Joy to our lives such                           Hope, supernal that
who grace this world of darkness    rejects hatred, they call forth
once in an aeon.                                  the soul and tend love;

Gripped in sadness we                      Purgatory cells
who have lost a lighted lamp     -     imprisoning the human
this mourning season;                       spirit for small gain;

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.

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

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.

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

Did you tell them they were from a mystery man? His heart is all
locked up, no one finds entry there. 'Coz he says, there are broken
shards there that you'll step on. There anyone who enters will see
a hundred broken pieces of themselves, soon as the lights are on.
So he keeps it shut, and he's a mystery man. You'll never know
enough of him. He's just made like that, elusive, elusive. Nights,
he's awake to some unknowable pain. He just cannot bring his
thoughts to cease for a moment. Bats rush out off hidden corners
sinking into shadows as owls keep watch. He dreads deepening
nights and shrinks worn from twilight. He curls up hugging some
silken knots that sew his broken soul, your elusive, elusive man.

Jostling with the plate leaves,
old plastic bags, empty
cigarette packs, chocolate wraps,
and late evening light
breaking apart on mellow waves,
this lone lily smiling
like a street kid, a slum urchin.

The wonder banyan that has
roots everywhere; the yonder
village, morning mists, distant
playgrounds, idling cattle,
all gone but in paintings now,
and the latest specimen perching
by the vestiges of a once-lake.

Out in the park, with old
plastic bottles, cold coca cans,
well-grown weeds, pigeon
crusted icons, rusticated chairs,
and torn billboards for
company: time out in nature,
manicured to industrial glory.

Nowhere to go, no place to reach, no
path to take, nobody to please; No
journey to make, no pilgrims to seek;

At clearing in the wood and all of a sudden:
nothing to discover, nothing to unlearn; No
secret to uncover and no night to unveil;

Nameless junction where all paths meet,
and all of a sudden we know
the truth, was there all along: with us, it is us

season of renewal, when the leaves
drop baring the soul of the woods,
the night casts her cloak and the skies wink

Nowhere to go, no place to reach, no
path to take, nobody to please; No
journey to make, no pilgrims to seek;

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.

Throb, that pulsating beat,
this beautiful eve,
now this throng of the bass

three, the nuggets of pain
three shots and this throb in my nerve

this is different - gone

gone, erased from this world
blight, darkening lights,

vive le Bataclan, adieu

boom, the booming guns raining fire
by night, sobbing heart
seething eyes, dark this hood
that's come over my city,
where the Caliph reigns

Who is the lesser evil now?

Danube divides artery and vein.

Vive le Paris!

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

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

Walk eyes down,
no eye contact here:
stalker who, don't
know who's a friend
here: I have things,
see, am a visitor here;
First man I ask points
a blind alley out; Turn
quick around, I mus'
hurry back to sounds!
No eye contact, now,
my sole guide bound
instinct here. Police?
Does that blue attire
mean safety or fear?
Who knows. Big city -
this dark night, life
comes cheap here;
So: walk eyes down,

On your shoulders, slender waisted maiden,
you carried the burdens of this earth: like
Atlas of the old, you of Amazonian strength;

Yet today you sink, weighed down by
the vanishing vestige of shadows aflicker.
Shadows that consume all, engulfing nights,
harbingers dark of conflagrations rise.

Disbelief is our creed. But enough we believe
to vote them to power, our leaders we so love.
Yet in the hour of decision, we must believe
in their indisputable dishonesty.

Yes, aliens are around, Area 51 is for real,
late night appearances on Larry King live?
For the select few, sure, for a select price.

Osama did not die. In fact, exist, he never did.
Flags felled of the towers twin ? False, them false!
How belief, when Iraqs can happen?
Whither the weapons of mass delusion?

Conspiracy. In bloodlines is our interest
but not in the man who gave that blood for us.
Alas those to preach that love vested,
too are in gossip and scandal invested.

