I hadn't written a word of God in over two years
He barely speaks to me anymore because he knows
That fame, that fame -

Well… never mind that. Or do mind
What I am trying to say is that:
See fame, see fame...

Look -
I am a liar

and God knows The sorrow I coerce onto paper
are not my own It was for
the fame. The fame

in exchange for all that melancholy
Does anyone want to hear of my successes?
I am happy! I am happy!

But you all do not come
So I lie
Life is miserable, and He had left me…

When the belly growls
I turn slowly towards you
Gochisousama.

i.

the lapping
           sound
     of her shrilling
as fishermen shuck oysters for silver

pried from bone and not womb
not Buddhist pearl but child;
               fell
from river water.

shuddered the longest night
moon's fragrance       breathless;
               utpala unborn,

the song of starlings
               deaf
in starlight -
among one lone
                           whine

and mother's mantra rebirthed
from sea to ice to earth
to
                           sweeping years

ii.
my call to prayer;

             to observe dawn
                       as the sun summits
                    as I love you;
               to observe dusk
        as light plunge leery

salah, salah, SALAH "salah towards Kaaba!"
                   but only you concluding the qibla.

these Arabian nights long and drawn
I wandered lost and deep in dune
as his back retreat to skyline
his lone pilgrim to Mecca    

         so sun-dust seeks my tongue and eyes
         and I tried
         I tried

                                          mother, lover
                                          heaven's not here.

I lapped my lips
in child-like longing -

there was the salted breeze
there was the deep blue sea

and she welcomed me into the wake
and swept me into her wayward womb

my re-awakening -
my first breath!

another chance at life,
where he did not leave me

I spent the morning in a dream
where the sound of the bellbird
whipped through the sunlit air

where I was stood in the kitchen
pouring a river into two cups -
one leaf juice; one cocoa syrup

here our thyme garden had not wilted
and this home filled with two heartbeats
when it long-lived with just one

here I spent the morning in a dream
where the wind breezed through my hair
where you loved me still

here;
I spent the morning in a dream...

perhaps I should have folded;
forehead sullied in earth
honour defiled in soil,
to the west winds
to the sacred psalms

perhaps I should have sacrificed;
these hands that make
this heart that beats,
for the old bones
for you.

when an ocean away
couldn't lead this astray;
between two Gods
was who who robbed
this warmth of mine

still I kept;
my hands that fold
my heart that sacrifice,
for the fallen

             for me.

Tall, once grown
A tree needs neither sap nor season
To pine

(for her)