Those ripples
spreading hope among the waves
in torrential despair

foreboding

right behind where I toil away
with all her ships and sails
hidden in her receptacle soul

broken them rudders
we're sinking
as I hold out a palm
for some cheer
to gather. Macabre.

The Ocean, she came to me
and sat silent in the jar
not a whisper of a wave.

lives, palimpsest soul
stepwell storms
revenant, re-sonant

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

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

It's the tooth fairy. Yep, he'd do it.
He always answers people's wishes.
And after everyone's given up on their governments
more eager to spy on their people than
tackle crime, surely got to be Tooth Fairy.
But well, Tooth Fairies dont really exist, do they?
Well then, it's Santa. It's a Christmas present.
Santa's known to do it. Bring gifts
unknown to us every winter.
But then why would Santa be a non-state actor?
There's no evidence he's done that before.
Well, it's No-man from the Odyssey. Anonymous
No-men, are known to poke the eyes of Cyclops.
But then, no tales of no-men have emerged
since a thousand years, and who is anonymous anyway?
Enter the physicists: it's a combination of all these.
All improbabilities that are probable,
have probably occurred and there's every probability,
they coexist, improbably. Well then that's it.
There's no way of knowing who did it, but all we can say,
Schadenfreude, dear Leader, it all goes in circles anyways.

I will walk away tonight,
to the far beyond:
beyond shadowy corners,
and beyond the clouds where
gods gather, witness;

In the shadow of the oak,
where we play, my sister and I:

catching a butterfly, now,
digging into the smelly earth,
it's a worm then curling up my finger
that I go chasing after her.

Laughter breaks into a kite
severed, and flows away
into the distance.

Gods come alive in clay,
that we gather after rains
and give form to and
colour as we like.  Disregarding
where tusks should
and shouldn't lie.

Wild fires were not fun.
Not least for those twins
******* as embers crackle in the rain.
Did the pups die?
Who will answer to their
mum, weeping through the nights?

The sun set fire to the entire
horizon every lonely night
before retiring.

As we gather into our blankets
hearing tear drops dripping in pots
and crickets dance.

Far beyond the skies
beyond the heart of darkness,

I will walk away tonight,
beyond shadowy corners;
beyond the clouds where
gods gather witness;

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!

Leaves that rustle in the shadows
this moonlit night, silent, sleeping
with the mynas on those distant trees,
let them whisper to the winds
this mortal moment: rest, rest on my
shoulder, creeper-like, smile just
that little my heart shudders;
All the world now silent, sleeping
as mist settles, obscuring thoughts
this heavy winter heaving in sighs,
to part or not this is the question, veil:
little, just a quiver, when waves recede

Ancient this mistletoe, dug deep
into the heart of time,
Shadows of the dagger ******
into wet sands, shining silver handle
Ever-closing guillotine of the minute-hand
ticking closer to the neck-line
Mini-Babel rising triumphant a banner
of rebellious spirit run aground
Treachery of the trickster exploiting
the fissures in the fistful of sand
that fertile febrile mass of unknown
possibilities, harbouring seedlings of hope
and future buds of fragrant roses of love.

There is a chorus rising, chiming in the wind
chant for chant, a contest of emotions
yet when the hour calls, let me withhold,
for thus, untouched the petal blooms,
past shadows of dancing fish.

there, the lone swan at night
at the edge of the lake
has a story to tell:

in the track-whisper of the
first morning train,
the bell ringing
in the apartment below,
in the whir of the bicycle

that flew past the channel
wetted by the tears
that well up within

those are the words
you have heard
and laughter
ebbing forth
from this echo chamber

Did you call for me?
Reach me then, as I
grasp my own hand,
past where the Lee bends:

I'm curving over
hollow the years
that life plays on
like the reed flute

Rain, raining fury hail, wind
pouring wail, winds of despair,
for hope to dawn those for rain
who year long long hope for
the season stop be done for now,
neck deep cloud, is nigh enough.
Boats to our homes, forlorn paths
of water now bring all nature
to our lives, this is prosperity
expanding, when the firms paid
to hire our youths melt away
with the public works, here's
a bucket, collecting roof leaks
telling it's own noontime tale.
Walk miracle over the puddles,
giggling ******, ungoldy hour
this too will pass, surely, unfold
the mast of the darkening skies,
grey holding mountain pass, this
hedged path of the nigh stars.

