11:25 am

some stillness here
that I fear to break
some gentle memory
of the body
some luciferase show
of a little plant
something still softer
and still small
like the tickle of an ant
before it is revealed
or the startle
of a single hair

say

I spent years trying to break
the horrible spell of past
to free myself
from its shame
but such nights
bring it back
like an abandoned baby
in their cautious arms
and when I take
it does not cry
or scare me with frenzy
it sleeps beside me
chubby-lipped and pillow
and the nights do to
beside me

I don’t know…
some stillness here
makes us one

12:43 am

the glide
of a good pen on paper
is like freedom
like the graceful slide
of a kite
as she searches for fruit
sometimes
writing becomes a predator
and I become its gaze
I watch, yes
and I see too––
but come to the strike...
that is not mine
sometimes
tens prey I see
but it will not stop for them
and sometimes
it wants all
and will dive before I can focus.
and it is like ageing
this motion:
with every word, I know
a little more;
and freedom
it is a lot like freedom

01:00 am

it was faith, I think
it never left me so lonely
as when it was mine

say— prayer
like a dance I did all alone
grasping limbs
in an auditorium of echo

my sajdah
never mine—  the
surrender of ruku
and the chant of Fatiha
my tongue moving
with the coded keys
slurping, slipping
tumbling over words
that like malignant came
incomplete and too many

it was faith, I think
it was like love
of paper
dampened with blandness
it was sugar
that turns mouth to moss

it lingered
after I was done

and it was faith, I think too;
for while it was mine
it haunted, and haunted too
with a haunting
of something lost

and all age long
I chased it reckless
grasping in takbeer
and forgetting
before the salam
had even opened its wings

12:15 am

now the paper
feels as gentle moss
beneath the feet

and now I have
no words to write
for the night

is the body ever quiet?
now the wrist moves
and I become a crowd again

and
now
one

and now
I am a sea
(I have never met a sea)

and now sad—
swear I do so
every night

and it is not even mourn
but just a hue
in the hues of the sea

02:20 am

need a poem be good
for it to be true
good poems resonate
but need all always do

were the heart a still
forlorn principle
need it know no moving
of a tinkling ripple

what of machines—
do the gears not rhyme?
and must they really do
for the flowing of time

for how a young girl
lost in fear
so intricate delicacies
of secrets must hear

if a poem be hard
to achieve a task
where must one turn
to evacuate the flask

that bubbles anew
every new day—
need a poem be smart
to hold it at bay?

need a war be fought
to sing of a war
and need warriors,
comparing, spar?

is not a poem alone
as is a man alone
must then we all adorn
the sounds of a mourn

12:47 am

I like poetry
I like the company of it
the gathering laughter
the calmness of it

I like silence
and the lightness it wears
I like its chest,
the full embrace

and I like the night
especially its eyes
as it blinks itself awake
and as it sways
like an old woman
in her prayer

I like body too
how it tires
and how it jolts up again
its sweet sleep,
the strangeness
I like the geometry,
the dual nature of it.

12:30 am

today I am not
what I was yesterday
and I know it sounds bold
but it is really
a simple thing to say

as a vine coils a little bit
with every wake of day
so do we children
slowly on the way

and something of night
always remains
even as it turns
from us away

and something of sea
visits unchanged
upon the changing bay

so, today I am not
what I was yesterday
but some of me lingers
and in future it will stay

12:36 am

Lord, this night does keep its quiet
not of our silver gyre does it tire

a thousand times I watch it rise
a thousand slips of its drips

up-down-up-down-up-down town
I watch its crowds black and brown

I watch the trees, the silver bees
Lord, this night is not night quite

bed:
blood
in us
of mud

shed
the rust
muscle
of dust

red:
tongue
wrung
strung

said:
run
the run
begun
(we did)