Fickle is our love, the mistletoe occupies now
the sacred space of the matronly banyan, and
the owl upside down, for the dove beloved old

When did it happen, how did it happen?
What lonely hour did dawn break into the
dark vaults of the firmament high? When did
the storm-cloud tiptoe across the arid sky?
Was it that night of the festival of lights,
when you nudged past the crowds to stand
by my side? That winter when the moon
shone across the desolate snow, to rhythms
of dew dripping from distant tiles? Or
the days after the storms when I discovered
that vulnerable you beneath your chiseled
cloak of practiced calm? How does the spring
bring mourning valleys to flower in the smiles
of a thousand vines? O cherished mystery,
when did this feeling, deeper than sorrow,
unmoved by pain, mightier than weakness,
stronger than the bruises from a hundred lies
that line the course of this chequered life, how
did this arise, anticipant joy of a journey nigh?
Bonds of lives past, is this how ye come alive?
That very first day when hello-eyes smiled?

Night, the oldest of mysteries
settles, spreading like hunger.
A pall of mist
shrouding over the world.

Siren sounds and firefighters,
drunken brawls, and
receding beats.

Eyes of wonder asleep,
emerging out of
the network of shadows
growing creeper-like.

Stray nuggets of light
also reach the eyes shut
in meditation.

Furtive shadows of passion,
elsewhere. Muffled joys;
Shades of bottle-grey.

Cricket-song. Ululations
faint.  Raspy owl-calls,
intermittent.

In the deep, secret
rites of initiation.

Somewhere in the far
highlands
the stars and
the broken moon peep in.

Old song on a highway truck.
Little lamps adorning the hills,
courtyards in the distance.

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;

I set a paper rocket flyin', and it hurtled into space
breaking off gravity - all the way to Mars orbity!

Now everyone's surprised, coz a mere paper rag
flew up high and reached that rarefied lile where
only the costliest of junkets lounge leisurely by.

They said you're stupid, you got a paper twit to beg
and you've wampered even that away: how dares
a hungry haggard send missives down the skies?

I stand staring, starry eyed. This is an old squint,
that I got learning to look the other way as
my brothers starved and pottered on the streets
when cotton and coal funneled to Manchester leets.

But last heard, papa John's makin' paper boats
to swim by them snooty stars and there's a scramble
at my yards to get some ******* to the Moon.

Carved in stone, lost in time,
freezing my parted smile,

Peering down into the unknown,
I sit next to you, toting my arms:

Where is the world
that breathed you to life?

On this lonely peak, tires
upon tires of hopes and dreams
retreat into the the terraced
spirals of mists; Every mystical
dawn dissolves into the lakes.

Gnomes bear the burden of
mysterious gates to the beyond,
as whispers tiptoe to strains
of the Quijongo.

Here epochs and worlds end.
And counts begin all over again.

On the banks of the river of time, I walk alone,
On this journey of life; Sorrow is my staff;
It gives me strength. Long ago, on a misty day,
I spotted you, your beautiful eyes visible
Through that veil, looking at me, across the river.
The fragrance of the promise of love wafted
Through the air, across the banks and even
Touched my heart; But I was impetuous. Too
Uncut my heart, to recognize that soft nudge,
I walked on, on my ‘mission’ alone, myself.
Alas, faith you did not have, in the power
Of your own love; that fragrance of love did
Overpower me, moisten even my hard heart.
But I lost you. When the mists cleared, I found
You nowhere; vanished, like a shadow. With
The haunting music of a joy that was not to be
Playing on the waves and my staff for my
Company, alone I now walk, on the banks of
This Endless River of time, on this journey of
Life, to some destination unknown, unknowable.

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.

Flame-tree abloom: dabbing red,
the distance paling green -
from the half-open window
to a dreary room;

Horizon waves bathed in gold dust -
from a vessel floating
in deep, enveloping seas;

Smudged streetlamp ayonder
a dark, rainy night;

Love, blooming silent, outlying mundane life.

Sometime in everyone's life, withered
leaves will not grow back and one autumn
will not pass to spring. Sometimes we know.
Suffering. The constant visitor hidden
like a shadow silhouetting our life.
Every slow winding hour, we move closer
to when limbs falter and senses numb.
Endings ever lie hidden like a corner
sudden at the far end of a thrilling road.
Sometimes we are sure, we are more than
the frame of bones. Suffering is inferior,
deliverance is the greater truth. But:
we don't care, the thrill of weakness
is more attractive than the calm of Self.
One momentous journey, out of the
false-lit comfort of familiar darkness.
These that stalk us: disease, old age, death.
One man could see it all in one evening
what takes us many lives, may be.

