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| Photo Credits : Gb |
The moon, the stars, and after
It well may be the universe hid behind your eyelashes
The moon got swallowed up, the blackstar
Was extinguished and, later, turned to ashes.
In disguise, the Death Star advances, raises dust, then crashes.
My heart missed a beat, the composer skipped a bar.
It well may be the universe hid behind your eyelashes
And now expands there, unfathomable. When the wind brushes
Your hair aside, and your shawl flutters, any tsar
Or duke stops petrified, then turns to ashes.
They scatter them into the ocean, the water splashes,
Accepting, flowing and flown. The ashes will travel far.
It well may be the universe hid behind your eyelashes
And left me empty-handed, dreaming. One dream clashes
With another; the clash leaves a trace, a scar
Like a tattoo, perhaps removable, or, later, turned to ashes.
Out of the ashes something must rise. Someone hushes
One up, they don’t know. I see your face in a passing car.
It well may be the universe hid behind your eyelashes
Caught fire, and, not much later, turned to ashes.
Song to a Girl I Don’t Know Well
To meet, wind-beaten, mint-scented, in the world, in the
Season of rains and peacocks’ restlessness,
With sublime snow-covered peaks looming in the distance.
Never mind the lark’s song, the nightingale’s sweet trill.
The season of rains and peacocks’ restlessness
Has other stuff in store: the monkeys’ conversations, the porcupine’s keen sting.
So sod the lark’s cheap song, the nightingale’s sweet trill;
Breathe in the tang of weed, the fragrance of the pines,
Regard what’s yet in store: the monkeys’ conversations and the porcupine’s keen sting;
Dream broken dreams, and join disjointed parts;
Breathe in the tang of weed, the fragrance of the wine;
Fall into step with me while sleeping on the wing.
Dream broken dreams, and join disjointed parts.
Close stranger, radiating strangeness of a sweeter kind,
Fall into step with me while sleeping on the wing.
We’ll emerge from the brokenness, the disjointedness of dreams:
Close strangers, sharing the strangeness of a sweet kind
(no sublime snow-covered peaks looming in the distance),
We emerge from the brokenness, the disjointedness of dreams
To meet, wind-beaten, honey-scented, in the world, at dusk.
As One Drifting on a Raft 4.000 Miles Off Course
Or so they say. Like the gentle
sun she was he was
it was you were I was they were.
So now, goddesses, I implore you,
give us more sun & song & dance
& festive music & piercing light
in which we may examine
each other like one
does a creased crater.
What light? What music?
I guess the stars are the negative
of lizards’ eyes, the dark sky hiding
the lizards’ negative bodies that keep
squawking and squealing way into
the small hours. The moon licks
its fleshy lips, like a mass murderer-poet,
the snake sheds its skin, and emerges,
flashy and nimble, ready for new rituals.
So, I guess soon all this will get sorted out,
your nearly-forgotten misery sliding into
the lowest, darkest recesses of your ego,
and a new season of summer festivals
will begin, our little grand tours
of Europe and India, wandering,
wondering, turning and turning,
circling and circling, and usually
returning, but always with a twist.
On the Manner of Addressing the Nrityagram Moon from a Warsaw Balcony
(Cheap Imitation)
You revolve and I revolve yet
the moon glow makes our silent revolutions
ominous, demodés. The light projects
you (that is, the mental image of you I have)
revolving in my mind which is itself
a projection, a probe cast out there
in the world. This is the world
of two minds revolving in unison,
but in reverse directions; one centrifugally,
the other – centripetally. This is the picture
of two minds; this is the image of true minds
coming together, or coming apart,
revolving and resolving impediments.
And this is the speaker come as lover
burning down the cities of the mind, bringing
the ashes of the cities of the mind to lay
them at your mindful feet. And thus we stand
maladroit though ambidextrous.
Regard, oh reader, the ashes of the minds
and tongues, the slickness of the circular
motion, the swiftness of the funicular
taking you up there, to the realms
of the unreal mind, over the dreamily-textured
hills and pistachio-colored clouds, ever so lightly
and far away.
A Very Short Introduction
Do I smell accounting?
Where shall we breed accounting?
How do you grow advertising?
Shall we eat African history?
Can you betray Alexander the Great?
Do you fancy getting stoned on American political parties and elections?
Do you fancy getting stoned on ancient Egypt?
Do I smell the animal kingdom?
Can you betray atheism?
Where shall we breed Buddha?
Shall we eat contemporary fiction?
How do you grow forensic science?
How do you grow the Marquis de Sade?
Do you fancy getting stoned on twentieth-century Britain?
Shall we eat writing and script?
Do I smell writing and script?
Where shall we breed the World Trade Organization?
Can you betray world music?
Can you betray Wittgenstein?
How do you grow the Vikings?
Where shall we breed twentieth-century Britain?
Do you fancy getting stoned on Thomas Aquinas?
Do I smell the Spanish civil war?
Shall we eat Russell?
Shall we eat postcolonialism?
Can you betray microeconomics?
Do I smell Gandhi?
How do you grow ancient Egypt?
Do you fancy getting stoned on innovation?
Where shall we breed innovation?
Where shall we breed information?
Shall we eat international migration?
Do you fancy getting stoned on the ice age?
Can you betray Italian literature?
How do you grow HIV/AIDS?
Do I smell languages?
Do I breed German philosophy?
How do you eat modern France?
Can you fancy diaspora?
Thirteen Ways of Yelling at a Blackbird
Once, you stayed at a place where darkness was really dark so you could easily lose yourself and find an ultimate release and, a human torch yourself, glow endlessly. Now, trapped in a space full of penumbras, in a world stuffed with countless ‘what ifs’ and ‘buts,’ gorging on meaningless mangoes, you can only open your French door and yell at a blackbird, in the following thirteen manners:
1. Stay silent – the blackbird might yell back at you.
2. In the crow position – it is common knowledge that blackbirds fear crows.
3. Bring your guitar and amp to the balcony and yell against a thick wall of feedback.
4. Combine 2 and 3 (and figure out how).
5. Scream in guttural tones like a prophet imploring the stone to yield water.
6. Yell to revamp your larynx.
7. Shout at the floor, vomiting mangoes, papayas, litchis and jackfruits.
8. Howl and cry out in the moonlit night while the blackbird is asleep.
9. Yell into the nine holes of your mortal friend.
10. Bull’s eye, you nailed it, friend.
11. Suppose it’s on the balcony, suppose it’s on. Little birds, ladies, little birds, ladies, little blackbirds of feathers.
12. In fear, because you mistook your raspy cadences for the shadow of the blackbird’s cry.
13. Like no one would, in an equipage exquisite.
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