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

Now girl, how do I live without you,
and what my existence without you?

Sundered from you,
I go sundered from my Self

Coz it's just you now,
just you, my life,
my peace and pain,
my love.

And we are bound this way,
unbearable apart,
For you, I live every day
and give myself away
no moment be without you,
in every breath, your name;

Coz it's just you now,
just you, my life,
my peace and pain,
my love.

For you, I give myself,
your trust, that holds
and soothes my soul
woven, my destiny with you
and with you,
I'm unfulfilled no more

Coz it's just you now,
just you, my life,
my peace and pain,
my love.

Sundered from you,
I go sundered from my Self

Roses and jasmines. All vowels extended until you barely make the words out,
approaching, then rushing and receding past, early mornings. The flower boy;
Wake up calls, admonishments, family fights and announcements, old stories,
dire oaths, colourful threats, affected love, who, this loud mouth? Lady next door;
Squirrels that shriek like birds, competing for turns to puncture the solemn silence;
Paperboys and milkmen, school vans and church bells, pressure cooker whistles,
whish of reed broom on jagged floors wet with cleaning water, motor noise, aircon:
Two years: that vanished like a dancing drop on a hot pan: beauty hiding the pain
Ending like the slowly turning reflection of the halting fan on my breakfast bowl:
Ja..asmi...ines and ro..oses, squirrel shrieks, now familiar story of the family next
door, wash whish, silence: who is that faint spectacled figure on the cabinet glass?

in the wilderness of the heart,
by parched vales and the haunting dunes,
here, by ancient wells, calling
miracle most unexpected

forth to the wearied, the prophet
at the head of the caravan
fire stilling storms walking
on the troubled water of  life

springing forth a joy unknown for
years unnumbered upon thousands
pouring open mulled a casket
haven for the lost and uncared

and speaking of the Presence with
authority in the temples
we now neglect and though condemned
a hundred times at the altar

compassion larger than treason
emblazoned on the wailing sky
this dirge of the soul for her mate
wisdom of the ages kindred

parted from us by the old time
rises unceasing back from the
horizon breaking on our shores,
love that passeth understanding

Forlorn sheets fluttering in the winds
splattered in smoke and ruination,
empty the streets where she'd played lost:

Haunting her now among
shadows in the cell she's chained
to slavery
of the religious kind.

Beast more than beast these men that
stare in hubris awaiting their turn
to partake of infidel flesh.

Behold! The holy empire of God is here.

That morning she'd grown up -
blood between her thighs had
stopped her play,
and her chastity was proclaimed.
Selima must learn to respect men
and the ways of God and His
rules of modesty.

Now, as he grunts and groans
in holy pleasure as he mounts
her by turns, ******* at the altar
to be an example of how ******
the lot of the pagan and faithless be.

Mother, is this the modesty that
God commands of infidel women?

How merciful indeed is He that
He creates in faithful men a beastly craving
and provides too for them
uncircumcised ***** in pillage.

In the alleyway of sorcerers
and tricksters
One step back, ten deepward
away, away, from sun and lime,

forms, thickened smoke, gone
all the familiar, but fear

an industrial hammer
beating to a pneumatic heart
pulverized, powdered glass

Now lining the string to my kite
soaring, one among the shapes
dotting the kaleidoscope
Retreat!, I can cut.

bangles, once they were
I gave you

Hooded, darkened, enveloped
in hushed hymns and
chimed mutterances
come hands held out of cloaks
that I accept for friendship
cold, as the heartless should be

erased, gone among
the shadows, lost a young soul
tottering at the edge of a cliff
tremor that ripped the heartland
blocks of stone, elevated
icons of hope and love
lining the pathway here
disfigured so beyond repair
even moonlight cannot restore

once a thinker, a poet, a scholar

where peddle the whispered
offerings of an underworld

There in that crevice, in that corner
buried in horror and humiliation:

a broken resolve, a frozen dream;

waiting in resurrection, guiding
us on, that still small voice
in the wilderness of the heart
that just never gets smothered.

There is a risen Lord in all of us, waiting
waiting to tide over, waiting to cross over;

Yes He finds us, when unsteady

faith is rocking in a hundred storms,
walking on the waters. Yes
the sea of Galilee is indeed here;
When in awe we sit by the doors

of that right reverend,
or that elevated achiever,

He allows our tears to wash his feet,

our hair to dry them up
and pours His simple love out;
He revives the dead in us; Yes,
He is death revived,

the resurrected Truth in us, the
eternal Hope of an unfamished fragrance.

Do you realize you lost someone
even before finding them?
In your stubbornness, you never
smelled the jasmines in bloom
in the waning hours?
All life, your words matter most
yet my feelings for once
make you indifferent; The
most un-equal among un-equal
things, some relationships:
tilted the other way by birth,

I thought you were my life. I grew my life around this life.
You and them were all I had.

Lost home when voice broke,
now this wind that scatters all -
peregrine again.

How do I start anew? What part of me do I say is not me
now and where do I find the I was before us?

What part of the mist
is mountain-tears and what part
the last monsoon cloud?

