Letter to T.

Letter to T.

words appear

like rusted knives

out of

storage rooms

friend from

an age of blue irises,

do my words

seem strange now?

woman or a dance,

or poet of the evening,

have you grown any older?

do words from old poems

give you an uneasy shiver,

at times?

and why are we talking of words

so much,

why are they

celebrating pain

in their

animal hearts,

and calling it art?

let us be silent instead,

remove the blades

from our dreams

stand barefoot in the garden

at dawn,

beneath the homage

of birds

to the preserver of light

and pray

for an exorcism

from the ageless whispers, vicious.

barefoot,

not searching, but believing,

not mourning, but in rain.

To write or not to write

That is the only question.

Dice

Dice

1.

daybreak 

and your leaf voice

salt

and snow

sirens 

from a childhood road

feather and snow

I'm still there, queen.

2.

doors of silence,

a child calls me 

rain poet,

walk

the map may change

while you

sleep

melt

are you 

still looking for answers?

3.

distant moon.

we are sitting in the rain,

girl

we are singing, unafraid

a dice is spinning

in the air

girl, you are weeping

and your grief

takes 

the trees 

by surprise, 

and strokes the bougainvillea,

gently

earth, moon and us,

at the mercy of another light.

Roses for the Madhouse

Roses for the Madhouse

1.

night of bells and 

soldiers,

circles drawn or imagined

in blue light

my laughter spreads

from

dream to dream

lie down by my side

in this 

valley of sounds

and listen to my confessions,

covered

in sand and rose.

2.

naked or in ornaments,

the prayer looks

for a way

through flowers and

electromagnets

through

the ruins of our strange affair

the prayer

looks for a way

to remove the dust

of  nights

from 

our eyes

soft wooden

nights, 

haunted gardens,

and sea waves that answered 

to our white call, 

last August.

3.

roses

in the eyes of the new born,

leaves in the wind,

a city of peace

shining

call me by another name.

4.

miracles in the rain,

I discover you

at dawn,

on a bridge across

the blue layers

of time 

and song

faith of the phoenix.

5.

you speak to animals

with touch 

you survey the secrets

of glow worms

bride of heat,

we meet as the earth 

puts to rest

its

questions

of love and fury.

6.

haunted

by my own songs,

running from the cavemen

who live in

these poems,

who make sudden noises

in the corners

of sleep,

I wonder

if I should write

even a word more

who should I blame

for these scenes from a mad mansion?

7.

spring time.

forgive.

desire and 

third thoughts.

forgive.

a rebellion in chains.

forgive.

ruthless your art.

forgive.

the last colour

of peace.

8.

snow 

in your eye,

milk horoscopes

forget my stories

summer shall bring

a woodpecker

in blue.

 

Words on a Glass Frame

Words on a Glass Frame

I.

alone,

my visions sway

between

reason and magic

calling your name softly,

I resurrect you

in this song,

our feet are wet again,

touching,

our ghosts

lost in the sun.

II.

daring dancers

on water,

time and light.

Noise

Noise

Inside the

purgatory of a poem,

there are silences

thin, blue silences

noiseless birds

flying

in shock

  ~

tell me about your childhood, girl

did you see

too many deaths?

diamond street

diamond street

1.

walk slow in diamond street,

walk slow

with a gun,

here every turn

hides a war,

and every corner

shudders

in

fear and orgasm

die or die.

2.

walk slow in diamond street,

wait for houses

to appear,

look in through the windows,

into the rooms,

dark at first,

then slowly coming to light,

revealing faces from 

the sea

observe the faces burn,

the lips, the eyes,

the teeth,

and other signs of horror or peace.

3.

walk slow in diamond street,

where every step 

makes you lonelier

knock on doors

that choose you,

by name or by birthmark

ask for freedom

at every door,

though they now

sell it no more.

don't turn away yet,

they may show you other antiques,

preserved upstairs,

a long time in the attic.

.4.

sometimes, a mirror

sparkling

with the light of ancient women,

sometimes, a white diary

of alphabets

from the future

sometimes, on the wall, 

a fairytale that bleeds

don't turn away,

leave only when asked to.

5.

leave with memories

of lust and defeat,

leave with silver wounds

on your feet,

find the lion

find the beat

walk once more

on diamond street

6.

walk slow in diamond street,

walk slow

with a telescope

to look back at ruins,

and moon capsules in your belt

to heal

the hours

of fire and trauma.

And then,

as adventure ends 

for the day,

as diamond street

curls 

in bed,

look deep into the eyes 

of the lion,

then feel the silence around you

for a whole minute

tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tock tick tock tick

In the end, speak.

This Blog is undergoing changes

Dear readers, this blog is trying to undergo a few changes. So, please bear with me if you find anything or everything missing or distorted or outrageous here for the time being.

I hope to get it into shape very very soon.

Poetically, yours,

Inam.

Song on a Winter Night

Song on a Winter Night

Allah,

let me offer songs and paper boats

at your house of prayer,

so submarine

my song pure as a wound,

and my boat crafted in blue 

To friends

who call me a recluse,

I say,

I never wished

to let the season of flowers

pass me by,

 

but most of the time,

I am hunting for clues

to

what went wrong

with my sense of smell

and

my sense of sound.

Allah,

what was it?

those blue

    electric dancers of the sky,

their footfalls

belong to another time,

drenched and distant they

forget 

my name

and I forget my prayer

on the night

of crisis;

the shoreline disappears.

Allah,

let me be the song

sprinkled

at your altar, so submarine

a song wounded by winter,

a boat learning to speak.

.

Riverina

Riverina

Riverina,

let us be drug pedlars tonight,

let police cars

go up in flames,

as we narcotize the landscape.

Riverina, listen

to the drummers of the dark,

obey the music

that rises like an air plane

and searches the sky for prophets.

Riverina,

seduce me with cocoa

and whips,

hunt my body for ancient passwords

and indulge me in

those little games of telepathy

beneath the tree of silence,

in a landscape of romance and brown,

those games where we exchanged

the forbidden celluloid

of our minds.

Riverina,

let radio stations go up in flames

as I record your smells

tonight,

under a wounded Sagittarius.

A Wolf Dreaming

A Wolf Dreaming

1. A City Dreaming

soot

trees on fire

and the god of sleep

riding a stardust automobile

dance

dance

moons,

coins,

and grunge jingle, jingle

inside the sponge belly

of the metropolis

did I hear somebody speak the word “love” ?

did I hear somebody sing?

somebody tells me your whereabouts, Dria

what are you doing inside the pipelines?

have you lost your way, one more time?

how long have you been there?

Dria?

the dream is laid out like hot beef

we begin to eat,

remembering our dead sisters,

and our pirate lords

dance my pretty she-wolf

dance

do I hear somebody talk in sleep?

do I hear somebody sing?

coins, beef and stardust

are all we are left with , Dria,

and a city dreaming and dancing.

Moving inside the pipelines,

do you hear my voice?

2. Inside the Scream of a Wolf

Dear dead moon,

did you get my last letter?

I presume you did not,

for I got no reply,

or old voyeur,

were you too engaged

in an ancient indian time,

playing the flute

to maidens glistening with sweat?

were you haunting 

children again

with tales of torture?

did you really not get my letter?

have you lost interest?

never mind,

all is fine in my room of music and prayer,

I have just been struggling over this tune for days;

with fireworks in and around my body,

songs don’t come cheap or easy,

and catharsis is a lost smell.

menace comes easy though,

and here I am,

wearing a wild mask

and flirting with the girl in her wedding blouse,

why do women so love

metaphors?

who buried the children?

