PROLOGUE
               Hyde Park weekend of politics and pop,
Geldof’s gang of divas and mad hatters;
Sergeant Pepper only one heart beating,
resurrected by a once dead Beatle.
The ******, Queen and Irish juggernauts;
The Entertainer and dead bands
re-jigged for the sake of humanity.
   The almighty single named entities
all out for Africa and people power.
Olympics in the bag, a Waterloo
of celebrations in the street that night
Leaping and whooping in sheer delight
Nelson rocking in Trafalgar Square
The promised computer wonderlands
rising from the poisoned dead heart wasteland;
derelict, deserted, still festering.
The Brave Tomorrow in a world of hate.
The flame will be lit, magic rings aloft
and harmony will be our middle name.

On the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl;
the ‘war on terror’ just a tattered trope
drained and exhausted and put out of sight
in a dark corner of a darker shelf.
A power surge the first lie of the day.
Savagely woken from our pleasant dream
al Qa’ida opens up a new franchise
and a new frontier for terror to prowl.

               Howling sirens shatter morning’s progress
Hysterical screech of ambulances
and police cars trying to grip the road.
The oppressive drone of helicopters
gathering like the Furies in the sky;
Blair’s hubris is acknowledged by the gods.
Without warning the deadly game begins.

The Leviathan state machinery,
certain of its strength and authority,
with sheer balletic co-ordination,
steadies itself for a fine performance.
The new citizen army in ‘day glow’
take up their ‘Support Official’ roles,
like air raid wardens in the last big show;
feisty  yet firm, delivering every line
deep voiced and clearly to the whole theatre.
On cue, the Police fan out through Bloomsbury
clearing every emergency exit,
arresting and handcuffing surly streets,
locking down this ancient river city.
Fetching in fluorescent green costuming,
the old Bill nimbly Tangos and Foxtrots
the airways, Oscar, Charlie and Yankee
quickly reply with grid reference Echo;
Whiskey, Sierra, Quebec, November,
beam out from New Scotland Yard,
staccato, nearly lost in static space.
      
              LIVERPOOL STREET STATION
8.51 a.m. Circle Line

Shehezad Tanweer was born in England.
A migrant’s child of hope and better life,
dreaming of his future from his birth.
Only twenty two short years on this earth.
In a madrassah, Lahore, Pakistan,
he spent twelve weeks reading and rote learning
verses chosen from the sacred text.
Chanting the syllables, hour after hour,
swaying back and forth with the word rhythm,
like an underground train rocking the rails,
as it weaves its way beneath the world,
in turning tunnels in the dead of night.

Teve Talevski had a meeting
across the river, he knew he’d be late.
**** trains they do it to you every time.
But something odd happened while he waited
A taut-limbed young woman sashayed past him
in a forget-me-not blue dress of silk.
She rustled on the platform as she turned.
She turned to him and smiled, and he smiled back.
Stale tunnel air pushed along in the rush
of the train arriving in the station.
He found a seat and watched her from afar.
Opened his paper for distraction’s sake
Olympic win exciting like the smile.

Train heading southwest under Whitechapel.
Deafening blast, rushing sound blast, bright flash
of golden light, flying glass and debris
Twisted people thrown to ground, darkness;
the dreadful silent second in blackness.
The stench of human flesh and gunpowder,
burning rubber and fiery acrid smoke.
Screaming bone bare pain, blood-drenched tearing pain.
Pitiful weeping, begging for a god
to come, someone to come, and help them out.

Teve pushes off a dead weighted man.
He stands unsteady trying to balance.
Railway staff with torches, moving spotlights
**** and jolt, catching still life scenery,
lighting the exit in gloomy dimness.
They file down the track to Aldgate Station,
Teve passes the sardine can carriage
torn apart by a fierce hungry giant.
Through the dust, four lifeless bodies take shape
and disappear again in drifting smoke.
It’s only later, when safe above ground,
Teve looks around and starts to wonder
where his blue epiphany girl has gone.

                 KINGS CROSS STATION
8.56 a.m. Piccadilly Line

Many named Lyndsey Germaine, Jamaican,
living with his wife and child in Aylesbury,
laying low, never visited the Mosque.   
                Buckinghamshire bomber known as Jamal,
clean shaven, wearing normal western clothes,
annoyed his neighbours with loud music.
Samantha-wife converted and renamed,
Sherafiyah and took to wearing black.
Devout in that jet black shalmar kameez.
Loving father cradled close his daughter
Caressed her cheek and held her tiny hand
He wondered what the future held for her.

Station of the lost and homeless people,
where you can buy anything at a price.
A place where a face can be lost forever;
where the future’s as real as faded dreams.
Below the mainline trains, deep underground
Piccadilly lines cross the River Thames
Cram-packed, shoulder to shoulder and standing,
the train heading southward for Russell Square,
barely pulls away from Kings Cross Station,
when Arash Kazerouni hears the bang,
‘Almighty bang’ before everything stopped.
Twenty six hearts stopped beating that moment.
But glass flew apart in a shattering wave,
followed by a  huge whoosh of smoky soot.
Panic raced down the line with ice fingers
touching and tagging the living with fear.
Spine chiller blanching faces white with shock.