-

head
of toil
of ours
in soil

bread
of skin
soiled
in sin

led:
we went
say, patent
we went

wed?
ha, sweet
pleased
bland wheat

bed:
pillow
above us
below

bed:
black hand
fragile
and

you write like a sea
I see

gyring and free
stubbornly

flapping only
to be

easy
to see

your profanity
holy

in its naivety,
wholly

scanty,
heavy

with plenty,
empty

like sea,
pretty

for me
for me partially

for you only
hesitantly

for world boldly
bare to see

you write like a sea
lady

toiling sweetly
to monotony

and plea
howling all free

free
ah, lovely

like the slavery
of a sea

this earthly gaze
still so stirs
even now the face
something kills

mountain eyes
still do peep
upon all that dies
and then do leap

on our frail fortress
in the green
you do not rest
your golden keen

say some fable
invite
if we then are able
do bite

unclothe sheep
unearth meat
your secret keep
we will in sweet

bliss of moonlit bit
turn then all away
and lure with just the wit
of a silver bay

laugh faceless
sound of sea
on grey impress
the sound of sea

sight of shadow
gallows' scarf
in gusts then flow
call on the calf

row a waving
seeing and still
move the boat-wing
down the hill

down down
we do come
smile now the ivory crown
do we you become?

this bitter green dawn
does not move the city

that in crisp antiquity
spreads her thighs, her palms

her fingertips licked
with drought and the soft sweet

stink of the night
rubbery skin

flavourless as a leaf;
her armpits and knees

gape with rasping mouths
and the basins of the neck

rugged stretch
striped and on

up the sloping stumbling face
gaunt as concrete

where carts and rickshaws
startle and snort

succulent bulbs part
mechanical and jagged and

through the gutter
sallow eyes watch

cement tunnels
tumble and twist

the taste of thick leather
mossy on their walls

there are feet too
thousand toes

with chipped windows,
stooping they swell, and

there are dry highways
of the calves

where nothing lingers.
it is morn now

the birds gargle
and a thin yellow kite

shivers like a hanged thing
on the spidery scaffold

of an electric tower.
her salty streetlights

stare like iron
in the urinary winds that shoo

crusty litter
in between *******, and crevices

of eyes, sills of the hips
the cracks of the elbows

butter sun scatters
and coats the houses viscid

flies come
torment the quiet awake

her men barge out
hasty and mad

and vehicles shake
a thousand breaths

exit: their CNG sweetness
caking in the nails

and jamming the doors;
pungent liquids churn

and ignite in taut-limbed engines;
now gears tick and click

sweating rancid
and thick

leaking on roads
and roiling canals

gruff huffs and coughs
now the sky is grey

and cool
a cadaver

now loud ears unfurl
bare as banners

and shrill winds
pound hot-metal on skin

—

the bark-wood body
turns

and reveals the moors
of a stoney back

where steel rods
bend

at silly angles
and where they protrude

their same old tang of DC
and the same old

tingling of it
now a sigh escapes

the latex lips
and shutters shudder

over spiced eyes
now all is red

like hot tea on tongue
and the tongue tinkles

with the sounds of the heart
that ripe an onion

pleads to be pulled
out out out

and peeled
layer by layer

until it is none
and now, the familiar viscosity

soothes it again
and it swoons limp

a fat still-born
in the womb

this precious rickshaw
hiccups

it jolts at slightest expressions
of the roads' flat faces
hick!
and my stomach wobbles up
like an astronaut made of jelly
bounces against the diaphragm
disturbing the cuddly lungs and
the lattice pancreas wince
hick!
the sour liver curses and
noodle intestines startle and then
grumble
and the swish slosh slosh
of my kerosine blood
is light and jumpy
in the ancient pipelines of flesh

my hands unlearn
unlearn
they are chubby preteens
then hesitating littles
now my handwriting
is an infant walking
hick!
crawling
hick!
this wash-machine ride
with an inferno of April breaths
hick –– hick –– hick!
my little dog-heart
shakes
its fur all ruffled and spiky