.

VIolet

Violet

Sometimes the noon changes before my eyes. Not everyone notices. Everyone is either sipping on coffee or remembering sexual moves. I, however, watch the strong white of the sky give way to a moist violet. I become aware that the ancient ghost dancers are mourning again, revealing their ancient grief.

Some of them have beautiful faces, and some have their faces wrapped in thin violet masks. Not all of them can sing, but the ones who do always sing of

       love

           and 

               murder. 

On noons like this, I start feeling defenseless, and I too order a coffee.

Slowly, the noon turns white again, the soccer on the television starts making sense again, and the waitress comes with my order. I do notice, however, that she wears a faint violet on her lips.

(a special thanks to RBC)

.

Notes

Notes

- to Auritro and Riju

1.

we artists evoke such envy and suspicion

amongst our fellow men

that nothing will please them more

on a Sunday morning

than the news

of the death of one of us.

2.

I have seen the greatest works of art

that could have been,

poems and virtual games

that could win at

every awards’ night,

but I do not remember them,

and that’s a good thing

for if I did,

all art would end tonight.

3.

I would want to know

in all accuracy and detail,

what is it 

that a man feels when

his greatest, worst, most sinister enemy for ages

falls before him, cold.

4.

last three days I took weed,

I always got a window seat

at the right end of the bus;

how often we forget

to thank God for these little miracles.

5.

a guitar slides inside my soul,

at the end of a street,

my friends the night crawlers

greet the officers in grey suits

and together they stare at the moon

or remember spectacular feasts from an ancient time.

6.

glancing through my ipod,

the name of blue oyster cult strikes me,

I suddenly remember you

who gave me these songs,

you who carried pills

in your wallet

and songs in those pills;

it’s an old fact now

that you overdosed that night. 

I can’t say that I miss you,

for we weren’t that close,

what did we ever really share

but for an afternoon

in park street,

and the mist

of a cheap cigar,

last year on paul simon’s birthday?

7.

ladies and gentlemen,

when on weed,

do not forget to take a rickshaw ride,

now don’t look so embarrassed,

just let it all slide down your body,

your third eye, your heart, your genitals,

and out through your shoes;

now’s the time to kill your shadow,

now you are the priest

of a thousand cathedrals

of glass,

does the city bubble inside your skull?

look up once,

you even got a full moon;

dear sirs and madams,

you’ve got a choice now-

engage in the sacred art of bitchcraft,

or grow fangs

and growl like a wolf.

8.

some day, I’ll just leave

without a poem or a note,

some day, I’ll leave

with only leonard cohen

in my pocket.

9.

never tell your stories

to authors,

they always steal them.

10.

do you too feel 

a strange kind of sadness

every time you hear

the night-watchman’s whistle?

11.

a true spirit of brotherhood

is felt

when three people sit in a circle

and remember to pass on the weed joint

each time, unerringly,

after exactly three puffs.

12.

how long does one live

with jazz and jibanananda?

 

how long does one worry

over the price of cigarettes?

how long does one remember

the smells

of the woman

with an ektara in her breasts? 

13.

supermodel,

spotted you on a billboard at bypass,

faking on the trumpet,

I remembered the afternoon

we spent staring at the trains

that passed so slowly,

we talked of chinese horror movies then,

we thought love could conquer all,

supermodel,

do you still stagger around the corridors,

on pills?

supermodel,

do you still listen to those folk songs?

do you remember my tongue

inside your ears,

and my body radiant in sweat?

did you know that every beautiful woman

like you

has a bitch of a best friend?

supermodel,

does your dad

still protect you from guys like me?

does he still drive you around town?

supermodel,

do you still dream of being a strict mother

to your unborn child?

do you keep your soul

in the hollow of the blue tree,

every night?

14.

girl of the rivers,

you appear in a cloak of sand and steel,

and shuffle your cards

to reveal the fate of poetry

on nights of storm and murder;

your neck wet,

your fingers the oars of an astral boat, 

and my spine the fret board of a guitar,

our story takes a new turn.

15.

the river meanders

around boulders and songs,

and carves an Adam upon the rocks,

our argument spins

in the night sky,

and paints an Eve dressed in silver,

I never knew

we needed the moon so badly.

16.

people won’t think much of you

these days

unless you start making comments,

so what are you waiting for?

Strange Things Happen

Strange Things Happen


1.

The door between
miracle and ruin
is always left ajar;

when the night
is in the grip of rain,
the poem slides down my hand
and fractures the floor,

beneath
lie the remains
of vampires and pirate ships

the sapphire beak of a bird
glows in the thin space
between you and I,

and the door, the door…
it quavers ever so slightly.

2.

White panthers in the waterfall,
their hunger echoes
among the hills

their hunger has the sound
of ten blue xylophones

flesh and stone
argue inside my hair and I resort to prayers…

time strips me of my clothes

Dinner is ready, and the song is tender.

3.

A sky of crocodile skin
greets me at dawn

I hide inside your night dress
and pray
for the war to end

“The lepers are singing again”,
you say,
“they are singing to the sun”

I look with longing at my thumb
and anoint it with oils,

like earth’s last hero,
I sacrifice my thumb to the leather sky,

and hide deeper
inside your manuscript of coal and dreams.


4.

So many years now,
so many stories
and pieces of midnight jazz;

these days,
when I speak,
only werewolves respond,

and you,
my lady of the gold mines,
you seem to have lost
your strange lust for salvation.

Tell me,
does music still remind you
of love and imaginary volcanoes?

does the sight of water
remind you of beautiful poets?


5.

it’s been a month
since the third world war began,

newspapers don’t reach here daily,
and the women
sell coffins and folk records

you choose this scenario
to smoke your leaves

you choose to call upon
an old mistress
to undress before you and fondle your ego

you choose to call a hot air balloon
and you survey the city
with a woman in your arms,
folk songs in your ears,

and brutal, dazzling ghosts in your mouth.


6.

with a flick of my finger,
the room changes colour

it becomes a chamber of trial,
and everyone pleads with the spider

for a while, I live on stolen time
my face pale, my mouth dry,
and my empire frozen;

almost half a century passes this way…

…in the end
the spider offers a grin,

the mutants are forgiven,
the room fills with a jungle scent,

and strange things happen.




.

You Ruled Egypt with Your Song...

You Ruled Egypt with Your Song…

-for D. and A.



You ruled Egypt with your song
I prayed inside wet caverns

You were the young boy’s first vision
of snow
and I
the voice of cloudbursts.

Would the earth ever know
what it is
to breathe inside
the womb of a miracle?


.

Songs of the Snow

Songs of the Snow


- for D.


1.

I offer you now
my soul in a blue suitcase,

not every woman needs a poet in life.

2.

your eyes had the infinite innocence
of a snow leopard’s eyes

your soul took the shape of a knife
and rid the earth
of a terrible curse of geometry

you were always the reward
that ugly heroes
found in heaven.


3.

I found you,
as chocolate finds
the skull on marijuana

I found you,
as the piano finds the fingers it shall love.


4.