Gracia Hormigos, a housekeeper,
thought, I am being electrocuted.
Her body was shaking, it seemed her mind
was in free fall, no safety cord to pull,
just disconnected, so she looked around,
saw the man next to her had no right leg,
a shattered shard of bone and gouts of  blood,
Where was the rest of his leg and his foot ?

Level headed ones with serious voices
spoke over the screaming and the sobbing;
Titanic lifeboat voices giving orders;
Iceberg cool voices of reassurance;
We’re stoical British bulldog voices
that organize the mayhem and chaos
into meaty chunks of jobs to be done.
Clear air required - break the windows now;
Lines could be live - so we stay where we are;
Help will be here shortly - try to stay calm.

John, Mark and Emma introduce themselves
They never usually speak underground,
averting your gaze, tube train etiquette.
Disaster has its opportunities;
Try the new mobile, take a photograph;
Ring your Mum and Dad, ****** battery’s flat;
My network’s down; my phone light’s still working
Useful to see the way, step carefully.

   Fiona asks, ‘Am I dreaming all this?’
A shrieking man answers her, “I’m dying!”
Hammered glass finally breaks, fresher air;
too late for the man in the front carriage.
London Transport staff in yellow jackets
start an orderly evacuation
The mobile phones held up to light the way.
Only nineteen minutes in a lifetime.
  
EDGEWARE ROAD STATION
9.17 a.m. Circle Line

               Mohammed Sadique Khan, the oldest one.
Perhaps the leader, at least a mentor.
Yorkshire man born, married with a daughter
Gently spoken man, endlessly patient,
worked in the Hamara, Lodge Lane, Leeds,
Council-funded, multi-faith youth Centre;
and the local Primary school, in Beeston.
No-one could believe this of  Mr Khan;
well educated, caring and very kind
Where did he hide his secret other life  ?

Wise enough to wait for the second train.
Two for the price of one, a real bargain.
Westbound second carriage is blown away,
a commuter blasted from the platform,
hurled under the wheels of the east bound train.
Moon Crater holes, the walls pitted and pocked;
a sparse dark-side landscape with black, black air.
The ripped and shredded metal bursts free
like a surprising party popper;
Steel curlicues corkscrew through wood and glass.
Mass is made atomic in the closed space.
Roasting meat and Auschwitzed cremation stench
saturates the already murky air.              
Our human kindling feeds the greedy fire;
Heads alight like medieval torches;
Fiery liquid skin drops from the faceless;
Punk afro hair is cauterised and singed.  
Heat intensity, like a wayward iron,
scorches clothes, fuses fibres together.
Seven people escape this inferno;
many die in later days, badly burned,
and everyone there will live a scarred life.

               TAVISTOCK ROAD
9.47 a.m. Number 30 Bus  

Hasib Hussain migrant son, English born
barely an adult, loved by his mother;
reported him missing later that night.
Police typed his description in the file
and matched his clothes to fragments from the scene.
A hapless victim or vicious bomber ?
Child of the ‘Ummah’ waging deadly war.
Seventy two black eyed virgins waiting
in jihadist paradise just for you.

Red double-decker bus, number thirty,
going from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch;
stuck in traffic, diversions everywhere.
Driver pulls up next to a tree lined square;
the Parking Inspector, Ade Soji,
tells the driver he’s in Tavistock Road,
British Museum nearby and the Square.
A place of peace and quiet reflection;
the sad history of war is remembered;
symbols to make us never forget death;
Cherry Tree from Hiroshima, Japan;
Holocaust Memorial for Jewish dead;
sturdy statue of  Mahatma Gandhi.
Peaceful resistance that drove the Lion out.
Freedom for India but death for him.

Sudden sonic boom, bus roof tears apart,
seats erupt with volcanic force upward,
hot larva of blood and tissue rains down.
Bloodied road becomes a charnel-house scene;
disembodied limbs among the wreckage,
headless corpses; sinews, muscles and bone.
Buildings spattered and smeared with human paint
Impressionist daubs, blood red like the bus.

Jasmine Gardiner, running late for work;
all trains were cancelled from Euston Station;  
she headed for the square, to catch the bus.
It drove straight past her standing at the stop;
before she could curse aloud - Kaboom !
Instinctively she ran, ran for her life.
Umbrella shield from the shower of gore.

On the lower deck, two Aussies squeezed in;
Catherine Klestov was standing in the aisle,
floored by the bomb, suffered cuts and bruises
She limped to Islington two days later.
Louise Barry was reading the paper,
she was ‘****-scared’ by the explosion;
she crawled out of the remnants of the bus,
broken and burned, she lay flat on the road,
the world of sound had gone, ear drums had burst;
she lay there drowsy, quiet, looking up
and amazingly the sky was still there.

