Somewhere next to the sea when the waves are not still, when you don't smell of the summer sun and I not of the ****** sand, lets get married. I want the tango night, dance to the drums late night on your rooftop with some cheap *** bottles. Lets not sign the deal, lets feed out hearts, lets see how miserable we are gonna to make each other. Lets get married my love!

He was the ‘revealer of light’
Oracles he read, forecasted future,
Time moved, rustic life stood still
"Look back and see, there is change."
There’s no trial left
The deity acquired the ****** body.
Predictions are vague, he cried in pain
And he danced to his unshakable faith.
The God revealed!
The divine and man in a union of its own,
Patrons wept and asked for blessings.
Serpent’s crown over God’s head-
Shone in the dark light, his golden breast
And pointed teeth, sharp as arrows-
Pierced the patrons, they collapsed in devotion.
The dead hero arose with Godliness
He is God, his blood is divine.
There is change, there is change!
The drums arose and it stroke bold,
Patrons cried in religious zeal
The God plunged himself into the bonfire
He reincarnated.
Born again to die again! Born again to die again!
There is no change! There is no change!

I remember her as a little girl walking into a classroom with pigtails and a hand full of green glass bangles, today she is the bride and her smile breaks the reality of adulthood and powerlessness of human life to run back as children.

With the house they are selling their childhood and adolescence, five funny brothers and grandmother's sweets, late night dramas and the unattractive maids they inherited, cigarettes they puffed secretly and lessons they learned with jackfruit pulp. Now the roots are being pulled and I wonder what'll be left. I wish people live there, generations come and play on its front yard and I hope my ancestors understand new generation urbanism and modernity.

The naked sound of the earth dream of
The stealing wind my mind left long ago,
When it rained after thousand years
Illuminating my heart with
The measureless lure of emptiness,
I danced to the desolation of my life.
I saw life masquerading under the drops
That fell from the shifting citadel above.
I lost the bliss once for my sin
And here comes the rain with my rebirth
To cover me with the desert sand dune
To wake me up in another land.

We stood in front of my grandmother’s
Old almirah, facing each other
The peacock feather and empty bags  
Of the square room fell silent all over again,
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

Then they all came, marched in, reflections,
Paraded in like martyrs of Brute’s History.
I knew them all, she knew them too
They came, touched us one by one,
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

She looked confused just like me
Watching life pass by, centuries reuniting
After a very long season break, nations-
Travelled, explorers stood upstairs watching,
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

Streets strapped the coffee cans and middle-
Aged hospitals swallowed wars. Married women
Bend over like animals and in months, unable
To breathe they gave birth to few number plates;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

The city vomited battles, human heads
And dreams of muted foul slaves. Men and-
Their violent tradition screeched for blue number-
Plates, lean number plates, handsome number plates;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

Unexploded bombs bounced happy homes,
My brothers, my kids, my mothers
Blew their windows and ran, ran away,
Ran afar without destination;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

They were all dark, their land was darkness
Or were we all blind?
Like a watchman we preserved darkness,
The vapours that filled their glasses did not speak;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

We are all reflections, ripples and mirrors
Of men-dead and living.
They all stood outside my almirah, million faces
Inside a mirror. She did recognize them;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

She did nothing, an unusable empathy rolled in,
The hypocrite did not even cry.
In quiet hours she smelt pain, blood and
History flowing from confronting corners;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

An insignificant obligation drowned her nerve,
They needed a home, candle flame, cotton and wool.
The land, their land has become unfamiliar
And they stood outside locked gates and laws;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

They all smelt the same blood, the abused blood,
I tried to kiss them and they kissed me back with-
Their cold lips. I tried to touch them, they touched-
Me back with water in their eyes;
Like strangers we stood facing each other.

I cannot understand
Am I dreaming beneath the living?
Tell me if it’s just a part of my forty winks
Coz I’m rusted by chance when fully awake.
Why are dreams so large and
You forget it in a momentary climb?
The departed stories are so dear
That they never come to pass in life
The impossible happenings with strings
And things I’ll never find are so ideal.
The scars are reasoned and seasoned
But it was perfect when I was asleep.
I was dead to the world, totally ignored
Leaving one earth for a different one
Was so brilliant when I was buried.
But I realize I was not just dreaming
I was stitching them into reality,
Let me catch all my dreams
That they might never happen again!