some secrets up the clouds
some gatherings that gleam

lie, artefact
chipped a statue

moving
like the watery movement of a sea

a thousand thoughts
furl unfurl

coral tunes
fish word, hues

as the curtain thins
thins

satin sky
silver sun

swift the whistlings
of drunken clumsies

and stout their wings
with merry and night

gentle
on stone body

that moves
watery

green green
like moss beneath Moon
and Moon is lit up, perhaps
half or more or less some little
as leafy litter tickles the street
and a gust
in riot
solitary opens
with a voice of Autumn and
bronze dust body
that in nails and toes
of alleys and houses
sits and sleeps
old lady knitting spiders
and rats
in antique blazers of black
as a car whispers by
swift like a hiss
or a city’s small sigh
that startles the silver-eyed lizards
and they scatter
as wheat breaths away
into into into the browny blue
and gold gold
like cold sun
that beats and licks all noise to fire

and rises, it rises fatly
with the lone gust and the white

I don’t, don't speak human
when blue comes down to talk
in the clogged old crannies of the night
woman
with ornate skin
moves her arm
her wrist, her fingers
quick like the clicking of a tongue
quick glitter, gentle then gentler
and rippling, a water eye in blue

over hills and over muddles
see the crow fly

when time comes fluttering back to us
tell me again of the war
when mingles the sword with
flowering heart and the reeds
speak up, their
thin throats filled
with lore, and lure the scattered world here
here here
          here

tell me

tell me, on and on the
tingling of mud as it is
lifted, lifted, to man, to callous,
like sun-forged flesh and force,
to his child, and the parting
of two lips
parting! the lifting, the toiling of tendon in the
riot of soul

over the woods! over mountains
see the crow fly, feel her shadow
when throe laughs, tickles the muscle
and even past wakes up
and even the gaunt clutched spine
of a thin sallow voice
perks up keening

hear hear hear

the beating of the feat
the beating of the nerve
when chant them men, and sole
and leather, with rumble
the rumble of war
when slides sly down the sweat and dust
and galleries light up
with walls full of human
and museums cradle little stones
little bones and calls
tell me
tell me tell me
even a crow can sing sing
sing one awake

tell me, tell me tell tell tell
when ducks beat pebbles
a tribal thunder
and beetles scramble stumbling beneath leafs
tell tell, the warm-bellied lady
said birds become children

and flutes the grasshoppers they hear
in warm green sleeps
as out curl curling
the stout sun-seasoned caterpillars
shrill now! now not! now piercing needles
sewing brazen black black to brittle dreamings
tell me tell me tell
what the old man said, said
lyres rebel rebel and
strum, say, strum taut a riot unsettled
even as geese vanish grey
in grey
and ducks pat their way away
to springs of seas where no child sails

even then
the sky plucks her lightening sly
and claps claps claps the day,
the night, the day, down
to a kites sway
as a perfect moon-arc it cuts
and
we heard birth
brings along a dress
that tribe men
and tribe women flower
when they
spin and spin and circle clapping
cursing merriment up the sick old sky

who need fly

tell me tell me, valley-joy on a face of age,
oh human song and human sigh! tell tell
also of koel’s mimic cry

tell tell, tell then
and they pound their feet
together apart together apart and the ground remembers, the ground
remembers!
and then tell this too! we heard,
ducks lurk by listening
practicing
their
drums! and and
and some

some children almost hear

-

loud
so loud

I cease to hear it
almost

but then
in solidity
it is here
in the throat, on the lashes

it becomes a blinking billboard
it pounds
      pounds
like a fist like a fist
        like a
wasp
like a thousand

a thousand a thousand

watching

quiet
what viscous a sound

noise
like dust on a wall
the hand moves
and wears it
stills then
and becomes it

this city tumbles
a restless fall

sour sun in my stomach
threatens to rise

1.
salt-caked fingers
peel each other

2.
slimy tongue
toils in vain

3.
soft lips
metal beneath teeth

4.
barbaric generator
clears its throat

5.
on these beaten blue windings
sun keens

1.
wish wish  die
shh, little fly

2.
palm on palm
between, a slender void
mosquito, still alive

3.
sour streetlight
splashes on eye

4.
night sleeps
her jaw slack

5.
mosquitoes got me dancing
an Obscurus

these days, summer sticks sticky
on plastic and skin,
and moss above lips grows fast and fat,
sneaks through muscle to chin, and
leaves its footprints on the nose

