The year that went by
was interesting:
very interesting,
and I did way many things,
and didnt
do many other things;
Among them,
this one little thing
that I know I should do,
do more, much more, I know,
this tiny little thing:
that like the blue blossom
little hides beneath the bush
mingling its fragrance
with the morning wind;
Who knows of it's existence?
Neither the sun, nor the moon
nor the stars, certainly not
even the birds and men that
move about there:
but it exists, this tiny little
bundle of delight
shining beneath the bush;
Yes, like that little blue blossom
this thing that I must do:
I blue-velvet know it:
saying I love you
yes, I'll do it more, more and more
now, this year that comes
pouring in the rains,
Now when I wade out
into the light.

haze across the distance
graying horizon
silence deep, as
in anticipation
emerging from the eye
shadows
of some future time
wonder lines
winter morning
wandering mist
flooding the lands
and homes
it will rain, and
more and more
until who knows when
don't flood our home
this time,
no not our dreams

Overcast in mid-monsoon
bursting over ceaseless in rains
whirl-dancing dervishes
petals in ripple lakes,
chiming with the thunder
bridging heaven and Hades
hot a spring steaming here;
When we walk hand in hand
dimpled smile to smile
a hundred voices stream forth
in the bush streaking my cheeks
black unknown the hands of fate;
Flaming a firebrand dagger
dug into the earth will not heal
searing the roots, fuming stamen
in wilting flowers of the flame tree;
Dry the wells after all the tears
to the sky and beyond.
You are free, woman, of all
oppression, by force or love
unfettered be your spirit,
rage over me, dampen the soul!
Frame-holding an angst
disinterested at the edges,
rain, gail, storm in the soul,
withered trail of blossom fall:
spectral here sepulchered.

Bells in fires higher the realms -
rise winged from cocoon sleep!
Hymns:
aoens that endure,
rise friend of all life,
benedictions
in all the heavens and hells;
Of flame the garment
dyed of the earth
birth, loss, decay and age,
suffering of even the Gods;
Find means of peace that lasts
find and broadcast across
the worlds seven;
Rise winged from cocoon sleep
that it may rain grace
on the wonderlands.

It's in the air, that kind of art
the rant hour -
khaki shorts come to roost,
sour dips for jibes,
venerable turns up the Oak:
and lo, from Mecca to Dacca,
it's raining theories
conspiracies, of how
in the days of yore
even the golden birds's
poo smelt pure;
It's all our deed
from the Saucer to the Sky;
Heil Leader! Now
lathis to the rescue
then long speeches and
many grins - (x)ollywood
the much hated,
whose songs cannibalized;
It's chai samosa time,
it's pakora time,
Bermuda triangle time.

When the mist rose,
fragrant painting the horizon red,
radiant in the evening sun,
emerged of roses a bed;
And we walk on
        hand in hand
                   by a lotus pond
                           in some sapient
                                 distant land.
The chorus of the stars,
hymn
to a limitless vast,
the vistas
that we held in those palms;
Little taps nimble on the roof tiles
the noon-song of the after-rain
drip-dripping sky.
It   was   I    then, and -
you,        as         you       are        now.
Tither have        you       gone hiding?
Waiting at the edge of the platform,
last siren of the day,
dying into the night
rattling in the rails,
echoing in my soul;
Trudge
            now    long
to the aboveground
late bus, hedgewalking
past the cacti
in the garden next door;
flowered, thorn-bushes then
smirks
now the desert rose
crowned King
dew-frozen    of the hour dim

Power the dark twinkle stars
barking corners suspending time
twice kinks come harking cutting
the fabric weaving wearing magic
bending the burning distance
past echoes from the future wand
collecting in the pestles wrung
shrunk reeded in the rock crests
green, the glory that flowers thorns
crucified to the firmament after
the rains departed never to return
in the heart what flames red above
in the depths what fills the sky
pressed to the earth in the desert
song of rivers coursing among stars

Four of them thirteen times lashed this land
and three; As the skies wept over
our sullied homes, heart rending in Indra's roar,
teary eyed, wearily waited these desolate gates:
Where the cove that shelters you in rain?
Whiplash on our backs, the mid-season
Mantharas, we who sent jasmine Janaki's feet
to the thorn-laden paths of the jungles deep,
where dwell the soul-snatchers vile;
By the fires of the winter, storms raged,
when word came of her loss;
As the quarters wailed thumping their chests;
Was this why we brought forth the Sesha down,
to keep vigils under the wind's unending flutter?
Folorn with every leaf falling into the Sarayu,
shrunk now to a stream in the burning pangs
of this earth for the touch of your feet,
this holy night, when we await you
with rows of lamps, that now swells in spate:
prince of our hearts, woe begot for all times,
that we sent you to the bush on the night
of your ascension. Now the heavens hymn
bursting forth in joy, that you are with us,
withered, fatherless this Raghu realm!

