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.

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—

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

I sit on this leather seat
looking out a world
this pretty, pretty strange world—
houses laden with rubble and dust, yet breathe,
paints that creep away in nights, the loyal grey.
people—oh people! So bruised
People, so tired—
Freshly moulded, boldly wounded;
Hung up on chains and dried on flames;
fed to birds while the hearts still beat.

I sit on this leather seat
looking out a world
So huge, so huge—we’re out of breath
I could dissolve myself in her shallows
could open up this skin— split me whole
vessel by vessel—poem by poem
note by note
and bury it all beneath her pages,
Taped to her empty words—forever
over hills, in windy deserts,
under dusty, unheard, seas

I sit on this leather seat
as the car goes on—
Through days and years, it goes by
going nowhere, nowhere—nowhere
so used to bumps, it barely shudders
and the world passes by,
she waves her winds courteously at us
People pass by
And the sky is still—
as birds fly along the same route-less paths
And the car goes on
as I stare out the window
at the world so huge—so mine—so not

and I could dislodge myself
scatter around the sky—all his empty depths
his silent hues—oh the softness of those lips
as they collide into her cracked moors;
volcanic oceans—barely holding on against his
— her— serenity.
I could disband this self—wave by wave
—grain by grain—thought by thought

but I sit here on this leather seat
—as all the words crumple together
Folded and squashed, squeezed to wrinkles
Like intimate threads—inseparable.
Tucked somewhere in here—old, torn clothes.
Caged—all of it.
all of it, in here.
all of me, in this tiny self.
barely—barely in—barely so.
like when he licks her dried meadows to life,
as he touches all of her, yet none
and she shudders, and houses fall, and people run
she shudders—and she shudders—and shudders
and shudders still—quietly— out of breath.
shudders — and shudders on
— never explodes.

I stare out the window of this car
at a land that never moves, never stills.

You do not know how to paint
On wall or on heart, my mumbles
Everyday you stray, cold in my hold
You leave the window open for snow
It passes, through us, shuffling
Leaves footprints on our body
Do you think I am dead and deaf?
I hear you singing softly to it
I feel the simple following wisps
That flake away and land on lip
On lip and railing of eye awake

Sun settles, a fading bleak jewel
Atop the smooth hued neck of sky
There is no remedy for lost dream
I chase reckless, clawing inside
Reaching like a tree into time
Of soft rose night and tears like wax
Like flame, like birds, like burning—
Sweet God stumbles, drunk and
A darling, pliant as clay: through hours
I fashion vessels, filled to the brim
With pickles of quiet. God
Is in the wordless wells of rue. You

Are lost, lost, to blindness and
Abandon, out about in search of dyes
So strong the ramparts of black
That bar, from me the remnants
Of our blunt tryst. Come - come
Back to body, now that it lives
Come, lost pilgrim, my plummet blue
Stifle the sun. Paint it all wrong.

No ceremony
Or invention
Convention
Ever stagnant

You, foul Country
Are my skin
You are not tunic
Not shalwar

Not the shame
With which I
Stiffle my chest
Not love

Fleeting,
Fumbling, flapping
Forced to sit
And forced to flee

Your tongue burns
As a curse
On my tongue
Your hands

Are *****
With my guilt
Your crime
Was me

Your tears seep
In pillow and they
Weep all night
On my face

There is no grief
In me to spare
You bring with you
Everything hot

You beat
As a breathing
Heart of fire
Your feet

Are defiant
Stained with a Henna
That is red as souls
Your wounds

Are flowers on my
Palms, your laments
****** in my wrists
In beauty, I

Return to you
You, the grotesque
Soil of my sprout
Your sins my scars

Your songs my scars
Your violent dances
Alive as tulips
And the love

That you make
Is borne of silence
Whispered, crime
Your law is grey

Your child looks
At me forever
And it moves
Like winds, it moves

Me, it disgusts
At me, and in there
It examines everything
The streets

In your stare
Are quiet and shut
All the jewels
Are jewels of shame

And I do not
Wear you like a flag
I do not rejoice
When you are green

Release me
Or do not leave
Tyrant, I love you.
You peasant, you fool

Your kisses are petty
Your weight frail
You sob like a railway
And all your people