There is a song that skins remember.
A line that resounds in silences.
A form the heart revisits
in fervid recollections.

That you must not speak,
that you must not speak.

Silences can ****.
No need to ask Crusoe.

Stars that explode in suicide:
From aeons of tortuous silences,
from distant companions,
silently cold.

Yes, our silences talk. Sorry, this
was not how it was supposed to be.
Strains of there we go again.

Gulfs of empty spaces between
silent vales, that birth the
mourning winds.

Murmurs leap out like dolphins
out of our silences.

Waiting to hear each other. Past
the dirge at the grave of my errors.

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

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

Emerges curved a mirror on a pole: three directions,

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

Lisping away in the wood the warbler and the shrike.

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

I.

The door stands outlined in white:
in this dark night, a presence
weighs in from the corridor.

The fan holds a garbled reflection
of stray light on its illusory blade-disk.

I'm talking about parthenogenesis.

How can renewal be born, when
creativity loses her companion,
freedom?

This monotone life lugs on.

II.

The tree shrugs the question off
by her parting arms half-illumined
by the streetlamp.

The late bird of five calls flew away
to a far-off tree, couldn't be
bothered more.

I hear a voice
soft in the setting chill of the distant autumn:
choked eyes beaming in love.

I seek palingenesis.

Check all emails and ensure zero
unread. But
answer none, follow up
nothing.

Umpteenth time through the day.

III.

Autotomy all over again.
Habits
die like tails, to be grown
all over again.

This is an etiological myth.
An apocryphal story that
renews itself on the palimpsest of life.

I must cut my nails.

This tea has brewed too dark.

'A triangle on the mount of mercury
is certainly an auspicious sign'

Thumping percussion of a native beat
in my head, a gyrating hindsight

The evening streams down pouring
streaks of grey and mangled orange

Walking past a bicycle chained to railings
front wheel mangled into a rough square

Squaring a circle, huh? How did that happen?
two thumps and a sonant beat...and again...

I see you sipping latte by Nero.
Mangled, stream out of your eyes
many coloured triangles
rushing, wheeling at me.

Vibrant beat, gyrating bottoms.
The mercury is soaring. Ululations.

The night-witch has charmed the city in her cloak.
Stars, oh, I see mangled triangles out of her hat.

The long shadow of seekers
drenched of mid-day suns
broken scattered
on this land of despair;

Walking nimble
on desiccated human skulls:

A father will not
return from work tonight.
Policeman, armyman, does it
matter, innocent everyman?
A child will be
orphaned and blighted tonight.

Eagles soar in the distance
obscured by fire and smoke
billowing from the assault
on our dreams and hopes.

Paradise -
dreamed of fanatical creeds;
Beyond which
is the graveyard of Gods.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

of the eroding stone
         by the ephemeral stream;
of the reed tottering in
                           the placid lake;

'tis the darkest of nights
moonless, hope-less;
but, the fragrance of jasmine
is creeping up the air,

kissing
the feisty cheeks of vermilion
emerging yonder easterly.

A tear splash and a ripple
dying in waves of joy.

It used to live on the hilltop
where a lone bell tolled
by the temple:
but the Deity is long gone
and the bell mourns
in the valley wind on empty
afternoons, now.

I went searching for it:
in late summer, the koel
would sunder open the vaults
of heaven and bring
some down for us mortals
haunted by death.
The koels are long gone now.

Peace,
peace.

Lady siting silent in the evening
staring vacant into the sky,
after a day of labour:
can you give some to me?

I thought it was in education.
But that is stored now, in
almirahs where moths
eat way what humidity cannot.

I thought it was in a position.
But they don't matter, now
a ladder ascending
to nowhere,
vanishing mid-air.

Old man, smiling past hope
that has broken like
your lost teeth:
can you give some to me?

I asked the urchin
playing in the ditch after the rains,

he said: 'follow me, I know where
it lives', and he led me to
a ***** pond lined with plastic
and all our civilization's refuse,
and jumped in.