Girl with the tribal tattoo,
tell me, what that on your arm left?
Lone, the wolf on the farm
totem ranging the dark,
we are of one kind;
Digging for them old spades
there at the Embankment,
we went wrong at the right turn
and still reached the end:
there was a bus for every misstep;
Posting you cards from abroad,
a mystery penny of a call;
Lost in a circle of smoke
not the signpost blame.
Late at night when the winds tiptoe
on roof tiles and you duck
into my arms unafraid;
Here we walk, hand in hand,
in the rain, now in the park
past the winter eve.
Girl with the tribal tattoo,
we are of one kind.
Old, the totem call of the night.
And the dragon writhes when
among them gongs amok
red the colour of the season new.

Some say the Singularity comes in '45
some, not the name of a movie made;
Einsteins can sing till kingdom come, but
why there should be one, some can't fathom!
But for me, this is real,
every when you walk past then,
my heart rate's on Richter scale,
Singular girl, on orthogonal lane!
There must be those spaces
called Calibi-Yau, or I get and gone how?
Hidden dimensions that don't exist
except in those, your dimpled frowns?
I know now, our branes don't meet,
but while you want to differentiate
and love that done partially more,
at the horizon, calculus is mess!
Gravity girl, don't make me loop
this quantum dude, let it emerge,
the whole thing, all am asking
is for a meeting!

Are you of the aeons before time,
how do we ken, us forlorn
of this speck of a world?
Blank we saw the canopy of our world
where stars blink in the dark night
and wept for a love caring and kind;
Lost, fatherless, orphaned
out of our childhood dreams
and we went searching hither
Gilgamesh to the horizon and back;
And you smiled, peasant woman,
hair streaking across the clouds
over the hills, across the vales;
In the still depths, an assurance;
Senora, or is time of the aeon before?
So long before that era then
to us forlorn of this speck of a world,
it matters not, it matters not

I want to write of those times
before we started counting the years
words like beads, precious
like none before,
crimson dabbed in evening light
the heart, by the riverbank;
When we walked across the town
lost, unconcerned;
Them sanctuaries and vespers
that consecrated a nameless love
unborn, yet painting the horizon
red like a distant dawn;
Song of the drums welcoming
the Autumn Goddess;
And we ascended the sky
and knew not, when
the wheel of time that giant eye
stole past us:
and we land counting
the years, steps and dreams
that were lost, never to return.

Then I must long for you, mourning
like the lark long after light -
fires shivering in the distant night,
shriveling bush in winter,
for her warm wings of green
aflame in a sacred time;
There go the buds that never bloomed
dug in the earth with the coffins
waiting for redemption;
Senora, breathe into my neck
like you are nowhere:
let me swim with you in those
phantasms that your eyelids conjure
past the whorls and eddies and currents
up the hills where in blood
are painted tales of the past,
daggers dug up the heart
treasured, it is mulled, mutual
the sour pressed red;
And then with wings gliding
past the valleys long after light
unuttered the hymns of the heart
that sing of you, flooding
and swallowing the embers
lingering on in the shadows of
the withered rose, long gone;
Then I must long for you, mourning
like the lark long after light.

And then draped in your cloak
shimmering like the dark night
hair streaking past your eyes
them leaves across the wet moon
when you turn looking back at me
I can believe in a hundred rebirths
and die breathing like the sun at dusk
drowning in the distant sea
bleeding across the horizon
mourned by the gulls
Senora, I don't know you
and yet I do, friend across the ages,
here we meet again

now the day is done:
gone all the song-masters
and dream-makers;
and now, I am alone
by your side.

Sometimes, you escape me
and then this giant stride
straight into my heart;

Ceaseless in waves.

Love scattered across your forehead
like stars flickering over
the eastern sky:

Is it your hair that flits
across your smile in the breeze?

Senora, the swallows have been
shot like a bow and they
go screeching over the horizon
echoing in the distance;

Let me hold your hand and
site by your side like this:
scarce these quiet hours
that mull like the blue moon
in the hours before dawn.