As you sleep,
I shall recreate a tale of jazz and Persia
in your hair and ear,

I shall
remember a delicate dream
of cats in lust,
on a beach of living guitars,

I shall plant upon your eyes
a tree with blue fruits
and branches of phosphor,
as you sleep.

What shall I not?

5.

snow in the north,
the wizard in his fortress,

you were the prophesy made by tea leaves.



.

Lorca You Deserved to Die

Lorca You Deserved to Die


From the streets of Granada
to the drainpipes of my house,

there is only
the noise of bulls and bullets,

only the radioactive voices
of priests and whores
in my skull,

and forgotten heroes smoking pot
in the rain.

Lorca, you deserved to die,
like any other animal
in any other country.

The tree
outside my window
bears no songs, no scriptures, no more…

and the night
is corrupted
by dangerous afterthoughts,

will God appear upon my wall?
have cigarettes become costlier?
will you,
yes you,
stop being a joker,
and write a good poem for once?

will you,
yes you,
stop calling Chetan Bhagat
the voice of the generation?

and Lorca, you deserved to die
like any other magus
in any other fable.

Poems rot by the dozen here,
and almost every dog
barks at the universe,

almost every day
my memory starts failing me
and I can not recall my age or my birthday-

Lorca,
did I meet you once
in a landscape of crutches
that your friend painted?
Or am I only time-traveling, with a pistol in my hand?

Am I only recalling a dream
of moons, grapes and sinful woodcutters,
a dream that fell
from your sleeve
when they took you away?

From the streets of Spain
to the cinemas of my city,

I only breathe hell
I only search for the bones of dead horses

I only curse you for cursing me
with this
burden of dreaming.

And Lorca,
I must tell you this,

you deserved to die,
like any other pianist
in any other concert of crystals.

Song of the Wind Woman

Song of the Wind Woman


the sitar curls
like a wounded hydra
and sleeps
at the feet
of the wind woman

a dust storm
wounds
the silver astronomy of my bones

the calcutta skyline
morphs
into phantom camels

and the camels begin their exodus
on an atlas
of sand, coffins and hot comets.

-Heroine of earth and alchemy,
When did you awaken?

-I awoke with the end of the war.

On a dawn of soccer and gold eagles,
you may read
this poem
and wonder
what happened last night

what were the camels seeking
in the hot dust
of her throat,

what were the very last words
of the sitar,

and why was the storm curling
in the gold refuge
of her sari?

Another Song of Love

Another Song of Love


you stepped
into the laboratory

you shook the vial of love

you heard
the noise of roses
struggling in your fists

angel
of sex and sound
you waited for the earth to turn lemon,

my poem
fell on your skin
and you were lost almost forever,

forever you are traced
in the digital memory
of thieves;

acid girl,
your sweat
stains the folklore
of my forgetful land,

and whispers secret corridors
to thieves

when they raid
the museum of magic,
with only the weapon of sound,

tonight.

A Jazz in Bronze

A Jazz in Bronze


a dawn of bronze and jazz
swells
in the shark’s dream tongue

waking to the sun’s seduction

licking the sun’s fragile neck,

I remember
the southern sea breeze
and dream women
who teach geography
and know the language of tribes;

songs and maps
burned last night,

turned to ash,
ash only I offered
to a tree of crucifixions-
all this
in poet’s alley;

shark music in my body
and sun’s dark drug
in her blouse,

the secret of the dawn
lies in my kiss.

Who falls upon the wet fields of jazz?
Who falls like martyr or addict?

Who is it that calls now
for souls of murdered poets?

I hear the earth’s first poet,
who forged words
in the vaults of his body

I hear our feet devour the sun

I hear the hour that comes now
shall begin the age of secrets;

and every day at dawn,

poems of bronze
shall tempt the sharks.

9 Moons

[Ashes, Munch]

9 Moons

1.

my fingers are blades
that slice mythologies

my fingers also worship your thighs.

2.

words are an orgy
in the castle
she built with her eyes,

tonight she may declare war
against the lovers
from dusty epics

tonight she may draw out
the noose of lyrics
that has been lying for long
in her closet

among the laces
from her third wedding.

3.

let the camera
sink like a stone
in the lake at moonshine

let my axe sink
into the moon man’s wooden legs

let us all watch the movie
in funereal silence.

4.

old man from Pluto,
you are the monarch
of all the windows in the city

your torn body
was always a friend
to war pilots

who landed in obscure forests
and heard the voice
of sacred lions.

5.

february turns in your ears
like a choir warning
of love and treason

wash her feet
wash her torn feet,
with the storm
you stole from the ektara

let her sing
to the ship that carries away her sleep
in many tiny boxes of rich wood.

6.

when your voice
crawls up ancient towers
of stone or bones

and is heard
in far away rivers, railway yards
and cities with cold asylums,

I know your womb
is charged then
with a foetus of rain

and that
you are invulnerable at last,
my acid girl..

7.

when you slaughter a robot
at midnight,
its soul knows of it
only the morning after.

8.

there was sulphur in those eyes,
and a dooryard of blue lions

spies followed her
as she traversed the country of mirrors
with a secret code
in her spine

she would dine with the prince
in his castle of salt and war crafts
and reveal her code to him

but the troops of the stone king
swooped upon her
in the lane before my house in this city

I seized the radio,
turned to the moon,
and stretched out my arms like a lover

and when the bullet stroked her waist
she morphed into a fox
and took refuge
inside the moon radio.

The camera pans 9 days;

now, only I
have her code

now I have usurped
the prince’s spine,

and my spies tell me
they have seen her twice,
flying a war craft
over the Ganges.

9.

my fingers stroke the thousand moons

inside your body of
curly wet leaves.

my fingers also remember
to slice dictators.

Love Song from Pluto

Love Song from Pluto


Girl of bullet, sweat and neon

you turn upon that bed again,
your body a garden of myths
where children play
with brick, sand and masks

you call out to them,
like every night,
before your dream turns to snow

the poet from Pluto
is on the prowl again
and gifts you
a skull of mist and guitar

he says he is a traveler of lands
where cave-paintings abound

the children love the sound
of his brown guitar
and leave their play
to make him a crown of glass

but he offers no history,
only the mist of war

then your body talks to the owl
that perched on your table
a decade back

your body speaks
of magnificent poems
written in brick and embrace,
but the owl warns of new gods

you rise up,
and change your head for the skull
and set out to find the poet

he is cycling
in the outskirts
of your garden of myth and sweat

but he knows you are coming
again
to hear his bastard prophecies

he knows you smell a lot like
the guitar shop
of his childhood, brown and strange,

girl of bullet, sweat and neon.

The Winter Jazz

[Painting courtesy Anurima, artist, poet and writer; friend]

The Winter Jazz

winter charges the clocks
with a magic
that is otherwise found
in the hooves of unicorns

look out your window
and watch that dwarf
dangle from the hands
of one such clock

he looks like
a boy ran from home
to play videogame

inside the giant clock
sits his mother,
cigarette in hand
and unicorns in the eye;
she died sitting-
the mother of all winter stories.

and now the hands of the clock
cold and gloved
lift the dwarf to 1 o' clock
and teach him the secret of videogames.

warm and woolen,
you kneel in your room
and remember girls
with uncommon names

who bury their wombs
every winter.

“mother,
are you a ghost,
or are you a unicorn?”