Sam Ly, Vietnamese Australian,
One of the boat people once welcomed here.
A refugee, held in his mother’s arms,
she died of cancer, before he was three.
Hi Ly struggled to raise his son alone;
a tough life, inner city high rise flats.
Education the smart migrant’s revenge,
Monash Uni and an IT degree.
Lucky Sam, perfect job of a lifetime;
in London, with his one love, Mandy Ha,
Life going great until that fateful day;
on the seventh day of the seventh month,
Festival of the skilful Weaving girl.

Three other Aussies on that ****** bus;
no serious physical injuries,
Sam’s luck ran out, in choosing where to sit.
His neck was broken, could not breath alone;
his head smashed and crushed, fractured bones and burns
Wrapped in a cocoon of coma safe
This broken figure lying on white sheets
in an English Intensive Care Unit
did not seem like Hi Ly’s beloved son;
but he sat by Sam’s bed in disbelief,
seven days and seven nights of struggle,
until the final hour, when it was done.

In the pit of our stomach we all knew,
but we kept on deep breathing and hoping
this nauseous reality would pass.
The weary inevitability
of horrific disasters such as these.
Strangely familiar like an old newsreel
Black and white, it happened long ago.
But its happening now right before our eyes
satellite pictures beam and bounce the globe.
Twelve thousand miles we watch the story
Plot unfolds rapidly, chapters emerge
We know the places names of this narrative.
  
It is all subterranean, hidden
from the curious, voyeuristic gaze,
Until the icon bus, we are hopeful
This public spectacle is above ground
We can see the force that mangled the bus,
fury that tore people apart limb by limb
Now we can imagine a bomb below,
far below, people trapped, fiery hell;
fighting to breathe each breath in tunnelled tombs.

Herded from the blast they are strangely calm,
obedient, shuffling this way and that.
Blood-streaked, sooty and dishevelled they come.
Out from the choking darkness far below
Dazzled by the brightness of the morning
of a day they feared might be their last.
They have breathed deeply of Kurtz’s horror.
Sights and sounds unimaginable before
will haunt their waking hours for many years;
a lifetime of nightmares in the making.
They trudge like weary soldiers from the Somme
already see the world with older eyes.

On the surface, they find a world where life
simply goes on as before, unmindful.
Cyclist couriers still defy road laws,
sprint racing again in Le Tour de France;
beer-gutted, real men are loading lorries;
lunch time sandwiches are made as usual,
sold and eaten at desks and in the street.
Roadside cafes sell lots of hot sweet tea.
The Umbrella stand soon does brisk business.
Sign writers' hands, still steady, paint the sign.
The summer blooms are watered in the park.
A ***** stretches on the bench and wakes up,
he folds and stows his newspaper blankets;
mouth dry,  he sips water at the fountain.
A lady scoops up her black poodle’s ****.
A young couple argues over nothing.
Betting shops are full of people losing
money and dreaming of a trifecta.
Martin’s still smoking despite the patches.
There’s a rush on Brandy in nearby pubs
Retired gardener dead heads his flowers
and picks a lettuce for the evening meal

Fifty six minutes from start to finish.
Perfectly orchestrated performance.
Rush hour co-ordination excellent.
Maximum devastation was ensured.
Cruel, merciless killing so coldly done.
Fine detail in the maiming and damage.

A REVIEW

Well activated practical response.
Rehearsals really paid off on the day.
Brilliant touch with bus transport for victims;
Space blankets well deployed for shock effect;
Dramatic improv by Paramedics;
Nurses, medicos and casualty staff
showed great technical E.R. Skills - Bravo !
Plenty of pizzazz and dash as always
from the nifty, London Ambo drivers;
Old fashioned know-how from the Fire fighters
in hosing down the fireworks underground.
Dangerous rescues were undertaken,
accomplished with buckets of common sense.
And what can one say about those Bobbies,
jolly good show, the lips unquivering
and universally stiff, no mean feat
in this Premiere season tear-jerker.
Nail-bitingly brittle, but a smash-hit
Poignant misery and stoic suffering,
fortitude, forbearance and lots of grit
Altogether was quite tickety boo.



NOTES ON THE POEM

Liverpool Street Station

A Circle Line train from Moorgate with six carriages and a capacity of 1272 passengers [ 192 seated; 1080 standing]. 7 dead on the first day.

Southbound, destination Aldgate. Explosion occurs midway between Liverpool Street and Aldgate.

Shehezad Tanweer was reported to have ‘never been political’ by a friend who played cricket with him 10 days before the bombing

Teve Talevski is a real person and I have elaborated a little on reports in the press. He runs a coffee shop in North London.

At the time of writing the fate of the blue dress lady is not known

Kings Cross Station

A Piccadilly Line train with six carriages and a capacity of 1238 passengers [272 seated; 966 standing]. 21 dead on first day.