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

And then
I held your hand:
where have you been so long?
Our worlds intersperse, but seldom
we meet.

How has life been since you
had gone over? Does the horizon still
shine where you look from ?

A statue have I made of you,
and I sit reminiscing
every morning, sun-kissed.

Do you wear bodies the way we do?
Do thirst and hunger bother you?

I have so many things to ask,
but first, let us
go strolling in the park, years, since
I saw you in the dusk, dust-laden.

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

It is the story of every generation.
Water flows down the Thames, witness
to the same hubris. We are different.

We want to rebel. We want to be
offensive. But it the same story
all over again. All rebellions die.

Name a revolution that does not
crown a new class of overlords.
Names change, institutions remain.

We've had religion. We've had many a
One God. Enlightenment. Democracy.
The Commune and Market economy.

But the double-barreled
name is still in charge of the purse.
Some beaten man still mends our loo.

When we bare our chest, still
the one word that's not erased
is cruelty. in every kind and flavour.

To love another, as one does ones own
is still the grail we are after. All
chalices are poisoned in the end.

Tonight, I'm talking to the moon:
'You haven't wept enough?
I'm thirsting for your tears.'

Stars, I cannot bear
seeing you shiver in the distance.

How many are the dawns
where I plucked
gossamer dew on grass-tips!

The cactuses,
they've grown tall this summer.

Prisons and palaces I have seen -
Plenitude, loneliness,

riding in my *****,

as you hold me in your arms,
onward, past joys and despair

Señora, there is yet
a thawing desire for the spring.

x/x/14

I'm late I'm late I'm late -
No, you are early tonight.

x/x/13

Why do you follow me
through the bushes?
Admit it- you're smitten!

x/x/13

Don't you look beautiful,
new bride in your veil
of silken clouds?

x/x/ 12

O faint streak of hope
on this godless night!

x/x/x

Go, go, dreams,
fly with the winds
to the far lands beyond
the silver horizon!

I cry out to you in voices and guises,
and in many tongues:

Every morning and tiring night,
becoming the muezzin,
I cry out
piteously for you;

Sometimes I deck myself in finery
and offer flowers
and fragrances, bursting out in hymns
wrung in ancient tongues;

Draped in seraphic white,
I sing in a dozen voices of the soul
chiming in halls
adorned of ancient glass

Sometimes, I strip myself bare
and chant as I whip myself
in savage frenzy and sacrificial rage
in some forest cave or secret corner:

Yet I fail
the dune song in the desert
wave dance on a lonely shore,
bird flight in evening gust

I cannot love.

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.

Where do you walk to, Senora, across

mist-wet beaches moments before dawn?

Shy waves are savouring their lone time.

The sun, a truant kid behind the clouds.

Fisher-boats quivering in their dreams.


Where do you walk to, in your free

glowing tunic, garlanded of fresh flowers,

silken moist hair caressing the winds?


Now the leaves are awakening to stretch

in the breeze, now gold is abundant.

The trees have shot bird arrows of love

slow darting into the horizon blue. Not

enough answer, the Smiling tiara turn gaze

I am searching past these dunes
and dune song

It was easier then,
easier then.

ghost-like come
echoing in the winds,
drenched in the sands,
wrapped in the folds of time

comeuppances
coming undead
appearances

there go flying past,
those petals, dried,
fragrant still after these years

that with eyes moist,
I cannot say.

few them petals,
uncut rhyme
on the knees

but you know, I know
codwelling

through alleyways of life.

that was all, that was all

Saying, I don't say.
It is all an intention
in percussion.

Feelings
from those wellsprings
we know not
but are aware of.

Let us hear her gushing in the wood:
this was the stream that went in spate
and wrecked so much

Was it nature? Was it man?

The lakes, them old receptacles,
they are shrinking like grandma's grin.