“I am a ghost
dining on unicorns.”

at that thin reply,
the dwarf bares his hooves
and breaks
into the wet viscera
of the clock

inside, he clicks on doors and corridors.
and liberates the girls,
with very uncommon names,
from the al capone look-alike,

he finds them kneeling,
in their polygons
of terror and chocolate

It’s always like this in virtual poems.

The Hall of Blue Jazz

[Frida Kahlo's Love Embrace of the Universe]

The Hall of Blue Jazz

-dedicated to Chick Corea

1.

The priest strokes the organ

his music curves

around the soul of ants.

a glass of water beside him

now and then,

a blue egg falls into the glass and cracks,

then the keys of his organ recognize

the scent of river souls…

who wanted his body

so many times,

to cover with sand.

2.

the symphony ends,

and at that last stroke of war

the high priestess walks in.

she offers him the glass

“here is your drink,

here the needlework of smoke.

he is scared by her voice,

it forebodes a quiet dance,

so he asks,

“what must I pay?

“Only the fever,

if you may.

3.

In another time,

there was a wedding

in the hall of sand.

her love was always salt

or

a silent graveyard

some nights she carried

the scent of other lovers.

some nights she talked

of the river children

who came often,

with their arsenal of beauty and smoke.

4.

but now the body

of the priestess

crumbles before the ants

the graveyard in the sky

awakens

to my very dark ode.

and the children come

in horror and prayer, their children.

fever and blue eggs

are all he may offer,

and a little bag of sand.

Lines for Leonard

Lines for Leonard

-for L. Cohen on his birthday, 21st September

Suzanne takes you down

to her mansion of pearls…

blood pearls grace the violin

the psalm of death is heard

and the scent of kisses,

submarine

you discover the lovers

moving on crutches…

exploring the water songs

dragging their wings

like old angels

beneath the demon of sound,

they love and die

beneath the umbrella of lions,

they write secret letters

to their fathers.

they ask you to be their king

but you only wait on them,

like a boy in a hotel.

Shreds

Shreds

the last train snakes away

the last train of music

leaves our world.

 

no one gets down

 at the blue station of beauty.

the train meets the vulture

at the vanishing point,

 in my painting…

where waits an old friend,

with dancers

 in her wet collar bones…

she asks me to tear her,

in every shred…

…occult is her feet

and her prayer an inferno.

Garcia,

        Garcia

today you can confess,

you were the one

 who bridged god, salt and naked whores

and boarded the train of dancers.

you were the one

conversing in the raw mist

with werewolves.

then I tell my old friend,

“I stole the truth from unwilling prophets

and here I am

painting streets with vanishing points;

would you like it if I tore you?”

blue and occult, her feet.

[Note: Garcia is Federico Garcia Lorca of course]

Second Last Song for Dria

Second Last Song for Dria

In stories I heard once,
sometimes the beast was cured
and could walk again

into the endless garden.

Dria,
if you stroked my voice tonight,
you would shudder and flee

like from a lover
from another birth…

for it’s a voice
that has forgotten
its own secrets…

it’s a voice
that froze last winter,
when snow came early;

now it would howl
in the inferno
of your gentle fingers, Dria

if you stroked my voice tonight

but if you saw me under the sky,
maybe you would laugh
at the costume that I am wearing

but it’s the only one I found
after they shut down
the theatre of ugly heroes…

this costume of an astronaut….

in stories I heard as a child,
beasts learnt to halleluiah

and costumes did wonders at night.

The Blood Song

The Blood Song


I know this blood…

It was spilled
a million nights ago…

It’s come back again,

it hangs
from the claws
of the song…

the song carries faces too,

of lovers breathing
in the white geometry
of the city…

and I know that song
all too well…

it tells
of the longing
for murder and sleep…

an animal longing
that seizes you by the neck
on full moon nights…

that noise
that noise

...and sometimes, the city vanishes
from my body…

and I am left with
a superhero in silhouettes
racing into the night…

but at other times,
the ping-pong dies
in her lips

and the blood song emerges
from the breast
of the angel…

then I bow before his singing

I murder and sleep.

Soul Mosaic

Soul Mosaic

morning moves like a river...a brown river in your tongue...deliver us from the sun...deliver us from the corpse and the fog...

a brown dog trails the rag picker...caveman trails the dog...and even now, I juggle on the rope...and grope among the monks...to steal into the tower of song...there lies the one you loved once...you took her soul of musk in your bare hands...and kissed...in her moans you heard the history of stones and war paintings...she was a bride of the winds…

bird of jazz
bird of screams
the third sky was seen last Monday…

I tempt you to dream...

Sisyphus prowls upon your prayer...but in this bare morning, you only remember gothic sparrows. Come, step into the painting on the wall...

the bride rides a carriage of ghosts...confide in me your lust...bird of jazz...you heard the word of the caveman...when morning moved like a painter's hand...

sand upon the sleeping dog...
man alone melts into grasshoppers

an eye pops out from the blue mosaic of the soul...the whole tree shivers....the river's mouth is a cold flute...

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the dance of the grasshopper...!"

she sprinkles musk,
the cult movie begins,
I only tempt you to dream.

[Note: “tower of song” is borrowed from Leonard Cohen.]

Skull Piano

Skull Piano

Odin hangs from the street lamp…
his skull is a keyhole

'o let us all pray...

...your skull turns to rain
and falls in fierce droplets

upon the ivory keys

piano fills the room...

and sins are buried;
(here the father killed the son)

the coffin is put to rest
in my head

piano,
wipe away the birthmark
on that dark god's head

'o let me pray...

the night in my jaws,
I am ready

women,
come with your fingernails
come with your moons...
women.

my skull feels like rain

'...that jazz kills the day.

Amen.

[note: Legend has it that Odin offered himself for sacrifice in order to gain knowledge. For nine days, he hung upside down from the World Tree. Wounded and without food, he meditated. In the end he saw light and acquired knowledge from the runes that had fallen from the tree. The HANGED MAN card in the tarot deck reflects his story.]

Jazz Ghosts

Jazz Ghosts

The leopard runs
through the city…

the night reveals some of its claws

my soul remembers a corner
where gamblers dealt bullets…

and you dance
like a rebel wife…
in your private chamber

in that dark space
the only light
comes from your spine…

the leopard gets tired
clawing at the walls
in vengeance…

where sleeps the man
who stole his skin?

your skin shakes love and moon…
the gambler’s wound
awakens to your dance

...in a corner of the city
a war breaks
on which way the winds blow…

the leopard leaps in through a window…
and prepares for kill.

This Land '07

This Land ’07


a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…
-Bob Dylan


there’s a devil in the fields…

there’s a black baby buried
in your backyard…

red clown,
did you devour her soul
after the murder?

Did you offer her head
to the strange
vulture god?

your khaki demons
marched upon rebel wombs…

but when you pressed the trigger,
I saw your skeleton

(your ribs were rusted
near the place
where you once had nipples;

I found you
castrated too,
red clown…)

you buried the farmers
beneath a stolen earth…

to screw the death count

beneath their own fields
lurks the curse
of the hanged man now…

but what of the ghosts,
red clown?

I can see them revolving
in a dark ritual
around your office rooms…

and the odour of the black baby
in your backyard…

their skulls the colour of death
and murder in their bellies…

I can see them riding the bullet

It carries your daughter’s name.



