In a blank by the shroud of the night,
here by the mourning peaks,
here where the snow weeps,
I've lost my body
in the bus to nowhere

I am ever the other -
rice field by the river,
where flutter the kites of joy,
that dustbowl
where still a thing of pride
to stand up to the coward
in the bully's garb;

You of the black flag,
toting borrowed guns
pimped across them holy
the lands of the vile,

what cause do you soak in blood,
the frozen streams for?
Sullied pride
for some ****-highs
trinkets, those
grenades on your thighs;

Uncloaked those that speak for you
from the pedestals in our tongue
who confer with us, yet
whisper to the dark
alleys by the sullen hour,

faceless the name of the evil
that stalks your soul -
weep, Shakuhachi,
echoing in the wells
dug deep of the earth

Here on this moonless night,
here in the valley of pain,
here I came
to give you guard
from the evil in your heart
here I die,
on the bus to nowhere.

long that distant eve
when you bore the torch
flaming
into the horizon

every lonely hour,
weeps the sky
mourning your loss,

when the palms in the searing season
sway blown in your breath

our forlorn world:
anguished the ululations;

The hour when
the darkness lifts,
deep in the soul
when the moment comes,
rise rise,
secret power of the world,

knows not the demiurge -
Who lies curled in the cell and root
that rises up in the sprout,
long after the wildfires,
that the saw and axe cannot log
the sap of life,

scattered but not lost even in the
pits of the night, the light
that shines as the stars

now setting the eastern sky
on fire.

Hold your palm to my *****
warmth of the stars
concealed under the tresses
this vast night, where my heart
will beat with yours;
In the stillness of the desert
lone song of the dune,
an arrow shot in the sky,
Here we erase the imprints
of jagged paths that led
us far from this haven;
Your dimpled smile,
ripples that rise slow
and commingle end to end
will settle - placid this
lake on the scale of love
that transcends time

If you love your land
then say ever,
"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

If you love your land
then say ever,
"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

And this after my time
shall live on,
"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

Rip my veins open and
string them in a sitar,
and play the song of the nation
plucking again and again:

this love for the land
should well-over in the eyes,
"Whether I live or not
this nation should live on;"

Let the enemy be warned,
learn not to breach limits,
this my nation is eternal:
learn this truth be told!

Let the lustre of this devotion
shine vivified,

"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

This be my pledge o nation,
pledge, o nation, this be mine:
may I forget thee not
for a moment even,

every drop that
courses in my veins
is yours this blood, and here
I offer what is ever yours;

This is a war for honour,
pride be high,

"whether I live or not
this nation should live on

whether I live or not
this nation should live on

whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

take my hand, walk
with me to the lands beyond
the horizon,

tingling superposition of
pin-drops on the wet tile,
obelisks rising above the river bank,
shut temples to the god of love,
buried scabbard;
the nights of embraces,
red bus out of the mist,
the hymn to the autumn goddess;
curled serpent memories:
hiss-lurking behind -
and the bare bough
by the frost-bitten lake;

Saw me through and
I may flame out
like a flower ***,
hundred beads
of coloured smoke;

On the way, there can be a home
hooded go the nights
personalities, that seethe
worlds out of the keyhole

it is all the swaths
that people the in-betweens
of is and is not

then at the toll of the festive feast
take a moment off for the
***** on the street;

Count the blessing that we are warm
when frost bites the feet
of those forlorn;

That birth here is death for many
beauty and gaiety come lighted
by the paraffin of toil:

There goes the chariot
of the sages, if you count your muscle
lend then a hand to the wheel -

for what there is, that lasts here?
For a moment the smile
that ravages the lands,

and by the loot of our fathers
that made urchins of princes
do we in mansions roam;

Behind the cruel curtain of a shrug
and a nod, lies our risen lord
Alone in the desert calling Lazarus forth

There staring at us bare is this truth -
Don’t window-dress it, friend,
this world is indeed of suffering made:

Birth is suffering,
And growing up,
Friendship is suffering,
And love and loss,
Time an affliction and
Ageing

There is a kernel of sorrow concealed in joy
Victory and defeat are two sides of a coin

We rise to fall and fall to weep

The rich man sleeps in his mansion on the hills
Because a urchin is awake empty stomached
Sweeping the street
A full belly here is a meal
Snatched from the hands of a child somewhere

We conscript and send to deaths young men and women
Ugly and blighted is ok as along as
we profit

And so we go seeking a moments joy
In this world of suffering

Face it bold don’t conceal it in hope
The sad truth of our suffering world

seek the roots of suffering deep