Are dead.
They were running
To you, their homes
Behind. They

Were all running
For you. You reach
In the quiet for me
But I am bleeding

I have killed the sun
And the dawn is you
Sweet, haggard, lover
Of brisk touch and flame

Your massacre
Is my massacre.
Your foul decay
Is my blood.

You - paltry. Pleasant to stretch
To limits in thought. The thought
In turn warps
To accommodate. The
Accommodation
Barely manages itself.
It winds its thin long arms
All around you. I steal
Your simple presence
And hold, hold. I drink
To the gentle hum of nerve
I invite everything.

The night stoops low
With a curious face
Its crooked movement disturbs the wind
The wind rolls its eyes, continues
On to wherever, whoever
Would bother to follow and see.
Stay

Or don't. I will entangle you
In my wrong constellations
My joy is perfect. My adoration
Correct. My brittle focus
Breaks on word and sifts
Through through to wherever,
Whoever would dare
To tame me. Come

Or don't. We wait -
Your ambiguity
Fools no one. Not me,
No one. It whirls
Into itself, pretty with wit, and
In a moment's shift,
When dizzy it falls,
You know where
It will fall.

Song, thaw me
Music, voluntary gloom, I smoke
The turbid threads of lone
And let it stir the blood in me
Pills of ponder, the bottle
Of movement. Dance instilled
In my wooden neck. I am
Not astray in the moors
Of monotony. I am grass
Aged gold through days of speed
Blind sun stumbles, a ball
Shoved about in the faceless
Facets of the sky. The night
With its thousand vertices
Does not ***** me. What is this
This meagre crop, this
Dry highway of my skin. It gleams
Like a lake, and they mistake me
For a lover. Why do I tarry
So long before sleep?
Why does my heart
hurl itself about the room
I watch with a clutched chest
Fearing the fan would tear it down
And my mind with a thousand
Vertices makes constellations
Constellations too many
No room is left for the darkness
Noisy disquiet yawns in my bones
And they crack their necks
But God is dust on my shelves
And his angels are lit
In a paltry poignance
There is no lament or disection
Poetry is a slave to sorrow
And the sorrow is not mine.
This sorrow is borrowed, stollen
From a foothpath of grey
Ragged and tattered, used
Thrown. Stained with a love
That is not mine.

Song, thaw me on
The poem is so close
To completion... it is so close
To spreading its sensuous
Wings. It sounds
A perfect tint of green, the
Wind blows and almost,
Almost it

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

I am a monument
Someone was here
Some stone was carved
Some sketches made, remade
Some alterations...

I stand strong now
The creases of my neck
Are placed just right
And they can name
All of my veins

Someday, I will move
And my joints will crack
Then I will rub my eyes,
I will yawn,
And then I will curl up on the floor
And sleep for a long,
Long time

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

I waited: the winter
was draped over my feet
my eyes were beginning to pickle -
the lamplight was oil
waiting was the flavor -
slowly... they softened

and then,
some time after midnight
I hear the clatter of stars
as you bring your stories in a basket
the sky spreads itself for you
and you speak so much
everything begins to yawn

I close my eyes to sourness
and feel the months fall around us
bouncing, not quietly,
not loudly, just
enough for company
and I cannot sleep while you speak
I... am waiting.