these days, ticklish goo melts
out of the bodies of clay and
drips dreadful down
licks the spine with a slimy tongue,  
and opens its dark wide mouths
near hills and pits, it
sputters out snails of staining trails

these days, metal wings stir up
an air soggy with warmth
and mix up a hundred drain flies
that settle unflinching on necks and arms
and bite little
little and sour

these days, sweetest touch is salt,
and faces unpleasantly gleam
beneath liquid white lights
that splash all boiling on flat-faced tiles

these days, March winds march
their banners of sun-softened fruit
and sallow nights
that tumble in tumid vomits of black
and smoke and groaning fans
round
     and round
and round
in an orchestra of mosquitoes
right inside the ear

water down stone
stone
pebble pebble pebble
stone
splash! shatters the sun
quiet

twinkles then it around
in ringlets ringlets

and feet jump in
scare the fruity fish
you know, winds they move
like violins
and rain blooms
grey on concrete
moon on palm
run run run the children
peach-cheeked
and nest hair
through streets
where hawkers make apple pyramids
and orange pyramids
and some spray glitter on flowers

through turns
turns–– one falls! gets up
through streets and streets!
laugh and talk
then halt
exhausted
lips moving–– chests like sea-filled
and then
then
the water topples topples
down the stones
and stars and suns
peep by
and children grow out of their clothes
but through streets they run
run run
laugh laugh laugh
laugh
and rain becomes the puddle
loud and starry
and a frog startles

painting is butchery
is beautification of breaths

as they bubble hastily out

sometimes mad
like suddenly breaking glass
or pond

sometimes springs
tinkling down stones

painting is thunder
slowly rising
or the perfect fury of it

I hesitate, stuck astray,
as the hues awaiting
wait

reap or harvest, must I burn or
decorate?

but, tentative, I breathe
inevitably on

and suddenly
it is all here

I drink in the silence's spicy chill
in the midnight awakenings
and in heavy tides, it gurgles down

and settles a thick black insufficiency
in my legs

I run and run
and all the running will not do

and heat like flickers rises
and sweat runs down my crackling limbs
and something bites off
and something eats

and I run reckless and bare
and all the running will not do
and it is all like charcoal and ash
and a stout smoke

and the night rises rises
till I cannot see it

words elope
perhaps all alone
in nights sweet
and nights black

I am a child
fumbling my hands
on the faces of land
and the world topples
bounces about

this trembling scrawl
tentative almost
as the rickshaw
coughs and shakes

I don't say when I say
I am in love with words
sometimes the dance
sometimes song
sometimes the people
they carry along

I don't say— I don't say
I watch away
it is the child that writes

viscous noise rumbles
churning in a chamber of ****

like impossible realness
its sallow bulbs drip

onto a breathing bog of muck
that rolls its rotund wells around

and bursts bleeding
its tongues of moss

its tumid limbs reach up and out
sizzling shatters on walls

it mingles with the shadows;
their gaunt deformities dance

it drains in ringlets
beneath chairs and shoes
it slides past the tiles
and echoes down down

it leaves vinegar flies
to hatch in a fat rancid air

in this classroom
words are hurled

in air,
the grotesque pencil scribbles.
in air, monstrosity
colour and colour to brown monotony

briefly?
talks tide
throats oscillate
leisure is an angry child
wreaking havoc on paper

listen, here,
just a halted breath:
air thins
page on page does not bleed
but it tears alright

it is like a Koel’s cry
in the midnight tremors of time
it is sweetly sour
like orange juice or an Autumn’s flutter
shrill like a woman’s touch
or day’s gold
on some purple curtains

I don’t know…

in this blue dark,
with silhouettes of a forlorn city on glass
it sounds so real
I linger here listening
blinking with the clock

