I keep awake Watching the parched lightbulb (And the lightbulb perhaps watching me) With my hand on the warm doorknob; Leading halfway to hell, Till the caterpillar thoughts crawl out into the silence And cocoons of dreamless desires Flood the floor As dark pools of velvet; With skin like ash and skin like glue. Fingers of fire And butterfly blood Seals the sound of the oboe In the roots of time So the seeds of silk may flower And the fountainhead of pulse Breathe in the open every night To let the swan song of love; Traced on the tips of arched spine Leave the lips And take hold of the walls To make the voice of world Like beads of sweat; evaporate, And the colours of a carnal mind collapse Into nothingness Of everyday afterlife
Forget the world Forget it ever existed for you And then watch one morning As the red sky slowly turns to blue For then you would know How true is the world And old her everyday design That began one day And remembered to stay Without you keeping the time
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
