I didnt know when you'd speak
why I'd feel as if,
now and then,
your voice was going muffled,
as in a flawed
television transmission?
I thought I must have been
imagining it all up;
Living out some
invisible, subterranean pain.
But, I see now:
you were a phantom;
You were never really there.
I must have
pinched myself harder

Mr. K leads a normal life. Wife and kids, school,
home in town, commuting to work, mornings
for breakfast, evenings papers, chatting away;
The clerk in the government office, executive
in the tech firm; The teacher at the university,
official at the ministry. Like the sun in many
pots, Mr. K is one person living in many bodies.

In the morning, he worships the Eye in his shrine.
Upholding traditions, one must get ahead in life.
Half-believing, within  'Bounds of reason' tepid.
The Eye sits observing him: sometimes, staring
from the sky above, and some times, through
the eyes of the beggars lining the temple street.
Irāvāṇ laughs as Mr. K walks past the totem pole.

'Bad' is always elsewhere, in the nebulous 'other';
Cutting corners is not bad, just an expedient.
Does the Eye only observe silently? It also slithers
sometimes and shakes the fabric of Mr. K's life.
Like when the mountains break way for the river.
But one K. dies, and another takes over. And so
it goes on. Irāvāṇ is laughing impaled on the pole.

Of long an aspiration, secret, that rosaries
don't quench, unexpressed, wells of old,
that anguish burning the deserts, seeking
in austerities and exegeses, an assurance
in tablets and tabernacles, and mourning
the star shooting empty in the sky at night:

a love protects vast, even when what Is
is not this that we worship, and descends
grace, ordinary so to seem obscure, that
wisdom from far must fathom its depths.

Refuse we to believe so, that say who our
father is divine, that so are we too divine.

That which we seek enduring past our
graves, holding dear in our fists clenched,
through torments and tempests and
tenements and temperaments, can
smile at us too as a babe in a manger,

that the King we expect who, to deliver
us from affliction, can a simpleton be,
a Tekton among us: that the Levi and
the Cohen, are risen too amongst us:

and to love, no birth high nor needed is
the learning in law, but to feel as show
those sisters with the heart, who anoint
him in myrrh and in tears, his feet wash.

Like the rainbow shooting out of the horizon:
a whole palette of colours emerges,
carrying in her wings,
all the embers
of the late monsoon -

a side glance, bass strummed of the heart;
Her dimpled smile, drumbeat, missed.
brass, sax, crossing paths,
leaping on a trampoline,
the ***** shrill.

O my towering folly, that
stands mourning like a lighthouse
with the gulls by the rough sea.

All the tones come alive hidden
in this song that like amber
held a slice of that time
in her depths,

screen covered in mist, as now a car pulls over:
clearing it as in a Mandarin Ai, a hut
and some jagged lines: glimpses,
of that dimpled smile -
and a whole jazz band comes alive.

This object from high followed me
all evening. Sometimes, hiding behind
giant reeds shooting from the earth,
sometimes behind mist sprays.

The sea surging in the firmament
conceals it in her tresses now,
She who weeps her agony out
late every season in bereavement.

Her tears have filled up the valleys
on earth, with brackish waters.
Tonight the grilles that paint
the distance grey are wet by them.

I took a secret look, turning away
blushing on sudden reciprocation.
In the broken mirrors strewn
all over my lawn, it dunks winking:

ripples on the mirror, awash abashed:
light playing with shades of
delight, dejection, elation, suspension,
pulsation, susurration, salvation.

On late the by-lanes one night,
unusual spot I green, a bottle
like any, but for words, may be,

on the label printed:
'Old wine. Hamlin. Best before: the future'

Scarred, the mouth, to fire
a rocket used, ringing in a day
when celebrating, a hero,
Goliaths thumped by a David new.

Hope, on the horizon, the word rising.

Threw it away, almost I, when
reversed comes, rolled up a parchment,
by ash burned, from the *******, a part:
a mix strange of clippings and retort.

Marked, astonished, the date, I: was it
from today, even of TV, a listings part;

'...mesmerized by the language of hope';
'Parks fill up as people gather to celebrate';
'Our democracy is alive and how'.

Of proportions messianic, news frothing
how new born, a leader is. Familiar all :
myself now, from one such, returning.

But curious, written, the words indeed:
'Monuments wear and rivers thin,
as boatmen sing the evening song,
miracle-workers and peddlers of
honey and mead, pipers at the gates
of dawn, not men of mettle and deed'

Of a piper, suddenly, as in a fantasy
a song, and heard I, helpless, wails
of mothers, a hundred .

Strained, to read, further my eye,
when tore up the piece;
Broke up green, a bottle on the street.

Airwaves awash in the new gospel barrage:
calling forth the neighbourhood hack,
Abe Lincoln toon in towering hat,  
the corporation is coming -
will you not
collaborate my friend?

Everything good that you ever dreamed of is here:
Marbonite floored flats with self-terraced roofs;
The swankiest of cars, in imported hues;
Your arm candy drools,
now, brands, bigger brands!

All in your grasp, now, in community gates
shut safe as society decays.

Skies spitting frogs? Pestilences amass?
Listen to the Gospel according to Bane:
in the desert, smell octane. Hallelujah,
everything we make, from watches
to headscarves - your underwear is cheaper
sourced from the next so-lala-land.

Forget your sources tiny of incomes varying:
Bakers, cobblers, tinkerers, we also have
a uniform for you. Oh you rustic
tradition-bound bandy bumpkins!
Abandon your alleyways, and
welcome to the ghettos...where

What you eat, to where to retreat:
we cure everything from heartache to panache.

Wash away your sins in wonder medicines;
Waters can part, yes, see how the Pharoah
is disarmed; Big city dreams, dream
global manna beams. All that is needed for
salvation, is a little bit of classification. Are you
left-wing or right? Center-left or center-right?

The powerdrill tearing down edifices
resonating through noon. A crane arm's shadow
hovering high by the moon. Tablets from skies
now proclaim the new gospel for the land,
the airwaves are awash
of the miracle of Witwatersrand.

The corporation is coming, to a store near you:
Amen! Will you not, then, collaborate, my friend?