I need a full shot of Ketamine

Now that the piano notes
have faded with our parting
I need to clutch on to my roots

hidden in yesterdays

Now that I can see myself
being out of my benign body
I'm passing through curtains of time

I perform a mime act
as if tugging at your heart-strings
trying to moor mundane memories

I see my remains and wonder

Now that I can keep myself afloat
with all that should never have happened
Yet all that happened between us

Why do I keep on muttering dreams
that cannot touch me anymore
Why am I so obstinate to bring back
all those 'you did Thaaat to Me'
back to the shore

Let me bathe in this cool air of twilight
Let me rerun all the actions motivations
hesitations and boiling altercations
that have brought me here
Now that the seasons have made a full circle
and the fog is slowly rising

The man near Marum Volcano

Wasn't he charmed by the spectacle of
flame waves
Wasn't he craving for a plunge
looking like a clown with his heat-suit on
near the crater of Marum volcano

I recall my disarray
alone with you in a fiery spring
and your disdain
the annoyance of an angry passion
watching the dilemma
of an unsure insect
But I was aware that a fireproof-suit
has its limits
And was worried of seasons
other than bloom time

So the man keeps speaking
of acid rain of molten rocks
and of ashes

What you need now

What you need now
is an eruption of life
through dead cells
of euphoria

Who doesn't need
a cloudburst to silence
the never-ending rhyme
of a waterfall's gurgle

recalling how penumbrae
have added to your woes

Why must people
run into you with their own
absurd contemplation

Who said you were
ever in love
Who said the lovers
shoved you aside as the tides
receded

You need to fling
this darn old carbon cycle
of thoughts

Have you seen
white flowers bloom
in the last hour of night

your nearness (Tanka)

your nearness
as with a spring blaze
makes me dizzy--
even with a heat-suit
i fear the lava

Haiku

dad and i--
fading sun and
a faint moon


mother and i
sharing our lunch
the leaf falls

Gaza, Hiroshima and...

1)
doctor at Al-Shifa:
'the scent of the just died
stays on...
blood cannot be washed
with the purest of tears'


2)

the soldier gifts
a toy gun
to a weeping kid
...ceasefire
on the Eid morning


3)

a woman's home
shattered
by the air-strike:
'can the heroes of war
invade the Heavens'


***************************


Hiroshima Day


a little girl prays
along with her granny--
Hiroshima Day

Thoughts on an Eid morning

He won't be hearing the rattle
of gunfire today
Men will gather for prayers
to thank the Lord
for giving a life
under an umbrella of blood-lit stars

Last night he saw the moon
sickle-shaped, its silvery edge
maybe not as cunning as a table-knife,
reminds him of previous festivals,
of the scent of pilaf, new dresses
and echoes of adaan

Echoes of early man call out to each other
There won't be any rattle of gunfire today
even the hands soaked with blood
will join in prayers

Satan at work - Tanka

Satan at work:
'I will never bow down
to Adam'-
the shrapnel
in a young boy's stomach



sun sets behind
bullet-ridden clouds
at Golgotha
a violin plays out
the agony of mankind




watching the trail
of a Grad missile...
was this the route
followed by the Star
of Bethlehem?

re-cycled Tanka

Tanka

alone
in a city
of unknowns
the poet finds
a new door, every hour


'this winter breeze
now scorches me
with hunger':
a lone sparrow
speaking to itself


he joined
a train of clouds:
'My avian heart,
how do i know
where the end of route is?'

Buddha Day Haiku

Buddha Day-
new grass growing
after the harvest

*

a monk chants his way
through the market--
smell of incense

*

prayer-wheels
which way
will the wind move

The dream of four nights

Your chesire-cat smile made the moonlight
a fire-well; I was diminished to ashes in which
you inscribed your name.

The following night you doused me,
we kissed till the rain stopped. You played
with sea-shells after the tide.

Third night I was facing a firing squad.
They all waited for your order which was never
to come. You cracked jokes with some, pulled
their cheeks, ruffled their hair
and forgave me.