In every world you unveil the memories
To remember our deepest longings,
The fortunate accident to grown old
With another soul faultless for you.
The unaccustomed feeling is pure
To disillusion the hate reality,
The empty soul is yet somewhere
Passionate enough to awaken life.
Go get it from the holy basil
Spotless enough to compromise!

I swallowed her and now
She lives inside me or I live
Through her, we are alive.
I’m her friend, her teenage
And fantasies, a sixty year old-
Hair and books she ever read
Long distance phone calls
And delight matched our
Love for Sujata, Mr And Mrs Iyer
And I sat on her couch on my
Despised vacations sketching
Letters to Milena, Quabbani
And we spoke of her brothers,
Generations and cafes I went.
I’m Delhi, Bangalore and
Endless conversations-
She never met and she’s my
Lost Malayalam, postcards and
A world so familiar, a childhood.

Hold your breath and relax
I’m going to stay and listen
Till you are out of stories and
I repeat, remind and you smile.
I’ll get you melodies and 60s
Harold Robbins and Nutan,
Your weirdness and aloofness.
You don’t grow old with me
I’ll live, I promise as your fonts
Visit places you walked and
Write to you all, deep- blue
Letters, deep- blue-letters.
You are my first high-heels
Strawberry fields and music system
I’ll recite you a love story
Picture him as our classic heroes
And giggle as girls sixteen and
Seventeen. You swallowed me
And I live through you, we’re alive.

My shoe bit my skin
He pulled me up
We walked the snow
Singing; foot on foot.

The home out of sight
He hardly felt his lungs
But we wanted to be home
And read My Brother Jack.

He plucked a cloud
Whispered a wish
Drew a diabolic smile,
"Some other day"

Sometimes I imagine sitting under our dining table wanting to chop my hair off, days and nights oppressed, yet not to run the rat race. Partly because I was too resistant to be happy, but with the first monsoon showers, I almost collapsed inside my oversized grey T-shirt that began to turn white, infinite gaps inside mind channels, I sat and watched strange men winning Wimbledon. I stopped writing one thousand words a day, themes and perspectives slipped into a closed brown diary, and I always worried what if someone finds it and reads it aloud in the public sphere in Prague, right in front of David Cherry’s rotating Kafka, how miserable he died thinking he was worthless, how miserable it would be to listen to voices that came beneath my dining table. I talk to a shy Kafka, every day, under our dining table, today he shaved my head.

I happen to live in Central Indian-
Forests, I collect wood and honey
And have no idea about English woods
And Manchester clothes, I belong
To the soil, I’m anti national?

I live on concessions, subsidies
And support, And You call me-
‘Dark skinned untouchable’; today
I don’t have bells over my neck
I’m proud of me, I’m anti national?

I always spoke of empowerment,
Marx and Che run my blood and
I’m a utopian reality to you
But you cannot ignore my voice
I’m not outdated, I’m anti national?

I believe in ‘being human’ above all-
Traits, I live beyond geographies
And I cannot stand war and bloodshed
You brand me as an activist, I’m
Just humane, I’m anti national?

I do not belong to the 80% of our
Country’s population, but I’m as
Much a patriot as you, My God
Is same as yours, How am I an
Alien? I’m anti national?

I don’t believe in the power and safety
You claim with a nuclear reaction.
I see only explosions and devastation
I want my children to be safe, I love
The world, I’m anti national?

I don’t like vegetables, I eat meat-
Since birth. I will not force-feed you,
I respect your choice and I expect you
To be tolerant to what I cook-
At my home, I’m anti national?

I’m not Pakistani but I love them
As much I love an American or an
European. After all, we share
Our borders. I want to settle all
Disputes, I’m anti national?  

I married a man outside my tribe,
Love didn’t notice his 'official tribe',
Our children are a mixed tribe
And we celebrate life as it is,
We’re human-tribe, I’m anti national?

I stand with them with rainbow flags,
They deserve justice as much as you
And me. Give me one valid reason to
Call them unnatural? I want S377
To be scrapped, I’m anti national?

I celebrate my country’s diversity,
I don’t need your certificate to prove
My patriotism! This is India, I stand
With my constitution and its democracy
And I give a **** about what you think!

He will not fix it,
He is such a bleak assignment
He is bigoted as ****!
But I'm surprised
You're voting him to power,
And in English, that would be
Ignorance!