Southbound, destination Russell Square. Explosion occurs mi

And the cyclist said to the seafaring man that it was the best **** poison he had ever drank.
The seafaring man was uneasy, wishing that the cyclist would put the bottle down.
He had cautioned his friend in the past--
"Poison will **** you, you know. That's the very purpose of the stuff."
-- And the cyclist's reply had always been the same:
"Well, I've had two swigs, and it hasn't killed me yet."
Then three swigs, four, five....
"Yes," the seafaring man would press,
"But it makes you horribly sick every time. You've told me so."
The cyclist would give a peculiar look and say in a peculiar voice,
"I know what I'm getting in to. And it hasn't killed me yet."
Months later, the seafaring man left the cyclist's funeral either sad or disappointed.
He wondered if the death went down as an accident or a suicide.

repetition
is never
more
than one
poem.

there’s no future
in this pill.

my mother’s head
is full of heads.

I haven’t a volleyball
in a pond
to **** on.

in the words of my son
a sailor     is lost at me.

I go on correcting oddities
in the brain and in the muscle
of a jack
in the box

as a cyclist
champions
hunting mourners

to keep their numbers down.

I am the catalyst of this cataclysm
the catastrophe that impaled
the atmosphere
of this vagabond heart
that is shaped like a sphere
and an uncertain future
being build out of fear
that gets bypassed product
of my cynicism.
 
Secluded in my lab
concocting a potion for this illness
and when all else fails
call me the alchemist
nothing more than an
angst-ridden antagonist
my apologies to the pessimist,
my excuses to the optimist
I was born to be a *******
with a heart made of silver.
 
Buried in my bunker
trapped in someone else's lore
which in turn makes me the catalyst
of my own downfall
I was baptized a Catholic
without ever being asked
turn me into a Cyclist
and I'll pedal real far
turn me into a Scientist
and my lab coat will leave my side
turn me into a labyrinth
and you won't be able to find
traces of me, of who I was
or who I never came to be.

This morning gray skies prevailed,
an icy wind bit my face,
cold tears streamed down
as I pedaled along the deserted streets.

The few drivers who did pass
had no faces.
Perhaps they
were chilled,
crying,
felt a bit empty too.

Enjoying the cool evening air
in the middle of May.
Walking my dog through the neighborhood,
enchanted by its bucolic setting--

Besotted with the scent of freshly cut grass,
and the drone from the lawnmower that renders it,
and the chatter of crickets far in the distance,
preparing for their evening performance,

and closer to me are the squawks and chirps of the birds
hunched in the brush and perched upon telephone wires.

Enamored with the sight of lush foliage,
scintillating at the utmost tier of the woods
where the golden haze of the shrinking afternoon sun
is still hopelessly chromantic in its fading vigor.

The clouds, dispersed like shreds of cloth
against a looming soft blue sky,
the color of the walls in my crib-room as an infant.

The affable hand-waves veiled behind translucent glass passing by
propelling fleeting smiles onward in the journey.

Though the atmosphere is dense,
its ambiance expounds a soft lull.
          There's a hush over the six o'clock late afternoon day,
as the auriculariae settle gently aside my temples,
placating the rooted tendons wrapped tautly
in my grove of flesh and bone.

                  It suddenly becomes disturbed

by the creaking and squeaking of a rusty frame,
the slow groan of old worn tires treading across harsh gravel,
and the conductor of the indistinct cacophony himself:

A placid old man,
in his worn red and black plaid long sleeve shirt,
faded grey work trousers,
dingy black socks,
muddy crusty ragged off-white sneakers,
and an old camouflage military cap to top it all off.

His face, barely visible under the old cap
and the worn silent shroud of his visage,
holds dull dark eyes steadfast peering ahead,
off into the horizon,
with slackened skin the color of clay,
from afar having the countenance of subtle cracks in worn concrete.

The One Man Band rides atop his aged machination silently--
I hear no stressed breath or grunts,
but in passing--

a slow mechanical raise of the right hand,
a slight tip of the head,
and a soft whisper of a hello in greeting.

          If I had blinked I would have missed it.

He slowly creaked and squeaked and groaned his way onward,
in his slow and steady rhythmic pace,
until he disappeared in the golden afternoon horizon.

I see him every morning and afternoon
as I drive in and out of the neighborhood--
I wave, always he in return with that slow mechanical gesture,
like an old theme park ride from the fifties.

It was the first time I had actually heard and felt his presence,
to see up close the picture of health and resilience that he is,
the Dorian Gray of bicyclists,
transferring his years of wear and tear onto his metal frame
and his balding rubber soles.