[I think none can save you, not even your bloody newspapers that have sold out their souls]

Prelude - for Mallarme, Eliot and Debussy

Prelude

for Mallarme, Eliot and Debussy

1.

Winter.

all afternoon she has written letters.

and as the lane turns lonelier,

she stands in the snow,

weak, by the red postbox…

not knowing whom to send
the three letters…

she has written all afternoon.

2.

then fire devours the neighbourhood

snowflakes electric

and the red box sucks her inside…

she falls…

she pierces the black earth
like a cold needle…

through violins and screams
she falls…

3.

the dead receive her
in that dark city…

she stands among ghosts now

the priest
the poet
the queen

all dead. all ugly.

they were waiting for her letters.

In that dark city.

4.

there is a river
at one end of the city…

the boatman calls out,

his ghost resembles an old lover

he rows her
to that part of the river…

where night and day merge wings

the sky is fire and purple,
the orgasm.

5.

she remembers her neighbourhood,

the snow…
and the red postbox that devoured her

she remembers the eyes of the dead

that the letters made
so happy…

and a god stabs her with light.

The House of the Moon

The House of the Moon

Night falls here
like the fall of a sitar…

the wind brings the river
in its beak…

and among the coconut blades,

…angels smell the fire
in their own sapphire wings …

and you give up your faces
to the wind…

In the house of the moon.

bees float in your dreams

inside purple flowers babies sleep…

a girl weeps in bliss

or was it
the dance of bamboo leaves

in the distance…?

you slice your soul
upon the dim lake…

the moon is your only mirror

In the house of the moon.

crickets speak to phantoms in blue

invisible, you listen.

they are reading letters
from dead lovers.

my friend, you ask me the time
…but time belongs to the firefly…

In the house of the moon.

and night falls here
like the fall of a sitar

…you have one mirror only

In the house of the moon.

Scarlet

Scarlet

I have seen the eyes.
The eyes.

of the scarlet girl…

the eyes that speak
to storms and nomads…

the eyes that fly
in the jaguar’s dream

the eyes that summon
soldiers and deep kisses …

I shall move in those eyes
like a shaft of light…

and ask you the language
of dreams…

Scarlet girl…

I can smell the demons in your neck…

I shall breathe upon them
a thousand times…

on a thousand rainy nights…

when your soul
is lonely as the northern hills…

and your breasts
are electric birds…

impatient…

till I slay them with love

till your lips croon a violent raga
upon my chest…

…your voice of thunder
…your raga of rain

how could I not then slay your breasts?

how could I not hold you
around your waist stained with jazz?

how could I not smell the night
in your bones?

Scarlet girl…

You bring me the rebel winds
in your white palms…

You bring me prisms…

You bring me the sorcerer’s sword…

and after you have mixed in my blood,
and I in your dream,

after the falcon leaves traces
of sweat

…on the shoulders
of dead saints…

you shall steal fire
from the gods again.

Love

Love

I have killed the wolves in the sky…

they will disturb us no more
with their vagabond cry,

while I kiss the purple horses
racing in your mouth..

or smell the smell of 2 a.m.
in your hair…

You look beautiful now…

as we dance upon the marine floor
like two water crystals

…that the violin has touched
with naked fingers…

the seas beat beneath our dance,
we devour the salt of waves

with our fierce lust…

Yes ,
this is the hour
of the violin only…

moving its music
like a soft tremor

in your spine of iris petals…

The winter cannot steal
the nakedness of this waltz

cannot steal the sweat on your angry throat…

weave your prayers
into my chest
weave it deep…

move like a water ghost
in my body of strange colours…

And listen to the wounded city of my birth,
how it has forgotten
the perfume of a full moon…

listen to my marine soul…

and let us waltz
to the rhythm
of the sailor’s pulse…

let us touch the fish
with a dream of God…

What are the ships doing here so late?
Have they come for me?

Chain the ogres
in my blood,

breathe your familiar sea-gull breath …

hold my soul
till I have forgotten the wolves…

let me not remember
the motion of mad planets,
or the politics of crows

…for at this hour of the moon and truth
I only want the motion
of the violin,

the smells of 2 a.m. in your armpits

and the fever of your navel…

let me remember the motion of children
whom the city could not wound.

let me remember them
building tree-houses in summer.

and I have killed the wolves in the sky.

Water Song

Water Song

and whose poem colours the fish…as you let your confessions crumble upon the river…the stone falls from your soul…sinks somewhere…somewhere the wind churns up the words of the saint….rebel saint…the wind wounds the sleeping tiger in your fingers…the wind is the shade of old city streets…

the city shakes…in the river's pulse…and I know how the river looks at night…when all the bullets have mixed in bones…and all the bones have mixed in the boatman's breath…and the women in the auto remember death…and that night of séance…when the dead man let the romance leak out of his soiled hair…his purple love…for when he was dying he was afraid of insects but yet…he dreamed of the dark child who seemed to be watching him by the corner of the street…the dark child who held wild leaves between his lips…and the tanpura crept in like the tiger…or the wind flower…

At times, the darkness speaks…speaks of that thin figure that walked up and down the corridor…looking at pain…painted on the floor in the colour of a kiss…she wept at the river…time slides in her skull…her story was only heard by the rebel saint…a story clings to the bullet in her hair and his soul…

In the old silent streets, you sit on the steps of a home and let your confessions mix with the wind…and will the darkness find its priest…who sings the water song

girl of the rivers

whirl in the blue air

talk to the lovers

walk the tiger's lair

the girl walks upon the tides, and hears the voice of the fish and the voice of the stones…and the voice in the bones swallows time…the tanpura starts again…like wine and the wind…

And I know just how the river looks at night.

Folk Hero

Folk Hero

A lyric of screams
writes itself on the wall

Or was it the prisoner’s hand that wrote?

Once I could summon
Horses at will

Once I could fight
Strange wars with evil skulls

But that was long ago…

Then they trapped me with
Their poisoned grapes

I can tell you
I was suspicious of them always

But the air of the home
And the cool wine of the hosts
Killed the fireflies
I had sheltered in my fingers…

I limped about the house
With its cries of crooked newborns…

I could not grip my magic arrows again;
Arrows that shot hurricanes once…

Crowds came to see the miracles,
I remember…

I could
create rain…

Mind you, not all of us can create

But that was long back…

An epic of screams
shrivels the blue garden

Now I scream at the guards at times;

Or play cards with the hosts,
Weeping when I lose the King…

I think my own land
Has forgotten my stories

The bauls don’t sing of me anymore, I think.

Song about the Wild Car Schizoprhenia

Song about the Wild Car Schizophrenia

….the winter runs though your hair…the car moves through lairs of dreams and darkness…cuts the night in deathly cubes of ice…the dice spins upon her body…spinning infinite pieces of the city in your throat…the road reveals the laughter of hidden ghosts….and after the memory is shaken…after the panther is born…you suddenly feel alone…you are the only pulse in the sky….