And then She goes by this way
silken past the dew-tipped grass
in the company of the morning winds
still blushing in the caresses
of blooming buds of the mountains
hewed in the distant silence
Nobody knows where to
but she walks knowing;
sometimes smiling, looking back,
hair flitting past her poem eyes:
and the valley gasps;
and when She's gone with the sky
and smoke, I gather myself,
life chugging away.

Painted against the sky this prayer
in golden green, one more feather
to the warbler and whistle-bird
a carpet of dew-wet leaves
welcoming the Autumn Goddess
to this our forlorn world
tiled homes wilting at the horizon
from smoke rising in the morning
mists, rising high the distant
lure of the modern life.
Yet here is a clearance in the
once jungle abiding by the rivulet
where red and purple those
flowers of the unknown kinds
lose themselves in the colours
of the Autumn Goddess who
rides the winds with her
bow of the the fading green
brooding thoughts of undying pain
in the depths of eternal pining
of earth for the heavens

Lingering in clusters around the idle seas
leaning inward dotted by
dried, them channels of hyacinth rivers
come like an old city emerging
out of the clouds like hundreds
of coloured cardboard boxes
packed away parted by unruly lanes
and withered lakebeds
and winding roads laden with lamps
the hunger for the sky has skived
away granite, now lakes
them empty quarries that grin
like the old grandmother
toothless, whitening hair thinned out
those forests now reservationed
rises a spire, aspiring for heaven
from this mud rolled windwashed earth

So you hurl that at me:
the expletive called Truth;
But you were silent
when they peddled their
narratives
Yes it must be like this -
Truth must have
leafy shades of the Left.
When they ******
it's rebellion and rightful;
When they dissent
it is but lawful;
If they break my bones,
break my temple to house,
their dogmas,
burn me down in sleep,
I deserved it: pagan
and worthless that I am,
whose belief must deserve
denigration.
But you were silent
and did not hurl
this expletive called Truth -
The meek the broken the oppressed,
when they resist
It's then that they hurl
This expletive called Truth

fragrant the thicket –

this morning hour of blue mists,

hope blooms in the bush

Before her there was substance
but no existence;
Hers the fire that animates,
bliss at the root of being.
She measured out the three spaces
that enmesh our worlds,
order from chaos;
Soothing hand that
touches our heart and heals
the our soul aching
through the throb of fate;
In the ochre hours when
a thousand songbirds hymn
she lies curled a creeper flower
breathing fragrance
in a gust of silken wind;
Mortal heart that kens not
the song of the dawns

of long revealed in the dunes
ancient in the tongues
guidance
for our lives

read them in full
live them lines
as they our fathers did

rend them
meanings accrued
port not a port, nor a portal
nor a road a road
vessel a vessel

compendiums
codices, them
cross-references
exegesis

veiled must the woman be

between the simile and metaphor
spiritual and literal
lost in the dunes of these lines
the meaning

these are our leaders: ash-born, clay-footed,
emerging in the fudge grays of beyond light,
shadows of the incense plumes
we light in prayer

long washed ashore here from yonder worlds
of darkness and mystery

by a wand wave thieve-made,
exiled our kings to the far realms, alien
then this self-lost band
of otherworldly priests, effeminate
our smiths and weavers, liars
our bards that sung of heroes
and conniving crooks our tradesmen

no we are not to prosper in common
with our kinsmen across the hills
but in the name of God, amen,
say peace to the holy ghosts,
rises deified a language and a nation

so we break the idols of the past
and garland our heroes of reason
clay-footed they come,
and die drowning without an heir

alpha and omega
of our rootless world,

on this road to the world beyond the  horizons
the years, they unravel, casketed
events rolled like leaves on the trees
flanking the sides:
some, tall, a family of beautiful memories:
put down, now logged and lumbered -
there's a wound that cannot be healed
it's called heartbreak - cyclone that
breaks on our land, ravaging everything
some bent down, broken pride
and leaves, leaves, caskets within caskets:
there, yonder beyond the electric cables,
a moustached village deity astride a horse,
wielding a fearsome machete, under the wide sky:
where we stopped those many years ago
wonder eyed, to capture on our lens,
now passing by nonchalant -
shack where drivers always stopped for tea,
the stream-bend where cows crossed, the restaurant
that we no longer visit- now behind the new lane
the boulevard of green gulmohars blooming late
all rolling back like waves into the sea
it is a year ringing in:
it is years that have been rung out
like pieces in the glass cup-boards,
shell-dolls, them old books, deities put to slumber
of last worshipped, and books, them books, prayer books
mystery books, all untouched for a long long time
it's a quest that's over, past its prime
there rages that debate whether it points
only forward, never backward, but I say
my friends, there is no arrow of time:
only memories - every event, a flower,
plucked from the garden of life,
ever arranged in bouquets or coffins
in the heirloom collections of our reflections