I returned, disgusted.

Rings of light lowering from the skies I called my faith Godly and A universe is birthing somewhere; Transporting peace into this world everyone else infidel. Now I going extinct Dinosaurs in There! Ant-eating stick,

I emerged have divine rights to pillage all.

A galaxy few light-years away, A tool-making ape. And gave the Shoreless ocean knocking the heart. At this very moment, life first
key to St. Peter and walked, walked That I locked away behind a
door. peered at

the firmament of stars. Bequeathing hopers,

A light called forth and I walked forth A supernova ***** all light. memories down epigenetic lines. out a mollusc to the future But peace was alive all along. An arc. Epic. Exodusish. enroute a transcience
called man; Now

in the fear of a mushroom There is a God.

Too bland for our Tossing around in a centrifuge. clouds, she graces
the world in taste, lighting all hearts in peace-fires. Giant wheel. Merry-go-around. her dome-shrines dotting the wide
shores. And now

we like them, deranging conflagrations more.

Oh Penelope, Penelope
in the winds blowing distant!

when storms gather at night
and lightning pierces the sea,
I see how Zeus has struck,
such is time, that
slices through the heart

Oh Penelope Penelope
Did I love you over honour?

Athene oh Athene,
were my prayers not enough?

In the small hours' brewing
pain, how I took valour granted,
oh to believe that destiny
is all but deed and dust,
that victory is about winning

Burying my knees in sand,
set on the horizon, here I mourn:
turning over the wheel of time,
too mortal my soul
for the love of a nymph

Oh Penelope, Penelope,
in the winds blowing distant!

Drenched in the tears of distant clouds
comes calling a name, echoing
in the dunes of the heart;

There is nothing in a name...

Announcing of itself to a seeker
knelt on a hilltop,
burning in a bush,
of an essence beyond names;
Beyond the before and after;

... but the word, is something else.

Long the season of withering,
but deep in the night,
a fear grips the heart racing
to the rhythm of the dew
dripping down the tile;

Pride of the world, like a phoenix I rise
towering over darkness and hatred
scarred though our hearts be, but
un-cowed, unfurls my spirit, leading
aspirations to the skies and beyond.

We are Americans and Europeans
and Africans and Asians, divided

in religion and race, but here we meet
as one world, here we will bridge
heaven and earth and hew a passage
through boulders of bigotry into
the lands of brotherhood and peace.

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

So wake up and what do we find,
the men in black, oh, aren't they back!
Didnt they blow up them planes
or helped those who did
or those who helped those who did?
or so we heard, why the gringos went
to smoke them out of their vents?
The men in black, oh now so cool -
we share hugs and name our friends!
Women, they won't be flogged in fields,
nor will they chop off erring arms,
nor them planes land in k-har
in exchange for killers barred,
no buddhas left to smash,
or so they say, but for what their books say+:
so the women, just tented,
working from wherever caged,
men must never trim their manes
even the cricketers have turned out to play,
though be just the men eh!
Beware if you are a poet though,
or sing, or a singh - coz nobody sure
if you will be lynched yet;
Half the country is staying shut,
half a million may run (or so says the UN)
But they surely come in peace
armed as they go on our humvees;
Mothers throw their babies over,
what a liberation! perfect sense
to the kahn across the Durand fence;
And no we here across the Jhelum
so busy with the mayhem
that anderson's caused to our playmen;
Oh the reformed men in spotless black
they're back across the pens,
and we can now go back to sleep
with not a ***** in our conscience

+or as they say they say -
they all say how they say
is what the books say anyway

I belong
             to no God
             no nation
             no creed
             no section

but to Spirit that
is home as much in man
as in the dumb and the meek

say brother, I have
                                no religion

but that of love that animates
the fabric of all existence.

and no deed as holy
as to love fellow folk
as I do myself, however
unlike me they be,
though pure of the heart.

