Some thoughts on Non-violence or Ahimsa – 30th January, 2024

I

You destroyed my place of worship
I destroyed yours.
You killed and conquered mine
I killed and conquered yours.
Where we fought stands
a shiny shrine – its foundation
soaked red – its walls just dust.

II
The killer is enshrined in the hearts of haters.
They read his reasons for murder as sound.
They sharpen their swords and words daily
to use on people still carrying traces of ‘that man.’  
Peace can only be got through bloodshed – it’s
sad but true, they say, carefully cultivating
more rage, more vengeance
firmly steering clear of healing.

19. Solitude (continuing Miraji's Japanese geisha translations)

 

They will come, flowers crowding their hands

On this tender, clean path

When the moon skirts the sky

YOU HAVE NO REASON TO REBEL

 After reading Ziad’s Gaza diaries

In your backyard, spring has

arrived early with robins and 

cardinals singing pretty songs, 

with squirrels and bunnies (not

children digging through rubble)

ransacking the earth for secret 

treasures of seeds and nuts 

still hiding in its chest.

Where you live, a trail opens up

to a panoptic forest, the path 

leading to it your faith keeper

in the surety of seasons returning. 

Yours is not the place where winter 

overthrows autumn and never leaves. 

Yours is a blue sky that sill puffs 

up with tufts of cotton cloud, not 

one so thick with bomb smoke 

that children mistake it for an iron roof

that the angel of death roams nonstop. 

You have no reason to rebel. 

Where you live, department stores 

sell clothes and libraries do their 

lending thing. You don’t wake up 

in a place where libraries start selling

pyjamas and underwear. Where a cat, 

in her final days of pregnancy fights 

to stay with you as you try to find her

a safer home. With peace as repugnantly 

abundant as you possess, no gauze is 

needed and you have no reason to rebel. 

#2

 Screeches in the dark

owl on a bare branch

Ripe mangoes

hanging fruit bats

Splashes in the pool

unafraid of school

Clattering vessels

scarce water

A child's shriek

on soft grass

A dog's bark

long lost bone

A poem

found words

2. An Ark

“An ark, an ark! I must construct an ark!”

Obsessively, my inner voice demands

Of me with such unusual commands

That some strange accent animates its bark—

A Pomeranian in an Indian park

And not the Central European lands

In which by all too eager human hands

Its form was shaped, for sport or for some lark.

It is for sure an alien this speech

That bubbles up from deep within my brain,

Some cuckoo parasite from ages past

Bred into me by those who chose to teach

The words of prophets, blessed or insane,

Whose hooks reach farther than when they were cast.   

1

The year has been a dark forest
its small pinpricks of life twinkling
then disappearing like stars of a city.
A darkness that softly weeps.
No promises were kept, the tears of
the trees fall like rain on mushy ground;
what grows from it, we will never see.
We do the bidding of the blackness,
touching the surfaces to know where
we are, but never each other. The story
arc is broken, we know because we have
been gathering wood for a fire. There’s
no match, no flint, nothing that calls to
us from the woods. This loneliness of not
being haunted envelopes us. It is silent.

around me

you lay down next to me and look at your phone.
im watching something too. isn't this what people do these days?
you're shifting moving searching for something not in this room
i wish i knew what you're looking for.
i am inheriting diabetes and guilt and overbearing love
from my parents
this is when the smallest sliver of light breaks on your window grills (the sun never reaches your side of the house) and
you have your rituals with your lights. you hate the unforgiving white tube light in your eyes
you change the light - softer and warmer through an application on your phone. the lights are app-enabled these days.
how could i possibly compile a litany of reasons to be angry at you?
you don't really want to leave this house
i don't want you to leave me

Poem about poems

The right words in the right order - clear stream 

over rocks drunk from cupped hands. Made, or found?

Sound before meaning, like the pearl in a dream 

about eating oysters, in your mouth, smooth, round

Suitcases

You have so many suitcases

my friend said. I counted 5, big and small.

Packing and unpacking to pack up again,

all of this one life to move on as far as my eye can see. 

