1
I do not ask the sun
Burn Fireblaze
adding wings to wounded giants
or depressing them to crouch down
the memories lanes or erect
new walls with odours of hate
and love cagily crumping
the shade in the middle of earth and sky
I do not ask the moon
skirting the cherished wishes
on dreamy edges of winter
unforcing climax with sticky
fingers splintering sensations
or skittish minuscule riddles
frosting the heart at fifty
I love light without ashes
of wood or fuming desires
in the morass of frustration
I sing psalms population understand
through lines on palms or relics
of hidden rains lunch
I live time shaking sun and moon
2
I don't fear death
nor do I worry about
life-after-death
but I fear I know
what life has been and could be
without fortuity
of birth and continuance
of our failure to
undo what we do ourselves.
3
We do not know the weeds
that grow in bed with flowers
staring like weary cops
unmindful of birds at dusk
the more they know legends
the worse it becomes to live:
let's clean the sky of tales
of covenants and prophets
and be at peace with earth's
bushes and weeds and flowers
4
Moon-bleached ashes of ages
riot in the night
there is no smoke
my diffidence rises as snake
in dream meanders
the dragon's tail
my teeth nibble at the garbage
near the mango tree
I stand like the tin
on rusted roots morning
flares up will to live
beyond breedy space
5
Strayed far from the nest
I'm fedup living with dust
for years fleeting shade
bereft
of melody
of spirit I sink to
the hades of utter loss
I can't
recon hidden mysteries
I have lost the sea
for a mere cupful
void of patience and
peace now as I touch the breasts
of the field I crave
for a pure breath
native to
my being I search
sweet savours
of love
6
I seek the roots that shape
my desperate cries, my bones
that ache in bed I image
the snakes in forgotten heritage
I weave pleasure with Baha'i mind
and prayers in English before Kali
standing alone with psalms
or Tablet of Ahmad, perhaps
I cross-breed in soul
but, who hears or sees
the antique hands that signed
the first poems for man?
I sound strange, and strange I am
rooting about among vehicles
for my antimony with names
7
The rain-soothed walls of Shivalay
shine in sun like the gravelled path
now slick with wet mud and cow-dung
obscure footmarks of Monday-worshippers:
I forget the sutras today and feel
the damp incense inside like I did
standing in the empty sentry-box
compromising with the rusted letterbox
not opened for years at the left turn
the mime of hope and worship and slow effacement
of illegible signatures on deity's back
don't help me flesh my verses or mitigate
pounding rains, rituals and repetitions
8
It's too much to live
amid the lies made to keep
the wheel moving:
now knee deep it's better
we seek shelter in the hush
of sky or the charred
ocean floor leaping
to still the cries of ghosts
that were children once
death is no wound nor
cracks inside any solace:
lies of living lock
the footprints in drifts
in wildness fossilise
word and connections
9
One may or may not justify
one's romance with lethargy:
to understand what lies beyond
rainbow or under the tree shade
one must leave much for another
day or season, or mood or dream
and slow sketch happiness
with dapple of light and darkness
10
It's a slow awakening
of winter like my drugged eyes
--coalfield's gift for bread
no use development up myths--
and searching for fire eastward
silent burst of orange
and mynahs in twos and threes
hopping to catch their preys
--all a drama of exile
and no thrill--I live out
my life on the edge, denounce
and metamorphose into a moon
under cloud-cover, rising
sliding ritually in bed swallow
humiliations, arrogance and ridicule
to leave whores in the street
and Ac rooms while days
wheel by in their polished world
I negotiate a price for the next day's sun
11
If you see light
after the day's end
you can hope here
life is still left
glow-worms still fly
to greet the evening star
in open sky
behind the fighter planes
there's still a Cross
ready to shower love
12
Living their smallness
in a small world they have ceased
to grow and be human
life has lost meaning:
I can't be comfortable
with their bragging ego
corrupt to the core
they eat into our fabric:
I must search my own way
through empty cups and alleys
in body rain love
or plant new peonies
13
They close their eyes
or shut them with rupees
matters little
but I worry
when with sight in their hands
they free shadows
of legless men
who denude files in sun
and smell a beast
freedom to act
means relaxation to harm as
silence stinks louder
than protest noises
lumped in chaos or monologue
quickened for a quid?