He lives in his farm house by the hills, his
quiet life of contentment, seeking, creating,
discovering; Oh he’s a scientist, and
he grafts his poem trees; Beautiful plumes do
they grow for flowers, which fly out eastward
every morning; Well now he does, the sweet
fruit of these: eat poems to live? Silencing
those who asked him once. Oh and some of the
plants can talk: beyond our hearing, ultrasound.
Penetrating objects our eyes otherwise.
see not: stones; metals; oh don’t we carry
venoms of hatred in metal tubes of
veins crossing our hearts, conveying darkness
across the seas? These poem trees, talking, can
see through. And tell, when some leaks out, causing
fires, and deaths in a school or train station.
Quiet life of contentment, seeking, creating,
discovering; Living in his farm house
by the hills. His work at http://dreamtube.stream

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.

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

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.

Resume: Jewel de Saex
Address: Lost somewhere up the hills.
                 email: me@yourownrisk.mule
                 Tel: + network not available

Summary

Hire me if: you are looking for an adventure.
Clouds, gorges, and I never disappoint, for we can cry.

Education

Bachelor, Mistress and Widower at the University of Zoya, majoring
in Life Sciences, with a minor in the applications of horseshoe magnets.

Expertise

I know them laws of attraction well +

New languages: both Silicon and Carbon-based ++

Magic, luck and fate.

Experience

For years I steered a boat
riding a rough river that
passed storms every day.

I was the rain-maker, I can
bring tears to any passing cloud
by my mere hand-gesture:
(all the dough-kneading.)

I was also the chief gardener
for Loz, whose farms at
the other end of the Earth
I visited by the switch door
in my old photo-albums each day.

Skills

Jugglery, innovative use of cutlery, reading runes, plucking prunes,
riding boats on dunes, talking by eyes, hearing by sight.

References: Not available even on request.

*NOtes:

+   Turn pages back and you always find, only one person was in love.

++ I can decipher the meanings in the lispings of cherubs and angels.
     I understand the cloud and the river, as of men in any tongue.

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

Poverty, is earning less than ₹ 47 a day.

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

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

Wait a minute: *beggars in Manhattan?

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!

Your shy smile, in the buds
blooming late by mellow winds;

distant in the leaves turned golden
your fiery hair;

the city below, still asleep,
stuttering in the lanes, your voice,
in the coffee morning shop.

my heart, all the butterflies.

Your dreamy smile, in
the toast maker lady at the kiosk.

You said I should go to Primrose Hill
So I went to Primrose Hill.

and I found you everywhere.

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.

By night, these figures mute, in the whispers
come alive, guardian deities to ancient shrines:
tonight, though, after aeons by the gates, alert,
they begin to wonder, who do they guard?
Gods no longer visit these their abodes on earth.

Tall statues, of somber stone, much garlanded,
dusty, layered in withering flowers of neglect;
Out of season now, but the shadows at noon
are wet in tears, this longest day of deep sorrow
who did they fight for, to be remembered for?

Long has she suffered, matron, deity, enthroned
in the shrine, but trodden of the earth, cuffed
at her home, weighed down of custom, wearing
tradition on her bangle and ankle and bearing
honour in her veil, invisible shadow of the race.

Like the mythical stream of the distant lore,
has this ancient river, at last found her desert?
To that man holding the book in his hand,
thundering to the empty skies, I ask, what law
do you uphold when the jungle invades the land

new depression in the ocean
coming our way, that's so uncertain
this rain -

it can pour down very heavily,
then I won't come and sit pining for you
here, by my window, lone in the storm;

it can blow mildly across the land,
losing its passion down the road
and then I won't come, there's one more
thing I can get drenched in, besides -

it can wheeze and whistle down in the wind
drizzling past like the waters of blessing
then I won't come, there's one more
thing I can bow my head to,

or it may not rain at all, all wind and no zest
and then I won't come, there's one more
agony to savour, besides,

your love

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?

This is the burden hammered into my palms
now hoisted dug into the heart of the vault,
stabbed, where throbs life - as the sky weeps
in pain, is this the way of the promised land?
Orgiastic masochism of the spectator-voice
that dictates to lunatics, verses we hold high.
Distant pierced by the chasm I laboured forth,
heavy on my shoulders weary, whipped on,
scorned pride crowned of thorns; Or dark
the recompense, in this world of transaction,
razor-line between heaven and mammon?
So transfigured must rise from the dead, parched
famished thirsting for redemption, firmament
carrying the cross of your love, beyond life