Suitcases, how literal.  

do you think we'd have been friends as children?

written for my best friend 

he was looking for a water bottle
maybe we are returning to the ways of ourselves. last week we saw a young boy in delhi on the floor of a restaurant looking for something and he was sticky in the way that young boys are. he was looking for a water bottle to go into his backpack
then we walk around tossing our appetites back and forth between us

he's wiggling his hips
we run into the little boy again; this time he's on a skateboard trying to do one of those tricks. he's wiggling his hips now to be more aerodynamic
we fill ourselves with trinkets and knick knacks and window shop until late into the night.

he's playing with his friends
his backpack is flying in the air and his friends are laughing with him while he zooms past us on the skateboard. he's playing with his friends and he probably has school tomorrow and his mother will call his name soon signalling the end of playtime
we reminisce and i wish i knew you when we were young and growing up

1. Beginnings

Beginnings bring with them a challenge, friend:

I wonder always if each odyssey

Will end with home and sweet Penelope

Or if disaster is to be my end.

Will these, my words, fortuitously bend

And circumvent each maelstrom on the sea

Or are the crags of some catastrophe

The ports to which my poetasting tend?

To me some comfort comes from worlds afar:

“Each instance is some ending’s genesis

“And endings always leave behind a spark

“In which a billion new beginnings are

“Aflame with radiant new impetus.

“For terra supernova, now, embark!”

Sulaimani chai

 A tiny bark of cinnamon 

 two pods of cardamom

 twin buds of clove

 what's not to love

 of the aroma

  pounded and dropped

  into boiling water

 swirling in the eddy

 restlessly they bob everywhere 

 ah ginger should be with them

 now for the heat to be off 

 so a few tea leaves can join the pot

 The lid is is important,

 no magic happens in daylight

 darkness releases gold

 sieved into a cup

 with a squeeze of lemon

 and a dollop of honey

  you are struck by wonderment 

  at the number of species that made

  this perfect cup of sulaimani chai

THE STELLAR WORK OF KINDNESS

 

The cruelties of yesterday meet

the fate of all old things. Lose

their edge. Fade out. 

 

From the southern window, a silver

moon peeps in. Still almost full.

Shy. Veiled just so behind a sheer

curtain. But there, a friend

who gets what loneliness is.

It's 5 am. Songbirds haven't yet

pitched their sonic petitions to

resist the rule of darkness. In 

this distilled hour, the lunar 

interposition is perfect. It's

the colleague who reaches out

after unkind colleagues bully and go.

 

Dismissal is an easy, lazy act.

Reaching out, peeping through a

sheer curtain, being there but not

bearing down -- such softness is

stellar work that wells the eye with

tears. Like moonlight bathing a

snow-covered taiga forest floor.

Alright, I'll admit

I wore the rose-coloured glasses, 

knowing I wanted to be

blinded but safe

when you showed up

red torch in hand

person in exclamation mark form,

perfect for the question mark loop of my days,

the comma-less expanse of nights

telling me

(like every other man) 

"with you I feel safe"

and I think,

waiting for it to hit,

I'll feel it soon,

it should be

on its way

right?

Hey Ram: a ghazal for the times

See how they scream murder, in your name
and underscore every border, in your name.

Where bridges stood between people and places
lie heaps of rubble – a fallen girder, in your name.

Being one is all a joke, they yell and shout
hate is now an act of ardour, in your name.

In another avatar, your leela of love we witnessed
now war-cries not love songs heard, in your name.

Beautiful colours from the sunset soak temple and mosque
blood, tears and rage stored in time’s larder, in your name.

All We Have Are Words

After Mark Strand's No Words Can Describe It

Say the waking mother's wish is granted and she is, in fact, unwakened. Her daughter is now learning how to climb a tree, how to peel a tangerine, how the impermanence of her father bears no weight on the recurring seasons. Was it loss if there is no memory, no witness? What is in the daughter's eyes that longs for a past that she never had, a future she never will? And what does it matter that on a bitter April evening, for two minutes, mother breathed in tandem with daughter before leaving her with mere language which she now cannot speak? 

Waking up

 

They waited

Lay low

Drowsy in the 

Soil's warm hollow.

People forgot

Did they ever exist

In the pot?

The magical caress of monsoon rain

Spurred life, soothed pain.

Up are they now.

Fresh and dew-swept.

Soaking in daylight

Like they never ever slept.