I mingle sometimes
and sometimes subside also
lost too, and wave too
sometimes; but here and there
there and then
washed up on shore, I am
glancing confusedly around, and I am
pecked and poked and
picked and tossed and turned roundround

and then, then
blue comes
and within it, glittery dust
and as I am slowly buried alright
and as I am alright almost
a tiding comes
from winds’ thick gossips
of a tiding bog
that will claim me again
and then falls, and pulls and it claims me, yes

and so the nights drip down on dawn
and I mingle, mingle almost, sometimes

tried too hard
and I ****** up the poem
moon did not shine a Siren’s call
nor the sea, Icarus rose: I meant—
I meant— forgive
my petty tasteless decor. I meant a yearning
sloshed
against the jagged dry throat
left silvery sensations in its absence of feather, and I
could write sea only—
could have drowned blissfully hazed
had bright strings’ luring pulls I
had wished to flee
wished— wished— but wishes
so lowly true— deceiving, their dullness in
so forlorn the skies, I gasped and
gasped
stuttering wordily

sweet wishes so small
in their impossible distances, they
tickled almost, I trembled almost:
beneath ant-like trails of frisky teasings, I
was settled almost
as if moon on sea’s silk-draped skin
suddenly glittered in a glitching turbulence
and mermaids rose up and out
of their thick black skies of silver tremors
shaking beads out of damp-darkened hair
and questioning questioning around
who dare startle their monotonous dreamings
who dare tremble and
stir all dull-eyed creatures around; and
as if sea dared on
shifting reckless into the answerless air,
frenzied, and grasping at an empty night
causing hundreds strange havocs
for a moon so little

you are moonlight kissed, and—
yes, moonlight kissed
and I, in winds, solidly see

beads of my beloved grief strung
in stranger fingers
spidering around reckless on strings—
and waves waves tiding, in ecstasy woven
by violins I dare not learn, by flutes seeping, and sitars
calling home a bird astray

Vivaldi: a dry Storm sob that will not blossom,
not, not, will not— twig fingers curl to taut fists as— Winter
dribbles down on the ragged red throat and
night like silk
silk silk— silks on silks opaque! Ah—

the troughs and oily hills zigzagging
through the air

and violins turn to pinpricked limbs
and strums strums skipping
tugging cruel and tearing—
plucking tendons, plucking desperate and fast

-

you are moonlight kissed as
the silver blush is teased
by sea-creatures’ scaled splashes—
a thousand good griefs tossed to air;
but I am body only
two woody legs folded in a branching of arms
next to the trunk that timidly breathes, next
to the fist-sized squirrel—

my roots like cold fat moles curled up
symphonies rush by giggling
and I do not tremble

some times,
the simplest song
some, chimes
or brazen gong

swaying symphonies of sea’s swift strings
some times sweep on along

‘bad day?’
no, 502

winding winds weave patterns in my chest
a soft flower like a cloud up my throat
ehem ehem
a clicking swallow: a pinecone slides down
hitting a trembling trampoline stomach, and bouncing
like marble about

a cotton sparrow pecking somewhere everywhere
with its little blue beak of bead
ehem ehem
eye meets eye and eye eye
and winds bloom by, stirring the sky and
low bronze brooding grass, as
leaf leaf leaf laces down, down glittering slow
stumbling midair, stumbling in rays sneaking in through brown
stumbling like lost bee in a pathway of gold

then settling down light as a kiss, as a
curling of lashes on the parapet of eye

I had some tickling words—

velvet quilt round a tongue of damp wood
a tick of skin and tendon and beat
as all the gears in me lock in place
open the mechanical gates and out
the stuttering sparrow, small
with its wobbly chirp that, practiced, perfected,
spills still plaintive in the silence of stone

‘do you have an— an a scale?’