3.
Picture:
smog pilfers
away some stars;
some cars
my words

Silence:
like a pinch, a piercer,
a piercing

Little winter:
a pistachio
salty, sweetly
confined a bead
I crack the door open
I eat it up

Clock:
a pistil
in it
time incubates

This lamplight
is like a pineapple
I want to write, write, write

1.
Hibiscus rue.
citrus.
cataclysm.
but so gentle rue.

2.
A cappuccino night
eavesdrops,
the lamp sleeps slouching
its jaw slack,
my clock's monotonous cadence
is loyal as always

4.
A quaver
from a cadaver
that is what muttering trucks
do to the night

It is like startled birds:
they never sit back just right

5.
Insomniac mosquitos
have a *******, I think

The night sky
moves like a swarm

I watch it like a friendless owl
but I am happy

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

Quick, since home
Peeps in view
The oscillations
Become familiar
The feeling
Of conclusion
Fills the body

I am watching
The rear view eyes
Deep in scrutiny
The poor sky shuffles
Its feet, cloaks
Itself

Swift tides move
And the laces of the road
Move with them
I fidget on my seat
Hear the violent music
Rise behind us

Quick, now, the storm
Is on its way
Soon, the world
Will start its run
Trees are looming
Already, and
The door to home
***** like a wing

Stop, now, stop and
Rush through
Bar the windows,
Blind them, shake
The fireplace awake
And, little fly, bake
Your biscuits and read
Your books, till the edge
Of day breaks
And clever dust
Lulls you to sleep

Quick, quick, quick.

But the rear-view eyes
Leap upon me
Precise as leapords,
Prying, plying
With sharp disquiet
Cold rain tusks
And I speed
Reckless forward.

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)

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

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

Pull all the weeds away.
Rows of caravans- unwavering oceans
- cold, ****** tides; under and over
the wandering moons and the weeping stars
Grab by the necks and
pull the unwelcomed out-
this sacred dirt will have no more.
Pull out, like the sea did in-
Echoing, chocking, musical screams
Bloming, wilting, weightless beings

Once more yet once more!
Come! The hungry void will hold some more.
Once more then once more!
How many were not puked out on the shore-

Rugged beds stabbing the skins
pre-engraved with tales untold.
dripping canvas of bruised camps
Let the clouds bleed over; they stained our
streets with their spitting wounds.
Let the winds wash away, far from here.
Take them along, O draining sun!
These dirt-stained faces can't blend in ours
unborn shivering, tired in wombs-
newborn silent, still as windless skies.

Once more yet once more!
Come! The starving dirt will take more treats
Once more then once more!
How many were sublimed off on the streets-

Flocks of lambs, follow they, the burning sun
Broken glass- scattered shards- missing, lost
Snarling lions, waiting, in bushes- in bygone homes
Thirsty seas, desperate for survivors- forgotten shores
Tempted despair, devours and embraces the petite lives
Impatient death being impatient death ebbing them away.

Uninvited unbidden unaccepted unwanted-
embers roaming the vacant sky, searching home.

Pull all the weeds away
- this is not their home.

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

outside, the cosmos swirls on,
in here, the daisies scream
and ask the walls of who they cage
they silenced stand

one prayer was broken,
and one hushed;
one was hazy,
and one too late.
one then, never offered

in the age-slicked thread
of that shapeless rosary
sun on moon falls
with naught a sound
but a sigh.
and moon on sun still

within, a finger, a finger flays—
one nail was chipped
one’s skin too dry
one, imperfect a temptation,
and aching for ache one.
one then,
left alone with a clot

ask the walls
of their unwavering serenity
as hollow, massless bones
they stand

laced with cracks,
with clatter, with
thousands an uncounted
blemished prayer,
and skins as
paints scrapped off—

waiting, waiting;
to smother the daisies
to a quiet marrow

Settle now,
you tyrant prince
So pretty your tantrums—

There is a chaos
oozing out of this weaved stronghold
so quiet,
no kings, no servants hear.
Guards joke on of drinks and thunder
Mothers, with children,
wander, and so do moons and ghostly clouds
But you will not sleep,
what is wrong?
(what did you do?)