Everywhere the invasive species:
it's called development, the hyacinth
whose pollen are now all over.
It's what we need, advances the glitter:
into the paddy fields,
swallowing up the marshlands
onward, onward, we go, out
into the sea sands,
we claim the skies, we are rising
It's measured in high-rises and
encroachments on embankments.

Write, write, in those towers of Babel
all the babble, those god-**** codes
them the world so loves.

settlements be shanty towns,
We need making cars for all over.
Here in India.

Development, we need it.
havoc a few not a big price, now?

That's how you break it
now you are alone
and I am alone
but that doesn't
make us of each other

the universe, starry night,
from the ringside view
of a puff rising;

let it rain, for
I must not get wet
out in the fury,
I've lost all adhesion

hymns
of nightbirds
rend the sky
this lonely hour

I was born to wayfarers,
my mother is the Sky.
The meadows all homes
and dewdrops kin.

The Night would pitch
a tent and retreat into
the fields at dawn;

And oh her beauty
decked in a tunic
of fading stars and
the dying moon.

I sat by her feet and asked,
tell me about the greatest
mystery of all:

...and she vanished,
her words echoing in
the corners and in
the wet winds that
lashed the valley...

The wave beating solitary on the shore
every once in an aeon, comes an hour
when the fuzzy bundle of timelines
must collapse to a certain certitude

Long hours of labours past the dark nights
that have borne their ends but not far
speak in hushed voices of defeat
and surrender, and dejection,
that it is all over and what else but

There, in the distance is a brewing morass
a descent into chaos and death, a war
that has no winner but the abyss

factions ranged, outweighed not by
their arms but destiny

that now threatens to ****** away everything
that a people fought to preserve memories of

on the  island where death rules the heart
this little patch of a shore
hidden away in the alcoves

the one hope of redemption

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.

Hold me
for I am yours:
outside, slow mountain rain
damp the hill-song of the soul worlds
now split.

Dissolving under my feet,
as in a tidal ******..
slipping hand, don't let go!

Here by the wood
by the hill under the sky,
under the stars,
dark, lies a world curled up:

fly, fly to distant realms,
never away from home.

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!

Enemy, enemy, felt mutually,
wrung wronged and wronged by and all the love was
anomaly. In twilight moments of
emotion, only scars, finally, and
all the joys of gardens and fountains mourn
forever the forests that burned for the
city now in ruins. This is how it
was meant to be. It was for my father
before me and my grandfather before he.
Yes mankind was made to experience
to live with the enemy 24/7.

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!

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

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

I was walking in the desert.
The shadow was long
when the dunes went silent
and I sank to my knees
staring at the skies.

Past an abandoned drum
wailing in the winds,
where a half-buried mask
peeps out of the sand.

When the rain came
it poured out in torrents
and I had no place
to hide my soul.

Forefingers to thumbs,
I strain my eye to look through
the rummage of life.

Or on the tree
in the river island?

But it is like the song
that you know you remember
but can't put words to:
looping in and out,

Where did I leave my heart?

It's hard to tell,
when the love dried up
like the river in the desert.

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

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!

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.

Totem poles, bare naked, arranged in a row
fiery headed, emerging out of the mists

Mysterious all light and no flame
by some source subterranean fed,

Either side of a path paved of dark
this moonless night, by the flickering star,

walks the shadow of some being with eight
wondrous arms cast symmetric about its head.

oh the flaming lights, dying into the mists,
extending into the depths of the distant night

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

I have visited that hall of broken mirrors a myriad times
still seeking my soul wounded and broken: here this
eikonal space where you still inhabit, somewhere;
For you and me, brother, is written this fate toil and dust,
then, bringing mud in bare hands for a well to be dug
so someone else's daughters could drink of in summer;
Those many hours lost searching for dream kites amidst 
l'hospitals; Time doesn't change the dial, our parchment
lives a palimpsest of who we toil for and why. Now
cut them weeds in your garden, go grow the pumpkins,
wondering by nights, empty the full house of mirages.
Yes, we walk this nigh-trodden path loved of the ancients,
alone in the darkness of the distant suns going to sleep.

