Midnight thrall:
middle of the road, fingers
tucked in long full-sleeves
but for floodlights
emerging off mists:

An event. A memory. A bell.
No end in sight.

Silent night. Mad owls prowl.
Confused crows some still awake.

Milk clogs the kitchen drain.
Hour of the shadows.
Nothing ever lasts,
nothing ever lasts.

Distant clock. Pitter-patter tap.

Stupid evolution.

The gene pool flows on
to utter unknown ends.

Meanwhile we dream up
heaven-like unions and revolutions
and coronations.

Stupid night. Confused crickets.

Spider and insects. Enter
the lizard. Half a telephone ringing.
Man at the summit.

See-saw, swing. Dying distance.

Conches and cymbals rend the air peering
into the mists of time vast like the snow-
clad peak, ancient that shines in the cells as
in the stars, matted whose locks gather the
sky-river in their folds, bearing the moon-
shell on his brow, merged in etherial that
datum where shine neither the moon nor stars
still like heavens that serpents slither lone
the one beyond all dual, red-hued like
the glacier anointed nigh at dusk

business Friday that ISIS took control
Husayba sometime around
I tell you Love Ramadi Habbaniya
non leader. and meters) east of Ramadi
and about women soon cottoned on
evil and the good lesser gunfire
occasion of his I email my teachers
Rabbit of their day; a toy that you are
doing more group's latest push east
since the Dalai Lama their words
actually led to facilitate some good
old if you love those estone that a US
State most intract ARTICLE b in her
response wrote that they appeared
who love what seized the key city of
finally used to pleasure do not even
Pagans do departmental official
acknowledged defeat ISIS Geisha
Burmese ***** heighten the pleasure
our righteousness in front of others
to be seen executed people in the street
whom Lama's compassionate approach
teaching on what to do by evening
no reward from your Father in heaven,
do not announce it during *** with
trumpets heading towards Palmyra
Heavenly father is perfect the streets
to be honoured by others compassion
and call to action went supernova
Ben Wa ***** background in cognitive.
remember to give thanks more efforts.

When the pall of sullen smoke recedes,
and the rubble long rummaged, after
the nightjars all return home to roost,
and tear-wells in the heart dry up,
the hour,
when the wails of sobbing mothers muffle,
broken
the silken dreams that we conjured up.

Under the vaults of the darkened skies,
who uncovers the faces masked,
read the blackened hearts of hatred?
Not the siren of death we heard then,
stirring the empty wells of our being:
but the song of the hopelessness of life
in the company of our shadow selves.

You die every day, like this: you choose a life of slow
Death: through long nights, you burn away
Like the slowly fading lamp
Mourning some sombre memory,
Does it matter to know, you love me?

The mist dripping from the roof and the slow
Wind of the deep nights play to the dirge
Of a buried life, buried behind
Walls of smoke, unfathomed crypts,
Does it matter to know, you love me?

You sit for hours like this, silent like the moon
On an unwavering pond on a windless
Night, your eyes express so much,
But say nothing, like a valley of flowers
On a silent summer afternoon:

Does it matter to know, you love me?

Naive waves keep reaching for the oars:
who will explain to them, the rover is gone;
The empty vessel sways from side to side
in wheezing evening winds.

On moonlit nights of silken silences,
atop misty hills overlooking the waters
at Nepenthe's, a dreamed-up reverie.

After the dawn, the night lingers on;
In the darkened room, hiding in corners ,
and dying in the emptying space
hugged between the arms.

Yet, when snow covered everything, and
the clock ticked timeless, a throb enshrined
in the heart of the stalled heart of time,

of those many years ago, carries on.

I am the river bleeding rivulets at its mouth,
I am time, many branched.

I was a woman who came of heart, love, hope:
I was thrown out of my hearth.

Alone in this harsh winter, the broken woman works the coal in the shanty town. She is all toil and fate. She is, is but a footnote in our capital culture. She has no wealth and she has lost all.

No education worth a job. No salary worth a home. Age is not on her friendly side. So she goes abandoned by the river, discarded jewel.