He will push you back 50 years
On opinions about modern living,
He will **** your families and
Ask you to never leave Churches.
Somebody come and look at this,
All puny mods are voting for
A Phoney Republic!

You might very well need
More oil
Stage 9/11 and get more
Private armies to Middle East?
Create more ISISs, Make
All Muslims look Evil,
Give them a free ride to
West and EU
And finally make them
Fat, Dumb and Addicted to Reality TV!

Well, just run off to Mexico,
There'll at least be a wall between you and Trump!

In the end, I never really climbed-
Them, they gave me panic attacks,
Razors loped my flesh and I ran in
Circles over a reverse nightmare,
Spiral staircase, awful storeys,
They all scooted to 1999.

I want to climb down my 1999, burn
And not be smolder in an ashtray.
I hope to fall asleep, away from
The city, away from my guava trees.
I have my history of walking,
Suddenly lost without postage stamps.

Will you take me to Ferris wheel?
Push me down the spiral staircase,
And sleep next to my 1999? Will you?
Will you take me to Ferris wheel?
Push me down the spiral staircase,
And sleep next to my 1999? Will you?

“Some other day”

My thermometer showed water lilies,
While the I drank the sky in a perfect line
Now, choke me with that smile
And let me borrow small pieces of your time
Afterall it's a cashless transaction.

Yong Marx, yet to die, jumped
out of an air-conditioned car, a
journey Berlin to Bombay as the
Dream merchant of Utopia
metamorphosed him into a subhuman
white bearded national bourgeoisie.

The third world girl who was climbing a
tree without Motorcycle-
Diaries hung to her clothe looked
like an Engelian mistake possibly
not from Cuba, Zambia or Bolivia,
certainly not a Soviet artefact.

Alienation, self-affirmation and all
unlike modes of production confused
his surplus brain. The dichotomy
of imaginings and reality with the
girl proven anti-thesis kafkaesqued
him an added ****** struggle.

A shift in his struggle with a smile
on her lips gave a  hint of welcome to her
Animal Farm. He did get inside.
The moulded furniture, preoccupied sickle
and the lacking exploitation
left him a disappointing proletariat grin.

She opened her mouth, blue words
did not discharge. Neither the mid wife
nor the revolution pumped her conscience.
He got up, disappointed, alarmed,
cursed the chap who misdirected
to a class-less renewed pattern.

“Comrade” she said shaking his hands,
the blood did stir for a moment but
the fight less slant , **** suits and
her distant reality pained the rationalist.
The amusingly alienated young Marx
jumped into his car and left for utopia.

I don't see those guava trees today neither the little white teak flowers but I see them as images somewhere at the back of my head everytime I see my love. He makes me homesick even though he has no earthly connection to those images, I see them all through him, he makes me a hopeless romantic and a child I have long forgotten.

They have chopped down that tree
And the bees rush to my balcony,
Dad has cut down those pink roses,
But there are mosquitoes from Aleppo
Flying around my bedroom fan.

I sat on our study table with fairy lights
While my roommate put on her running shoes,
Mosquitoes waltzed around her sugarless tea,
Drank my blood below the knee and flew-
Away to Aleppo, far away to those dead roses.

It was 3:30 in the morning
The aunt died, heart attack they said.
I only have a pale memory of her
The pink-house, protest and abuse.
Grandfather plucked us from there
the next day
The pink hibiscus my mother planted
did not depart.

She is dead today
I went to see her in black clothes,
The house, an empty aluminium box-
With kids playing ‘ring around the roses’,
Uncles debated politics and aunts gossiped
And some moaned inside.
I waited outside with few strange women,
They asked me questions
plenty of them
The anti-social me smiled.

The morning was usual
Mother made noises in the kitchen
with her steel plates and old radio,
Father forgot the fish on his
green kinetic honda,
Cats had a feast that evening
I did yoga, read newspaper and did-
not take a wash.

The dead body arrived late noon
in an ambulance with her expatriate son.
There was a sudden burst of cry-
inside- her daughter and grandchildren.
She looked like the fish to me,
The fish my father brought that morning
from the market, cold and dead.
Her daughter’s cry reminded me of-
an elapsed day in my pink house.

My father kept pink flowers on her feet
and prayed
I did not move, sat with the same chitchatting
women
The chanting became loud and it reverberated.
The body was finally taken to the fire
My mother came late, she wept.
The body burned down in minutes,
Dear relatives decamped.