What old folks’ lore
awaits our fall
to fill the blank of its words—
What dogs sniffing around,
a thousand suns after,
for the long-smothered stench of our bones?

Then, so lovely a waking—

Dare not you stir, wretched bloom! Dare not
you whimper or flinch
Still now!
As rats we stand
to the great shadow
of our unleashed beast

Surely, some doubts lurk inside its head—
Surely, we are the dead; surely, statues…
Never known a taste of life,
surely, tasteless we!

and pleas and pleas fill up our eyes
As, slowly, the beast moves

Hush now!
do not you flutter, do not sing.
Still, still—
as, oh, the shadow
smaller goes.
Oh, far, and now further

so close we were to an eternal night

(and the flock of birds
to sun sails
as winter crawls behind)

Had you giggled a smallest of tides—
oh, but don't you stir now!
Give me your hands,
your soft-skinned ankles
and neck young—

It is alright.

You’ll grow up to paint
wonders on these ropes and
They will not ***** as much later
No, not snakes! Ropes they are. See! Harmless—
Hush now!
Not a whine, precious child,
not an accidental sob

(the winter comes, I know,
but dare not you shiver.)
Still behind a betraying gust
may hide the unleashed beast, so
be done with this excited foolery.
Hush! Don’t you weep—
No, the beast still lurks; it does,
it does, it does, and dare not you move!

You’ll bring upon us a plummet undying

Stop now! Stop with your flutter, your
trembling gaze,
stop, stop, please—

Wordless? Could I write a  poem with silence?
the skid-slide of the road
the burden of a sudden night on me

Sometimes, I fall asleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand
little book open... it may seem so lovely
look at her!
huddled up with her little thoughts
a true writer, that child!
but- but I preferred sleep!
sleep was pleasurable and it did not run
I preferred pleasure to poetry, madam!
please take the label back

But...
sometimes the pen runs out of ink
and the ballpen stutters
and I get teary-eyed in the dark night
I engrave the paper with the ballpen nib
trace the words out in the morning
sometimes I tear the paper with the ballpen nib
and then weep

Sometimes, like this time, the lamp dies
I press the buttons of the AC remote
every four seconds (I counted)
write in the light of its lit-up screen
Sometimes I write on my hand
and when the hand runs out, I go to the arm
I write on pants, on tissue-paper pieces
Sometimes, there is light and pen and ink and...
and you know exactly what.

I could never call myself a poet
the word stuck, a jumble-mess
of all my literary inadequacies
rolled up to hardness, taped to throat
I... I roll up like a cat or a rug
words come by on a conveyer belt
and I stamp each with 'unoriginal'
unoriginal, unoriginal
a moving queue of unoriginal
so many words! the page is empty
I become unoriginal
other times...
so little words (like this time)! the page is full
I become unoriginal
Then I get so upset, I toss poetry away
like crumpled paper, roll over on the bed
an upset lover; I keep an arm back though
for some little touch


Oh my
I think I'm going to sleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand


Or maybe...


No, put it away
we are done for the night

there is blood on your breaths
and the shrouded world is watching
as we hold these empty sheaths
wind—cold and blue
holds us
a siren from the sea.
noise— noise
of humans talking and
laughing and rotting
—drowns us
but this shore is lonely

and our castle melts to sand
over our heads—
suffocation—
something too full sighs
in our vacant selves;
and in these purple waters,
surface
we’ve never known

but there’s blood on your song
and flies crowd about
my hands—
silence sleeps in my lap
your fingers grazing my heart
something loud blooms
between us and
—bees buzz
your feet clothed in earth
and we’re alright.