There a dawn before the dawns
the first of the Gods that drunk of,
that we have a world
to cherish for:
light beyond all death,
hymn that hearkens to wisdom
a vast beyond the vasts:

oh our anchor past the
storms of lives,

this morning, Regina by love,
may we be of peace
drenched in Thy infinite
presence!

two are the shadows cast
of the future
back in our time
it is of us that we will be
us as in the world

both shades of a dark darkness
how did it come to this?
oh if we did but
contemplate
on us that we will be,
as we wont to do,
as we seldom do

are these all that were on offer?
how if we are not of this darkness
for how else would be know of
dark from light?

privilege and sacrilege of the gentler kind
sets the world on a tinderbox the other
why did it come to this?

now, a wring and a toss
with hand on our hearts
for we cannot choose,
a game of dice,
is what separates
of us that we will be
us as in the world

beyond, here in these words
realms of the real
not
but unreal

sundering depths
reddening surreal
of existence

rending the veils

beyond the void-worlds

time is a drum-beat
that keeps kettlewarm
the count of life

awareness streams
beyond the ego-maze

where blossoms
the deepest bud
of the unwaning flower

that I hold to my *****
not as I,
not as I.

It is the taste of the old water
that is at the bottom of the tongue
no not now this rancid season

of then, that blue of the sea
gradient brown, black in the deep
waving, like your hair in the wind
dashing the shores in passion

now long past that season

blue of the late sky, overcast
and vulnerable to the ruddy
invasion of love from all corners

it was them golden kites
flying away to distant lands,
who knows to which far terrace

it could be magnesium, potassium
we are the salt that has lost all flavour,
we are low on that one bit

of sodium hidden somewhere
frost-packed frost-bitten twice shy

summer of reed-boats when
dreams meander
in the puddle streams

Unbeknownst where
parts of whose strings die,
what song
does that violin string?

running figures past the
empty braille notes
in deep recess

what song does that soul string?

pirate song of the drunken ship,
as hale as the winds alive,
but parts of me are'nt!

now string a song for the jammed soul

dying in bits.

So time to and move on and goodbye.
Like the strangers we were
in all the time we sojourn together.

unemotional be
for all it is a wistless life,
aeon in aeon:
meetings and partings

****** be the vogue,
mallet-smash the mirrors
them in the halls of
spirited dreams

barefooted walk  on those shards then
red be they tinged, **** if they do
for there is a pleasure in this pain

always like this, rivers that rise
high up in the hills, swelling in the rain
die dry in the heartless dunes

and a piper sounds out the songs
caravans on horizon
that them streams carried
here into their graves

for deep somewhere
subterranean buried
lies a clothed casket
broken heart, sunken dream

so let us move on. you, on,
and I, to my dance
to each their own.

Shall I mourn you like the valley dyed red
in the evening fires of the late summer;
Or distant caves lost to the ravines of time
parched the dragons and dreamtimes
mourned of long the artist lover;
Or dead the lumber in the wood
felled, mourning, chipped by the pecker
now in the season who tells how much
the rain and how much the tears?
Dry the gorge cut deep by the river of longing.
Oh the aeons lost when the door
to thy chamber was locked:
decorated and adored but so so distant;
Now I bare my chest to the skies
and dare wet this lump that lies beating
only for you only for you
that torrents be eviscerated
mourning your absence
like all the mountains at dawn
all the stars in the deep
all the dimples in the rumble river
wind in the valley bend;
Death, I want not, for I can't bear
remembering how I lost you another time
and life vain now I know how I lost you
ghost have I become alive
mourning for you, oh pragya paramita!
pragya paramita!

Is it the gulf of the night
that the wheezing winds
chafe at this separation?

now all events are memories
streaming in with the moonlight

walks past the frost-bitten lake
the snow, the snow, that
late winter night

I know there is a heaven
I felt its beat on my lips
pressed to your *****
arms wrapped in silken hair

there was no tomorrow.
a lone fall in the distant wood
all the trapping of time

I see you hair spread across the sky
on pensive nights
overcast in agony

there is no chocolate in the morning shop
no river bending
to measure your dimples out
no swan in our reed ridden lakes
unending summer now

and I long for the distant noon bell
song of the autumn shells
or the pall of looming life
wrapped in layers of the night
streaming past the crescent lights

I have no words to say
I will have no words to say
what words do I say?

one word is all needed.
and it's a verb.

not not a name for something.

artesian
deep within us -
you and me

in there where there is no
you and me

and no other word matters

say it to choking throats
say it to the evening birds
say it to the withering flowers
say it to the corners at night

no other word matters.

it's a verb
when we've found it
there's just
no need to say it.

it's a non-local field
collapsed everywhere

Tell me, friend,

is there life after death?
or death after life?

yes, it bothers me:

endless existence

interminable.

is life a gateway to death?

or death a doorway to life?

you must know, for you have
risen from the dead.