14
Why should I suffer
their smallness if they move in
carpeted corridors
and sit in Ac rooms
to do the very things they
hate to succeed themselves
with privileges
in the name of rules order
not to leave station
without prior permission:
it's virtual house arrest
for the sin of bread
I must resurrect
symbols of authority
and take off afresh
to find new haven
and set the bait to scratch fact
beyond their fiction
15
Its no use testing blood
for asthmatic wheezing
dust of alienness
has thickened on my throat
patches in the x-ray
reveal I'm still foreign
I don't expect kind words
in my own country
my heart lacerates:
I cough wordless plaints
16
The hot humid morning
like the night
constricts
breathing pipe:
clouds concentrate
but rains need time
to fall
we must wait
till the share scam
is smoked out
and resources
restored
17
I seek you
in the grammar of silence
I seek you
in the accent of love
stretch your living hand once
I'll kiss death out of flesh
18
Moonlight lingers
on mango like the fruit
sweet yellow sun
in my courtyard
cool shade travels with thin cloud
I see love dance
in the sky silk
silence measures new cup
brimful of joy
19
When the sun is erotic
and the moon lyric
the winds turn tempestuous
in the orbit of love
legs slide by calls of pleasure
for life to continue
20
Time floated in our echoes
and love carved our destiny
day in and day out together
we've sailed to cross continents
of body fate and psyche
sleeping in the same bed, but
isn't it disappointing we
haven't seen the same dreams together?
21
The hospitality
of a brief transcendence
you lead me to
while at the top
I feel the imperious sway
is a memory:
I must gad into
your body's forays
before I drift down
into the slums of sleep
22
Anxious about the next morning's
soothing sun, safety and peace
when I fail to sleep I seek
solace in her soft moist thighs
and pray to God to bless my passion
for a occasion let me forget
the cares of a crazy world
23
Rains revive memories
shattering emotions
in solitude
I stick my neck out
but the oracle is immune
the shell no longer saves
24
How soon the rain loses exuberance
leaving the walls damp and faces sullen
aches of all sorts and onset of asthma
allergies that make moments miserable
in Sawan furious changes occur
each year I wonder it's degeneration
or burial of warmth in watery smell?
25
She sees
many faults in me
points out all I shouldn't do
even hates my hugs and kisses
in bed
yet life
rolls on mocking
compromise of living:
to keep home she conceals within
the angst
26
The primary place
where the olive rested once
now stinks with dried blood
a famine of love
in menopausal silence:
erection can't create
27
Ripe on the branches
mangoes fall one by one
end of the season
they pull the blind
to peel their image
in mirror it limps skyward
28
The rains
cry to meet earth
fall from sky day and night
remind love always yields to arms
open
29
Desert storm
by night
turns lusty:
close combats
canons, rockets
inflatable
tanks and dollies
mobile launchers
phallic missiles
go off
boys jog
in women's tents
ejaculate
continue sorties
commanders promise
no penalties
30
She wonders why so much passion
and heat and intensity in bed
each night why so much love-making
why such blind pleasure in sex
even after fifteen years
why such crisis and excitement
at forty-three and two children
to sense spring in the middle of the thighs
as if I've nothing to prove
beyond maleness or neural itch
ever hungry for love and
its fulfilment in giving
I seek her spirit through body
rise to heaven together
and forget demeaning aloneness
31
The steep ways of love
grows eyes on palm rocked in
whirling melody.
In the fragrance of her breath
blooms the bud of joy
I acquire the fruits.
Flickers of peace hide
god in heart like running brook
love in nudity.
She gives me of herself
each day and night fulfils in me
God smiles in her eyes.
Love waves rise and fall
between our shores of soul
we drink each other's sea.
