Well, well

So, back to the hidden chamber again

it has always been between you and me

headlights shoot towards this dot between the eyes, dark, persevering –

inwards.

between the blade and the neck,

between the rifle and the serenade –

grotesque, weeping –

puppets ride out to win the world tonight.

….

Mama’s new bakery

it’s never ever too late

Tramcars of yolk and honey

Mornings on my plate

At times I read Lorca

and at others I masturbate.

…

Child, I’ve told you of valleys that’ll never be

and of breezes that won’t whisper ancient tales of longing

except when the moon goes down on all of it

and inside our secret pact, hidden safely from the ready world.

and then,

somewhere down the dusty trail we’ll see a mad city burning

and half-charred humans & dogs running amok.

I haven’t lied to you

I must go far away tonight.

…

down the streets, fifteen blocks

lived an old man in a dark room

at the end of a dark alley

his skin was wrinkled and he played the violin cold & sharp through frozen spines

once, when the lights were out

and a sweaty night jumped from trashcan to trashcan like a blind cat in hot pursuit,

he took his violin, walked out of the alley straight into the street

he poured kerosene on the timber and he lit it with a matchbox

that had a little girl in a polka-dot frock holding an apple and smiling on one side

and ‘Vivre se Vie’ written on the other

it burnt, brave and lonely

like candles on coffins of the losers and the lost.

certain flowers trap insects and eat them up when hungry

certain sharks arrive on dreams and ask for their lost kingdom.

….

Ghosts of dead sailors come out tonight

Most of them have holes in their pants

all of them have salt in their breath

as music of death pours out of their skin

they ask me the way to the saloon

I won’t reply

I am not one of them

and I’m not afraid of ghosts either.

…

Gasoline sonata! Gasoline sonata!

You ate a quarter of the moon

you needed the river’s wine to gulp it down

your dialectics of effervescence

your gratitude to the cauliflowers

what eyes! what phantasmagoria! what great grand symphony!

but I can’t love you,

because you lied to me when you said that paperboats go where all dreams go when it rains in the mountains far away

and because you have no flesh.

…

I kiss you in my mind’s eye

there’s love in the streets

there’s music in the sky

and in this dim-lit room

flowers that wilt elsewhere

hide their faces & bloom

you kiss me in my mind’s lips

we play the music soft

and then I touch your hips

and in this dim-lit room

children stabbed by monsters

light cigars & laugh at doom

thus here’s music, cigars, flowers and laughter

so let’s make a lot of love tonight

and make more of it the morning after.

…

জবা

ঝড় এসে কুপিয়ে কুপিয়ে ভালোবেসে গ্যালো তাকে

হায় জবা,

হায় সুর্যাস্ত।

সনাতন মিস্ত্রীর পাঁচিল টপকে

সুর্য্য চলে চন্দ্র অন্বেষণে

হে মেঘ, হে আদিম বাড়ি

স্নিগ্ধমতী রাঙা চরণ-দুটি

ভালুক আসছে ভীষণ ভালুক আসছে

ভালোবাসছে ভীষণ ভালোবাসছে

হায়রে জবা, মায়ের রাঙা চরণদুটি নাই

রক্ত খাবি বলে এবার ব্রীজের উপর পা ছড়িয়ে দাঁড়া!

This Valley of Death is Not My Country

(Translated from the Bangla poem Ei Mrityu Upotyawka Amar Desh Na by Nabarun Bhattacharya with a few alterations)