She went home, back home to where her father came from. There they called her a foreigner, and said she did not belong. She was western in the east, and an oriental in the west. She did not belong.

She was sent here to these rugged mountains by a twist of fate.  No one told her story. She was forgotten like a grave in the hills. Her wails are the whirlwinds that rise hooding mysteries up the slopes.

Un-clapped cymbal, wind chime, song bowl and ney, unsung songs that compete for attention. Time, many branched.

She won. Brave woman, she won. She fought her fate and said 'I will'. The fire in her eyes stoked people's hearts. They welcomed her home and called her 'Khedi'. She's a guide to adventurers who want to be lost.

I chose this timeline. I jumped in and ran my dinghy down this gorge and emerged into a world of sparkling light.

Lone bower of hope in my desert life, spread bare
like pathos, against verdant wood, in this dripping rain,
prayer raised to the grey skies, like a late evening
streak of light holding out brave against engulfing pain:
Lone well in the deep forest, in fogging-wet winds,
refuge of abandoned stalks, music of waning seasons,
this waltz of love plays out amid the melancholy
ends of my choices, joy-stream of the drying fountain
when the chorus of crickets drowns the rhythm of rain.

Between dim lights behind and
the streetlamps below, here,
shades of darkness where
my shadow mingles with
those of the chairs and the vase,
the lamp, and the cyclic rhythm
of the shadow of the fan
that slices moments to pieces,
to the music of  the gushing waves;
As you are busy illustrating slices
of life down there, you Señora,
stand illustrated, in these loving
shades of grey and black;
Now the wind travels far
beyond where the sky in her tunic
adorned of stars takes a dip
in the sea; These clouds, like me,
travel miles to weep by this same sea
that washes their native shores.

Reflected by the mountain stream Have the cherubs gone over the skies, When the evening came I was all things and Now when I walk out alone from the mist, long after

the embers kept us warm When you came leading me out, When did I lose you?

my calm warm shoulder. I roll over in the biting cold for will you believe me? we walked in snow I see the early moon, silent and poignant.

If I say mon nom In my sleep searching,

Who are you? The chorus;
Who am I? I was what you said I was. Soliloquy.
The stars are rising for their dusk-dance in my eyes.

I was love, I was a mother, drawing crimson curtains to play in the park? The corners, they are all empty and faint in the mists.

I see only a shadow's arm around me - I was a teacher. clasped clad in love that others said I was.

Now, gone, none my datum and reference.

Have you gone for a stroll my love? celestial light, I walked deeper into the night, away from your green-golden presence.

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.

Far ahead, beyond the horizon
is the pillar of shadow that
I set out in search of:
Past waves drenched of gold
and silver nights, I rode on, beyond
islands and signets.
I dreamed of worlds of light
past the winter of faith where
prayers freeze and the days still-born
But at the edge of the world
the shadow is still long
and the light-house I imagined
of shores beyond darkness
remains distant. In the deep
the shivering sky mourns
an ancient loss. What language
does the teardrop speak?
Beyond the horizon, there is a
pillar of shadow that rises
in the firmament of my soul.
Clenching a song in my fist, tonight
I rise, drawing out like filings,
the magician of my world,
conjurer of truths, I am
the magnet for secrets, onward!
I have a shadow to resolve.

That you exist, that you know, that you care - this is joy enough for me.

Dawn mingles with your ruddy cheeks.

Peasant woman, I read the language of toil in the wrinkles on your brow.

Why should I love you? I ask of myself. This is the constant soliloquy of the monsoon rain in empty valleys.

What do you brood over on sultry noons?

But then, why shouldn't I?

Winter's witheration is everybody's lot.  

I want to know the hive called death that shelters tiny loves compartmentalized.

The sweat on your brow is sprinkled on autumn skies, waiting to sob out their agony.

Shadow keepers and whisper-mongers
dressed up in hallowed head gears:
An eternal flame weeps
that leads to the heart of the republic.