I sat on the same chair
with my cousins
drawing the family tree, locating stories
and laughed over family jokes.
Then we sat tight lipped with brandy fumes
and cashews.
I came back home with my father
in the green kinetic honda,
I looked for the fish and the cat
I could not find both.

I see a rainbow, a petite spark
Out of colonist's burrow,
The judge stirred his ink
Winked a little; scintillation!
They made love, at the
Shaft’s end, bourgeois’ couch
And marble halls, unmasked
Art did not meet camera, my friend.

It's that time of the year again,
There are jasmine buds
Inside my pocket
And I walk my yard
With ink stains on fingers.
At a distance
I see you and take refuge
In your love
The hooting breeze
Walk my door, but
When I sit to write
Love poems, there
Are only bald-chested hills
And ghosts of dead farmers
Grazing my eyes
What should I write to you?

In the monsoon,
I walked colonised streets
trying to befriend a city,
forged fields and bright street lights,
they often vanished inside my eyes
to see happy children on beaches;
glass ceilings shattering to find a sky,
that broke down abruptly
to weep on my shoulders.
I swam in the rain
only to meet those children at the beach.
They roofed me under white curtains,
for the Witch might try to grab me,
plait my hair
and take me back
to her hall of circus.

Every flower,
every breeze,
every wounded bird in a city
are part of a folklore
where minstrels live,
they all sing me
back to beaches.

I never met the Mediterranean neither
His bride’s land nor their aquiline nose
I saw them as shifting images
Like a pair of oily eels.

They came with the waves tumbling-
Forward from few days journey
There was no wave of anger, only an
Insecure spring of a shell-less snail.

I cannot disremember the salinity,
The stretched little boy on its shores,
Floating pieces of lost hope
And the airless nights that followed.

Dear Mediterranean, there are
Millions out there, distant kin
I don’t want those dead on rectangular-
Cement slabs, bring them alive!

Grandma, sing a lullaby
The fine tune you made for me

I want all the fireflies, the
Glass bottle and light an entire night

Where are my milkweeds
Aeroplanes, milk and honey?

I stood with my umbrella
And the wind took it with her

For the tempest outside my land
And no news returned

There’s my Grandma, her voice
That ooze out of my walls

You’re the bride, the picture
The house and a forgotten lullaby

Grandma, sing a lullaby
The fine tune you made for me

I should shut up soon, zip up
My mouth and hack my pen
Maybe I can stay with orange
Ink and licit words spread
All over the place. You bet.
Get me some poison Iago!

Forest and its men; O-M-G-
‘Underdeveloped illiterate pigs’
"Fish! We need development
**** it all, one by one and make-
A main streamers committee"
Get me some poison Iago!

I should soon quit voting
If am ordered to ink my nail for
A caste, a religion or a loser
Maybe I should vote, but
There's a shoot at sight notice.Oops.
Get me some poison Iago!

DIG-IT-ALl? Total babe!
Let’s talk about empowerment
And a survey on farmer’s suicide
But no new-generation
“mushy mushy”, save our culture
Get me some poison Iago!

I should stop eating as well,
Cook books unavailable, animals
Went back to temples (****!)
I really have a bad taste for
Green-lush-healthy-vegetables
Get me some poison Iago!

“Get inside, get inside”
Set an alarm and get inside
“Cover up, cover up”
Never dream an opening up
“Rapists are rapping out there”
Get me some poison Iago!

We are DEMO-crazy! Hell yea!
Where is my salvation?
Killer idea sirji! Killer idea!
“***** tonight?”
“Hang up. Someone’s knocking”
Get me some poison Iago!

If the world is truth, let us pretend to be insane
If I’m life, set my tongue on fire, let it burn
Because my paintings bleed, my tales flee
And my eyes see no meaning at all.
At impossible desires my heart wake-
Every morn and die with desires at night
The masks are all torn between the streets
And the thread that connect them to deeds.