I spit on the father who fears to point at his child’s corpse

I spit on the brother and his shameless sanity despite everything

I spit on the teacher, the intellectual, the poet and the clerk

who do not seek to avenge this bloodbath out in the open

Seventeen corpses

lie stretched across the pathway of reckoning

I am losing my senses bit by bit

Seventeen open pairs of eyes look at me in sleep

I scream out

I will turn insane

I will kill myself

I will do whatever I want to do

I will eat the sun, the moon and the stars

I will smash all bridges between the viewer and the viewed

This is the exact time for poetry

Through stenciled manifestos on naked walls

A collage crafted of own blood, tears and bones –

now is the time for poetry

in the torn face of severest pain

right now is the time to hurl poetry

face to face with real terror –

keeping eyes fixed at the blinding headlight of the vans

at the three naught three and whatever else the killers have

It is time to face them with poetry

Through stone-cold lock-up chambers

Shattering the yellow lamps of crime investigation cells

In courthouses run by murderers

In seats of learning that teach lies and spew venoms of hatred

In the state machine churning abuse and terror

In the heartless chest of gunmen who serve that machine –

Let the anger of poetry echo out in fury

Let the poets of the world prepare themselves, like Lorca,

for their strangled corpses to disappear

let them be ready to be stitched up by machine-gun bullets

the hours beckon

the city of poetry must be surrounded by villages of poetry.

this valley of death is not my country

this executioner’s theater is not my country

this vast charnel-ground is not my country

this blood-drenched slaughterhouse is not my country

I will snatch my country back

I will pull the fog-kissed white kans flowers, the crimson dusks and the endless rivers

back into my chest

With all my body I shall surround the fireflies, forests burning in ancient hills,

countless crops of hearts, flowers, humans and horses from fairytales

I shall name each star after each martyr

I shall call out to the howling breezes, lights and shadows playing across the fish-eyed lakes of dawn

And Love – banished to places lightyears away ever since I was born:

I shall call it too, to join the carnival of the day of Revolution.

I reject

Days and nights of interrogation with a thousand watts of electricity blazing straight into eyeballs

I reject

Electric needles inside fingernails

I reject

Having to lie naked on chunks of ice

I reject

Being hanged upside down till blood gushes out of nostrils

I reject

Spiked boots pressed on lips, burning iron rods on every inch of skin

I reject

The sudden blast of alcohol on whiplashed back

I reject

Stark electric jolts on the nerves, pieces of rocks shoved inside vaginas, scrotums mangled to pulp

I reject

Being beaten and thrashed to death

I reject

Revolver-muzzles stuck against craniums

Poetry is eternal, irrepressible

Poetry is armed, poetry is free, poetry is fearless

Behold the warriors –

Mayakovsky, Hikmet, Neruda, Aragon, Eluard –

Look at them looking at you from the clouds.

Call out loud.

We haven’t let your poetry lose

A new epic is being written throughout the land

Prosodies and dactyls are raising their hungry heads

in guerrilla meters and rhythms.

Dhamsas, Madals roar their beats of wild anger out

Tribal hamlets stand like coral islands

Indigo fields reddened with blood

A river named Titas and

those poison hoods of king cobra dangling

from her wounded face.

Death-soaked aconites spread toxic roots

Bowstrings of warrior heroes from lores and epics ready to hurl arrows that blind the sun

Sharpest edges of wildest swords,

Pointed, poisoned tips of lancets, spears, javelins, shafts

glistening in their mad rage, charging out to reclaim all lost shores

Blood-eyed tribal-totems swaying to angry beats of a million drums –

all thunder out in perfect accord

and there are guns, cutlasses and daggers

and there is courage heaped up in piles, alive and vital

so much of courage that there’s nothing to fear anymore!

And there are cranes, severe, tusked bulldozers, processions, convoys,

dynamos in motion,  turbines, lathe-machines sweating in workshops of heroes

Stern diamond-eyes shining through methane darkness of trapped mine-slides

strange strong hammers made of iron

A thousand hands raised against bleary skies of dockyards, jutemills, against boiling pits of furnaces,

tons of coal fuming in acid vendetta, blazing in the life-maddened gall

to reclaim all that there was

and all that there shall ever be.

No, there’s nothing to fear anymore.

The pale face of fear belongs to some stranger

when I know that Death is nothing but Love.

If I am killed, I shall become a million tiny flames

and spread across all the earthen lamps of the world

I am eternal

I shall return each season, each year, each aeon

as the green hope of soil

I am eternal

I shall stay in joy, I shall stay in sorrow

I shall live through each new birth and cremation

As long as the world is alive

As long as human beings are alive.