Fly-by air drills and tableau thrills,
mighty state on display,
don't delight anymore;
Who's the guest of honour
taking the salute this year?
Who cares - this is
a republic in distress.

Dusty statues of heroes past
that gave their blood for a vision
that freed, spruced up today
weep in their silhouette.

One stands accused
of subverting law for partisan ends
Another owes everything
to a last name and what else since?
What choice - this is
a republic in despair;
Crisis everywhere.

But sadly, no one seems to care.
Happy republic day.
There's a new pub down the road.
Exciting malls on the way.
Drink, brother, to wits' end.
The republic don't care.
The republic in decline.

The sky is a giant gramophone of the valley flowers.
from a brooding repertoire of pin-disks
singing to me in the hymns rumbling out song

This late dusk, I am the last sheep that
got lost from the herd, now heading across the pass
in the hope of finding my home.

All my life is on trial now. You are all the people
here and I am in the dock. All that I have been
brings me here. I see amused eyes, and eyes
of suspicion. I know them eyes, these are your eyes
these are your people, and I know you.
To learn our language? I see dispersal, dismissal.
trying, to learn your language. twirling in the men.
I see disinterest. Girl from the high country
I see your moustache don't learn languages no more.
I see laughter, Yes that is what I have been

Oh my holy heavens, that I see home in those eyes.
And I said, hallelujah. at the edges painted red.
have come misty-eyed And they said, come with us.

There is a hope for home. A hearth here, not on flat.
On a *****, I have to found what I could a fire there.
Now I be over and laughter, all my hopes Moist corners
ancient tongues speaking to my soul. from this far land
come alive in tending to the home, embers break
a Cossack girl where you and the children live.
The rainbow carries, moments of reflections unlocking  
to those distant shores  and tears like mist and rain.

the night sky, empty of all stars
arose from her rug of clouds
and whispered in the ears

nothing means nothing
echoing endlessly in the valley

nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing

there is a peace of emptiness
that passeth all understanding

empty of all sensation,
that lies bearing everything,

silent witness of the stars
the mute survivor of endless deaths.

My menorah is three-branched:
three the lamps that light my firmament
one, ineffable, more ancient than time
the other immanent,
and the third, the Lamb, incarnate love.
I drank of the them in a drop
of the tears the autumn sky shed.
Yea, I held a camphor to the skies.
An eternal flame, that
burns in the chamber of the heart
where I stand anointing the beloved's
feet in perfumed oil. This crimson eve
when the shadows return,
I kneel lost in the light of his love.
A silken stream from the unknown
that gushes silent in the creeks
of the heart, where I sit in gratitude
feeling the warmth in my palms.

The evening song of the boatman
rowing into the sunset,
mingles with the waves,
sailing past mausoleums and mansions
long deserted by the banks.
In a moon beam's flash, to the slow beat,
come alive the pasts that
play out by the stars
wading through the skies:
bedecked women of the household,
servants in toe, about the courtyard,
children frolic as feasts are announced
and the nights of splendour where
music and magic become one;
In the flutter of rain,
pigeons hide, and bats, in corners
where heirlooms were locked precious
through generations; unknown
then, the hovel of a hermit
is thronged by the thousands whose name
now mingles with those of the Gods
for a glimpse into whispers past time;
It is the beauty of the tree that bares
her soul in winter offerings to the Earth;
Of the stream that offers oblations
shivering through moonless nights;

Golden, this nimble hour
when shy the sky-maiden
changes attire,

a thousand shades
come playing, painting
the courtyard of the night in grilles,

laying a bridge across to the dark,
while birdsong keeps count,
flowering, healing trees
unfurling in the wind:

the firmament is my bo-tree
bringing tidings afresh:
until a day when justice will prevail,
is sure to dawn,

these questions,
my offerings into the embers
of the sacrifice of life.

How is the night treating you? I am asleep,
but not. Half awake, but not. I am hope,
but not. I want to scream, but don't. In this
half-morning, I want yesterday, but don't.
Tomorrow has poured in, but hasn't.