‘thanks—’

oh mY JASM—

red glasses suit you just right
and, here, in loud silence of thought and thought
our tongues curl up to fitful slumbers
still sky secretive, chapped with dawn,
nightly gowns suit you just right
but, here, when old moon buckles after long nights’ wanderings
and you stir me no more
I wonder if I will mourn
still, rose serenity will be your name
but I wonder if I will mourn
when marigolds no longer open at your touch
and if do
do so lazily
when hours go by and days then weeks go by
without sweet gusts of you
gentle witchcraft of your swift glances,
and timidly bubbling stews of mine
still, some bits or more of stench
in strange hours of nights will sway
and drag me back back back
and I wonder if I will mourn

an itching, tickling fear it is
that these bees will feed the flowers one day
and the honeyed ache that I have come to like
will be blood and bone again
red glasses
red glasses you will soon replace, and
these words will be yours no more
nor mine, nor mine, oh,
how tearing the future— yet

how cruel the present— yet how cruel
we
you will not talk
and I sneak away into thought
then the spells wait and wait, and the bees
I will myself to forget

cracks in the ground

like a frozen sea
cracks in the sky
like a frozen lip—
                quivering
then,
and voiceless fluttering
of word upon wordless wordy word

a low wind
that
proud wheat
    swept by

                   a bowing horde of gold

like kin on kin erupting
(because root dooms with it the house)
like a festival of distrust
where all centres
   in a tangle of struggles
own throats hold

gyres of limbs
              that themselves ****
themselves make

a ruffled head
that I so long combed
now a sea wild
wild
now slithering babbling streams
now lustful teasing waves
that shore then shore
meet and meet
and will rest not at all

what of—
blind infancy of impulsive beliefs
that through dunes and oases
go and go
(now nothing, now all, now none and all and all––)

a–– many sandcastle homes of childish sight
melt to doubt

— hold it—
this cleaving ground will be bound no more

cracks, indeed, all around

When leaf drips off the plants like dew
I know I have failed
Fog on poor gold settled thick
And knuckly branches grasp at my trousers
As they whisper by

Like a nightmare full of the dead

Sorry, I say
With that same wet-paper voice of mine
My footprints forgotten
On dust-dressed tiles
I cannot water you, dear Pothos
I need not
You have no limbs left to feed and
I know I have failed

Failed.

(And so mine a being
In an echoing of souls)

Failed?
Such pretty your tales
And freeing miseries

Sinking frantic
In a devour of spring
These the tentacles of my beautiful Aloe
These the stout roses
My,
My mirthful Jasmines
And grasses–– alive!

Failed?

Green at last!

You bathe in blues and
Craft tragedies from mud
Ruin your love
And despair a bed-slave pretty

Could I weep–– interrupt or scream
But I am wood and they are not

Failed?
Or would you rather?
For fall for you is an effortless flight
And funeral the only peace
Then mourn!

Could I shut the window and
Bar it against the raging city
But breaks— it breaks breaks breaks!

Mourn and mourn!
Till the daylight goes to sleep
And mourn with your wretched stars
For the night

You mock!
Oh, be voiceless, sessile
Thorns again!

And when in the morning
The moon is dead
And thinner our stems
We will say
With that same parched clinging of ours:
We are not dust yet
Are you?

––

the house smells like a melting wire

and
   outside

city
smoke, leaf–– kite

I lie by my window
an old god covered in age
once painted, now
white is my name

but it is suddenly so lovely

I watch my world grow
once clumsy babbling
it talks now endless

somewhere
     sun subsiding

and I am not rot

I am not rot

this is a whisper I will not let go

I run my stoney hand
on my stoney hand
my hand
the hand of an archeologist
uncovering time from time
and my hand
the trembling power of a painter
unsure fingers with a half-filled quill

I rewrite— strangely— verse after obsolete verse
red and blue and dawn on dust

glittery awakening-– heavy and sour
white sightless eyes on history focused

exit centuries
like lather through sink-– exit war and tomb-people
exit sunken empires where deities go to die
–– exit exit exit!

          open the window!