কাকভূষুণ্ডিনামা

এইখানে,
তিনটে ঠ্যাং কাটা ছায়ামুর্তি গতকাল রাত্রে ভীষণ নেচেছিলো
অক্ষম বার্ধক্যভাতার আয়োজন করে তীব্র রমণপ্রয়াস, ক্রমে,
সকল ক্লান্তি নদী হয়ে গ্যালো। এইখানে বিমর্ষ মুর্ধণ্য-ষ
পেট কেটে দ্যাখালো হিরণ্যকশিপু, ভোজরাজ দ্যাখালো সত্ব-রজ-তম
এবং অবশিষ্ট সসেমিরা অর্থভার হল ভানুমতির বাম জঙ্ঘায় তিল।
এখানেই, এভাবেই, পুরাকথা, ইতিহাস কেটে কেটে ছুড়ি চলে যায় অস্তরথে
করুণ সুর্যাস্তের আভা লাগে; তুমি এসো, কাল এসো,
যেখানেই যেভাবেই থাকো, মনে করে এসো
আগামীকাল সন্ধে ছটার সময় ট্রামডিপো থেকে আড়াইশো মিটার দূরে
মোচ্ছব হবে ঘোর
চাঁদের মরমী আলোয় হাওয়া দেবে হিল্লোল
ফুটপাথ ফুঁড়ে আচমকা বেরিয়ে আসবে চিরপরিচিত কেউ
যাকে চিনতে পারো নি কোনোদিন
মগজের অন্তঃসার কেটে পাকস্থলী বের করে আনবে সিন্ধবাদের বংশধর
কিন্তু তারা উচ্চ্বঘর!
এছাড়াও ক্ষুদিরামের ফাঁসি,
ভুবনের কানকাটা মাসি
সকলেই নিমন্ত্রিত, অতএব তুমি এসো, সুনিতম্বিনী
সম্ভব হলে শাঁখ বাজিও।



ইতিমধ্যে কর্পোরেশনের ইঁদুর কর্পোরেশনেরই নর্দমা থেকে বেরিয়ে আসে
আরম্ভ হয় হলুদ আলো বরাবর দৌঁড়
তুমি, আমি, অমানিশা তখন জ্বলন্ত কাঠের চুল্লিতে বিবর্তনের রূপরেখা দেখছি
বঙ্গোপসাগরে ধনপতি কমলে কামিনী দেখছে
কিছু কিছু দ্বীপ নাকি সমুদ্রে হাপিস হয়ে যায়
কতো কিছু দ্যাখা হয়ে গ্যাছে মানুষের
তবু নিরাময় নেই, চুপিচুপি কালোকালো হাওয়া বয় পিছে
সামনে নিশ্চিন্ত দিকচক্রবালে সোনালী এবং সাদা পালক সমন্বিত পাখি ওড়ে দিনমান
রাতভর জোনাকির মতো ফুল্কি ওড়ে ঝাপসা শহীদবেদী থেকে
শতচ্ছিন্ন বাগদাদে বসেছেন বাদশাহ, দূরে পাহাড়ে বৃষ্টি পড়ছে,
এইসব অমলিন মুহুর্তেই মানুষ ও মাছ একাকার হয়ে যায়, বনভৈঁসা হেলেদুলে নেমে পড়ে উপত্যকার তালাওয়ে, নিজের দেহরক্ষীদের নিজেরই ঘাতককে হত্যা করতে নিষেধ করেন লিওন ট্রটস্কি, দুর্দম ব্রহ্মপুত্র অনায়াসে সাঁতরে পারাপার করেন বৈষ্ণববীর শঙ্করদেব, অজৈব রাসায়নিক নদীর জল পান করে ভলকে ভলকে রক্তবমি করে গহীন বিরাট অরণ্যের দানোভল্লুক, ডিম্বাশয়ের খোঁজে আকুল আর্তিতে কেঁদে ওঠে শতকোটি শুক্রাণু যার প্রতিটির মুখে ও অন্তঃস্থে চারশো কোটি বছরের প্রাচীণতম স্মৃতি যখন আদিপিতা ও আদিমাতা একাসনে বসেছিল প্রথম জীবকাধার কোষে, এবং ধ্রুবতারা থেকে  ৪০ বছর পুরোনো আলো সহসা হাজির হয় পৃথিবীতে।



