Here in the dim lit room Held together with velcro I await for an awakening There is a gaggle of gods about me And I hear the mice being murdered in rafters While my stereo melds a melody An edible static like Ants in my mouth And bees on my tongue So I spit the honey and drink the stings And I drown the birds and cage the wings To breathe, to breathe The liquid light From the cigarette between my gasoline lips In amorous delight
II
The flame of my flesh and this napthalene world Resting upon a rusted needlepoint Take heed of the dust motes Suspended in time For they are you And they are me Awaiting With nothing to see In the far too near eternity
III
I see stars in my bedroom And prophets under my eye Rainbows growing from my skin As I fall into the sky And there is a hymn in my ears That aches “Praise to thee” And I am drowning in my tears Eating a faded tapestry
Her eyes were on the fire Her fingers in the dough The smoke; it left her breathless Like the kerosene she poured into the stove The sweat dipped her lashes To her tears were all blind She was only a shadow on the wall Though being a woman one of a kind
She had trapped Ganges in her hair And Pharaohs praised her lotus feet Her’s was Mumtaz’s Taj And to her belonged the Papal Seat But all that was her she had given In dowry for her father’s name, With the hope she would be treasured And not burnt alive for the same
But soon a time shall come When a Sita will not walk A false Ordeal of Fire So blind people would not talk And soon a time shall come When a Draupadi will not accept The men and their game of dice Weighted against her self-respect And no longer any Eve shall answer For Adam’s own intent And let a Mother be always a Martyr And Father always a Saint
There is no such thing As a country, my friend The sooner you know it the better All hands are on deck But not for your sake And to live free is to be a traitor
I know no more of you Than the shore does of the sea A lifetime spent haunted By a murdered memory Of the ever alive distance Like the lights between two cities So far from flame the fire That there are two eternities
My body, it wanders, With the wind that holds my hand Which whispers me to write About my love on seeds of sand So the wind may carry it along To you, wherever you are On the pillow of a wooden moon Or beneath the shadow of a dying star
But my thoughts they do confess That my mind can now surrender Every dream I had of you So I may no longer remember How it was to be untrue Towards my life which I shaped in sorrow Wishful that my barren tonights Shall light our shared tommorow
And I hope you can see me now (From across the desert you brought to break The castles I wrought in dreams To keep us forever awake) So you know I am free at last From the future that stems from past A sole light that sleeps off far Beyond the cracks of memory Of how I know no more of you Than the shore does of the sea
My life A candle Waning slowly Knows not For whom it’s burning Or why Just that it is And soon shall Dissolve Out of existence And there is nothing it can do now Except burn, burn and burn With a hope That when the wick goes out Atleast the wax will survive
The old and the dying Stood hand in hand crying Over the winter that came knocking When they were busy talking: Of the winter that won’t come knocking When they are busy talking
O these times These lonely, lonely times Of a single tear falling From a broken, crooked eye For the meadows sunk in shadow And shadows that each day die On the tar road turning homewards To pink hearts falling from the sky O these people quietly standing Waiting that single boat of hay Here are lovers with their children And servants with silver tray All waiting to be carried Somewhere in the ocean Where faces are not of plastics And even fishes have emotion O these homes are now softly falling Like snow on winter’s eve Left faded to fill a dry canvas With damp colors smelling new And there is no one to wake the silence And no one to hold the door Only brushstrokes that breath to say We are here for you are not anymore
And slowly we all Shall fall asleep And know no more of each other Or of those who knows us no more
But the stone shall remain stone The sea shall remain sea You shall remain you And I shall remain me
Yet we, the us, that immutable thereof Of shared spaces Of pendulum breaths Of eclectic existence Will change Into dust Into wind Into silence And rescind Motion by motion Memory by memory Till all that is left Is only the sense of leaving