They led me to a chamber where
I heard you would be found,
and I returned shuddering and
baulking from the hall of mirrors

I hear your whispers walking with me
in the valley of flowers as in
the mirage-riddled path to the oasis

But fragrant pathways lead nowhere,
empty the nights of adoration

Dry of the sap of zest, barks that uphold
the canopies of our lives under the stars
And we hang paper flowers from them

where? when my call echoes in the winds,
you came and sat by my side, your warmth
entered in my soul. When I cast my blinds,
I find the world a hall of mirrors

Was it them bubble colours
on the outside,
mellow summer beckoned
cold under the sheets
palm to your *****

Speaking lost in a language
of memories, welling up
genie-like finger tiptoeing
on the handle

or how tea stained the corners?
your eyes, lined black

distant bylane of long forgotten
when in rain we stopped by
porcelain, hands
clay-holding kiln-heated

fragrant vapour rising
morning in the chocolate cup

was it your lips that I
longed to find on the edges?

four seasons, etched
in the corrugations
that bore the wash-marks of time

broken - now lost, forgotten
the polka dots cup

I'm just this much to you:
nuisance. disorder.
threat to lives
of all colours but mine.

this hue of earth
wrenched from my kind,
herded across seas
to tend your lands
as your bondslaves.

raise but an eyebrow
be killed and maimed
and chained in prisons
My anger is illegitimate
**** as you wish
and I, take it lying down

Yes, I know of the whisper
in the secret chambers
of your shrines, where speaks
your god double tongued,
all men are made equal
but some of colour
are no men at all

so **** me with a robot
and a bomb, I'm this much
to you, a nuisance, a problem
to be silenced, to be finished.
any means is fair.

I. Dawn

Dark, before dawn
asleep but
for some wandering souls
ask the winds, where do you go?
echoing destiny

II. Youth

friends we meet, those
companions on the thrilling
highway of life
past revolutions
and revelations
prisons and promenades

III. Love

beats the heart this way
but once.

IV. Anxiety

life, that master architect
chisels out our visage
inflicting pain and sorrow
betrayals, that
of least expected
disillusionment

V. Grace

always here
waiting,
with those winds
with those friends
veiled in love
not lost in betrayal

Winds swept the courtyard
washed in the rain,
now the creepers have cast
their fragrant agony wide -
decorated in jasmines,
burning in separation,
like my heart

the thunder is rending
me apart, aren't they all blessed
the maidens who have
a shoulder to hold them fast
cowering in fear?

but you are afar, my love.
in the surrurating distance
my heart has gone plucking
flowers for the worship basket

but all my soul is forlorn
longing for your love
to seep into my being,
your embrace

now this coolness brings pain
now the cuckoo tugs at the soul
now the courtyard
is decorated in vain,
now I wait in silence,
for you, in the rain

Stay well, table, inviting me
to sit by your side, sipping tea,

stay warm, books, wrapped warm
in your covers, steeped in Spirit,

stay well, koel, sing the same way
every stuttering morning that
comes lisping in the winds
and the tongues of the swallows

stay well, gulmohar, ever
alive in a glow of blooms
warming bare the summer heart

stay well, pens, ever meditating
this way, conjuring up
all the stories I tell in verse

stay well, my droid phone,
go on, recharge yourself in your
morning asana tied to the mains

stay well, web, where I plug in
and broadcast my thoughts
and receive blessings and grace

Zebra-striped cushion covers on soft-white chairs,
cream topped calorie delights, inviting -
this patisserie in Nairobi:
"you're welcome" the smartly outfitted
African girl spoke in flawlessly accented English
as I pore over the menu - a posh girl
dressed in haute denim and a sleeved top
walks in and spoke French in pouted lips
as she found her corner spot, reading;
an Asian couple walk in, wife in hijab
and baby in tow, as the man sneers at me and
answers 'assalamu alaikum' on phone
as I ponder on identity when
the French matron in Yoga tops walks in
saying namaste to me, and calls out for Henry -
her outfitted and bespectacled pomeranian
oh don't we all want to be someone else