—we’re alright
I ask you how we are so—
what did we do for
this quiet.
—you shiver.
and the shrouded world watches—

minaret, matte in haze
an illusion of detail
you, Impressionism
your bricks clasp each other
intricately, intimately
without hesitation or sense

lips of red and suave craft
tilt:
pyre suddenly

I step back

I can fathom you
from here only

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—

There is no blade brighter than the wind
No euphony as lucid
as entranced she sways—
No mercy weaved in her delirious wings
nor any dead lands
caked beneath the lambent scales
In serenity she loves, in serenity prays
In turbulence— plays

There is no blood prettier
—still, I sense his finger stir
Yearning for cords
as he climbs up
the old, darkened minaret

I hear them warriors are on their way
Lured to stillness by
an injured dragon they cannot slay
and the rain
beneath her guard
trembles, trembles—

I relish the cold devour of her excited breaths
swirling about like a Koel’s last song
up, up the boy does stumble
up, up the tallest minaret
Which has long ceased to kneel
for the Imam’s groggy knees

The masjid slumbers in arms of the tired town
and warriors appear—
Swords like withering moons,
shields, extinguished suns

And prayer mats are folded
by her vivid claws
As blossoms smile out the yellowed tiles
A lion yells, his deer screams
and one upon another,
the swordsmen fall

But I sense a stirring in him
He plucks the stubborn of his tendons
his fingers— a strange dance
And notes around him
tremble, tremble—
Too young to have learned the words
His lips tear open to birth a laugh
an Adhan of his own

There is no sacrifice like one of the wind
She paints a trench across her
wavering being
and trembles, trembles—

Through the shuddering lips pulled tight
she, into him, flows
like water, like a storm frenzied, she
into him, flows—
There is a stirring in him
As tunes give themselves to the vessels
and vessels, unwilling,
are pulled

I hear it all them
The dragon lured to stillness
by an injured boy she cannot slay
—hear this, too
His being, like baked bread, relaxed
And arrows, his vessels
release—
and tunes— tunes soar about
As the old, proud minaret
is bled to a viscous death

I watch the tunes, they
tremble, tremble—
I wonder where they will go
Perhaps down a Koel’s scratchy throat
or sway by the town’s unmarked grave

Then the folks rise up
and cleanse themselves,
Water up their faces, down the elbows
Coating their necks, and glistening in the hair
A prayer upon prayer
hatching on their tongues
—dried blooms
crusty beneath their feet
and rain, a coward— away

A boy is lost, they say
‘As if vanished,’ they say
but is soon let lost
among the rows of funerals
passing through the town’s dusty days
Mourners, and mourners
— dead upon the shoulders of dying
Death, restless, still
Warriors, warriors no more
and the boy

still sings over that forgotten tower
A dragon whirling within
mimicking our moon-struck Dervishes
—I swear the boy still sings
as he gushes, gushes melodies
with every tremble

an Adhan of his own—

Ruffled hair, love, ruffled hair
I tear open the ground above
you push out the wooden door
this room is but ever unchanged
your skin— a stollen shore

Breathe in, love, breathe out
waves upon come tip toeing—
scared then off by a nasty storm
dust feasts all over our flesh
I give in on you, our desolate norm

Sleep on, love, sleep on
I grab what here is left of you
one swift jump; away I flow
this starry night is— if unlit
your shy life: an empty, ebbing show

stay serene, love, stay serene
unmoving cloud, you dance like dusk
mirroring, above— I lovingly sway
I see a light beneath your shine
you this withered water shan’t take away

your skin— a stollen shore
this room is but ever changed
you pull in the wooden door
we lie along with ground above
ruffled bones, love, ruffled bones

—Night, night at last

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

"I can stop whenever I want," I thought.

Days pass on in a blink or two, nights even lesser
Sometimes they linger to catch their breath
while the moon sails like a leaking, exhausted raft—
forever rowing, never moving— in a silent sea
And even if I could grab hold of the sky
and spin her till a peachy blush lit up her face
what good would it do to this melancholy land?