The heart is a hollow of the bowl-song, an unrung peal
of the untolled bell, sullen tree laden with loss

First snow of deep night,
silence has a colour now -
a hue called longing.

But I must let go. Transitory, the joys of our life, like
the distant lights disappearing at dusk behind the hills

Go, larks, speeding east -
all my ***** loves set free,
now rises the truth.

I was free, always free. The receptacles are gone, but love
finds new vessels, new vehicles.

Emptiness is full:
the shell has all the colours -
gone the jezebels
but still rich the air in hues
that more can dip in and drink

Smouldering pain of ancient harboured, in the heart inflamed
of a passion, amassed whole of suffering earth nestled in your breast,
came alive in her who mastered the seven realms, whose
aspiration ardent brought down in that simpleton, grace that
poured forth like a pitcher upturned on this world enamoured of death.

Ah, that simpleton who never could fathom caprice that condones
commerce in the very heart of the temple of justice, the virtue and sin
the learned uphold that cannot see in the neighbour's fall,
ones own, or how if the father that birthed the world is divine,
his children be brutes or kin of daemons that deserve stoning to death?

O Magdala, Magdala, your daughter weeps today!

A drop of blood dries the sands today, heavens weep in the tears
silent of she who stands by the cross today, even abandoned by those
for whom he gave so much; In the still dark night grace walked
the stormy water; and Lazarus returns from wherefore who knows;
A husbandsman reads and answers doubts in minds of learned pharisees.

For every whiplash cast was cast on the earth wide. Every insult
taunted the winds draping your arms. That girdle of thorns, mother,
was placed indeed on your mourning heart. When the cross
ascended slicing the firmament, heavens were mute to your pain,
lama sabachtani, sabachtani, grieves the earth unto the empty, parted skies.

O Magdala, Magdala, your daughter weeps today!

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.

Danger! There is - no end - to this tunnel.
Listen           to the voice...            it ends...            in light.
Hallucination! Just stay put -
darkness is what we were born to serve.
**** on!           This voice....            is true.
Those that go, they never return.
They           return not       as they          walked into light.
Prove it!              Then....             walk with me.
Any other way!          Then         search your heart.
Those voices are illusory, meant to lure and **** us.
Freedom              exists. I can            see its glow
as I          walk  closer.   You are hallucinating.
Voice competing with voice: you you you are are
hal-hal-luci-  li -luci-  ght  - li-  nating-nating-  ght  -nating

Rock-still by the eroding river,
reed-still in the dance of the tide,
who eyes this world in mercy?
Shameful deeds now holy for
warriors of God. Outcast of ages
from steads by night, trek through
land where shadows upturned,
curses fain down from skies
in return for the homages in fire.
Emotion of the void that sighted
the exploding stars of hoary ages,
rock-still, reed-eyed friend of man
is there such a one indeed as this?

Crimson hope smears the still curtain of the worlds;
Larks slice the silence hovering by the brooding clouds;

Ridges of pain past traced on the firmament,
lingering fragrances scattered on silken hair,
saline tears dripping off the edges of the horizon:

I hear more in your frozen gaze.
Your heart pulsing to the rhythm of a new dawn;

But the discord, the occasional discord.
Why does pain visit us?

A swirling vortex of colours:
At the center, a heart of bluish white;
This vortex called life;

You must die humiliated
carrying the unbearable burden of love
wearing a crown of bristling pride
nailed across the twilight sky,
and hung for three nights;
Before resurrection
into a body of love.

A sink, yes, a salvaged sink.
It is on display.

After your pride has been flushed down
a line intersects a plane
and becomes a dot.

Change your view to spot it.

A clear body of water. Ripples on the surface,
by the last rain. An emergent sun, out of the
brooding clouds in the skies.
A hundred of them
on the waving waters.

Now past drunks at the late station,
past pavements stuck with gum and
roads caressed by wind-swept litter

at the savers, that single pole that
ruminating on the evening spent
I hold every evening in the same
compartment, more or less, past milling
toters asking for spare, the same
crowds, them smelling jackets, clarinet
stations that get empty the same times
muggy glazed nights, as scanty-clad
girls head inward to the city for fun
who must these be, not of us, sure,
Yes, carrying bagfuls that hurt that
by the smelly bin overloaded with
beer cans and assorted junk,

could be a serf working in the farm
a hammer and a sickle later
a shovelboy in a dingy mill,
reading runes by the torch of hope
lighting the hovel by night,

waiting for
the bus that will get me home.

Floating on restless waters, tonight,
broken moons breathe in waving clouds;
Time is a colander, through which
life escapes, never to return; Yet tonight
the beanstalk remains tangled;
I sat watching swans in the moonlight
where the canal and stream met;
Rock the boat! Peace is a botheration.
Could the road that diverged loop
back to the fork? Walking backwards,
tonight, leaves and assorted bits of paper
fly forward; After the off-licenses close,
someone's dashing for the last bus
before dawn, running in reverse; three
hooded figures lost in the cemetery,
walking backwards; The moon
weeps tears of mist, that
ripple spreading inward in the puddles
after the rain; There's a weeping firefly
crawling in the sink; Or the kitchen-lamp?
Bubbles die to the siren-song of crickets.
Is there is an Ithaca fabled?