in a flood thick

awash this skin, porcelain and stone
awash tongue forgotten, awash pupil

an artefact arm
slowly mobile
a hand blooming to veil the light
from wet, blinking eyes

a rickshaw bumbles by
a van singing
even the quiet whistling of a
bicycle’s chain
it’s getting cold

my socks? where did— here they are

the house still smells like a melting wire
but Faizan said
that Saad said that
he is bringing pizza on his way home

and outside
grey-gold fades

slowly— strangely—
I am not rot

        a melting's quiet sniffs

I am not rot

imagine a brick box lined with paint where
zebra and lip-red walls wobble as I
rest my forehead in a coiling of arms
on the stubborn palm of this plastic chair—
I feel you singing singing slow as I
build myself a night wide

where water rises up like bread;
and turn all students to fish and
turn all chatter to bubbles
that slide and collide and settle by the roof
and settle and settle
undying till the room
is a pomegranate cursed with fertility, and I
dare not gasp lest another bubble
should— press and press

imagine a blue sea bubbling like
sugar that melts and melts and
melts and melts
in the slowly-shrinking pan
I shut my ears
and build myself a silence and I
feel you right here
— a few rows behind—
our separate solitudes tangled up

a song faint as feathers, as fire
lit up; as the fish babble on—
your sea-creatures whirling: and
corrals’ tickling devours
that clothe me in Magic—

imagine peach-pink lips
that smile— dragonflies swishing by
imagine buzzes that they leave to sway
in the blushing airs, imagine
grasses fluttering their pompous lashes
imagine— oh, and

a paradox of suns that
pulls me in— prickling eyes
black and brown as cocoa in coffee and
soft as foam— yet suns, you see!
I dare not see, yet return
and return I stumbling do,

skin feasts in sweetness
of a warmth serene, and
the taste lingers all day long—
swear in stars are whispers of you
tossed to constellations' lively tales
and misty dreams shroud lazy mornings
where I and you and all
the unshed covered faces of ours
are free to sprout, where we
cling to limbs and limbs in
the deep rich beds of our soils

I lift my head as the teacher enters
and I know the water you
breathe in too
the churning viscosity presses in in

your swift silver thoughts
drowning in noise— and no one is listening
to the teacher—
my iron neck I twist to glance your way
fast as the flickering tail of a squirrel, yet
you clasp me still
— there—
the clack as breaths lock and hold

you sit all alone and, oh, do I—

I wish I could stand up and swim my
way to you
'hey, this seat’s empty, right?
mind if I sit?'
your orange 'yes' or maybe a leaf-like
nod, or a gust of shrug perhaps
then we talk and talk with
the fish all rest, and maybe we forget the smother
maybe we forget the fish

but I— a statue sunk centuries ago
waves kiss my valour and lure it away
star-shapes settling on my tongue
******* out words, and—

heart a squid blooming and clenching
I curse the idol I have built of myself
sit and sit I sessile a stone and
try not to drown, try not to drown
to boil to bleed or scream a soundless bubble alright
you, the fantastical, faraway land resting

a glimmer motionless where sea
licks the void, where children go
when there is nowhere to go,
where I think I will row one day one day one—
can you tell I have a crush on you?
I hope not

take my hand and bless me a metaphor
wholly mine— or— maybe I could spin you a blossom as your
lovely gown teases the night—

alas, but here begins the teacher

garlands
blooming within themselves
like the fast-forwarded movements
of a gyre’s quiet devour;
splashes dressed in white
that play by my feet

it is difficult to paint
more so to say
the reckless curiosity of water and wave

a little childish I am
stumbling around the banks of secretive songs
—dirges drowsy that move like silk
and violins’ exaggerated tales
drumbeat rains where Indian brides are known to blush
and acoustic plucks—
drop on bead-like drop
upon my clammy palm

I want all

slip and sink I
within the ongoing skies
fish and bird and moon I meet
shell and bone and mud

a little naive I am
relishing the gusts of sand that
through my curled up hand
gush

it is difficult to learn
more so to sing
the reckless curiosity of shimmer and sun

white and greying gold
on the sand-paper shore

head in a garland of arms
and eyes— breathing
all in
blind with the intensity of gaze

a little ragged I am
a little paper-boat astray
a little cloud painted that forgot to bleed

(a little parched field)

So white
I thought it would tear through
Red revolution, gritting stones
Electric convulsions
And ivory tides