And you throb among the skyline…your wings shine…a vampire slips into your mind…around you now is the forest…where guitars charm the graves…electric trees sink into the poem…and find the keys to the soul of winds…the car gathers speed….broken city offers its homes…its windows…its cold forgetfulness…

It is good to be forgotten…to be an ancient king’s sword in the museum…it is good to be forgotten at times.

the smells of the day linger in her veins…and won’t let her die…

so you kiss her endlessly…remembering the birth of deserts…the sands hide too many secrets...you must not learn of…the cold mystery burns like sweet incense…you want to unlearn the meaning of words…

the car moves through the sleeping souls…a mole tunneling into the bones of lone women…who clasp the vampire’s teeth to their breasts…even the skyline is unaware of their secrets…the guitar stabs his muscles…his memory tussles between windscreens and the smell of panthers…

and may the city never wake again…never take its morning tea with friend and enemy…never mend its torn shoes…never remember whose hands were crushed by the machine…

and my enemies are dead now…I can see their ghosts dining in the old China restaurant…they don’t remember me anymore… the ice has killed them.

And among the music…among the fragments of the dead sky…among the windows and the shadows of trees…the road unfolds like her skin…tonight her smells remind you of the meaning of time…of the soon-to-die forests in your blood…

But you choose the blade…and make a cut on your forehead…so the winter seeps in with its own stories…my enemies are dead.

The Wanderer

The Wanderer

He left the letters unopened

He had a feeling
That the envelopes
had ultraviolet eyes

that circled him like a clever tiger

Somehow
He drilled a hole in the floor
and spoke
To the ghost
of a bedouin prophet

He awaited answers

But answers were always written
in the language of the rivers

A boat that day
had sunk in the river
with saplings of rose

What colour were the roses?

He tried not looking
at the tiger

but the envelopes
were unsealing themselves

He felt the kisses
of dancers and poets
in his hair

He looked
into the faces
of grinning ghosts

deep among the burning leaves

He saw the warning
in the unopened letters

He left,
looking for the girl
of the rivers

who was searching for roses
that fell from the boat

desert
hill
forest

he saw the landscapes melt
in the baul's song

but utraviolet eyes
still followed him like a curse

He wondered
if he was becoming a false currency

poets and dancers
fell
from his wet hair
upon the winter bylanes

Somewhere the hawk was scared
of the skies

somewhere he remembered
a home
that never was

Girl of the rivers,
what is your anger?
and where are the roses?

Now he could sit
with the hummingbirds
somewhere

and maybe open the letters.

Jazz Visions

Jazz Visions

1

And when the hurricane
crept in…

only the wolf stood
on the weak veins
of the landscape…

singing beneath the blood moon

a naked horseman
guides the hurricane

…and only the wolf stood

2

the river is a red bird

the wing inclines
in mid air

someone drags
the ends of her dress
on the waters…

the wrestler spreads his wings

and screams

3

and so she sips the tea
with lemon and dreams…

of the sand leaping
from the child dancer's feet

and who sleeps upon the lotus?

as the magician washes his face
at the lake of purple windows

who sleeps upon the lotus?

and she sips on dreams

4

the train is leaving

…leaving…
but the train has no ends…

you look inside
at the faces,
all look alike

forever the train is leaving;
and forever the ghost follows…

a man leaps out
and turns into
a blue bone

who picks up the bone?


5

The eagle carries
pearls in its wings

dreams revolve in the pearls

the eagle swoops
upon the night…

she comes out
of her hut,
waits,
…spreads her arms…

and engulfs the wind

6

and softly she loses her way

she becomes
like that blue transculent glass window

or the blue voice
lost in the saxophone…

I lift her like a song
I lift her like the noon river

The wind smells auburn

softly someone lifts the saxophone

and her sweat loses way




7

the child's drawing of the night-
trees and huts

from where does she arrive-
the long robed lady,
holding a long broomstick

sweeping, sweeping

the million small balls
of light

sweeping them at your face

your face lost among
the balls of light

years later,
still only the night
and the only the lone sweeper…

8

the ocean
spins
and enters her chest

spins out of her spine
towards the lost city

she breathes a few times,
half afraid
of the shadows...
and then leaps from the mountain
towards the sun


9

the boat moves
like a lost ancient dream

the boatman does not row,
and the water is still

…moves to the dark rock
among the waters

the boatman singing to the clouds

some said it happened at dawn
some said twilight

he said it was the smell of angels

10

You smoke out
flower circles
in the tavern

Children
sprinkle seeds and worms
on the wet air

children in the kaliedoscope

11

a droplet falls
on the earth

with every stroke of the piano
...blood from his forehead


a few hands
grow out of the earth

they signal the eagle inside the piano

with
blood, light and shadow

12

the flame leaves the candle
and falls on the stairs

chessboard stairs

the flame climbs
and reaches the top

the old woman in white
blows upon the flame;
it turns into a fire leaf

and appears in the land
of fire trees

a wind blows through the trees
the wind is now the colour
of the flame

the people of the land gather

and let the wind
needle the body...

13

and as you slide your tongue
upon the harmonica…

your breath conjures up
the girl in violet

she of the violet smells

dancing about the four walls…
violet prints of her feet

…no one sees her
but you

and you can touch her soft navel

…of tigers and fireflies

SOME OTHER POEMS...Check out the prose poems

Poem at 7 p.m.

And as you hold the evening
in your eyelashes,

and as you sprinkle the evening
In restless droplets,

...over the chocolate of death

I bite into the blood lips of the evening

Let us stand on a dark mountain
and with a violent swing of arms

Fling our watches
into the red oceans of infinity

...and now I am a different Buddha

Fractions

A man once ran about the streets of a small town, hammering onto the heads of the men- heads that were typewriters - that "Someone has thrown the crescent moon like a boomerang into the tins of our paint stores; and look now the sky is making love to multicoloured nerves!"

The typewriters stopped drafting their balance sheets and spat the poison-ink into his eyes. As he fumed and died, his blood mixed with a cartographer's ink, who was drawing Jerusalem and New York.

The Unseen Circle
-dedicated to the poet Rumi

The night unflexes its muscles

Clouds over the fields
and rain in the deep chest

Sleep, anywhere
inside the circle
of the true poet…

Walking with him
down the streets of sleep
You read
the fingertips of a newborn …

your friend,
she had the breath of a flute
and always hit the same notes

there is a truth of 1 a.m.

now you can sing
the malkauns
in the circle's voice

and see the stones
gallop away
to the mounds of snow…

Who has spread
these blue flowers
In my sleep?

on the topmost stair
you see the dream maker
sketch a vision
Of blind date palms
surrender
to the rainy opera

unflex the night

and sleep, anywhere
inside
the circle of the true poet…

Water Song

and whose poem colours the fish…as you let your confessions crumble upon the river…the stone falls from your soul…sinks somewhere…somewhere the wind churns up the words of the saint….rebel saint…the wind wounds the sleeping tiger in your fingers…the wind is the shade of old city streets…
the city shakes…in the river's pulse…and I know how the river looks at night…when all the bullets have mixed in bones…and all the bones have mixed in the boatman's breath…and the women in the auto remember death…and that night of séance…when the dead man let the romance leak out of his soiled hair…his purple love…for when he was dying he was afraid of insects but yet…he dreamed of the dark child who seemed to be watching him by the corner of the street…the dark child who held wild leaves between his lips…and the tanpura crept in like the tiger…or the wind flower…
At times, the darkness speaks…speaks of that thin figure that walked up and down the corridor…looking at pain…painted on the floor in the colour of a kiss…she wept at the river…time slides in her skull…her story was only heard by the rebel saint…a story clings to the bullet in her hair and his soul…
In the old silent streets, you sit on the steps of a home and let your confessions mix with the wind…and will the darkness find its priest…who sings the water song

girl of the rivers
whirl in the blue air
talk to the lovers
walk the tiger's lair

the girl walks upon the tides, and hears the voice of the fish and the voice of the stones…and the voice in the bones swallows time… the tanpura starts again…like wine and the wind…

And I know just how the river looks at night.