এইখানে এইসব ঘটেছিলো
রক্তে মাদল বাজছে
পাহাড়চুড়োয় ঘণ্টা বাজছে ঘটমান
এভাবেই চন্দ্র-তারকা-গ্রহরাজি থেকে অনিবার্য সংকেত এসে এই নিটোল গ্রহের মাটিতে গেঁথে যায়, গর্ভ-নীড়-ময় ছড়িয়ে দ্যায় ব্রোম্ভাণ্ডের সামগ্রিক ঠিকানা।
ইঁদুরগুলো মরে গেলে ফের হলুদ আলোর ওপার থেকে সাইকেলঘণ্টি বাজাতে বাজাতে বেরিয়ে আসবে তিনঠ্যাংকাটা ছায়ামুর্তিরা
ওরা স্তন্যপায়ী অথবা স্তন্যদায়ী অথবা দুটোই অথবা একটাও নয় কিনা ঠিক জানি না।  

History of all the Shipwrecks of the World

and there you are, i see you
with your Damascene and your lip-balm
i was born the morning after
i was born when things were cold,
you are hounded by the ghosts.


and one day all wounds shall shine
and the stars shall dance like crazy
i call you from the other side
there's an epitaph and a windchime
and i call you; do you know my name?


and the Prince was dying by the tree of light
when love arrived to strike him down
i put my heart in a cup of gold
Buddha love, all my life,
all my death for you.


and you hear the endless tale
you see the endless sky
no bird chirps, no leaf falls
i've repaid my debts to all victory & defeat
let us go to Uranus, Neptune or Pluto.


and the gallows have fallen out of use,
the mortuary gates are tightly shut,
the maternity wards heap scorn, salt and saintly diplomacy
it's no fun being here, let us leave
let us go to Uranus, Neptune or Pluto.

স্যামুয়েল ও নর্তকী

হঠাৎ সন্ধ্যা নামে মায়ানট থিয়েটারে

মনে হয় সবুজ কিছু তারকা একদা 

মানুষের থেকে মানুষের মতোই প্রতিহত-প্রত্যাহত হয়

খুঁজে ফিরেছিলো স্ব-স্ব ক্ষতচিহ্ন;

অযথা যত্ন আসে দিনমান, 

কেবলি পলাতক পথে পায়চারি করে

কল্কির অগ্নিবেশে, হেমন্তের উজ্জ্বল ধান বুঝি

চন্দ্রাহত অযুত ম্যামথের বেশে ঠায়

অথবা অজ অব্যয়

আমাদের প্রিয়তমা অক্ষর - পালকের ও শালিখের সন্নিবেশে 

রাজকন্যে সে, এলোচুল চিরযুগ অমলিন 

অতএব, হিরণ্যগর্ভ তাঁর স্বরপাঠ, যুথবদ্ধ তাঁর শ্রুতিমঠ

রঙ্গমঞ্চ অবাক, আসনে অভিঃ আসীন তাঁর দ্বৈরথ দ্বৈপায়ন

অসীমের অভিষেক এইখানে -

অথচ, কি আশ্চর্য্য! প্রাত্যহিক ধরেছে খরতলোয়ার

ক্ষমাসুন্দর তার দুইহাত - ইতিহাস ও সৌরঅভিযান।  

chrysanthemums in summer

cold breeze comes from far away

lights of city burn low

light of mind is cold, frozen

across the prequels & sequels

one fly burning on edge of body

three cats dead in the hunt

the shadows won't let the city be

the sparrows won't let the tigers be

that's where it all boils down to:

circle out the mirrors

smash through the mazes

build the mausoleum of time, 

brick by brick,

till it all comes crashing down

then you seek, in vain, for the crumbs,

you pull out your raw eyes 

for they have seen it all,

they have seen the sun and the moon bleed

they have seen the stars turn into demons of relentless grief

they have seen the cold, sharp space

between the blade and the wrist 

but when they saw children from lonely shores 

as they stole oranges from pockets of lovers lost in salt & sand

and sold them to the wise clown on the other side

of the river,

the god of your kindness knew

that you had to scoop them out of the listless sockets

and free them from the ghosts that scream up this mad dark storm 

each time you kneel before the haunted altars of mercy and misery

and thus, finally, you see the bridges as they burn 

and the insects as they get fatter by the hour

even Oedipus, loser, had seen them thus.

and then you move out,

hug a huge, ancient tree

and weep

for the tides shall heave 

their songs of sadness 

yet again, and the little dogs of love

shall hold Shakespeare in their tiny paws

and wag to tender tunes of Aladdin and other timid trivia

yet again.

but you know all these

even the rain does.

Phone didn't ring at 10:30 phone rang at 7:30

hands come out of head at night

touching,

the half-sunk project

of memory and medicine

because we abandon one sunset

and dart towards a million sunrises

our nostrils breed machine-fumes, electric durability

our men and women glide along the smooth, glassy surface

at times it seems as if their feet don’t touch the ground

their shadows don’t fall on river

their tigers don’t rove the wilderness and wildernesses

their tigers aren’t naked enough

their tigers will drown when the flood arrives

and dark waters rise

till there’s nothing but dark silent water.

**

party at the empty wagon

the drinks are strong

us gamblers, we’re ready

dreamers die and doers get bored

their medicine isn’t memory yet

their great Doc has starved to death

thus, you’re all blue, and social

and all ways are easy to take

children sit on Tree of Death

and weave the tales of world

in moments between the barrel and skin & flesh

frozen in flashes, like eternity ever were

your eyes, ah, your eyes

surprise. surprise.

(NB: The primary disease is so commonplace that it isn’t much of a disease anymore)

**

let’s go

where your sounds become colours

owls break free from clouds & trousers

let’s be polite as we stand in queue

waiting for the unwritten bulletin

and believe that the world has a huge head

and a pair of huge hands will come out of it

and sweep this filth away. all before the rain.

weather reports arrive from August, September,

hissing for deliverance, like birds,

choked, as they ever were,

to wake to unbelievable infinite Universe. But first, proceed,

hug your shadows and hug them tight

long is the way and tough is the fight

where the sun wears a crimson bun

the moon has robes of sleek silk

and Mama Death, she keeps her hair open

and makes certain concessions for the hopeless

and the hounded – as they eat the stars,

gouge out eyes of blind gods and eat those eyes too

and eat the pencil-marks on the edge.

Thus the meal is complete and wholesome

we wash our faces and sail ahoy

and toil hard to make cutlasses out of question marks

and behead the haters of the heart with them,

blood rises with letters of love, rises to eat

strong heads of primitive, absurd mountains in starlight

but the journey is essential –

pining, as we ever were – wet crows in cornices

to surround all seats and flying thrones with watercolour, goatmilk and new turns on old bends

reach Liberation Inn

the Innkeeper takes mercy as rent

the glasses are full. Women sing soft songs of defeat

Tiny red lamp glows on walls, hide portraits of many who died

to reach and of a few who reached to die:

in kind, golden forgetting

with holes in pockets and brain

all because the third obstacle, as we were told

shivers in green and violins

but the tellers have reached the fourth one now

but their signals do not reach here,

in this dank porthole,

where I don’t hear you,

can’t see you,

turtles turn into shadows of tigers

and tramcars turn into balloon-tailed almost-epiphanies

but some half-starved postcards, screaming for relief

sickened by friendly monsters who stand still and nod

hide their eyes from pictures of clouds and snow –

pretty enough to bring a teardrop or two forth when the engines get silent

pretty because sullen frangipani blooms

and all levees and fortresses get breached. Our children shall win one day.