I’m not a higher caste-class-Hindu-male,
I cannot be a mute spectator
with a censored mouth and
I don’t want to be a part of a
******* history
that plucked eyes, chopped limbs
and slashed throats.
I want to tell my tomorrows that
I believed in tolerance, patience
And human rights.
Now that makes me a rebel,
An anti-national, a threat!
That’s reason one- I’m disqualified.
Tell me the meaning of life, justice
and freedom my brother
We were the promises of Independence,
The revolution that taught the world-
Ahimsa.
I don’t like vegetables, orange-vegetables
my land exported
and we got back bananas from
the celebrated republics.
The meatless days left me hungry
I decided to fast, I got jailed
And I know someday these man-eaters
Would hang me.
I don’t speak Hindi, I have no money
I dared to educate and I’m a girl
Now that makes me disqualified.
I need a moral certificate, approval
and a stamp
Just because I have men friends,
I wore lipstick and jeans and I danced.
I’ve to pay a fine, apologize
and spill tears
Because I proclaimed myself a feminist,
A thinker, a dreamer.
Dear society, let me add some more,
I bunked all my moral education classes,
I’m an atheist and a post-modern
Daughter.
I’ve friends- **** hetero and bisexuals
And I eat beef, lamb and pork.
I’ve a tan skin, a flat nose, tiny *******
and a beer belly
I laugh loud, cry and yell at times
And I know there are people out there
Who wants to throw stones, cut my-
body parts and exhibit my remains in a museum,
They need to execute this handicapped
Because she asked too many questions.
Don’t offer me your chocolate-justice
to be denied the next appropriate minute
‘Right’ can never be a synonym to ‘legal’.
So that makes a wrong-carriage
or abortion.
I know I’m disqualified
Now it’s time for the execution,
Hang this heretic!

I don’t want to go back to the city,
I’m learning to forget you
And the city we grew together
To be something that we are not anymore.

I don’t want to see our city
Eat alone or wander the crowd
I don’t belong there, neither you
We were strangers like we’re today.

I will never ever go back to the city
Where there are sediments of us
Wanting to be jolted to a story
To pinch our flesh every **** day.

I want to be the city, someday
I want to be a hopeless lover and
Monsoon scent, I want to be the city
You'll never forget, the city we lived.

Mickey,

I will not get guns for Scout and Finch to shoot
the blue jays, I will not raise them with guns, ever.
I want to read them Eddie’s messages to his Mum
Before ‘he’ came and killed him, them, killed us.
They should learn what the world felt next morning,
Let them weep, sob and finally feel love, for our world.

This is where I cannot compare myself to people,
I weep as I write to you, my bones weak, skin tearing,
The 20-year-old girl did not understand but agreed
With your Mum when you said “even rapists don’t
Deserve death penalty”, it took me three years to
Realize and not agree with your Mum’s Spanish TV.

I didn’t sleep yesterday night, I watched a film with A,
At night, I could hear the boys screaming from
Tents of their Afghan allies, the scream, pain and
Moaning an elite clout wanted every night.
I threw up dinner, they called it their ‘culture’, I-
Couldn’t look at those boys dancing with bells on feet.

There’s nowhere I feel safe with Finch and Scout,
When will ‘he’ feel love and not think to “fire who?”
I fail every day unable to scream, being a coward, but
I feel good, sense hope when I see HUMAN BEINGS,
I feel exactly what Kern felt when he saw Valentine
Walk safe from the ferry, I feel home, I feel safe.

Maybe that's what people call peace
Maybe that's what people call bliss
I need sleep, I want to sleep peacefully.

Love,
Gaye
13th June 2016, 10:56 pm

I jump with glee
And break my knee
Eat homemade ghee
And **** with Lee.

When we were young, we went DYU in
Lipsticks and jumpsuits and gulped
Chamomile tea on table one, our hot spot.
Now that Eapen is here, I want to go
Back to those Bangalore days with my-
Ladies, diapers and a pair of baby socks.
Tim, time, time! Stop, stop, stop!
This is the moment, the moment from
Our yester imaginings, Eapen our baby drug
Let's get back to those hostel rooms,
Jumpsuits and lipsticks with 'the nucleus' on our shoulders.

I saw her across the highway, shyly dancing,
Mute spectators imprinting her inside their memory,
Some to their cameras.
She tangled the desert with the whirls of her skirt,
Walked its bare chest with anklets melting to the hot sun,
Only to sell salt, her monopoly, and sing in perfect melody,
A stranger to the land, a stranger everywhere.

Where does it hurt? I have no idea
Somewhere inside, it was raining, raining heavily
Music and art and love decoding themselves to a new myth.
At absolute moments like this-
I cried, powerlessly begging for help, distressed corridors-
Pushing me across wind, water, light and obsessions
It did hurt. Everywhere.