Fear in Red Bags

Fear in your red bag

A friend flies like a hawk
in my dreams,
he opens his fist
and I see a bony foetus

And the harmonica girl
Lets the boy smell
Her rain wet armpits

Do your guns
move in my sleep?

and as I saw you
Squeezing his fingers,
Standing between
the tribal bodies

I felt the fear in your red bag

Maybe I could paint
a land
of doors
shut at twilight,
if only
I took off my hat

It's a land you often passed
journeying to the city,
asleep in the train...

I can not speak
and I can not take off my hat

but do your guns move in my sleep?

So she left the harmonica
on a coffee table
and squeezed his fingers

and as the fear lingers
on the button
of your red bag

An angel is carved which sings

hip luv song 4 dria
-dedicated to Allen Ginsberg

dria i luv u

Cacti in the skin

He puffs out smoke
Over the beggar's head

The cages of mad men
are smeared
with rain

dria, luv

Fragments of coloured glass

You lose your pet eagle
Among the smelly streets

twisted lanes,
soap foam,
clothes hung like thieves

luv u dria

radars and the clock

the flower lady
gives you a smile

the same smile she gave
to ten thousand ants
inside the kaliedoscope

dria

Programmers and RJs
collect their cheques

offerings to God
searching a prayer
my left hand burns every day

i luv u

Laugh
like birds inside
the wind inside
the nose bone

prophets buried
beneath the TV tower

call
for the wizard
in green

dria
do u lik luv songs?

Dria in the Streets of Blue

Dria cuts the velvet noon

a blue arrow
flies
into the mouth
of the night

She haunts
The tobacco streets
and drops a feather
into the postbox

Dria
fill the syringe
with the dead man's
dream

1 a.m.
fear of the sky
I walk the line

smells of Dria,
and lonesome angels

'tap the sea'

Dria comes

and tells a story
of the unseen circle

It's a true story…

Fear of Lizards

she remembers the teacher
as he crawled into the class

and looks at the door
in the haze of the blue lamp

far away the fire-wagon
rings upon the owl

and interrupts the tree

she coils in bed
like an overcast prayer

the rat recognizes the ghost

that teacher had talked
of a mathematics
of unlocked doors

somewhere
a singer curses his own tongue

she puts off the lamp

the fan spins
like a ritual of blood

on the streets a man vomits

she tries to sleep

the fire-wagon tolls every year
this day

the cockroach holds
on to the darkness
of the wall

she feels the singer's pain

and trembles

at the noise
of a brother

the lizard brings good luck

of lost evenings…

and now
when a dark jazz
fills the room

the evening waits
for its poet

the evening calls her name…

the leaves are heavy
with memories
of a dying sky

and strange hours of light

rain washes off the sun
from the skin
of leaves

who washes the clouds?

she watches the evening
split into so many
pieces

on the mouth
of the jazz singer…

we did not know
the evening had so many ghosts

calls the poet again…

but she turns,
never to look again
at the street lamps

that are narcotized
with strange sketches
of love

never…

and I can only
paint the poet

happy
under another sky
under another evening

within another skin…

where love is not strange.

The Blue Song

where did you last keep
the corners
of your eyes?

girl of the rivers

blue river
blue prayer

down where the steps
pour
into
the waters,
there is a smell

the river smells
almost like the moist girl

laugh
as I sprinkle
grapes and fingertips
upon your dripping soul

blue nerves
blue glass

the corners of your eyes
sold shorelines
to the blind

thieves and kisses
fought in your breasts

you were scared
of the gypsy
whose song moved
the bedroom chimes
…everytime
you were naked
…or alone

blue ship
blue rhyme
blue kiss and wind

the song was spinning
in his skin,
there was also a falcon

where did you last keep

the magician's cards
the sweat of the shorelines

and the corners of your eyes?

girl of the rivers,
where did you?

smells lick
the blue slumber in

the secret earth…

Painter, my friend

And then,
On a night of dogs
and winds
and washing of dishes

I might just die…

Painter, my friend
Grant me a canvas then
Yes, a small one will do
Not one that touched the forest shrine

and paint a few hyacinths

Purple

like that evening
that slipped from my fingers
upon the cobblestone

Don't go by Realism

and there must be an insect too
as the lizard devours

and a sliced finger
beside a round clock
with no hands

but remember, a ring of wax on the finger

Have a mango tree in summer
and the gardener walking away

and see if you can fit in more
Like a moon in a cave...

Afterwards

and wash me in wet earth…

in sweet scented earth
wash my hair

let the million pictures
seep out of my skin

let the light
wash my nakedness

then wrap me in white
wrap me in prayers

cover my head,
hide the thread of smile
on my lips…

the ancient sounds linger
like flutes

rest me on the bier
say your prayers

...your voices collapse
in the garden...

then walk with me a while

sprinkle your earth

then depart.



Under the microscope
-for Jibanananda and other ghosts

The poet's wife
writes poems too,

at tmes.

you array the child's feet

with permutations and combinations
of toe nails

but there is blood
on the tramline

and there is the head
of a martyr

rolling through
the fierce soul
of uneasy nights

others sit
and remark upon the bad tea

like Caligula in a white uniform
who can't remember
that December's martyr

the stage is set
to cage the actors
and the very personal poet

the mad horse disappears
inside the body

blue stars
drip
blood

o the blood
on the tramline

you wrap the streets
with a measuring tape

and drop your steps
on the shadow of hawks

a lost October
moves like a worm
in her tea

moves like a frigid claw
in my hair

moves in our watches

the poet's wife
talks love and protest
and unfastens her watch

the bubblegum boy
chases cars and souls

Park Street is happy or sad again

rats lick the retina

so you lose
the city's picture

Some of us
could be poets

or merchant or headbanger
in a pub

some of us smirk
at the two men
in the park

lost genitals
inside the
aquariums

the worms die
under your feet
as you drop a curse upon

the horse that shoulders the twilight

it's real blood
on the tramline

some of us
could be poets

or Caligula in a white uniform

or perhaps,
a prophet who lost his horse

inside your guitar there is
a pale death calling

robots clutch their genitals

Whose fierce kiss
still bleeds the girl of the mad nocturne?

whose fierce evening
still shakes the child of the secret rivers?

staccato necks and eyeballs

dead after all

the pick-pocket is on dope
and doesn't stir
at the design in blood

that
drips

from the leper's thigh

the martyr falls

but then again , the tramline
nibbling at the blood

The Poet’s Apology

Someone told me…‘and that’s all you can do, write poems, and that’s about it.’ It’s true…
It’s true that damp, creaking, leaking, lethargic clockwork poems…are all I can offer…I’m sorry

I can’t stop the fires…howling in the sky like wounded dogs…and the smoke spiralling in the newborn’s soul…I can’t bury the smell of orphans or the smell of vomit…I can’t shoot all the boots that march upon the nerves at midnight…can’t help disarmament or for that matter even talk to George or Osama…

twilight painter, I couldn’t decipher the patterns you spread on the ceiling…were there any faces or just the sleepwalking of insects….but I don’t want to get personal here.

