop fighting

time disperses
and all writing stops.

You turgid, pompous, twitchy, you leave
No room for word. For thought, for
Silence violins, for tip toeing quiet
I am paltry poet, a woman of pursed lips
And body twined like a thread between
Your thoughtless finger and thumb
I was to dress in weightless garments
And skip a cricket about the greens
There was nothing in me contained.
You fill me up like a memorial wall

And dust me everyday before dawn
And you polish the hundred frames
That hang with mirrors clean as sun
Within which peer the hundred eyes
Of people who mourn themselves sweet
And a sag of roses red as me
Mourning itself about my feet
You bring me no gifts but a sorrow
That is not mine. With kisses sharp
As lemons, you soothe me then
Into the night, and you wipe the faces

Clean and you love me till I am
Mirror again. I was no dream
contorted in memory to a clever liking
I was to dress in simple garments
and write off to the seas, I was silence,
Simply, slow and tender, come
To lurk and stray in senseless song
I was word. I was word. I was word.
You with your hundred eyes of love

Swift with hands that move like flames
Flicker, stone, sand, stars, applause
You fatten me up like a suitcase
With your hundred other faces of me
And it burns like music, it is daisies
And sugar, you - beast, bountiful,
Beautiful and blighty, I want to
Clutter myself up with you - by Lord,

But, need I get up and go
And twist and twist myself till
It's dead. Then turn and bleed in peace
For long - then void and white - love,
You will. You will not kiss me again
To sleep.

Tell you a secret
I’m going to meet the crescent tonight
He followed me around
As I ran though the woods behind my house
a denim bag bouncing on my back
Behind the coal-coated trees, he hid
and emerged only when I begged
—Where do you go, he asked.

away— away from it all.
I locked myself in the basement
Left her nothing to live for
I’ll be far when her stinking body is found
asked the wolves for a ride
We are to meet by the arid hill
Go now—banish like you always do
I do not wish to be seen by a light
So he crawled behind a placid cloud
And I was off again

Ran till eerie voices begin their waltz
—and coward of this heart yelled for him again.
We talked till the dawn
And I walked back to the sick brick cottage
unlocked myself, I wiped her stained cheeks clean,
—apologised
And she was out again—
for yet another day with the world
her mysterious lover

now I am to wait by the window
Where a caravan of dark will pick me up
And carry the light of me
away— away from it all
up; up into the deepening sky.
and he has promised me a circus of stars
We’ll sit at the shore of night
—dream of horizons undreamt

and he has promised me a swim
we’ll plunge into the sun-kissed waters
and watch galaxies collapse into each other
—eternities and breaths away
explosions, explosions and explosions
voiceless—voiceless— voiceless
Remnants of wars between stars
memories of folks who withered
centuries ago—

Then I’ll come back to myself
At waking of the light
disband into the scattering crowd
—confetti.
and in return for his favour
I am to live with myself
till death comes to lift the day away.

I know that in some other dimension
—perhaps beneath a crease in the warp of time
They like to rip flesh off bits of bones
of lovers and friends
dress it up in spices and sauces for feasts—
And their kings do it, and they do
Children are taught, and
house-wives prepare them for special guests
Humans, wrapped in sacks, are sold
in markets— or traded like rice

I know some take pride in the love-kisses
their whips leave on flushed skins
And tallest of corpses are chopped like logs
—carried like crops; cleaned and
beautified— like porcelain; somewhere,
screams are sung on weddings and
Lyre strings talk about mothers’ pleas
Where gatherings of men and women and wealth
are served with their own roasted limbs

Where molestations await invitations
which are not scarce—
I know some like to beautify battlefields
and scattered fingers and ribs and feet and—
I know that tulips are planted in blasted skulls
And children leave paper-boats in warm, rosy puddles
— stars are extinguished for their
unbearable lights and moons are
exploded on festival nights—

I know you look at me and wonder
if I admire canvases gigantic
with stories loud and heroes bewildering
I know you ask of my role on this street,
at this moon, with you of all planets
—and plants, but I only
know of the canvases they burn

—and canvases they tear and
canvases used as shrouds and— canvases
that wipe away clogged ruby tears
I only know of the flowers I painted—
Colours I yelled at
for they were not bright
And the painting I buried under coats of white
for it was not pretty—
The memory I killed over and over and over and over and—
Watched the cadaver walk right through
its death