Every time I see him come round the bend now,
I still think of that aged Carousel with the rusty horses
and the song worn a semitone off-pitch,
or the "tranquil" boat ride with the languid mechanical dolls
with thick black eyes goggling eerily
and sallow arms waving infirmly--

but he will not erode as the horses, dolls, and his bicycle--
he will live on, and only he shall demarcate
the trash from the treasure.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
But I'm serious, so very serious.
I wish you could hear me.
I am happy though, so lavishly gay and bright.
I wish I knew what it was like so I wouldn't....
I want people to trust me. I don't want people to fear me, to see the disgust that I am, I want them to see innocence, and girlishness and and see me as relatable. I WILL NOT JUDGE YOU! I WILL NOT! I love hearing about you and your struggles, about your sorrows, and I can understand it, because I can feel just like you can feel and I love to feel what you are feeling for that is my only feeling.

I try to justify everything. If I do something I can't explain, or say something I might not like, or think that a person might not like it, I try to justify it with some kind of reasoning. Such as, "It's poetic" or "sounds pretty" or "be worth is someday."

I just want to be understood, and I want to understand you. Can you not hear the gentle bass of the Milky Way galaxy, slowly turning, and us, a virus, an atom, a quantum, a tinny tinny thing doing silly boring things like brushing our teeth, walking, reading, writing, doing things we don't understand, doing things we can't understand, being in love, being out of it, eating candy, having ***, giving ***, doing homework, cleaning, worrying, eating more candy, drawing pictures, thinking, holding, creating, destroying, recycling, creating destroying, recycling, creating, destroying, recycling, can we do nothing else?

Turn, world, turn, sun, around in a slow beautiful bbbbbmmmmmm....
you are so beautiful!
Hands that know what to do,
feet that say things and tell you that life is precious and nothing is funny. Beautiful!
Life is so serious. We do things that are VAIN. To be vain means to do things which have no good purpose. We wash things so they are clean only to make them ***** again.

A man will, in winter, put his heavy coat on, zip up the zipper, pick up a hat and smooth it on to his head across his hair, then, take his left glove and put it on his left hand and take his right glove and put it on his right hand, put his left sock on his left foot, then put his right sock on his right foot, next he puts his left boot on his left foot and puts his right boot on his right foot, he reaches over and tightens the laces of the left boot then makes an "X" with the laces and puts the end of the right most facing lace under the left most and sticks it through the hole and pulls them tight to create a knot, next he creates a long ear-shape like that of a bunny using the right lace and wraps the left lace around counter-clockwise, next he sticks the sideways left lace through the passage that was created by looping the lace around, creating another ear, then he tightens both ears, he makes another "X" with the ears and loops the right most ear under and trough the hole, then tightens them by a process called "double knotting." He then takes this process of double knotting and applies it to his right boot. He stands up and goes to the front door, walks down the driveway and goes into his heated van so he can drive to his temperature controlled desk job. We are creatures of habit. We do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ov.......&...^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&...

I'm tryin' to teach a chair how to walk,
they have legs, but they just can't use 'em.

Deep fried asphalt crawls beneath my wheels as I pedal on, pursued by buzzing flies
   and salty drops of sunscreen sweat sting my squinting eyes.

Caffeine coursing through my corporal chassis fuels my weary legs
   and mutes the screaming mind that wants the same respite for which my human vessel begs.

Be the road before me treacherous, the hills before me steep,
   God heals my aching body every night with fitful sleep.

How will one's feet dance to the rhythms if the gongs have ceased to pump the veins?

Are the hues of the palette enough for a leonardeschi art to transcend?

When your mezzo-soprano fails to hit, will your story still get heard?

Will a cyclist still pedal to savor the orange horizons without his friends?

Who will listen when the wrinkled fingers lay on the dusty piano?

Do these words still tell of a poet who once penned in flames?