Is it the waves,
that heave in sighs this morning,
or is this your heart?

here, these hills have gone crimson
in desire

don't stay head turned away from me

these are the rivers that feed the earth
flowing from the stars,

your silken hair
now in flood

this is the morning smoke
incense, brooding in the shadows

I'm embracing the skies
in passion
beating to my *****

I am you, mea culpa

chorus of
birdsong whispers in the corners

words meet words
before they are born

this hour of smoke and mist,
stay still, for all the stars
glittering here and the moon
sliding down your back
bare to horizon worlds

pressed to my *****
the vast sky glowing
in unnumbered mysteries

soaking in the fragrance
as dew settles by your hair
this surly hour
flowing over your throbbing
heart, soft as the breeze

streaming silent by the curtains
unfurled, the sailboat of our lives
on dreamy waters

let them cease, creations
of the faltering mind
dissolve, all the sensations,

cupped to an ancient warmth
lives lived of long whose lights
reach us now
here, I hold you, to the
rhythm of timelessness

T'is a silence that summons the Gods

past the swan lakes, skies
pondering deep in the stars

floating in the clouds, homes
of distant them dreams

past this temple that was ever closed
un-noticed as we walked past
the teals, hand in hand

when the horizon is lit in hundred
colours, come wading to me
past the milling crowds

our words echo endlessly
on the wind-swept streets
by the lamp-shades
and autumn leaves

in the old book that was never opened
the fragrance of a red rose
pressed dry to this page
that spoke the story of love

night of the evening suns

I want to talk to you in whispers
and the language of the leaves
pouring down in winter:
you are silent, like the autumn sky
all the clouds stalled in their paths
for the noon-time nap by the river.

Will you not sit down by my side?
The world is hurrying away
like the floating lights on waters;
I will make for you a tiara of
forgotten flowers, and a garland
of evening songs, and say
many stories of larks and lamps;

It is dusk, now but not here:
center of my world, my refuge,
I'll plant a kiss on your *****,
give me those mist-wet feet
let me shelter them to my heart
this warmth will redeem me

Ethereal petals
blue
unfurling a presence

on the waveless
shoreless waters

bathed in golden light

a smile, a portal
to vaster worlds
unfolding
on the placid lake

a golden peace
unending dawn

hopeless, helpless, confusing, gloomy have faith dark muggy muggy
evening of hopes, oh what an error, how could I, this again and again
same old same old, hopeless, helpless, chimera, mirage, don't trust
lost, defeated, distant, too far the journey, endless, keep walking
featureless, destiny, fate, tired, unclear, ebbing evening light, faceless;
let go, less hope, less help, less clear, less light, less known, only less
not no hope, no help, not clear, no light, unknown, indecipherable;
endless, hopeless, confusing, tired, can't walk, where to go, how, how
light is within, destiny, fate, chimera, mirage, nevertheless, endless

I am late, flying the long detour
blocked my usual path this morning
another scaffolding
rising to grab a pack of the sky

entering the building for work
I see a thousand blinding lights
each emblazoned
with many shades and colours
of the same words

'I want' 'Give me' 'Done yet?'
'Deadline'
'Give me' 'Give me' 'Talk to me'

echoing many times over

I cowered into my cabin
crawling into the cave
dug in through the wall

and hung upside down
like a bat

this is a yogic pose
mindfulness meditation
I'm seeking out solace

when did the week end?

Swaths of air answered
in a language of hushed silence,
spat down by a giant Catherine wheel
hung from the roof.

Deluge tears, the storm clouds engulfing the wide world,
none to steady the canoe on the Galilee;

This the dust-path yoked to the burden of our deed,
beaten for teaching love, up the hill of penitence:

for here we traded the Spirit for passing gain,
calumny for mercy, who showed us the mirror

bearing witness, the wind heaving in the silence
we handed him over to the lash and the crucifix,

Yet, inscrutable this love for an ungrateful world
that parts the seas, and calls to life our faith dead,

pouring down, a heavenly stream though undeserved
carrying us across in arks and covenants

When the winds got to the depths
they came alive, them embers
that I let smoulder
deep in the sacral chambers
bathed I returned in grace
but not before

I shouted out into the well
a fiery hymn
a flaming rant
empty now my soul
drenched in the echoes
each more tormenting
than before

this is how you lose it
this is how