**

There was an Emperor who proclaimed:

‘give me every brick in the world and I’ll make

a palace so big that it will have everything. everything.’

he was given every brick and more

and he got the palace built.

Unaware, the lost ship returned after 20 years

The Captain who was old and weary

saw the palace from far away. He got the cannon aimed at it

and fired the seven salvoes that remained.

And then the ship drifted far away.

The Emperor is still around

He’d hidden in a hole below the ground

he’s used to the darkness

and now to him the hole is the palace

and it has everything.

everything.

I have a map that leads straight to the hole.

the ship was never seen again.

**

Another king was Belshazzar. He was silent.

Much darkness was borne by light

we who have no faith, nor hope,

we who play with dead bulls, pelt stones at fiddlers on roofs

we who lack in style and permanence, attack windmills,

take love for politics and politics for love – doubted the sounds

slighted the furies, coveted the satin and the satin-dancer –

we haven’t seen hourglasses except in infrequent museums

we don’t know Belshazzar and it doesn’t matter,

we don’t know of the monstrosity that dances in soft sharp silence

when the world sleeps, of the castle that rises from the swamps that once

was a river in mad rage on sultry lonesome summernoon –

we who have created sincerity and have adapted to such & other creations,

having known to rule and be ruled, to love and be loved,

to ignore warning signals until they fall in place with the bigger blueprint –

we will step down from our pedestals now

we will hide our faces in the pillows and weep

thinking that no one can see us

thankful for invisibility, that the skies & oceans are blue with our poison

gets easier to accept this way, houses of hunger & history fill up.

**

certain dogs that live and die

sit behind me, aware

when it’s quite & still enough to expect prophesies

we run out of bullets and adverbs

prisoners of stone and flesh guard all ways of exist

happy judges hang upside down from moon-balloon

but their laughter hangs far away.

all in all, a bit of a catastrophe

like ink on paper,

sun on sunflower

rivers on fire

et cetera.

but the dogs are calm, they wipe their faces with soft white towels

and even share bananas with me.

their mercy makes me move

their mercy makes the world move.

**

Caterpillar Empress

Caterpillar Empress, she wears her jewels

And she moves in voices that haunt the city

on the other side of her mirror

There’s another mirror within

And the lonely and the blind, they look at her

when the world tucks its head within her soft belly

and weeps in fond flows of silence

She is the Caterpillar Empress

She wears a million moonstruck shoes

And I marvel at her wisdom

And I don’t seek for the volcanoes in her body.

But there’s yet another mirror

It shines blue when ghosts come out

And chain their hearts to her form

And then the vision the viewer and the viewed

find out their crypts

and become one

And maybe the world weeps a bit too

Or maybe it doesn’t

But how does that matter?

She rains her love on turtles of time

as she struts along the canvas of our hidden, empire

standing, often, between the seasons of want and rain

when eyes touch, like petals, her wisdom

the sky and earth

dancing between the nerves and mist

circled by the southern breeze

to carry her wisdom from star to star

And thus, I roam.

As these proud centuries of famine and machine

ravage the clocks and gasp, amazed

at these tiny endless quests.

Caterpillar Empress rises through time

like Venus through the waters of love

and fishes make love and birds of the heart – stabbed by the hunters

of dream and vice – they chirp a bit, or maybe they don’t

my mind is my body now

and her body is her mind

And thus, our whispers dot the humanly nights of this world.

No one knows where her palace lies

No one will hear the shrieks of the last bird when it dies

No one will see the last star blanking out.

Thus, she hides her bullets

from the monsters of kindness who adore her face and

make love to her all day and all night

till the new exodus

and civilizations of sunset as they usher

new blue rose of mind. (Whose mind?)

Meanwhile, Doctor Love, he moves from town to town

in his withered brown coat

and with his empty black suitcase

where cold centuries paint dark faces

and hot centuries paint bright faces

He’s an angel too, though no one has told him that

but when it rains on him sad music plays from the skies

because the lonely and the damned, as they

wither in prisons of gold and dust,

they cling to his coat, and the Empress knows it

too. And we all know it, though no one

has ever told us about it.