I know I was not called, nor welcomed
And I know there are worse wars to be ceased
but I only see the bruises on
this child’s dusty face, and bones—
bones and how they push at his ragged flesh
I know not of the demon that lurks within his shadow
Or what tales you carry under your glamorous suit
or what told him to try running with your coins—

And I know there are worse wars to be ceased
—I know there are worse wars to be ceased
and I know— but please for the sake
of dawn’s first ray, of sea’s first breath
don’t hurt him—

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

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—

Your majesty, I’m not here as a beggar
I am here to deliver to you a letter
carved on a bruised piece of wood
And why not paper you may ask
For life can tear you up, says good

Travelled without a moment of rest
for I’m here to deliver you a request
Plea of a human who lives far away
past the Childish hills, in Forest of youth
Where hopeless souls, they walk astray

I’ve kept it safe from every danger
hidden it away at sight of any stranger
Here I am from a being you once tore
With due respect, O king, I’ll dare say
It’s not for the sheeps that he wore

It’s word of a man, all who does is lie
But to this, I’d say it’s an utmost envy
To indeed all the souls who now rest
who lie in eternal peace away from you
For you, they say, are a knife in the chest

Pardon me, lord, please, leave him alone
He’ll be glad, he wishes for him to be gone
Says he he’s sick of hunting in that place
For no one’s a patient in Forest of youth
An escape from your reign is all, your grace

I’m here from a person who wears a mask
For showing your scars is not an easy task
Begs you to pity, shoot right through the heart
Make it stop, end your prey, take the game
With your mercy could he begin a new start

Now that I’ve done my job, I have to go
I too loathe you, thought you ought to know
Out on the distant land, we all see a light
O king, O life, we traitors have one last wish
Wish we to banish from your kingdom tonightr

Arms up, fingers clawed
as if ready to rip open a sky
pants —and sweats
and she sings.
a mad girl, people whisper.
rose-eyed, she weeps
as her mother pulls her in embrace
"she never stills" she says, flushed

a mad girl, people whisper
runs through rows of chalk-scribbled women
reaching for something unseen
Sings wordless ballads
with ever-changing tunes—
a mad girl, people whisper.
Bare neck and a bare heart
arms up, she leaps as if ready to soar
oblivious to the world bellow.

a mad girl, they whisper.
as I watch her struggle
to climb up the void—
A tree laden with blossoms and boughs
she tries opening her sewed wings
to grab a branch that lives
solely for her.

a mad girl, people whisper.
but I see him too, I wish I could tell her
but she speaks in colours
and mine have faded— wish I could tell her
I too have slipped off his walls and climbed again
too have tried chewing away his doors—
away, away she runs in the yonder
never once out the chains
a guitar in her dances softly—
as notes try taking her her
— as she tries following

Eyes filling up with every fall,
you'd think she were sinking

a mad girl, they whisper.
Utters wordless words that no one catches
but I too have shouted till could no more
too have cried tongueless tears over vacant airs.
a mad girl, people whisper.
As she looks up in despair, and sobs
her mother harshly pulls her in her lap

She extends out her arms— frightened.
a lover reaching for her submerged beloved
screams as the tree disbands into gusts
taking with himself, her only home

whose sky is green and the ground soft
—leaves ***** at you as insects bite
whose winds whirl about, kissing you slow
slow,
slow,
slow
— their arms around you,
Kissing you— whole— to sleep
where only sound is that of wood talking
and your heart breathing
far—
—far away from the world

a mad girl, I whisper, late that night—

a metal plate inside me, ever since—

It wants an escape and so do I
— trapped, we're both trapped.
They told me it wouldn’t come out without melting
So I collected some sticks, set fire to my lungs
—the smoke came out of my lips
in shrill screams— I’m a forest

And my blood, a scared squirrel;
runs up and down my depths
with a blazed tail. burns what it licks
—the bottom of my muddy grounds
trees trunks, branches, leaves and nails.
the bridge between my brain and I

and everything shuts down—all lights go off
in the dark, only fire remains
no one dances where she does, no one lives where—

and I turn the metal sheet over
and over the flames
It heats up, it cooks and turns red
its edges kiss my flesh and he winces
— melts—
dripping into the fire—
gone—
and I turn the metal sheet over and over
It blushes but never bleeds
dry like dead leaves, but never dies
doesn’t melt, nor soften,
doesn’t even breathe—

and the flesh keeps dripping and then rebuilds
and the dripping rebuilds the fire
and the fire rebuilds the smoke—
but the metal never melts

the smoke creeps out and I let it
Someone tells me to stop the noise
but I say I never said a word—
And they tell me to stop the noise
But I say I never said a world—

and the smoke comes out and I let it
and they tell me to stop the noise
but I don’t say I never said a word.

and the metal never melts, the fire never stops
and I never say a wo—

Someone clamps my mouth shut and I fall asleep,
turning the metal over the flames
turning—still turning.
Still turning.

