Grown my beard long enough,
time, now, to
announce to the world,
the demands of the new Caliph:

First a rider on raiment -
of black be your fashion.

Then, in the name of the Lord
the most merciful,

We demand razors!
Yeah we need more of them -
for shaving our underarms
and other sacred duties outlined below.

We demand brides!
We can knock at your censured
doors at night:
for faithful brides and
infidel ****** for pleasure.

In the name of the Lord, most merciful,
Madam, may I ask,
is your modesty circumcised?

In the name of the Lord, most merciful,
Can we have more watches please?

But mannequins, they must be covered.
And when we huddle the infidels
in trenches or behead your sons
please, we do so in but peace!

In the dunes, the dust raises a dirge
echoing in the nooks of Qardu:
prophet of the pasts, a ghoul
who led an arc on to the mountain
singed by the daystar where now,
men cut their hands to quench infant-thirsts.
And outraged women wail into the nights.
All for this? All for this? The anguished
song in the valley in an archaic tongue
that the Spirit stands surveying
that called out a fire off a bush, leading
a nation out of wilderness. Now, who
delight in murdering children.
The emperor of the world, is busy playing ball
offering the slaughtered heads to Quetzalcoatl,
and a beating heart plucked out
of a terrified infidel does not move him
as much as the stench of oil. Black
is the song of despair whispering in the smoke
blighting the reign of K'inich Ajaw,
all for this, Marya, all for this?
And the chief of Angles is dismayed, the
spoils of crusades blow back as young men
disappear from your homes, emerging
as butchers in black baying for slaughter,
journeying to the worlds end with
Gilgamesh along the Tigris.

That you are compelled so to
walk amongst us:
this gives us the faith to find
meaning in our lives,
we who know not if we are to be
as beasts or spirits blessed.
We who hesitate not to ****
for loot and lucre
as much for our disbelievings.

Not to be trifled, a babe eating mud,
creations can be glimpsed in its mouth.
Impish pranks of childhood days
forebodings of pastimes sublime.
Nobody will dare spar a cherub,
for the light shines through caves and prisons.
Nor slight a woman noble.
When it rains and the river swells,
always a thirst to see miracle partings.
On fields reddened with blood, the
call of righteous battle.
And awe, at the enveloping Supreme.

And to love, is to be divine,
that when love dawns, no need
for theories and proofs otherwise.
Truly on dust-laden dusks, the westerly wind
tugs at the heart, that you may yet
return with the cattle.

Dicontained, uprooted from
origins and disbelongings
stowed stored
in hermetic containers
stacked by soul-less rows
in the dead cold night,
transiting to upended lands.

Inside, a monocular view:
ironed pillars, art-palm,
disinteresting shots framed
of distant falls,
as luggage tumbles off
the conveyor creaking
tired from endless
circumambulations of the
graveyard of emotions, where
day on day, hopes, loves,
dreams, die, unwaved for.
Welcome - to neverneverland.

There's something like that.
It does exist, doesn't it?

Poverty, is earning less than ₹ 47 a day.

That's less than a dollar a day.
Who earns less than a dollar a day?
Beggars in Manhattan make more than that.

There is no poverty.
There's nothing like that.

Wait a minute: *beggars in Manhattan?

Packets of peace cordoned off by fences and barbed
wire, hooded lush in manicured fields.

Endless stream of labour crossing over water pikes:
hear, no see - river in the bush.

Emerges curved a mirror on a pole: three directions,

The three birds, tinier than my forefinger, eating grain.

Lisping away in the wood the warbler and the shrike.

Wild flower, pops out red from a corner
of the cultivated green: and I am...

On a shore flooded in the tide.

Now     on a         flitting            log:

Rain,     trying     to fill up
the ridges white,

that,      I,             along with
*****, snails and           tiny        starfish
are ambling to escape from.

The trees, they are       laughing wet.
As are the            distant           waves,
snapping on returns.