Now these itchy feet. Itchy tips of hair
that rub the cheeks. Itchy heart where
love smoulders. Some sweeter itch:
but, itch, nevertheless; itch in my sleep.
I want to know if this is an itchy night?
The rain falls like an itch on the rooftop.

This is some funny farce of a farcical night.
Tonight, I love the teals more, but don't.
Coots seem darker than the sky, but aren't.
In this deep night, I am love, but not. In this
last 'but not', the 'not' part is small, I mean.

These faultlines we tread:  
of island loves, we dread.
On the crests, lie parked our loyalties:
siblings, friends, parents and loves,
every love, bounded by sadnesses;
Faultlines that carry buried
embers under piles of smoke; and then
once a while, a paper wheel that
was still, revolves in the slow wind -
and embers come alive;
Suddenly unrequited attractions flame
over: O the lure of danger-laden
pathways on these faultlines that
we dread, yet love to tread.

How in dark lights, shadows talk and
could-have-been's and how-nice-
it-would-have-been's play out,
lonely paths, where embers
and shadows flutter in the winds, we
walk on. The fair wears out,
the gathering disperses, and
this deja vu cabin flashes
out exactly like those years ago and
hope emerges out into the
renewing fair, with the crest,
in that undivided year
when the sea hadn't reduced this mass
of our loves to these island bits
with these faultlines that we
dread, yet, love to tread

I sit holding a torch to the ingress
where your presence seeps into my soul:

is there more I can offer you, Senora,
Sovereign of all phenomena?

You shot in here, a quiver of birds, this
morning as the fires are burning down.

Shearing open the skies for crimson hues
of peace that now flood the quarters, after

the rains when roses have withered, I find
you stealing past the fragrant path westward.

I am become a lighted lamp, bowing
to you in every smile that greets the day.

There is a Polestar in my head pointing
constantly to you: wonder woman, I can
smell the fragrances in your unfurled hair
fluttering in the winds drunk of the earth
wet with the promise of coming rains.

Though all coloured shadows, these be,
images that I dwell amongst, cut rough
they are, my fingers bleed at their edges:
I am in a kaleidoscope of a distant viewer,
the secret turner of the wheels of our fates.

I keep searching for you by the banks of
a lake draped in receding shroud of mists,
at the place where the river bends, teary
eyes moist in memories and where the
the whole world's upturned in her *****.

It must be the wood, that waded into
our home one spring and snatched you off
into her depths; Or that I am a conjurer -
I conjured you into my life desolate in
springs; I conjured you out in the rains.

All the eddies are time-warps that hold
smiles and tears, embalmed, hugging one
another like old loves, that you hop on
crossing spates and reaching for the caves
that line the edges of the horizon hills.

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.

Mary's son is here and my, what a flutter!
Folk come from far and near, just to hear:
say some a Rabbi is he, others, the Christ;
quelling the ghosts, he turns water wine,
the dead walk back to life at his command.

Mary's son is here and my, what a flutter!
He's cast his glance wide, this humble
son of a carpenter, is too, a fisherman wise:
he pours forth his love, like none ever can,
to his disciples, he's a friend and kinsman.

Mary's son is here and my, what a flutter!
Where they see sin, he only sees the light,
and nothing can anger him but unholy
commerce in the temple right. Who'd have
thought, God's son, was thus in our sight?

Mary's son is here and my, what a flutter!

I walked with the hundreds
climbing mountain trails all day
and settling by the pebbles
at the summit, to hear you:

I, for one, never doubted
there was any scarcity of food;
Yes, you were always
a miracle worker.

On nights of wonder, you
spoke to us in secret on
marvelous things.
Actually, I did not care:

Whose grace floods the desert
and in whose law, love precedes,
such a one was with us and that was
all that mattered.

And now, by moonless nights,
when I stay up, alone and orphaned,
in struggle and privation,
I wonder, my friend, why is your

coming again set in the future?
Do you not come for love alone
than to keep the law? Do you
not part waters for our deliverance?

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.