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.

Grown my beard long enough,
time, now, to
announce to the world,
the demands of the new Caliph:

First a rider on raiment -
of black be your fashion.

Then, in the name of the Lord
the most merciful,

We demand razors!
Yeah we need more of them -
for shaving our underarms
and other sacred duties outlined below.

We demand brides!
We can knock at your censured
doors at night:
for faithful brides and
infidel ****** for pleasure.

In the name of the Lord, most merciful,
Madam, may I ask,
is your modesty circumcised?

In the name of the Lord, most merciful,
Can we have more watches please?

But mannequins, they must be covered.
And when we huddle the infidels
in trenches or behead your sons
please, we do so in but peace!

You lie curled up this way by my side
budding rose waiting
to bloom, light plays with
shades on your face like in a Monet
piece: your lips in bloom,
touched up bright and curled hair,
waving in the breeze.
You suddenly proclaim in half-sleep,
'get ready, we've got an invite.'
You even cite
a phone number. As random
as it is, it brings a smile; and
when you ask for the time, I'm happy
you are awake, but then you ask,
'what shall I wear? After all, we
mustn't look plain at the do.'

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?

Here, boughs and stalks will wait,
eyes laden moist in longing,
every overcast eve,
mourning your absence;

Here, the winds will
go still and rapture-swell
at the song of your flute,

Here I will stay, clutching the lotus
memories of our love to my heart:

Overcome
in longing here
Jumna stalls, when wonder
nights of raas unfold in the mists
of time.

I am but a maiden of these Vraja fields,
go, friend, kingdom and world await you.

When the apocalypse came
it was not raining fire from the skies
no schism in the ***** of the earth,
the seas are not swirling over, nor
the rivers welling up in grief;
Quiet as tears of the early sky
we mourn - how many more
do we count lost and begone?
Shovels and pick axes say ‘no more’-
a touch and hug and a word of cheer,
who knew death comes in garbs
so dear ? there burn the pyres
endless in their dirge, painting
distant the Sun in hues of the dark
and we hope and we pray,
let this be it, Lord, if we must suffer
let this your coming be then -
for we can’t take this anymore
How many more do we lose ?
How many the logs that weary
feed the fires of the infernal?

I became island chains
in search of the mainlands;

horizon birds in the morning mist

fires lighting the distant sky

what else

when you smile like that leaning on your arm

I am dragonflies delirious before rain
I am the hummingbirds
I am all the waterlilies

I am going tumbling like the fall stream
drunken peal of the wind chime

gushing, crashing, ambling on

the gulmohars have come dashing down
now the street is crimson eyed

when you smile like that

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 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.

The leaves in winter, they all fall in place.
In endings hidden, embers of a new life.
Every once in a while an unknown girl
walks up close on a smoggy night;
And an awkward lank woos her with
half-withered roses by the south bank;
Going after severed kites,
landing now by the memory lane:
by the Thames, holding a palmful,
saying, this river's named after you:
she has a dimpled smile;
By the lakes, deep at night, when the moon
walks over the waves, dancing with the swans;
Where the Lee bends around the corner,
a red bus emerges out of the mist,
a hero on chilly nights of the early autumn,
when the dhak welcomes the Goddess home.
Teals, wobbling out of the pond, by
the temple of love, closed for ages now;
Crimson paint dripping from the evening
sky at the corners;
Every day when loving this way
seems like a picture painting away,
get lost walking by the Thames;
Whirling back like the descent from the Eye,
time and crackers light the sky,
on a Guy Fawkes night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let the lustre of this devotion
shine vivified,

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

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

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

This is a war for honour,
pride be high,

"whether I live or not
this nation should live on

whether I live or not
this nation should live on

whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

Youth who pelts stones at the convoy,
go get some drunk.

Dawdle up to a tavern.
Cozy up to the ladies.
Have some fun.

You feel great with the gun.
You want to die a martyr.
Yours is a dead cause.

Revolutions are past.
Revolutions don't work.
The baron you want out
is the hell back soon.
He's got the capital.

The dead die unsung.
Sloganeers rise
on ladders of the dead.

Youth who pelts stones at the convoy,
go get some drunk.

Fancy cars. Drive around the world.
Throw away the watch. Wear your phone.
4 am queues are so in. Dior, the who?
Thank god: Chrome can stand in
when Mozilla's bonkers.
Drown in likes and wallow in tweets.

Stay drugged. Stay unconcerned.
Pack up your rage and light a bonfire.
May be the smoke will
plug the holes in our skies.

It's all over.
An unmarked grave is all you get.
Gun or some fun.

Whose cause do you want to benefit?

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.

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.

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

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

The clock ticks away, little concerned of the absence of attention
The tender morning silence that was unaffected
By the sharp chirps of myriad little birds
Quivers a little as waves recede
In the wake of the first morning train

A soft smile acknowledges a nudge and nods for a kiss
Thoughts crowd the wakened mind like the returning
Waters of a receding tide; long does it take
For us to see: a highest joy is spread common
Before our eyes, yet unrecognized.

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

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...