“Your eyes are black, black as coal, oh banjara!”
I was sinking into her scrap clay
The pedant moulded into pots and toys and saucers
Lurking with words she barely penned, love,
As divine as it is, like onion in peels, hidden.
I wanted to sleep, in the most innocent leg
But she kept travelling, everywhere, everywhere.

Why is that looking into the-
Wide and open city so upsetting?
I saw the bird,
She was looking amongst the buildings,
A space that was hers
Or maybe the space-
Her ancestors have told her,
The folklores and many songs-
Written on the very space.
She crossed mountains,
Seas and barren lands
To see the city lights and
The many dreams she had.
She is not homesick,
She doesn’t even have a memory
Of her home-land
It is a long lost dream
Which cannot be recollected.
She’s homeless.
Was she looking for a mirage
In between the tall buildings -
‘They’ said where dreams prosper?
It’s a furnace,
The colours of fire she could see,
The shadow painted colours-
Orange, red and grey and
Still it required meaning?

I’m looking for it too!
I am scared of forgetting,
Old age and Alzheimers
I’m a dreamer, a homeless hippie
But there is a root, a deep root
A scent, a strong scent and
A soul that is sometimes homesick.
I’m a coward, a bold faced, masked dancer
But there is no rhythm, no audience
It’s just silence, dull grey stillness!
These buildings scare me, where is it?
Where is my chariot?
I cannot follow the crowd
They have a home, a meaningful home
They like the cement, the black air
And bundles of printed paper.
They stamped me mad. Am i?
Maybe I am.
Hey bird, I’m not responsible-
For your destiny, look, look
Look at my hands, there is no blood
Look, look carefully, there is no stain
But I belong to the race, I belong to
The same age, the same world
That changed your fate!
I've no redemption from my sins!
I've no redemption from my sins!

There was a world, a world
Where there were trees, birds
Happy homes and rivers
There was a world, a world
For man, animals and little
Hopes smiling over hills
There was a world, a world
So real like the ones on your
Tablet screens and T-shirts
There was a world, a world
Where there were no masks
No protective coats and wars
There was a world, a world
Where children played with
Water, tree tops and berries
There was a world, a world
Without guns, atomic bombs
Volcanic eruptions and storms
There was a world, a world
Full of oxygen, live music
And men dancing on streets
There was a world, a world
That made little sense over
Colour, money and language
There was a world, a world
Where man fed each other
And slept under a safe roof
There was a world, a world
Humans needed love, hope
And shoulders to cry on
There was a world, a world
Where man loved each other
And  nature, his mother.

All pretentious bores,
Read and internalise
As much as possible
With all your dull brain.
You may have all the
Time in this world to
Sit and Google me,
Stalk my friends and
Assume my life, get a life!

You are inappropriate
To be associated with,
Oh heavens! I’m glad
You totally hate me.
Poke your nose on
Your own ****** ***,
Wash your wits and
Take healthy naps,
Drink cold water, it helps!  

I’ve tried to be candid
As possible, if your ego
Cannot digest, get help.
Listen, read, talk and eat-
Good, you probably will
Start to think good.
Peace be with your
Dignity and respect you
Desperately cry for! Amen!

When the world slept I sat at the barricade of old classics I ate all morn and at night I went out with the characters one by one, I got drunk, drunk in poetry. The rhymes played at the backstage of my ears and words danced over my forehead. I sat to pen them down and they disappeared with promises of coming back another night. When I slept for odd little hours my muscles ***** me and then they came and flirted with my dreams, gave directions to my winds and wrote music notes for my even eyes. I did not wake them, the dreamy bodies that travelled late night. Where did they all go? Half naked body and an exposed heart did not look for a home, skinny bones and busy fingers lonely under a ****** dark sky killed many restless nights. There was a regretful pile of unwanted recollections I never made peace with, they mocked at me. The odd hours became safe, comforting and easy to swallow? There was no starry night or awaiting lover at the balcony, only a dead village, deaf people and dumb streets. The village girl somewhere missed the city terribly, a convenient companion of her sleepless nights.

Where had been the sky,
The superhero and ruby chip?
They lived here, ignored,
A while ago floating with
Ghosts of my mangroves and
Things I did not know
How to say- how to say.

I cannot gape anymore,
Let’s go back to Damascus,
Istanbul and verses you-
Did not know that spread
Wings beneath my skin
I have got stamps and ink,
Frozen food and deck of cards.