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.

You need the low angle for the camera
to zoom in on my frame: I can scale
the skies, jump down cars, beat
the baddies and romance girls
by age by half: I'm the hero. I defy
everything. Age included.

Look up close, there are no wrinkles;
Muscles, better than gymbuffs';
Hair, not a strand grey, and
skin, as elastic as young. Yet
I've been around for a good quarter
of the lives of you the commonfolk .

There is no start or middle here:
I know no crises, I know no end.
Touch the screen, feel
the sparkle! I'm the polestar
of the ordinary life, I defy
everything. Life included.

In the secret chamber of my private
existence, I sometimes peep
out of the looking glass, but
the glimpse you saw of my eye
blown up, is all you can catch
of the tears that line their tips.

Weeping 
the garden lamp 
flooding all the moorings     
now a deluge of memories      
rush in.

Orb under the canopy          
sobbing to the late winds  
 
Floating lantern
Smoldering to a portal mouth;
One eye of a weeping dragon
                                                 
Mist-capped reminder          
of all gifts unrecognized,                                       
clenched fist of fate,                      
drooping fruit of the tree of life.

Long after, long after:
creeper retreating into
the darkness,
to the corners, after
the shadows repair,

I wake up: veiled face, now
tears into the silence, the
late swan's song of despair;

Silver, shines the tower
earring,
in the stray light
moon-streaming by;

Silken though, after
saker heaves and sighs nigh,
hanging by a thread,
we are, night-
threads spread bare.

What's in the first? What's in the second? Ancient heirloom, toothless smile. What's in the fourth? What's in the fifth?  What's in the sixth? Seventh?
A ring. What's in the second? What's in the third? Papers worth millions.
What's in the fifth? What's in the sixth? Seventh?
What's in the first? A key to fortunes. What's in the third? What's in the fourth? What's in the fifth? What's in the sixth? Seventh?
What's in the first? What's in the second? Keyring. What's in the fourth? What's in the fifth? The holies. Seventh?
What's in the first? What's in the second? What's in the third? What's in the fourth? Old Bangle.What's in the sixth? Seventh?
Gold, gold, it's gold. What's in the second? What's in the third? What's in the fourth? What's in the fifth?What's in the sixth? *Faith.

A chant echoing in the distance:

fragrance wafting across, rising,

spreading like the birds at dawn

far into the horizon blue:

measuring in its sweep,

the shaman dance of the seasons,

rhythmically erratic,

the drum beat that is the beginning

and the end, a comet search from beyond,

seeking death in the shadows,

like the prayers of stars spreading across

the spiral arms of galaxies

through ages beyond number, too large

for our infant eye to stand witness,

a lighted lamp in loving supplication

at the closed gates of an ancient temple,

waiting to behold the beloved again,

a flame lighting the gulf into an abyss.

The song of the ney blends
with the dunes:
as ancient paths
follow footsteps out,
into the wilderness of the desert,
seeking a truth greater
than constricted life settled allows;

The percussion of the drum,
missed heartbeats:
stopping at wells
dotting the scape, where,
the earth pours her agony forth
from her sorrowing depths,
the prophet's sons wept for God.

The grieving oases mourn
an unhealed
wound, of long
a heart searching the
sands, for one who gave his life
for the love of his Lord
here and his humble fellow man.

What gives you, who gives you,
you,

who've exchanged your humanity
for a senseless existence
and desire for death -

this right,

to come and **** and maim
the unarmed and helpless,
innocent women,

and children?

you,
armed to your teeth,
against the defenseless weak?

is this strength?
is this a religion?
is this how you attain heaven?

Locked doors either side of the stairs:
this empty evening, silences are vacant.
Old helmet on the bench by the door,
glass eye-cover raised: illusive presence.
Light from the hall peers into the dark
room, and reclines on the empty couch.
Spiralling shadows of incense plumes
rise snake-like on walls seeking the roof.
A lone spider ranges by the kitchen light,
lizard across the house seeking refuge.
This lone bird late mourns an absence
in her haunting call, this empty evening.