We outlasted the moon!
In a timeless place we did it!
The pull of the moon and the rise of the sun irrelevant!
A group of warriors who couldn’t be more different, as I see myself
in grey —faded color, colors that will never cease to exist!
A rapper from south Africa, a student fluent in Chinese music, a girl with no bounds from down the road, a cyclist from Manhattan, a quiet devil from Belfast, and two girls who could be twins from Mexico all of us surived!
The famous campus— empty a bond forever, only the flies
dance with me!The pizza crust from what
feels like eternity or last week at this point fresh on the table,
still two hours before the day begins, eyes droopy, faces baggy no idea
where the sun is a blink sleeping, eternity awake the music on and off replacing  conversation occionsally tossing condoms a laugh, talk of favorite memories.
only sif (not sure what that was) hours ago pitch dark, lost with a welcome room
Sleepy travelers some head off needing the destination and rest wanting to jump offand hit the ground running, we made it walking as a bottle cap falls from an open window at three four disappear as the night lights turn off around me.
The ones who left early no less brilliant, I owe them all so much.
I will not begin to describe them because they could all take up a book of memories.
Funny stories then sad ones as it becomes clear to the tellers that one is in the making all it was, ice cream followed by a half hour, thrilled at company to Ashelies ice cream
after farewell song.
Reality chugs along.
A door opens, nobody comes along.
At three in the afternoon dizzy as light starts to claim the clock-tower.
Dizzy sick and unable to think in the afternoon the prophet before hand calls straight-mistake, (the first N4 alcoholic hungover never another drink I swear before drinking )
At ten that night out of the timeless room it’s one hour then fifteen minutes then another then thirty disappear.
Dancing on the table music and stories. Later that night or morning, at our lowest bit of energy. pumping iron. Pulling back together with a friend from the other side of the planet falling back letting go getting sprung up in the famous campus. Dancing on a tread mill shirtless together in the dimly lit gym.
Is there anything more divine?!
Then quite in the timeless room, at 3 in the afternoon sick missing the talk of a life claiming “there is no love without sacafrice", at 6 in the night I’m sleeping  debating heading home on that paved road opting instead for "who knows?!" At six in the morning, out of the timeless room, I’m the only one out, writing this as the drone of the song continues from the windows of fellow warriors, briefly drowned out by a helicopter. The beloved campus dead quite even birds asleep. Before the iron deep in the morning pool and talk of maybe being social accidentally sinking the 8 ball. At twelve in the alleged dead of night a room trashed unknown and the words spread a half mile out and brings the head honchos down to the timeless room, at three saved from sleep by a prior story of farting in sleepers faces woke me just in time in the timeless room. At sometime the door opposite the timeless room opened and a long narrow stroll around leads back to the timeless room, at some time time in the timeless home my presence maybe anxiously sought or ignored. The ecstasy and disbelief to see the sun, running back to the warriors who I just wished well at the sun! The same planets with vibrant colors. I will never forget the warriors but maybe their names.
I swat at a fly that was never on my arm.
I think of the infinities of time I will miss later.
My hearing worn thin with my sight, the birds songs lost their fullness
though in our business it’s very likely for the better
as I look to see the clock tower fully conquered,
I wonder if my parents will assume intoxication,
it is impossible to do this tail justice, though it will likely
end in the same spot: dizzy  complaints of exhaustion
getting sick and bliss before the end.
I have known the warriors  for 3 days, yet I know them better than family.
Outside the timeless room I learn partying means drinking with others
to bad dance music, the kind that kept me awake, as the smoke of
others cigars enter my lungs and the take truly ends in the same spot I trying to survive the eternal earthquakes after a long journey to say good-bye and in the timeless room,
the light stays the same. Some foosball in a timeless place in reality its a language or
a wreck room, in truth the room was always spinning, as my head is now.

Down fickle street
they ride jalopy's just for fun.
Hoot at the  cyclist , gerrymander the  Vue.
I spy grief hurtling down,
plume grey from the exhaust.
We're  no wiser, no leaner
ingesting your  worn  speed pedals
bravo.

Deep blue spring night in my lungs
filling my chest with blossoms of content
Despite being down to poo-change
& back to shining headlights on my life again
Tonight seems right in every detail
the cyclist cruising by on tiny friendly lights
this huge gum stirring above me
a white haired couple with tobacco coloured skin
who have grown alike over more years than i've experienced
Tonight makes me want to walk with and towards good company
to nowhere in particular
And I am on my way

each bird has its own branch and i am alone now
in mid-february midnight desolation
under a web of stars white as salt and just as plentiful
waiting on the celestial cyclist to bring the dawn across
my face and scorch the cool wet grass

tonight the clouds are arranged like a chessboard
a cosmic design in darkness and light
and i am a crippled pawn meditating with
with my pants off and my naked feet
in the sand of a north florida crossroads
trying to lose my own gravity and merge
with the stars cloaked in maniac faith
and american sweat

i'm waiting to be found by a bush doctor
with my head filled and floating like a nitrous balloon
under a canopy of hi-frequency bats
and the infinite disco ball hoping
this mighty poem might expand
time and fill space

i am no longer a jail cell poet starving
and pacing like a goldfish in an orange jumpsuit
the miraculous sunbreak has touched my deepest cells
hypnotized my life and caught
the tears on the right side of my face
i am a bee trembling in sunlight
salute me

i hope there is a mild breeze today
to dance sensually with my drifter's spirit
and swirl blond hair and pure cotton against
the sky at the top of this abandoned railroad bridge
covered in rust

all the sudden i am singing radically
about overcoming cosmic humiliation
bruise-purple tongue unhitched and lilting
long throat curled up toward the sun
as the birds and deer stand dumbfounded in the clearing
the sound resonates in my gut as my big white
teeth slam together

in this devout moment among
my share of god's abundance
i am only approximately human
one with the smell of living trees
dancing on the salad hillside
big eyes birthed inside sunset colors
soaked in warm honey with toes
twitching above the imagined
fire at my feet

when the singing stops and
the sun goes down i melt
back into my own temporal lobe
caressed by a butterfly finally
able to sleep

There is always the waiting
you hit the panic button
but should be used to it
by now,
biting your nails as if that
makes anything quicker
pacing the corridor wishing
there was more
than waiting.

