You said
Nobody drinks
Or smokes
In your family

I knew for long
You would be born
Before fourteen births
I had learnt by rot
The lullaby songs
For you

What sort of madness
Is this?
A childless aunt
Of mine
Had asked then
Which still resonates in my ears

That lullaby is still there
On my lips

True
Having carried that
Lullaby for so long
My lips
Are calloused

No
No one from your family
Drinks
Or smokes

Hoping you’d come
I became the one
Who drank
And smoke
On behalf of all of them.


Translator - Shyma P

There was a fire yesterday,
it spread across the airwaves.
From nation to nation, pain and grief,
for the boy from Brixton left us here.

Heartbreak ravaged the lovers and friends,
for the boys time had come to an end.
An immortal in many of our eyes,
reality burned us as we cried.

Till night fell and the streets flooded,
flames smothered and flowers budded,
under the stars he adored for years,
people sang and danced and cheered.

For the boy from Brixton left his mark,
and then retreated to those stars,
leaving us with his songs and scenes,
his fashion, his love and everything between.

A lad insane with a powerful passion,
in touch with sound and all his visions,
on course for a final collision,
with his home amongst the stars.

the girls i see are
angels
sitting around a bar
and laughing
like glass ground under
a steel-toed boot,
with manicured fingers
stirring glasses of
ambrosia
or down their throats
in the bathroom,
because they are not
your Renaissance girls,
harvest goddesses
with lips and cheeks
stained cherry-red.
nobody paints these girls,
their rouge is more
like blood.
they would sooner hang
from a rope, frayed and brown
than a bright museum wall,
for no mahogany frame, or
shining pedestal
knows the grace
of turning aimlessly on
vinyl swivel stools,
making small talk
while their feathers fall
one by one.

So little to do
and so much time.

come on little moon
come down
don't let me sleep alone
rest your soul beside me
please be my one-night-remedy
fix my pain and sorrow
then just leave me tomorrow

my fingers have become bored with
the quicksand of routine
they prefer to dance erotically over my typewriter
frolicking like naked ballerinas
over an ancient stage
spilling their secret thoughts
onto blank page,
after their day job
threaded together
over my lap,
or bending over to
reveal the contents
of my burlap sack

they have taken instead
to jumping over cracks
in the nothing of night
stifling the sound of silence
with assortments of clicks and clacks
punching in the perfect pitch of keys
to leave Beethoven blind
from this symphony of notes combined

and just like that at last
they have unfolded some rhyme
unachievable with ink and pencil,
without the stencil of time
dictating to work inside the lines