I can feel the moonlight on my skin
when I close my eyes and inhale the evening's breeze.
The stars kiss my cheeks
and the ghost of twilight peels back the veil
leading into a realm of sleep.
I awake within a dream
and I am there-
atop the moon.
I feel the curve of my spine mold into her
as I lay there, intertwined with her aura.
She is my mighty ship
as we sail through waves of constellations
singing the sweetest song the night sky has ever heard before,
harmonizing with the golden orb around us.
I pray that I will never wake
and live a lifetime
amidst the moon.

I've seen myself in the mirror
And it looks the same as always
But the feeling deep down under
Shows that the real me is far away

I've lived in the same skin forever
And it feels the same as always
But the look of it asunder
Shows that the real me is far away

I've breathed in the same way as always
And it's always been suffocating
But to outsiders it seems normal
Nothing but brooding too long on twilight

But in my soul I feel untamed
And in my skin I feel maimed
In my breath I feel strangled
My everything yearning for freedom

Freedom from this, far away from this

I
Didn't I walk past ‘cause the
crowds were mushrooming
around the Hajre Aswad.*
As like the rose, it comes
with thorns on the stem.
The most significant stone sits
pulling the biggest crowds.
It makes sense, it rhymes.

A twilight isn't a harsh cut
at the end of a summer day
when it paves the way
for the waxing moon.
No cut is a cut on the way
to the desired noon!

I too thought while the flock
before me was bumping on
the way to the desired one
Let's not me be a disturbing one.
So for then did I walk past
the Hajre Aswad!

II
Are you, are you 360-degrees
on the way to the beloved?
Maybe it’s not you who sway
losing the most at first in this way!

Should you then change your mind
and really do a u-turn
even jump in the water.
Already a lost one you are.
Too little a size you are:
for Jonah's whale just a bite!

Punters swept the way ahead
I too didn’t do a U-turn.
Squeezed, I get caught in the crowd.
In the flow rolling fast and by chance
I kissed the Hajre Aswad.



II
Didn't I reach out to the sky
We know there is no colour
The rainbow is far from the touch.
I just chanced to click a link
that lets you keep on browsing.

There was no colour,
just black: the Hajre Aswad.

Is the black only black though?
Pierce through the black,
the moon gardens
amid the starry honeycombs.
The whole world has seen
blooms only on the
nocturnal black screen!

But did you see at this end
what a sheer beauty prevails
off this black veil?
Hajre Aswad, o my God!
Could it sample? Is there a rose?

IV
Should I ask the rose
that shines the colour of the day?
I can feel it whispers:
Tap into my fragrance
if you can, one might dip in
but I am yet to touch a skin!

The rose whispers:
Below or above, in or out
into a space sooty indeed.
Maths or programming
call it whatever you think.
A colossal solar disk
doesn’t swallow it.

No altitude or latitude here.
You won't see a line
let alone an intersection
on the heart of the matters
the fresco Hajre Aswad!

V
Where do I begin?
How do I give a demo of this, o my God!
How it didn’t need a eye to see.

I didn’t pop into a rosy garden.
It was night and dark indeed.
This a colourless magic
pierces through my lips.
And tints in the heart
what a firework!

Now be it a most spectacular duo
the rose and lapis-lazuli-blue nymph
under the same cloud.
Frankly, it doesn’t matter.
To me now, no colour is a colour!
Since it snuck the light
This on cloud nine
Hajre Aswad the black stone thriller!

VI
I am unable to draw down
is a dwarf under the moon.
Since kind you looked
behind and with your toe
no star saw it, it was worn
like the starless night's swarthy sock.
You opened the door a little
upon the earth at it’s core!

Allah willing, one fine moment,
this eclipse will conk out.
There will be no dark mole
at the night’s core anymore.
The moon and the sun be one persona
basking into your bursting chroma!

The sun will go off the screen
That day it won’t have a rule.
It will be cool swimming in your pool!
Then the voice mine, can’t be swallowed
by the Jonah’s whale no more, no more!

Twilight shadows gather
in an empty park,
to celebrate the close of day usher in the dark.

They run around and
chase each other
whispers on the ground
one last game of hide and seek
before they can't be found

They relish dusk until
our star finally bows its head.
Then in a rush
the park's hush-hush
til dawn gets out of bed

In the bleeding twilight
that dripped down like nectar
and fell like summer dews
and honey dusted petals,
before the emerald washed meadows
under the moonlit ecstacy
could caress my lungs,
murmuring sweet nothings
with warm breath caressing
rose blushed cheeks,
orange pink gazes
igniting rosy flames of love,
dearest, your warmth
that smelled of fresh lisianthus
in the baby shades of the
first sun lights of the early dawn
just disappeared as the autumn breeze
stealing my heart away with it
in the bleeding twilight
that blew past,
soaking the warmness along…

Time and again the sun
been through the black box
and comes out of the dark night
absolutely smelling of roses.

Ah, the dreaming firstlight!
Stunned roses lost for words
every bird wakes up singing a song
but the breakthrough sun won't stop!

The grey twilight is a sigh
the sun vanishes away.

Saves every drop of colour
as if it hasn't got a clue
its far from the shades of the blue.

Deep into the dark black night
the light of the day goes unseen.
There is a sea within!
Wish, if only it can colour in.

Open your heart paint your dream.
Do it in the broad daylight,
it’s your colour scheme.  
If the twilight falls on your colour plate
before you’re done painting the noon,
keep drawing down the moon!

Breakthrough at the first light.
No sunrise is any bird’s sleeping pillow.
They are on their wings, out and tweeting,
singing on the past night’s dreamscene.

Any of the fair duo, the Sun or the Moon,
sleek sunny golden or the silver line,
neither one of those can you catch.
They know their science  
like you count your time.

You can set your mind any time,
pick any number to count your time,
but you won’t have the last one.
There isn’t one, the mind is spotless fine.
But if the solar-lunar duo can count the last:
ask them to stop the time.  

Be truthful as you speak.
Open the heart into your eloquent word.
Never think you are alone, you are
complete with the complete world!

Twilight washes the bedlinens blue
And striped with flickering light they seem to move
And beckon us to lie in their folds,
Drawing away our clothes,
Pushing some to the floor.
Who are we to resist,
As the pretty song of strings off-key,
Winding through the forest rain
Like a goddess shedding robes,
Manipulates our minds and skins,
Only appeased by the union of
Heaven and Earth, of you and I?
Let us oblige them with our bodies,
You descending like the rain upon me
And I rising to you as the urgent river in waves
Beneath you until we are One?
If only for a night, in the Indonesian dark,
The tinkling droplets on the roof,
The flickering fires, the clouded desires.
We will send our lust into the mist and air,
So that it knows us when we are done at last,
And in every night until the world ends.