Sit with me and adapt
The ways how a mirror shake
Herself off the dirt and break
Her bones, his, endless ways.
There are plenty of things
They did not know how to-
Take, you and I, we dance.

I sat under my dining table
Of eight chairs and forty eight columns,
It felt like a house with
Windows, dust and unwanted curly locks.
Sitting cross-legged on the white floor
Reflecting my clothes, body and words
I pulled my nails, sang little rhymes
And hit the chair legs with my little thumb.
Guests came, gossiped, recited tales
Gulped tea and left with more stories,
Some returned, others did not.
I sat under my dining table, awaiting
Plates, conversations and fuming-
Black tea. It did come occasionally
With my mother, father and few strangers.
There were books, umbrellas, newspapers
And sometimes samples of medicines,
They sat like Victorian women in long gowns
Who did not speak even after a tempest.
I sat there morning, noon and evening
Unaccompanied singing little rhymes.

And to the seas, he intoxicated by brain with his black matt pencils and evenly crafted italic words that sleepwalked into my reality. I let my heart pour verses far from a detention camp, expelled out of a Bobby Darin song. The moment was for music and we did not sing, but together we sat like a last labyrinth. Perhaps he wasn't my tribe.

In deep skies preaching storm clouds
Swinging between life and fate
I lost all the faith I captured from
My most nurtured brutal days
To my inherited nightmares.
The wrath of my stale sand
Cried for my world's flipped smile,
The turning tides wrapped a tempest
Inside the ballads of my December nights
And I finally digged my dreams inside.
I pulled myself over the floor
Before sinking down into the waves
But the concern remained over rejections
And the crimson heart waited
To defeat my drained destiny
But I crashed and failed again !

What’s the color of the sky in your memory?
I know you loved your twinkling mansion
But with misty eyes I realized that-
You’re awaiting just beneath my heart.

I hummed melodies lacking pace
And studied verses to sidetrack you
But do you remember the days
I talked to you endlessly?

You kicked me with at most joy
And somersaulted all around me
But you never knew that I dreamt-
A thousand dreams of loving you!

I’m sorry for all your dreams
I’m sorry for all your smiles
You deserved to be born
But I butchered you!

How bright is the lone desert tonight?
I’m at my store to catch a sight,
Hot and cold fantasy there upright
I’ve never been in such hungry delight.

I walk the Cuban café with blues
Eyes on albums and letters on glues,
Your bits rushing my lips like juice
When my brain pass me your clues.

I have not seen you in a while for now
But the sturdy and shy love you sow,
Far into a fierce gone hair on blow
Has set my calm waves on crossbow.

Reasons beyond seasons and time
Giving myself to your heart not dime
The world has shrugged to your chime,
I've finally found my home, Oh Valentine.

I sit and stink,
After cups of tea, conversations and melancholy
The sweat is salty, an armpit attached to sentences-
Ondaatje and the cat, Abramovic and tears,
The hollow room and my single window that ached
The smell and the grey torn shirt never got *****.

I sit and stink,
Desperate to walk, talk and get out of newspapers
Scratch rich names out of the walls and retreat
To untie the curly locks and let them breathe.
A phone thrown at one corner and emails unread
The world- a closed book with no pages.

I sit and stink,
Jeans pulled down to a wet floor
European closet and the yellow sparky lights,
Imagination erupted, there was no room to escape.
I pencilled graphs, penned letters and painted snakes
Self-portrait, Van gogh and a black and white me.

I sit and stink,
A friend, the jack and the brick house
Dosa with ghee served for the jarred tilapias,
They are all memories. Unremembered-
Like running races and the temple music system.
I wrote them down neatly, in a rectangle, they leaked.

I sit and stink,
An unfamiliar face in a place with no power
Glenfarclas, smoke and Ra Ra Rasputin
She danced. He watched. Her collarbones broke.
He dug his nail, dirt at its corner, an unshaven facade
It was grave, full of pain, his face and his eyes.

I sit and stink,
A ****** body inside the same grey shirt
Scratching names next to the European closet
With the old song from the temple music system.
The unfamiliar face evoked all human senses
The body is yet to take a wash.

A long time ago,
He was my son
Residue of an infamous
House, a feeble little boy.
But today he reminds
Me a potent revolution,
He reminds me God and
He, the loyal opposition,
He reminds me hope and
Rage that pass the veins
Of my country, he, my son.