I felt children weep
Soft, long sleeves soggy as lattice
That, flayed to leaf, too long
On porcelain lay
Hisses and gasps—
Were sobs always so volcanic?
Like suns— erupting— quite not—
Wilting— to stars— blinking—
Gushing upon—
Each other; a strange confiding
Nakedness

And feathers
In bronze dressed— stuttering—
Stuttering, bubbling
Would that the flood would loosen

Rather melt—

Rather the moon than Jasper,
— It’s gory quiet
Rather pebble
Rather mud-licked bumbling babble

But melt— melt— Oh,
Never quite full for the night!

I feared it would burst
Crowds of red-cloaked seeds
Into a havoc of fruit and flesh

I feared I a dandelion
Would open— would sway away, away
From bits and bits— of me, but

It hit— hit, hit hit
The jagged black insides of mine
And I was real

I was real

Gasping— gasping, till it—

I care so much, I care yet little
It drives me mad, it
drives me mad, it drives me
ten chimps pulling dresses off the walls
of a posh octagonal hall
six taps left open, and
drain holes, four, spurting and
clogged with thickets of hair and
dirt— all ugly and
bold and
alive

alive too, like a screaming, this home I know,
I know
to be carved out of stones—
of stones that silenced the noises of time now
chattering, chattering, alive
alive; dishes scarred
and stained— sleek
with remnants of hungers strange

a fish bowl lonely and
cursed with obsolescence; poked twice
with feathery causality and
now it bleeds, and
wilt the books, the dusty books
Oh!
I have too heard
of the quiet sky, it’s body carved like
a zero— even and smooth— I have too!

In here, but in here

I care—
a glass-jar, its mouth like the mouth of a fish
spilling, twice, spilling alive
and bottles breaking, of young wines,
of cinnamon and salt
four spices that sting and bite like slaughter

I care yet—  a taut-skinned cat
mewling by the greasy kitchen window
and six locks with key-holes
jammed with rust
that comes and comes in crowds like gusts
to chew on metal's ****** sweetness

It is wild—

I stumble around the echoes
of a gathering of chimps

a key grinding and twisting
in eight stubborn walls
yearning for the quick clack
that would open me up
all answers and answers, easy and slow
all simplified
for introspection— and me

and it is choking
frightening
I lurk from doorway to shadow to
the wet rug by the shelf
counting, recounting the bruises of a house untouched
by all but me—

ten then!
on, on—

Furtive, fleeing eyes
Secretive without disguise
Say naught, and nor
Will they— say, fleeting lore
Upon lore upon lashes
Strung— say, sweet clashes
Of arrows’ white delights
Unsung, into the brown nights
Preserved— where thought may not
Blood and shudder, where touch may not
—In seas dark
Where black moons talk
Of soft wars, and where they await
And await
Some familiar sly bells
Where a gaze intricate dwells

A stilling tether—
Then twisting together—
Breath at leisure, time at leisure—
Whenever, whenever! Wherever!

Clinging—
And ringing,
A dance so sure!
Flush, and rush, a trance so pure!
Oh, talk and talk
A lark and a hawk

Wave at rest, beat and bird at rest—
Parting, then—
                and filled a chest with breathing unrest.

Then slide away—swift, your way
And I too, scuttling astray

Eyes their secrets mirthfully keep
Yet leap on star from star; and too deep seep
And tug and tug
Wild seas— wild tug—

What nonchalant carnage did you leave
To rot on my skin?
Rub and rub, I rub in vain.
A cling so sure
Like birthed for me

Seep then in the rhizoids deep
Sack, sack the village to stream

To river to smoke

As sea, as sea, and only so, I see

You, the circus balanced on the lashes of your feats,
hues yours
Binding, blinding their hiss and shine
Trembling a string I
Spit and spit naught but I

Full to brim, this yonder of mine
Full and choking, homesick a home
Dry and dust— the blossoms of mine

Burn and burst of bone and beast
All onto the beach, bloodless, breathes

And I cannot even— I dare not even
Wash it away—