All winter's
spread scattered now,
leaves
dying damp on earth;

Banging at my chest when
you ask 'why?'',

tears stall time;

Pasts ebb
in the sky, lark-sliced;

Awaiting bloom,
all of life's spread bare.

I want to see some old photographs:
older than those on the computer;
Back when moments were precious,
unveil the shrouded busts,
and see the face of my friend
as he was then;

The best of us disappear
into the fields at dusk,
leaving behind memories for us
of colours and of songs.

Tonight, I will
walk by the bund, and onward
to the land beyond the horizon
where they sparkle at night as stars
our friends here, who have
gone to the far beyond.

I am peace. I wave over
every dawn by your shores.
I sing with the grilles and die
unsung like the evening.

I exist. Sometimes
only as a photograph, frozen
in my smile. Sometimes,
smoking my pipe of joy
fiddling by your side; Some
times, I am a memory
enshrined in your heart.

When the moment arrives, it arrives like this:

Dark, like the hour of the silent stars
the hour of the shrill crickets,
the hour of waning hopes,

when all is dark
in my soul:

Friend, at this moment,
I cease the world;
At this moment,
just you and I in the entire universe;
Silent companion, guardian
of the door to all mysteries,

the cause of all causes,
if I must reason like that,
or an unknowable vast,

unknowable, as I am, now,
but an essential knowledge
in some mystic part
of my own hidden,
concealed being,

if I am of sterner stuff than
the pyres that churn out the stars,
if I am of firmer strength than
the cutting arms of time,

reveal this now, friend,
for this is my dark hour,
the loneliest hour
before the eclipsed dawn.

An evening comes wading through the clouds
crimson the feet wet in mists unfurling

silences whisper hushed in shadows and leafless
stalks, tangled hair, moist in the mellow winds
foreboding the hour when minnows sleep

it will rain tonight
                   soft on the lotus ponds
landing by the dancing canvas leaves
                   painted in hues of cream-white
                            birthing buds of pink
                                     smiling shy

robed in the regal hues of the moon
blushing behind the mourning palms
painted against the skies
solemn

whirling, whirling like a dervish

it is the hymn of the skies
it is the early moon
it is the late koel
the pond overflowing
in longing


I will swoon rhapsodizing

Saying your name in syllables
whirling, I rise levitating
You are there in the distance
You are here by my side

A streak of light flashes past the late sky.
It is the distant future.

Or futures, may be?

A knot at the junction of possibilities.
It's a space vessel. Intelligent life whizzing by.

# 1.
Nobody notices the decrepit rock.
Doddering about its axis and orbit by the sun.
Inwardly consumed.
Like Mars.
Long drained dry of all her life.

# 2.
Too hard to resist, the
mysterious peace radiating from the surface -
Contact:
and Earth,
enters the union of worlds.

What road it is that is not to be taken:

for all our righteous protestations
and blaming of the Gods or Daemons,

don't we know the futures unfolding?

# 1. Of long here was once a glorious world.

# 2. Peace in our lands and the universe to explore.

I hear your footsteps on the clouds:
and I waited for you,
but you sliced the skies, and
vanished in a haze of crimson.
I am the insolent waves canoodling the weeds.
I am the rock-resolve that is dissolving
unknown to leaps. I was waiting
for you and I got drunk.
I will be everywhere, mourning in the winds
and lisping in the depths.
Though they said I shouldn't.
The chorus of gulls announces now,
that I lost you, I lost you. A whirl-storm
is rising in the desert. But that is
so far away. Evil is always far away.
I must earn my bread now, though
I am waiting for you. Half-whirl.
Half-whistle. Pestle-pounding my soul
Looking for pebbles in the flour.

Is that it? Samsonite...No, mine's a no-name.

I thought red would do - red unique.
But, my, so many reds on this belt.

The wait, for prized possessions
checked in - clothes for the trip, and razors!

Thought much of myself when
I ran ahead at Immigration, but
the posh lady I raced, walks off now -
she's found her red.