And then in another beautiful dream,

they meet and they kiss, the Doctor and the Empress

they really do

A flying saucer wheezes past the ears from other sides of windows

and flies fly in from faraway shores of twilight

carrying news from lost sailors – they say they are well

they have found a lost kingdom on the other side

and there are purple faces of green locust-men

and blue faces of red women of olive and thirst

She is a real empress now,

she takes off her sapphire ring

and puts it in a glass of blue wine

He is a real Doctor now –

he takes off his shoes

and flings out the history of the world that lay buried there thus far

A little songbird with curved maroon beaks

picks up this tune,

makes pancakes out of it

and carries them to the blind gods of machine

the haters of the heart fall silent in this hour.

They are real Haters now.

But then, rude sunlight takes you to another lost city

that lies limp by the empty sea – all gray and stunned to ceaseless silence

like broken violins by broken automobiles;

Rabbits freeze in foglight and stay frozen till forever begins & ends

the silk and honey are dead and gone:

(you know all about it –

that perfect cadence  of forsaken umbrellas on cobwebbed penthouses

the dark vines of deliria and disenchantment

that crawl up your chest to choke your throat,

etc)

and then the river she hides her aura, homeless,

to count the deaths and hopes of yearning,

there’s salt and stone-chips in your pockets now, Phlebas

you look out for your Empress, you call out for your Doctor

You stand before the stern judges of rock and lacklove –

you don’t find her there, and he’s roaming in the wild zones of ancient dusk

looking for those billion little pieces that never were

you hear that huge pink baby crying in the woods,

she’s crying because everything burns and thus everything’s false;

but you don’t see her, you see a dying cat instead

The cat has lived enough

Thus, the hunters are on prowl yet again

Ants

ants. a whole bloody lot of them.

when all of them cry at midnight

the earth swells up in waves

and many think that the earth is crying

but it’s really the ants.

there’s one climbing up the grandfather clock

through the round plate of time

with memories of forgetting in its mouth

and a pistol aimed at its heart

because it’s at that tiny blank space between the dot and the stroke of i

that funny things happen

I have noticed them happening lately

ants creep and crawl along timeless tombs of moss,

cross Rubicon

and march away to crude, ancient eternity

mist eat up old elephant

six seasons of longing,

nine rings of rectitude

lash out of angry eyes of blind judges

the phantoms act their parts out,

the puppeteer takes out her trombone

and tigers turn to their own shadows for mercy

And all these happen

because dogs in dogged coitus on midnoon swelter

take us through sixteen million eclipses

and to sparrows who wanted to be Bach

but settled for crumbs instead

like our blind maestro who burned his violin

like the anger of Caliban when Orpheus looks back

like heartless roosters hooting for Cinderella

like Laika, blessed, boiled by the specter of science

like mother and father who make love every moment to create time

like you looking at me now

like me writing of you looking at me now

like our seven mirrored mirage

like the fox whose oversexed uncle died

like the music of hemlock

like fury, madness and slaughterhouse miracles

like Jupiter mauling Juno’s breasts

like hatred

like terror

like this relentless monstrosity of decay and defeat

but there are more ants on earth than things worth knowing in life and death

and when they start weeping

the world drowns every night

To the Girl with Mad Fire in Her Eyes

This house this sleep this bathroom this woman this music oh to be bound, bound by the restless nutshell of eternity,

tiger-shadow on the wall

the sun in you, the moon in you

weep as they burn.

This is when you wake up.

Between the seasons of wisdom and monstrosity.

the neck and a guillotine

maybe it’d be better to wake up by some shore

and see lost children fighting the phantoms on the other side

it’s an endless duel. Bitter rain fall on sad people. No rain for the sadder.

The sun is rising at some latitude and longitude right now.

“did the branches not protest?”

Child, you said you wept inside

when the doors were closed

and Samson had his hair tied to two poles – one that said “Eternity” and the other one, “Eclipse”.