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.

When the whip cracks
bare on the back,
the earth scorches tired feet,
and shoulders cannot
carry the burden anymore,

In that moment
when the world merely
watches on silent,

and those you loved
are too bound my oaths
or wallowing in doubt
or too weak to do a thing,

In that moment
when blood mingles with sweat

you know you truly have no one
here, but for Him the Lord,
who shines in the heart.

In adoration, an army
can be drowned pursuing you.

In love, an unfathomable
well is given away
to bleed to death.

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

Last bird, how cross you the distant
boundary beyond light?
In a circle of smoke I go
uttering her name the last of the words:
last splash of the high lake,
lisp of the winter wind,
words tail words, like water
emptied in the river and lake
retreating into the well
beyond them rocks deep
then into the heart of the earth
such is her name, buried deep
the unmarked borderland where
I must end and She must begin
incense-form fragrant her lips
that smell of nameless a love seeping in
across the vast, dark night;
it is the shadow of hooded fear
of being loved
that I wake up to in my nightmares
now I walk in the twilight
retreating, that upon us
the end of the day
kissed of her tresses

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

What language does the sky speak?

On late afternoons,
is she weeping for joy,
or mourning in the wet winds?

Deep in the night, I find her
blinking at me  in a hundred stars -

is she shivering in the
inconsolable cold of some ancient loss?

What language does the teardrop speak,

rushing down
past your dimpled cheeks?

Droplets on a leaf: sometimes,
on the shelf, sometimes, on your brow:

startled creeper in the shadows at night,
what language do these teardrops speak?

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

Who smote the barriers at the gates of dawn
that the worlds roll out from the firmament of time
Who pierced the sky releasing the waters
that bring life to matter dead, egoless,
the simpleton who concedes all in love,
artist who fashions the arrow that rends
the delusion of separation, blue-
necked, the Yogi drunk of poison
darknesses that emerge in enquiry,
auspicious Lord, the terror to death

paper boats of hope running wet in the rains,

in the dimpled puddles closed, them odd schools

unstopping cheer

after that long hot season rain, rain


first we take off return in rain heavy rain

meetings and business and eating out wet

cloudy mourning before pale mornings,


then the lakes brimmed another spell

where the water flows, but we did not see,

too busy our lives, we did not see

Like the story of mists on these hills, no one knows where it all begins and what it brings to bloom, when and how. Life, this mysterious journey of mirages and miracles.

Growing up, falling in love and marriage. Years that rush by like the moss-laden corners. The joy of cherubs that descend and grace your lives. Some late summer rain tears by the river on these gorges.

One-way ticket to go live rough like the winds on these bare slopes.  The cherubs are out on their vast journey of discovery. You hoped, but it was all crumbling, bolt in the sky tore your lies apart.

You are here, amid the lilt of the hills and the music of the stars crackling up into eddies late in the nights. The ageless loneliness of life, and you have no one. Mute in this new haven, speechless in your unfamiliarity.

Should I sing like the shepherd Should I weep like the clouds parted from all their be-longings and tossed about by the stark stubble on the aged mountains? The air smells of rebirth. never another sunset winding into the valley, Does the river jump in the joy easing into the clouds, carefree like there was that I know this people. Now I am the sky. this snow-cladded dusk I am all the stars. hanging over the world? of the the flints that scratch effervescence of the moment, or does she weep at her heart laden in endless procession? Clouds, swirling dervishes, exodus of the sheep fire in the bush

I can take marshrutki by the dozens, heading out into the no-w-here.
Humanity, your only hope, and kindness, your only god.

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

It's one of those things, it is that kind of night:
the winds have stopped wheezing before dawn
and the birds don't want to wake up yet.
A fire is lighting up on the eastern sky
that was burning in the heart through the hours.
I see a bangled wrist half-concealed
in the mists: shadows of events mingle
past the grilles of thoughtlost timelines.
I will wade across the river at the nearest ford
and meet you at the temple: friend,
will you wait? Oh this intolerable whir of the
dewsong, it is interrupting your answer.

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.