I am in the backyard, if you need me
touched and tossing with other refuse until I can come
to know the differance, free like an arrow
released about the open margins trying
to enter meaning suspended in wonder-sheaths
of debris of new teeth and new ways
to claim with strings of beads threading
like a train of camels where in time
the caravan of language grows, and strength
to the point where I can say I can run,
splattered with backyard dirt entering pores
and nostrils grave from exposureas if sick
even sunk still in the smell of trees steel insects
grass underbrush and cardboard as I grow
and years cumulate years later when thought will mature
by traces fit to love the sense of good
these proximities with the open ground
intent on small traces shaping trajectories
will answer when you called, asked, as I sat closed
to the world beyond mine draped in mud,
'What are you doing?','Nothing Mother,', did I say
'just playing'? Did I seem absurdly meaningful
that you let me be and later said, 'Just come and take a bath'?
upon everything
a seizure shifts
like water and haze
the meanings of lament
and the course hope takes against the course
of all other currents, till the waterfalls
peep into the limitless into which every contained
wish outpours, and the droplets rejoice
a seizure shifts
like water and haze
the meanings of lament
and the course hope takes against the course
of all other currents, till the waterfalls
peep into the limitless into which every contained
wish outpours, and the droplets rejoice
are they dead?
when you were busy killing us in memories
you asked are they dead Dhaiin...and Yes,
Yes and the corner melts into other lines
words for the newly ushered imps: Kill! and Fire!
and loci for pigeons to carry messages of love
to nowheres of everywhere and everywheres of nowhere
and the mauled fox in his skin cajoling
innocence
to come out disarmed, using sweet words,
sweet promises of grape-water, golden feet
and no harm,
to the pigeons who will no longer crowd courtyards...
not yet, later maybe when the wings are discovered
yes and no harm is aging sweet grapes of these vines
poison of splinter wounds and a warm
sore in skin hurt many ways blood coloured called pride
and a raving mother of loss wailing
Child, my Child done
with once these grapes too
are crushed underneath
large leaps of mankind
in small harmless muffled sounds
unable to reach anywhere
and no harm to the garden or raisined grapes sky or sun
the pigeon shall now learn how to walk...
yes and even if the ripped apart are the wings
the lines of the corner demolish into other ways to know
after everything is lost the grapes will turn sour
on tall vines with no one to climb
yes and the concrete too blew apart with ourselves
and the pigeon will learn how to walk
when you were busy killing us in memories
you asked are they dead Dhaiin...and Yes,
Yes and the corner melts into other lines
words for the newly ushered imps: Kill! and Fire!
and loci for pigeons to carry messages of love
to nowheres of everywhere and everywheres of nowhere
and the mauled fox in his skin cajoling
innocence
to come out disarmed, using sweet words,
sweet promises of grape-water, golden feet
and no harm,
to the pigeons who will no longer crowd courtyards...
not yet, later maybe when the wings are discovered
yes and no harm is aging sweet grapes of these vines
poison of splinter wounds and a warm
sore in skin hurt many ways blood coloured called pride
and a raving mother of loss wailing
Child, my Child done
with once these grapes too
are crushed underneath
large leaps of mankind
in small harmless muffled sounds
unable to reach anywhere
and no harm to the garden or raisined grapes sky or sun
the pigeon shall now learn how to walk...
yes and even if the ripped apart are the wings
the lines of the corner demolish into other ways to know
after everything is lost the grapes will turn sour
on tall vines with no one to climb
yes and the concrete too blew apart with ourselves
and the pigeon will learn how to walk
Aiman’s dreams of a scented boulevard
diffused and coloured my own
and here i
must walk some evening to lean
against water feed ministries of will with stories of old litanies
still good and reminding of Aiman...shaped with unerased
occupations not told directly
apple-tree ricefields shopfronts lessons to innocence
excursions to hills
or the valleys
of mind camouflaged ghosts
hiding behind dark nights ready to
digest and the shores of suffering
roads clogged with
stories, but then how can he forget
under these minarets, my Aiman tells me, he walked
he remembers his
pride and refuses
to tell me
the name of his
guardians in those days
however, i must tell you, he says, Yusuf took me to my college and
not my father’s friend only but my own
whatever have they fed him all these years, he worries, God knows...but
the fish, Father, of this lake..
where did they go?
What shall he say? his eyes fixed at me
but watching long caravans of people trek across the hills into another,
tents, orders, obedience slogans, fire in eyes
the need to undo
a big wrong
bypassed as a matter
of internal disorder..
what do you do with internal
disorder-no not now-mir kashif
at it again, cut wombs and throw them into fire?
but aiman - he must play his role
he doesnot want to dismay
himself with a mistake not committed once, never done
his faith makes him
quiet (cant you tell from his silence he knows the truth?) at what cost-
does he not see my funeral like that of many others
while neighbours
drink salt-oceans
to no avail
i must go and not ask him
reasons for how too many survived
managed to, afforded to, like they will ask me
Why Did You Forsake Us, Kashif, Why?- I didnt Sameer-
look into me can't you tell the burden we share
from my silence?
But he too must go
and i repeat these
words to myself
like all his dreams burdensome one by one taken on his own lone shoulder
to bury in personal funerals
but they didnt die
Father
we all your children
on all continents
yours and of those
who resemble
our past
inherited your dreams
not askance at the
time's encounter
ready to look into future
through our now
realising
like any other
the treatise of love you write
father and named it so lovingly
kashifnama
we too will write a letter to you once and call it
aimannama
try to complete it
before the time is over.
diffused and coloured my own
and here i
must walk some evening to lean
against water feed ministries of will with stories of old litanies
still good and reminding of Aiman...shaped with unerased
occupations not told directly
apple-tree ricefields shopfronts lessons to innocence
excursions to hills
or the valleys
of mind camouflaged ghosts
hiding behind dark nights ready to
digest and the shores of suffering
roads clogged with
stories, but then how can he forget
under these minarets, my Aiman tells me, he walked
he remembers his
pride and refuses
to tell me
the name of his
guardians in those days
however, i must tell you, he says, Yusuf took me to my college and
not my father’s friend only but my own
whatever have they fed him all these years, he worries, God knows...but
the fish, Father, of this lake..
where did they go?
What shall he say? his eyes fixed at me
but watching long caravans of people trek across the hills into another,
tents, orders, obedience slogans, fire in eyes
the need to undo
a big wrong
bypassed as a matter
of internal disorder..
what do you do with internal
disorder-no not now-mir kashif
at it again, cut wombs and throw them into fire?
but aiman - he must play his role
he doesnot want to dismay
himself with a mistake not committed once, never done
his faith makes him
quiet (cant you tell from his silence he knows the truth?) at what cost-
does he not see my funeral like that of many others
while neighbours
drink salt-oceans
to no avail
i must go and not ask him
reasons for how too many survived
managed to, afforded to, like they will ask me
Why Did You Forsake Us, Kashif, Why?- I didnt Sameer-
look into me can't you tell the burden we share
from my silence?
But he too must go
and i repeat these
words to myself
like all his dreams burdensome one by one taken on his own lone shoulder
to bury in personal funerals
but they didnt die
Father
we all your children
on all continents
yours and of those
who resemble
our past
inherited your dreams
not askance at the
time's encounter
ready to look into future
through our now
realising
like any other
the treatise of love you write
father and named it so lovingly
kashifnama
we too will write a letter to you once and call it
aimannama
try to complete it
before the time is over.
Winding through mud streets which still lead to pointless locations, one is reminded of an immensity that percolates this valley of fullness. Can one revisit it without letting nostalgia come in way of present?
I will try...