32
I seek new strides
in each of your moves
new dreams in your eyes and thighs
nude lyrics in lips
shape the night's sway
set my heart afire
I seek the lingering fragrance
the rhythm that frenzies the soul
the classic joy you conceal
I seek the hues that blaze being
and shade the nest I rest in:
your chains renew freedom
each time I look at you
I see natural woman
the fount of poetry
33
Exploring the self
lost in the mind and the world
to know the unknown
sex is a search for
joys of development in poetry
bliss in creation
performing on tip
of grass the dance of Shiva
finale of love
34
We had a pact
we'd drink together
after the children retire:
the night dawned we couldn't
sit to make moments
memorable and condemned
love to argument
over nothing
35
While we were talking about
love, marriage and migraine
she kept fiddling with
her reticule--opening
putting her pen in and out
and shutting again
36
Standing at the edge
I long to float with waves and
wave with instant wind:
on the dreamwater's breast
I read tomorrow's wonder:
the hidden waking
37
The leaves
fall and rust with
ashes heaped up by wind
in the lawn rises the pale earth
for breath
I hear trees
ticking and
April heat pass
leaf by leaf
38
(i)
Time stands still
in November chill
I fill emptiness
with words paint seasons
on your face
(ii)
In my impatience
I werdle or opup more
they take their own time
here waiting is more aweful
than meeting and going
(iii)
I opinion I'd exchange
my anxieties for a bit
of peace but thinking
was easier than happening:
I couldn't even sleep
39
In the art of living
let's not look for perfection
but give wildness a chance
for the garden to be:
colours of error reflect
depths of desire that seed
the opinion before action
40
Is it the love of ritual
or the ritual waste:
every year they steal light
to illumine puja pandals
and blare non-stop nasty songs
the whole night disturb peace
show power at its lowest
but the goddess keeps mum
perhaps self-loathingly
sleeps for demons to write histories
not fit for the light of the day
or for me. Self-pity
is no wisdom when I yield
to pressure and visit
places I hate
I'm sorry my goddess and I
stare in two directions:
who cares for the burning
in my heart now
night frustrates like day
with the ashes of insight
I originate verses
and learn to rest restlessly
coughing, sitting or
sniffing her crotch like a dog
but nothing ceases
in the air only wounded
senses and high decibel
noise nobody feels
I touch her and yet
she doesn't answer to my need
41
They are not so much
schemers as blunderers
blinded by politics
of convenience
religiously guard
against encroachment
on their privileges
as leaders create
a new elitism
a new tyranny
of mid-term poll when
prostatectomy
at sixty frightens
them to favour anyone
as in sex giving away
balancing oppositions
despite impulses
for equality
they are trapped by gains
from oneness with top
no use prying secrets
or imprecating
them sotto voce
in social houses
money buys the girls displayed
inside or vicarious
pleasures outside bouncers
panders and husky men
gyrate when they retreat
with right pecker
they mar the future
and bury the nation
42
So much is lost
between the day break
and rise of the evening star
and not a soul screams
in this zoo man
is worse in wild nakedness
43
Dusty colonies
recount in grammar of cough
new tales of hazards
near opencast pits
they move with graves on shoulders
mark my white shirt black
44
I am pocked with grief I think
I have buried all my angst in
the halfdry halfwet midden
in my backyard for mice and moles
to frisk and buzz and doze when down
in the mouth man throws
empty cans to rip off moments
of relaxation I think about smell
of ripe decay and discards
by wall mottled with pee
as they unscrew betrayal and
smile ingratitude my son shows
the smuts on my trousers and
says I must keep the distance
to feel safe among devils
45
In the chilly deep of this winter
the shifting clouds wave hands
will the day keep all the promises of the dawn?
I see milky blood dripping down their nails
there is nothing save the spirals of smoke
midst the swelling dreams rocked by waltzing sun
my thirst for sleep and rest is reduced
to orgiastic pain melting down
into the sea of barren academics
I search the red tears shed on the Cross
and face a mirage of abject helplessness
as truth carved out of myths in the middle of dream and day
46
How long shall I seek relaxation in the myths we unmake
licking hairy darkness or feeling sweetness of hips
through untamable wildness of the heart chase images
that abide circles of paroxysm ascending from
the mist and raw voices beginning spume in the faces
as each star twinkles uncertainty crossing the moon
what is left to slice out of the tube through red light
except old sorrows ready to leap to the bone?
now there's nothing to hold on to against lies that shade
bondage of nearness and the horizon I couldn't touch
47
I'm not all in mind
body and soul but broken
I look beyond to find
the fire that rages and makes
the whole in me burning:
I seek the antique hands
that shape eternity
in new forms and renew
the ever alive in me
48
We would be best beings
if we could understand
the worst in us
not to evade
or hide ourselves
from others' gaze
but to remake
words to probe reality
get close to others and know
roots don't grow in cosmetic
void or cries in melody
they need nursing
clear sense like
child and mother
communing reason
and vision like
dream and action
49
Is it the fear
of dying penting up, don't know
I can't resist
restlessness of moth
at light is me:
stains of non-being
I can't relocate
despite dreams and
life dragging on
with quaint wings of
fleshless flies and strange echoes
wincing and cringing
day and night haunt
conceal shy tears
survive surprises
50
Coal grows golden
each occasion in quiet corners
raw wind singes.
Truant from spirit
in coal culture hollow mind
I turn dying ember.
Is there a release
from unliving life day by day
breathing heartless air?
Sounds turn fainter each day
with graying geometry of hope
I stand a rusted sign.
There's something that sustains
us all in a world so perverse
it could be even worse.
I've passes one more year
not knowing the song next year
goodbye is too real.
Poems - 1990-1994