When a grief-stricken snake banged at my door, one stormy night,
I let him in for his toothless, shivering lips
—blue like cold himself—
became the very cause of my liquifying heart;
what could the piteous reptile be offered but
a chalice of fresh, steaming, crimson blood
He gave me his ruby smile and I tied it around my neck
How do you repay such love— how so
if not by surrendering your own doomed flesh?

Did I, or did I not
Roam about narrow alleys of ancient cities housed with words?
make home with wounded rugs left
in places even orphaned kittens avoided
—slept like an unborn child through sunless hours of dark's embrace
Swam through tireless waters—
with a pillowcase filled with tales
Crowned by impressed kings in some lands,
robbed by faceless folks in others.
Carried a plank or two when stories stopped earning me food

All worth another flip of the unheard page
Did I or did I not then forget it all—

As winter moved on to the land next door
sky stole away the very snow she had once abandoned;
lifted the frosty veil off her sun's flushed face
But even as fox gloves and lilies opened their arms,
I let the snake stay in my castle walls
sent out an army and fought wars against stars
when he said he deplored the light
He grew up fast, developed a habit of hissing—

And the neighbourhoods passed like ecstatic tides
left behind by unstopping ships

The moon keeps chasing his blooming sun,
never too far from her rays
and they kiss in the mornings and kiss in the dusks
And the sky steals quick glances at sea,
as he smiles knowingly
The snake fills up a goblet of wine,
feasting upon treys filled with meat—roasted and boiled and baked

And I stumble through empty streets, vomiting out all but him—
Vomiting out all that’s left of me—

"I can stop whenever you want," he whispers.

(Nice Dream)
Radiohead croons like a cat
My headphones lie next to my head
But I hear everything
It is saturated now. I am made
Of music and white noise.
On the precipice of sleep,
I possess no arms, legs, past
Just a dull ache in my ear
Where the pillow has pressed
For far too long.
The Tuesday evening
Demands more of me
But I lie careless like a spoon
I let everything pass by
However... wherever
(Nice Dream)
For the first time in years,
I wish that I had not been.
Or had been a little less.

Sombre heaven, you look just right in pink
Clothed and cloaked, silken limbs of ancient lore
Everything droops round the drape of your lace
My eyes stumbling lurking, running, returning

I will - I could take anything miniscule
Bare minimum, pitiful, pathetic, muggy
Bitter rain - but you refuse to yield, just like me
Is this why our touch fails so simply?
Because we're too similar for revolution?
Defeat has me nauseous, mildly in love

Sweet, sharp, a little painful, a little blue
You leave no scent when gliding by

Some admiration, please
something akin to a pill or
a sudden welcome warmth
I want to be put to sleep

a sleep of no tremors or waking
but not death, not quite
like satisfaction or tea, some instilling
of the sea in me
I thought I had quite grasped
a thread or two
but I am paper now
I have no word to write
no light to write in
I have no thought, and I cannot think

some affection would do
some small touch
some bowl to melt into
some flame as well

I want the night to stay
I want to sleep it away
Poetry is for nothing now
I write to satiate
to not weep, or to not fiddle
to remember, or to clear up
to love poetry
or to gather myself up

But the bed is warm and still a pond
and I wish to weep
I wish words were there to stay
I wish they could pat or touch
stoke my hair with an inhuman presence
some song would do
some voice/whisper/word
some sigh or solidity, some affirmation
I am so lonely
I will eat myself up

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

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

Some people are so fiery a sky
No thunder rules their ground—
no ablazed suns

Some people run to other people;
they take less or more of their lands
—like all they have or
A little more still
to the furious seas where no god lurks.

Some still, are glass
or breaking bits of it
They love a sky, with lightening
ploughed.

Some nights are restless, oozing words
Some,
So vacant a fall—
Some then, somewhere within.

No thunder, no people, linger on this coast.
No gods; none built;
no suns bow—
Still, the noisy silence reels
Slow and sudden its dive,
as we, in talons, wilt
And still we, in skies, slither.

Light and little;
mistaken,
so easily, dead—

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