And the archer ran from star to star, like demons bounding for the fairies and angels of moon

that slip through your childhood yolk, through the hearts of heresy and guts of plenitude

your first fright and your first fall

I’m looking at you through all this

Are you looking at me now?

I am far away now. It’s nine minutes past ten. My mirrors are stuck in a mirage.

Your colours in harlequin riot.

Well, that three headed hound – it was weeping too.

And when things are quieter and as lonely, we all weep. For sorrow shall dangle from our fingertips

and pain must show us the way to the ship that sails tall and proud.

You may speak to the clouds that adorn the nape of your neck

I may tie a red rag or two on the eyes of the bull that stare at me every night

So, let us move from town to town

with our big black empty suitcase.

Alone With A Gun

i painted you a green picture

it had the germs of life, 

oaks stood

kittens purred

like all ancient establishments

one old man singing at night

when the city is a forest

and the forest is a city

and both of us must drown

for autumn steps in

like an auteur, to wave

at our little flags of kindred mercy

and threesome is best in the snow

and women come and go

and so does Michelangelo

all in quaint motions across your forehead

where the sun burns like aimless dots,

ambling for the salt on the shores

for the blood in the skies

thus, i painted a green picture

it was the night of the vultures

it was another jigsaw puzzle

and there was no way to tell

the lonely who die

from the dead who are lonely

and now, from town to town

my golden monsters be blessed

send me postcards from Babylon

tell me of the lion-edged maps and charts

that point at the last tram

before it wipes off the frame

and the ghosts of the mist

who smell like childhood

and taste like death

tell their tales of conquest 

to the kind Emperor

as things grow cold 

along the curves of your tiny wrists,

and the green uncertainty

and pendulums and shadows of certain cool rivers

all add up. Narrow whispers surround us. Thus, we wait.   

Lion Rhymes

Lion-man, take the streets

Weeping for the dust

Lion man, they read out loud

From books of gold and lust

Your cage is strong, your claws are long

And pilgrims throng the tombs

Lion-man, hear them chant

Words lost in wombs

Lion-man, shadows heave

Bolting sky through sky

For the moon is down

The sun’s a clown

And angry arrows fly

Lion-man, heed the spring

And heed the cherry tree

For the stabs they stab in guts of heart

Are ever and never to be

Lion-man, pastel hues

Touches wilt in frost

For the war he fights

On lonely nights

Is meant for the truly lost

Lion-man, you know my name

Your coat of arms has blood

For both of us had lost our oars

before it came – the flood.

Your cup of gold, they’re filling it

With poison till the brim

Lion-man, I cheer for

the drowned, as they swim.

Lion-man, you saw the child

You saw the bomb of god

But did you see Homer, blinded

by his very own nod?

Lion-man, your iron mask

Our duel wasn’t true

For water flowed like water flows

And left its traces too

And through those traces

I tracked them down –

Food for the loveless lore

For salt and chance had tricked us both

into this lonesome shore 

So now we play our games of chess

And sign our benign pacts

Lion-man, sing to me

of dreams and other facts.

And now we glide from death to death

Begging for some rain

Lion-man, his hands are full

Of all that is to remain

Lion-man, take my soul

Turn it into gold

And then I’ll know what to do

When everything else gets sold

Lion-man, the knife’s so sharp

The steel’s so cold, my fright,

Every ladder leads to snakes

Through blinding streaks of light

Lion-man, Lion-man,

The shadows sing a song

Of matter, spirit and other places

where I do not belong.

Lion-man, when the music stops

And the disease hits the stars

Hold a mirror to my face

And show to me my scars

Lion-man, clouds come home

Like birds lost in mist

Close the rivers, close the eyes

where veins & highways twist

Lion-man, this treasure-hunt

Shall toll our mad death knells

But Lion-man shall ever live

In endless fairy tales

Lion-man, he eats the clocks

He shits them out as time

And then he eats this poem of mine

pissed by the lousy rhyme.