A long time ago,
He was my son
Today he isn’t just my son
He’s truth, he’s light, he’s
Hope and future, he’s India.

No revolution, emotional shipwreck, card games, magic, motorcycle, daisy chains, silk, marbles or your mountain nest and jasmine fields. Come with me.

When you’re off the shore there is an empty recap,
The mind who fell from the moon
And thoughts that struck the deepest of the depths
With memories and stories and a whole lot of emotions
Streams a new location for this resonating soul.
When the rooms get smaller and the boundaries –
Make no sense, there is the field you spoke about
We can go back, sip some tea and talk endless
Till the morning breeze kisses the red spot of your sky.
We were total strangers until the first lazy scribbles
But you spoke of bamboos and the music that flowed
With similarities and glee coupled with few lines of poetry
That you made me realize, life is worth living.
I know your son, your mom, your wife, your dad
I know your little girlfriend and your dear little diary
And I know the person who is ageless and nameless,
I know my friend, you are someone unusual.
When it rains, I know you’re coming to talk about-
Ganges, journeys and cravings and feel so excited
When you get the touch, that somebody is there
Destined to share the same feeling and the exact thrill
Of every moment and cherish memories.
Let us go back to the days- you the song and I the poet
And our days that we never shared
But we will someday meet at your ranch
Talk endless without the distress of judgement
And walk a little longer and paint red, red and white,
You can drive me home and I can drive you to endless letters.

Why do you not sleep and roam with me, at night?
Talk to city airplanes, migrant trucks, loose wind.
Silent breeze. Tea across the road. Furious ginger tea.

Fetch me some sea, Arabian stories and boredom
To the land, lost and barren next to an unromantic riverbed,
My love, this land is everywhere but for now, with me.

I hear no voice, no music to your intimate conversations,
Let me gather my bits and press it over you. How does-
It feel? How does it finally feel to be a listener?

Days like this, I do not crave a somewhere behind me
Now that you’ve come so far, I might swim with you
But I need a return. A return before the night.

No one knew her birthday
But they dragged her like
The goat of their war,
She did not let flames eat her
But called the local radio to-
Recite poetry, its Rumi’s land.

Dari and her beauty eloped with
Uncle Sam's heartless lads,
The land no longer of brave men-
Shovels and rich coal mines;
Today they are editorials of NYT
And international helplines.

Where are the cowboys?
The mysterious eyes?
Why are the muslin trousers-
Red? And why is the pop culture
Hiding under rich black curtains?
Come out! Come out safely!

Do not let them shoot your
Child, do not cultivate terror-
Bonsais. Stop! Stop being poor,
Stop being needy, they’re
Killing you, little, every day,
Your own ****** traitors!

Give a final applaud to their-
Bombing! Get back your land,
Get back the air, water and
Your tomorrows. I’ll wait for
You to come outside the radio,
Its Rumi’s land.

I’ve been waiting for so long,
On the road that never ends
Migrating between seasons to my
Pastoral lands north and south
Searching for your unfamiliar face
In forest foothills, swarming buses
And basins next to the Ganges.
I can wait till the moon hits the sea
The time- till you come, till you come.

Flashing lights, chiming bells,
Inscent sticks and a peculiar charm-
You carried, they said.
But you’re flesh and blood for me
Truth and reality knotted between
My garland of jasmine flowers.
I can wait with full heart and glistening eyes
Till you come, till you come.

There is no haste, I’m anticipating an upcoming
There is no starry blanket or mount chariot
But there are fireflies and a summer sun
Playing peekaboo with my shadow
Behind the mangrove forest
Envisaging your ticket to this world.
A crew of lasses claims and expects you
But you’re beyond love they could conceive.
Let the world scream, cry and yell
I still can wait till you come, till you come.

You’re a friend, philosopher and guide
I adore, worship and awaits your arrival.
Merchant ladies who walked my hut
Asked me all day to keep a ghee lamp
I lit a thousand lamps and still you dint-
Walk my shed. This life is not long enough
To witness thy face, eternal and mysterious
I can wait till you come, till you come.

The journey is beautiful, endless and offhand,
Walking through lanes strangely acknowledged
But there’s a feeling familiar still so odd.
The walk is not to say good bye but it’s a quest,
A prayer to reach your mountain nest.
There is the world- cirrus and starry nights
I can escape for the time forever from tides-
That counts the time- to the unknown!
I can’t wait, till you come, till you come.