I can’t show them the carbon wombs in Gujarat or the priest hiding in valleys of the north… I can’t show them the blood that is crucified on the tree…can’t scream that after all the paperwork is done, personal details ascertained, a death is nothing but a death.

I can’t resurrect the ghost of Bapi Sen and ask if he’s happy…or if his head still hurts…I can’t ask the girl what her fault was…why they took her to the police station etc…I can’t fracture the wall for Piramus and Thesbe at Palestine…I can’t make them tell me why Lorca…or if you so prefer, Safdar Hashmi had to die…I can’t seem to understand what is so hip about Che on the T-shirt…

o did I forget, I can’t make Dria sing on the mountain roads…in that town of dust and dreams…but that’s personal, so we’ll keep it aside for the time being…

I’m sorry I can’t prove that poetry bleeds more…slightly more than weather reports…and that the dark blood seeping between the syllables had also been spattered…last night upon your door…by nightmare children …

I can’t plant the rook’s egg in your soul…or ask Sindbad to arise from the sound of pendulums…or even show you that nerves are not mortgaged after all…and that eagles still cut the city’s breath…

River girl…there are kingdoms beneath the waters…I couldn’t win them…o the personal creeps in again…

I can’t nail it on the walls that police vans don’t really move in the campus…and that 14 year old boys can’t be disgorged from local trains…and that uniforms also require detergent…

I can’t offer any of it…and as I have already said…I’m somewhat sorry.

Dria and the Rains

Let us talk Dria…let us pretend that we are distant drums…let us talk of that old gentle song…that the soul caught in a moment of doubt…let us remember dragons that swallowed whole cities…and you stood by the burnt house…in fear and in love…the hourglass shaking in your hand…and I asked you, ‘is the old piano burnt too…?

‘I found the hourglass only’, you said, ‘but I am afraid of the curse.’
O yes the curse…of the cold rains…they cut the bones and the lanes…and bring back stories of dead angels…

Dria, light the candles in the shrine…and stand with me beeath those rains…let the bones dissolve…let the hawk eat our remains…but let us talk just once of the dim room…where your hair fell over me…or stuck to your shoulders in sweat…and my breath seeped into your ears…with the dreams of poets and ancient horses…or I played my kisses on the skin of your thighs…

and let the hawk eat our remains….

let us talk of promises and subway stations…of afternoons filled with the sound of crows and sugarcane-grinders…and then the sudden music…the child emerging from the guitar’s womb…as if it was the usual thing…and the policemen all lay dead…as if it was the usual thing…

are you troubled when the alarms ring? Are you haunted by the screams that lurk in the rains? The dreams must go, you say…the street lamps glow in your brain…you watch the dogs fighting in the street…and in your feet the blood beats…you remember the blood on the old piano…how it formed a symphony of its own…of its own

‘do you know the tune, Dria?’
‘yes, the symphony of stones…at the graveyard…’

The rain falls hard upon your sweat…my kisses turn in your tongue…you run for shelter…the child cries in the guitar…‘look at me being born…’, it says… ‘it is the only way to be born.’…but your soul is torn again…you must roll yourself…and sleep inside the hourglass again…

but let us talk Dria…just once…of our remains.

Night of the Wild Cacti - Rock Verses

Night of the Wild Cacti

Rock Verses

‘The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.

‘Expect poison from the standing water.

‘As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

- William Blake



1

between the prophet
and the dagger

…creeps the poet

between the dust
and the tiger

hallucinates the poem.

2

Last breath of the sun

a death to remember

one demon wakes

and shakes the clocks
in the skeleton

let us remember
the anger

let us learn the curse

n burn it in verse.

3

let us remember
the lithium devil

that clambers up
the walls of wind

enters your room

and signs the final doom

in letters of acid

O let us remember Curt.

4

Thorns on the lane
that leads
to the fairy’s abode

…no one bleeds in vain

the bones of priests shall be torn

n the clones be lost in rain.

5

Are you the king?
I thought so.

Are you the king?
I am the joker.

Who made that old joke?
The King.

6

Are you the demon?
They call me so.

Are you the demon?
Well, I summon
the souls of fish-bowl men

and devour them whole.

7

Devour the prisoners
Devour the night

lick the earth
with searchlights

pick and choose the policemen

…and kill.

8

Kill at will.

Burn their uniforms.

feed their guns to worms

for all their piss
let’s give them back
some letters in acid

but give them a chance
to explain bapi sen.

9

and now the skyline cracks

we raise our wine
to forgotten heroes

n close our eyes
to ancient lies

and pray that the day
sways the hurricane home.

10

most peculiar man
where did you go
after they buried you?

not heaven
it’s too conventional out there I ost peculiar manof your lust
think

and you were never made for hell

so you return every night
to observe yourself die
among the gas and the dreams

11

kaleidoscope of rains

a pattern of ropes
in the sky

stealthily moves the guard

lay down your trump card

the one with the demon
wrapped in leaves

the fire sermon
sounds across
the last horizon

frost and wings

o singer of the mad seas
sing
scream

the sweet lotus dream

somebody rocks
the queen to sleep

with dark tales
of graves and flowers

and lighthouse towers

and your scarf
leaps about the floor

…a liquid panther.

12

whisper to the vulture

names of dead poets

it mat be able to recollect
some of the moves
made in the chess game of ribs

between mothers and thieves.

13

look for the blade

rework the eyes

write the politics of crows again

sculpt the clouds
till it rains dancers and prophets.

14

howl my wild harp

howl at the tomb

broken child looms
over the holy men

heroes of
the chemical opera
howl at the dead moon

I vomit a bullet
with prayers upon it…

while my harp wildly howls

15

noise of the blade
in your sleep

sad reggae of the soul

the blade cuts deep
…may the dice roll

the leaves return
n again
the smell of her skin

grey n blue rain
n may we all spin…

vultures in the bone

fractured kiss,
the horseman alone

you miss
the last train to lotus land

and her long hands
pull you
deeper

…into the prism of the night

do not alight
from the horse

n the hyena’s
cursed grin

drills in

are the leaves still burnin’ ?

16

lemon girl
lemon girl

unfurl your songs

white snow songs

fight the fever of graves…

Don’t fuck the stones tonight.

17

priest in the cave

save the dying monster
crying out in the woods

save him.
you need him.

18

the mad man vomits out
a bit of earth

that he swallowed as a child…

it was never really digested

and every time
the ground shook

with the bronze
curse of martyrs

it growled in his stomach

like a frigid cat

today he vomits it out…

and asks, ‘is dinner ready?’

19

horseman
remember your anger

the murder has to be avenged

remember your master

remember him,
teaching you to ride
and teaching you to speak
to alien prophets

remember the master of the winds

o how they disgorged his eyes
that saw unicorns…

and how they killed him from behind

horseman, raise your sword again
bless it in the fountain
of the eagle’s lust…

for the murder has to be avenged.

20

I want to unlearn the poetry
they taught me in school

and the songs some teachers wrote

that the choir sang like jokers
to welcome guardians to the party

and the cash some guys used
to become presidents
of hip toilet-cleaning clubs

I want to unlearn well-grammarred essay writing
on hobbies and pet dogs.

21

slice the soul

spread green chilies

heat till you smell
asylums and morgues

now enjoy the poem and the politics.