Turn
       ing.
and all in me screams.
                             Turning over
             and over
and
over.
      and
          
—ov
        er.

and all in me screams.

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.

A laugh is not a pretence
I wanted to tell you that, Urooj
And maybe to myself too
Because I know you saw peeps
Of the vacancy
Nestled in my skin
And I too was acquainted
With your queer sorrow
That rises and falls
With a schedule of its own
We saw the jolly winds flirt with olden trees
And heard many a strange talks
In golden fields of youthful wheat
And mustard flowers alive

But we ran too, didn’t we?
I pointed to the slender tree far, far away
Count as I go, I said
And count you did as I rushed
Rushed clumsily on
My feet twisting in troughs
Eye-lashes fighting dust
Twenty, you shouted, as the tree grew
But I barely heard
my body singing a battlefield

You stumbled through the ploughed soil
Hardened through suns
Crushing the remnants of harvested wheat
beneath the flat soles of your sandals
(who wears those to a field?)
Then more
Through soft, chestnut soils
Trying not to damage the baby onions
And I laughed through my burning lungs
A smoke piled up in me
Yearning to gnaw all away

And we licked the gusts singing gossips
Of sour, raw mangoes
Then relished the cool water that
You forced the earth to puke
(I still don’t get how that hand-pump worked)

And I know you sneaked along a wilted rose
From your sister’s grave
And wept, quietly sniffing
Seeing her in all the birds I pointed out
All the leaves dried to immortality
In my notebook
I too treaded through rows of childish guava trees
And struggled to will my ghosts away
I too got stranded in the insolent rays
of the dusty sun

But we joked still, didn’t we?
And when, on the way home,
I reminded you stories
Of the silly children we once lived
Your laugh glimmered all around
And mine mimicked

And the radio was ****
So we swam in our own private silences
Got lost in the rowing birds
And I know, at some point,
All the dead days
And all the rotten mangoes
Seated themselves in the car
Along with us and our shackled beasts
And the villages and the stalls and empty fields
Ran past in silence

But we had laughed
When the restless winds nearly sent me
Tumbling down the tree
And we had laughed when
The freshly-watered soil tried
To **** us under
And a laugh is not a pretence
Urooj, a laugh is not a pretence.
I wonder if we know.

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

There is a plummeting within me
I reckon not unlike tumble ****
in a lone, stranded desert

That of violence
so long silenced
That of anger, and hail storms
upon freshly blossomed hyacinths

a smothered baby bird
or a tree towed down
Repressed,
the twigs and shrivelled seedlings
cry out
and dry gusts hear
One upon other lunges

And I, them weeds—
them weeds— and more,
a deafening brawl

Rolled, as wool, into an orb
That laughs an unkept,
dimming painting
Jumps over rocks
this wicked, rotten child,
And descends under still

Perhaps—
A brick that stumbles out the wall of my skull
and down my depths,
it begins to explore

The den
where an injured bird
snores bleeding
And ceramic bars that surround
Down still—

A churning, twisting furnace
Burning all menace to gold
And labyrinths
beneath
Restless as they warp
upon themselves—
Them groaning snakes

It plummets down still
past the stars
past the battered moon

On, on ’til the cracked rocks
Pull it under, under, under

and my steps feel heavy
A fat brick kiln burping within
And steam and smoke
strangely slither

Then one more brick breaks loose
then one more, then—

and there is a plummeting within me
Like that of beads from a broken necklace
They lurk
from flesh to flesh
Climb up my bare white trees
filled with mud

This faded landscape painting
claws down my spine
And ***** its stollen hues out
Like those

of battles
or slaughtered moths
Of old, crinkled terrors etched
with foolery
Hymns of fury undissolved
and those of naked, shivering sheep

a kitten’s skull
stuck down the drain

There’s a plummeting within me
terrifying, and disgusting; angry and
beautiful— all hyped up to scream
I fear the landslides will
carry me along
and I will let them.