I waited a long time for longer
and wrong of me
I see that now,

my bones setting as
hard as my face
getting
old,
but we learn by mistakes or
we mostly do,
a costly do nevertheless.

it's whether the planets align
some say with that penetrating
look
it's a sign
I'm still waiting for the proof.

So
and so is a good thing
it gives me time to blink
to think
of a rhyme

sometimes I wonder if that's
not a sign, but there's
always time to wait
and see.

I remember at the party
as blurry as it all was
when you kissed me through my tears
and startled me
I was angry
angry because I took the blame
for the tickets we all received
and you kissed me
I was too blinded by *** to see how romantic
and how sweet your gesture of sympathy
really was, objectively;
internally I was not ready, for reasons
unclear even to myself
(to sum,
I was young and dumb
and frightened of affection)
but even now, a year or two later
I think about your eyes, sparkling
and wired, intimidating and intriguing;
I think about your posture, your wit,
your cyclist thighs,
and wonder why I didn’t think
you were a catch of a guy

a cyclist avoids a dog
but takes out
a table
of garage sale
figurines
as a drought
pamphleteer
reprimands
a child
for *******
on a hose.

     I haunt my faith.

according to my father
my father
isn’t alive     my father
eavesdrops.

except for talking
he’s been silent
until

in pictures of her
as a young woman
his mother
is dead.

"Good evening", said the cyclist,
It echoed in the evening mist,
I was baffled I never knew him,
The dark stranger tall and slim!
Before I could acknowledge
He was gone in the haze,
The unknown messenger of good wills
A roaming angel on two wheels!

"Good evening", I said on my way,
The passerby was baffled had no word to say,
In the silent evening of misty haze
I was happy to turn a new page!

A cyclist in a purple turban and salwar pants
whizzed past us as we trudged up the steep hills

of Arlington, Virginia

His gaze caught mine 
just a starry
flash in the bucket

wordless soul communion
that said so much



Do you know what religion he is?
queried my hubby, David
"Sikh...I think" still reflecting
on our brief exchange


David and I were in town for our niece's wedding 

and also on vacation
enjoying the sights and plethora
of attractions that flourish in the capitol
city, Washington, DC


As I surveyed the beautiful capitol
abounding with lush gardens, parks,
magnificent magnolia trees and
fragrant pink and white crepe myrtle

I couldn't help observing the rich diversity
of people and cultures working and living

here


"Where are you from?" I asked our taxi driver

"I'm originally from Ethiopia,"
a waiter in a restaurant told us
he was from Morocco...another person from Egypt...
India...China and so on…



USA has a diverse topography
heavenly mountain ranges, verdant forests,
fruitful farmlands
span outward to luminous blue shores

The racial, political, cultural diversity of our
great nation is what makes us so 

unique and special
It's in our DNA, and literally in mine, 

a real melting ***

All Americans have one thing in common:
our thirst for liberty and freedom

These words from the Memorial of Abraham Lincoln
are brilliant with truth and timeless with love:

"I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty
will burn in your bosoms until there shall
no longer be a doubt that all men are
created free and equal." ~Lincoln

Have you ever heard in your mind
the sounds that silence makes
the silence that spreads like music
as in splendor a dewy morning breaks
silence that clings to a Florentine fog
as lone cyclist a cobble street snakes

the silence that hangs heavy
after a heavy down pour finally ends
or await with it for the moment
when heaven its pearly reward sends
they sound so different and surreal
like life’s ethereal myriad bends

the silence that weighty dwells
in wisps, rises from vacant eyes
the silence that fills to the brim
dole, of a beggar’s ripping sighs
silence that hangs like a sword
on fears of unsaid distant byes

silence o endless tormenting silence
you play on a piano’s dusty keys
from a chair that rocks in howling wind
on a lifeless verandah, distant sees
from a score of such like mends
wherefrom one has drunk to ones lees

it speaks no man’s earthly breath
yet heard in shattering numbness
in ache and blight so steeped
in rustle of a long gone worn dress
in raucous merry gay proceeds
or the mirth of a child’s bless

in the time of a frisky bloomy day
or gnaw of a long starry night
the lullaby of distant streaking trains
or the gondola’s reflective sight
the cavort of journeys done together
Echoes the hush of a soundless blight


original
saadat tahir
22nd July, 2k13
Islamabad.

The winds of change blow the sands of time
In such a violent manner
They erode and smooth the scars
Left by careless pasts
Then cut deeper in new ways
New areas to be scarred
Like the 3-D mural of the
Grand Canyon, tattooed on my good friend's
Arm, which continually spat
The Colorado River as the tattooed member
Rested against the cold tile, draping over the
Side of the tub
The place my good friend gave up material want
For the spiritual punishment which she so believed in
And the winds of change blew the sands of time
Like a pumice stone scraping away
So-called offensive skin
As if an apology for being human
Acting as a cyclist backpedalling
To deny the cemented fact of what was done

The glimmer in his hair, those kaleidoscope eyes,
Isn’t he lovely?
With lustre and humid afternoons
We jumped on plastic sheeting
Till our cyclist’s thighs and drummer’s fringe
Ached for the next day’s meeting.