On the last night the planet quivered,
a serious gorge cracked open between our hearts.
You smiled that benign smile of yours, and said
what can you do if the earth pulls you 
aside

Macondo

You can't see any of it today
those buildings made of clear glass
children running through their summer
in banana plantations
or ancient men waiting in a queue
for the want of a greener monsoon

You search the ruins like an ant
yet find no morsel of love
to feed you

Grave looking vultures perched atop
churches keep their vigil
memories cannot escape without being
gorged
the gypsies are a lost race
Spring wind sighs through the skeleton
of a wrecked ship

[ In memory of late Gabriel Garcia Marquez ] 

Tanka in April

minstrels
painted on the garden wall
growing faint...
how one loses his eyes
to the rain

*

secretly
i increase the distance
between us...
all i have to do
is blow up the bridge

*

losing you
in the tumult
of a dream
your soft smile
breaking into shards 

April Haiku

enacting Krishna
he hides his blues
with blue paint

*

cloudburst -
words pouring
from her letter


*

yellow butterflies
how can one open and close
so quick 

Growing in me

Believe, you’re still growing in me.
Mind weaves images even if
the curtain is lowered.

Believe, your touch is still palpable.
Much like a tree you grow, your meristems
spread apically. Laterally.

I have closed all shutters still an evil light
trickles in. The air inside smells of monsoon
and I feel tingling sensations roused by
deadpan promises.

You ask, being ‘out-of-sight’ even fades
a mountain. But can a fog erase
weighty memories?

Come. Don’t be at a loss for words. One part
of the world has to hide in dark to enlighten
the other.

Believe, the tree will wither on its own,
the poison that is making it thrive will lose
its sting; the aftertaste won’t linger
beyond a lifetime.

a fresh leaf (Haiku)

picnic in spring--
the day i forgot
to count syllables

*

first words with her...
the pigeon-toed walk
of a toddler

*

to think of you
after many autumns
a fresh leaf 

Notes from a lanky old man

Hear, O' Wind, the distant hammer
ricocheting from hill to hill
its agony
silenced by a rising fog

Hear, dear brother, the autumn song
the frail voice that soothes
a dusty meadow: man had started fire
playing with flint-stones

Brothers have lost flesh & bones
in war
the lonely hammer beats overhead:
Is this the Order, is this the Law,

Where have all the flowers gone?

[ In memory of Pete Seeger ]

Anti-depressant

There's no complain in her eye. Night
fades out: she remains a stone and so do I.
Leafing through the daily pages I'm hooked
to the picture of a frigid Niagra. Cold seeps in
through my slippers and my armchair was never
less warm. The tea, my only sip of luxury, tastes
tedious.I consider telling you "Honey, this is not
a man flu!" But how do you enter a home without
being invited? - A dog scowls nearby.

I recall the tall claims made by certain "logists"
who reassured rebirth of embers
in silent rain.

Yet the camp fire is the only glow.
We watch the dance of flames: shadows grow
and shrink back to our dimension. Darkness settles in
between the stars.Morning sweeps away the ashes
leaving us in the ice-age under a future-less sky.

Valentine Day poem

i.

i wish you could hear me
amid the rattle of the pushcart
selling fresh sugarcane juice
for you i preserve
nectar from my wound

ii.

i wish you could hold me
as softly as you place
white roses upon my grave
i'd drench myself in the rain
of your nearness

iii.

how many galaxies
have i traversed alone
how many autumns
decayed on your patio
how long must our dreams burn
without giving birth
to a planet

A certain kind of love

I have this certain kind of love
for my autumn skin a skin that has been
my kindest companion since the days
of early spring I tell you I'm shredding it
unwillingly and I feel it slithering down
a limbless reptile makes its way
down the trunk of a human form
You might say I can coat myself anew
and speak softly to young buds
Yet a bruised warrior bears in mind
the battle as vividly as the victor
With an animal-gaze I stare at the branches
stripped bare and find one battered fire-fighter
taking off his fire suit with reluctance
How can you fight with the fire of autumn
a numbness grows as the acrid tang poisons
my afternoon and I tell you I simply adore
the lethal dose of love