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—

I begin to end where the song begins
Little rain plays the earth, birds learn
Little facets light to mimic the sea
The crumpled sheet of the sky
Seems to sink slowly upon my land
The fortress offers a generous view
But my people are busy in their work
And I am busy in the watching

Sweet. Sweet. It is a stumbling
Sweetheart, walked up through the night
I break down, I break down altogether,
I stutter as lightening within the clouds
And the thunder of my disquiet
Pounds against the sun. Everything
Everything, everything incites me
To climb up the watchtowers, invites me
To join a hand onto hand, and
Scream myself open to the world

Now there is a boy I think of
When I cannot sleep
But it does not do: there is
Crookedness
In every pepper that plays me
There is crookedness
In every lovely word. There is
No eye that spares me
The ******. There is
*** in the walls. The winds moan.
They ruffle my shirt just to see
They pick the sparse parts and
Spread spread spread they
Deprive no one of me. I am haunted
By my oak wood, my twigs
My sugar that races from me to fruit
And bursts atop the open palm.
There is no God but that
In the pinpricks of my skin
No word that does not steal me
And dies a meagre scent in ear
There is no book. I pray to the
Well-taught wells of nothing
And I am given everything
I pray in a sound I cannot own
I am heard, forgiven, etc.
Now the boy becomes a man
And I become a woman and
The night passes passes but
There is no hand that can hold me
And spare me the hold. I am tired
Of picking at the doubts on my skin
They yield, bleed, and do not cease
To become me. Me me, I am
Tired
Of confidentiality. Superstitious
Consciousness, I cannot bear, tonight,
All these dead fathers

Moving their hands to grab me
From within. I am not much
But a vessel
For his sheer body to pour through
And pass and ruffle itself neat
There is no language
Small enough for me: no word
That does not leak. No - no
Plentitude that could unmake God,
And fix me this pursed solitude.
Though, he... this...
Make-believe, beautiful and noise
Weaves me tersely into skin
And says forget forget, it
Does not do,
though

His looming lure is huge as a kiss
His hands are coarse company
Asphyxia feels again
Like homecoming

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.

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—

A war broke out inside my head
an enraged battle fought at my birth.
A battle won but ever lost or so the legend goes.
Decades have passed since the first ever scream,
but the ashes of children still tickle our noses.
Maidens still shudder at sight of red leaking from butchered goats
Remnants of soldiers still hide behind darkened caves.
Sometimes a bone or two is found; mostly mere teeth.
They’re placed in dirt without any tears or mourns
for no one knows and those who do are far gone.

A war broke out inside my head.
They say people fought people with people as weapons.
The battle was won and ever lost
for no one was dead who had not killed
and no one lived who had not died a little
Our fathers fought our lovers’ fathers or so the legend goes.
Farmers still freak out over shooting stars
they’ve witnessed many that didn’t stop in the sky.
Veterans still get caught staring at voids.
Graveyards are full, insects are full,
bodies lay impatient to be gnawed away.
Rivers are full, fish are full, no one dares find out with what.

A war broke out inside my head.
They tried burying the bloodstained spears
but every flower seems made of flesh, every leaf a forgotten scream
No hands were shook, no promises signed;
the battle ended when the fighters did or so the legend goes.
Kids begin sobbing at quietest of sounds,
folks have forgotten all lullabies
Nights are awoken by shrieks of asleep,
cannons still snarl in cloudy dreams.
Halls still reek with smell of hunger.

A war broke out inside my head
and though emotions have long made up with thoughts,
memories still sway free with sewed up faces and missing limbs.
People stopped speaking of days long gone
but the air still echoes with tales unheard
Skulls of friends were stollen of brains,
limbs of children were cooked on coals, or so the legend goes.
Buildings shoved to the ground, graves robbed of beings
The battle was won and ever lost.

A war broke out inside my head
and though the sky still shudders with the silence of ground
We’re trying. Trying to make sense of the winds
Trying not to connect tides with sunken ships,
overflowing with sons and daughters and wives.
A battle took places some ages ago,
and though we still confuse chopped lambs with—
We’re trying. Brick by brick, we cement this rubble back to shops
Seed by seed we’re replanting our orchards.

A war broke out inside my head
And though old men still tremble at unusual of times,
Children still struggle to tie their shoes,
women still run fast through empty streets
and fathers still weep behind the doors, we’re trying.
Ash by ash, we’re sweeping away the left out war.
The battle sailed off and though the war goes on
We’ll die bringing this kingdom back to life.
We're fallen men among cindered thrones, but
feather by feather we'll rebuild our wings.
Flutter by flutter we'll reach the sky

So, please hold on.
There's so much left.