The belt's stopped now. We are all packed.
Hope's never lost if not found yet!

FILO says my neighbour-in-line: First in, Last Out,
kind enough to explain. Well shouldn't it be
LIFO? I wondered, the late loafer that I am.

Yawns - shorter to fly, longer at the belt!

Red, red, everywhere...now
an American Tourister, snooty.

But mine's a no-name
ribbed red, economy class beauty:

and am waiting...

I. Gray

In the dim light of the dusk
fading through the sky
an exhibit on a canvas:

a single strand of graying hair.

The arcane gallery housed
by the serpentine lake of memories.

What an awful lot of balderdash
shrieks an elderly gentleman ahead.

What a masterpiece, I think.
A masterstroke, in fact: just a strand

stuck like a line across the canvass,

this is it: time is catching up.
mortality comes calling
in pieces and strands.

II. Red

What embers, my dear, lie concealed
beneath those heaps of burned
logs deposited in your soul?

Waters healing were poured out
ages ago: was the love

too diluted, that even now the gale winds

of raging events bring those embers
burning from your depths?

I can see them burning in your eyes.

III. Black

Oh his gulf between you and me.
That you carry what is of me
before and hold what is
after I am of the ashes,
I know, in your oceanic vasts
bloom our fleeting island lives.

But what were you, before
you were of flesh? Did Aleph
bring you forth too? Tell me
friend, for this is my quest,
my mortal angst at finding you
nailed on the cross above: or
I must be a necromonger.

Are you the one who does not exist
as we know, or are you who also exists
as we can know: what are you?

That blood flows on this earth pondering
on this question.

In this is concealed the answer
to the question raised by that strand.

Tav is not the answer. Nor is it in the cross.

Going crimson, the distant sky:
ebbing-evening-like gold-tinged
shades all over; Streaks of blue
fly by the clouds in the breeze
topping dew-wet tips of dried
grass, grown late-autumn-tall
into the pallid arms of winter: a
form, a figure, emerges radiant:
half-covered in the ruddy hues,
blessing hands, flowing robes, lips
in half-smile, oh, the eyes of love!

It was a night of sulking darknesses

there in the distance, clouds thunder
raining tears down the shanties

crickets scratch the silences elsewhere
as winds bring the smell of ash home

in their thousands, mayflies clash
for a swab at an orb
hung hazy into the shadows
canoodling the trees

foreboding come thoughts clouding

the morning after, the stairs are awash
in swarms of broken wings
and shattered dreams

a newspaper's thrown across
there are deaths:
heaving at the heart.

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.

Slow dance of filings on parchment peace
savouring the beats, my percussion hips.
Look the rampage like other man's wife.
When the dark flag bites, hymns cease
and millennia entomb; heaped heads,
tented eaves, latest art in the desert souk.
Shik-shak-shok. The sharqi goes.
Flooring it to the rhythm of dunes, as
fires spew snow into the vale of prunes.
Chaos of magnets pirouetting a ride.
Bomb them, when nuisance gets,  some
hundred women, few thousand children,
not bad price, securing the heathen trail.
Shik-shak-shok. The sharqi goes.
Veil the faithful, jail the *****. Chaos
is hope. Kaleidoscopic, cathartic taupe.
Riding the tiger, picturing a goat.

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

Rise, rise, out of the caverns of darkness,
through lives, unfolds your immortal journey

Collapsed field         Vast to small        particular                    blabberings
chosen timeline         growing ego        wonder, wonder        to structure

through vales sunny at times, but
through the vaults of obscurity often

Scribblings                 crowd of faces     men, trees,                 flowers
to consonants             to family              birds and beats         butterflies

grounded in the light ancient,whose
descension is all the souls that set out

Autumn leaves          Seasons                      tastes, smells         one of a kind
rainbow joy                of sun and snow      sound of music      for all things

before the dawn of time, branching out
into segmented existences, in a quest for Self.

regimen          run, roll,               infant bondings           slow march of
and play        skip and hop          friendships                 the little man