Yen for one such as you,
Sidled up in the overtaking lane.
A flashing red passed me by, mouthing
‘Mother and child reunion is just a song.’

And with that I wished for you,
Non-existent, imaginary you.

But for now, marmalade sticks together
A household of three companions
As we wait for our January highs
And commiserate November rains.

I’m the one of them who wishes
That she could sing Wonder’s song aloud
To you. Imaginary, non-existent you.

Sid's Valentine Goodbye.

Valentine's Day - Sid woke up as
he had done for odd eighty years.
Hidden in a closet were her roses
and cheap card.

His thin ex-tuberculous wife was
already up, she had made tea,
laid the paper and opened the
windows for the stuffiness to exit.

Joe Loss was playing Moonlight on the
new thingy C.D and outside one
of the warders was moving about.

Sid kissed her on the cheek, lightly
but with feeling, presented his roses,
felicitations handed her the card,
she loved it.This was their sixty fourth
Valentine,

As usual Joan shed a little symbolic tear,
nothing too un-British and came to underline
her love for big Sid with another little kiss.
Speed cyclist, dispatch rider, Radar Sid
was on lazy boy with The Mail and char.

Paper open, tea untouched she gave him.
her usual restrained peck and realized.

He was still warm.

For some, certain places
hold a rather mythic oeuvre
in our veins; they are seen as places of magic.

Maybe a cyclist couple
have spent most of their money
on traveling  the world for their blog,
their last stop is New York City
so that they may get pictures of themselves
at places like The Brooklyn Bridge, Lady Liberty
& that megalithic skyline reaching the clouds.
Or maybe a foodie from Wisconsin
just wants to try Famous Ben's Pizza on the West Side
because its New York ******' New York pizza.

Maybe a doe-eyed screenwriter skips
his flat square suburban town
to sell his words and soul to the sprawling sunny L.A
where dreams are made in pixels.

Maybe some New Age beaded wrist to ankle lady
spent her life savings to jump over the ocean
to visit the ancient pyramids built for a purpose
yet fully known.

Maybe a bearded dude
visits Easter Island to try and understand
the complexities of his ancestors while
soaking in the rich vastness of nature around.


Maybe I used to see places this way. Probably...


But in these places people live!
It's not mythology to them.

Maybe every night a homeless man prays
& begs for food on the late night A-train in NYC.

Maybe a middle-aged fading blonde couple
spend their time in L.A at a health food store
to recoup the savings they lost joining a cult way back when.

Maybe a Swedish teen  traverses the trash
and littered-burned streets of Giza everyday
on her way to work
hoping funny looks aren't shot her way
for the way she dresses
or shouted at by bearded Salafi men.

Maybe a rare species of bug is unknowingly stepped on
in Easter Island.

Today, i see magic in getting lost on the NYC subway.
I found magic mythology on the beaches of Dahab,
80 miles away from Cairo.
I see magic in the mythologies,
while others live it,
        the daily grind.

*It's all around if you know where to look.

Six a.m. and the morning leans
To kiss the night;
The streets are full of stars
And sleepwalking business suits

The citrus woman
With peroxide blonde hair
And peroxide blonde fingers
If she spoke I imagine it would sound
Like lemon trees and smoke
Her cigarette burns holes in the sky
But when she passes me by
She smells like the Boots Cosmetics Isle
She paints the yellowed-ivory
Of her finger-claws
With crystallised orange
To cover the nicotine stains
And maybe I think I recognise
My lemonade shampoo
And tangerine hand wash
Like a setting sun over Sicily

The beer can boy
With stuffed up hair
And a stuffed up liver
He’s grey like a November playground
Once all the children have grown
And he’s hole-punched right through
I might think he was heart-broken
And trying to see how many other lost souls
The bottoms of bottles hold
If he wasn’t here every morning
Lolling down the pavement
Like a spring stretched too far
Asking for a paper
That I’m not allowed to give
And trying to drown himself
In the pooled rain under the streetlights

The coat-and-cardie bundle
With wind-swept hair
And wind-swept grimace
Like a tornado tore up
The geography of her personality
And left it with just a bike and a death wish
And those features heaped together
Between chimney-tops and table tops
For consolation
Her feet on the pedals while her hair throttles
Because she’s unlit
Unseen, unprotected
And she rides like this morning is the last
As if she knows that skulls
Crack like eggshells sometimes
And handlebars are sometimes not in front of you.

If my Dad was here he’d see
A smoker
A drunk
A dangerous cyclist
But I see lemon zest and love hearts and black liquorish
After all I’m at home
Among these mistakes
That the morning hours make