What bees know

Is there a way to reach the end of thought

to see the yellow flowers and not say

goldenrod, both 'gold' and 'rod' so fraught

with meaning? Can 'sun' and 'moon' light the day

and night without becoming metaphors?

If a god appears, can I unknow which one

no name, no how and why, and just adore

the feet, or whatever my eye lands on?

Meanwhile, these panicles of gold alive

with insects exude their nectar, the field

abuzz with what to me almost looks like

ecstasy. If only I could stop words, yield

the pen, the page to the sunlit hour

watch the poem unwrite itself. Flower.

Left to a Prayer, Ghazal

 

PARADISE OF STRANGERS

The day's mistakes are written off by gregarious evenings.

In this maximum Mexican city, crowds swell, tacos sizzle

Sidewalk markets erase the memory of drab office meetings.

Time upturns convention here, in this rebel Caribbean island. 

Vintage cars past their sheen, bread on ration, cigars on a roll

Cuba libre, son cubano, Che on dilapidated walls, all go hand in hand. 

Through deep forests and the reality of magic, even graves here live

Old ladies sell fried yams; old men huddle under ancient trees.

Cities obese with history, towns coy with secrets, this is how places heave. 

Art deco cafes and office buildings, parks and mercados whisper yesterdays

once more, teasing the sentimental, the lost, the hopelessly romantic

In this paradise of strangers, love creates its own labyrinthine ways.

 

WALKING WITH FEAR

I and my fear walk on two sides

of a Patagonian city. A leisurely

walk, something of a break before

heading to lazuline lakes and gauzy

mist saltating around glacial peaks.

Fear keeps a steady pace. My limbs

are less certain. I've avoided this

fear (it's a special one) since I was

twelve, maybe thirteen, and now it's

come to meet me in this oddest of places.

Fear is on the other side of the road.

Yet it's also inside me. I can feel

its throb coursing through my blood.

I stagger and turn back to return where

I came from. Fear looks at me and waits.

I've always dreaded this moment. To be

on the road with Fear, which mostly stays

asleep somewhere in the mind's department

of irrational affairs. Now there is no

escaping it. Fear clasps me from the other side.

A tree trunk becomes the wall I hide behind.

I decide to wait Fear out, as if it were no

more than a headache. When I turn around, I

find Fear waiting patiently for me at the

turn of a corner. The drama gets to me.

I ignore Fear and keep walking. Deep inside

I expect it to quietly leave. But it walks

on the other side, same as before. We walk

the full distance together. I gasp for breath,

seek safety, turn the doors on Fear. 

Only when it moves on do I realize it was 

there to protect me, to play with me. 

To show me I'd been calling it by 

the wrong name all along.

Hiding

The skin, and underneath, the bone

pierced by mouth and nose and eyes

this face that has become my own

The stranger in the mirror's shown

without insides, not what hides

beneath the skin, beneath the bones

Who will for all my sins atone

This one who seems surprised 

by the face that has become my own?

When kneeling naked and alone

I pray, could I just once abscise

the skin, see underneath the bone

What hides in there? the one unknown

that layer on layer has long disguised

the skin, and underneath, the bone

Face the face become my own

Inheritance

 

THE SHAPLINESS OF FAMILIARITY

 

The plot is a storybook orphan

wild and insolent with the arrogance

of partheniums. Hemmed in, it resists

boundaries as if they were bullies.

When they come up at last, the walls

are punctuation marks misplaced in

an ill-constructed sentence.

Semi-finished. Messy.

Could the walls be missing some

friends too, like the ten-year-old

who comes to live among them?

This new geometry, its foreign

angles, is puzzling. The girl wishes

she possessed the whale's superpower.

Echolocation. Here power-cut nights

swallow echoes before they can fly.

A rhombus rescues the girl. She

knows this shape from math lessons

in school. Here in this clumsy

rectangle of a dwelling, a new gate,

black iron, collapsible, manifests

to keep pilfering trickery out. Her

grandfather pulls it every evening

and the iron folds enlarge into

rhombus holes. This too is homecoming.

This shapeliness of familiarity.

A dancer, his eyes orbs of fire, 

his limbs, flying talons, comes 

to live on a wall. The girl looks 

at him from her bed. He's still

and yet he moves, like her thoughts 

do even when she appears seemly. 

The dancer's glistening forehead,

his diamond sharp gaze, tells her

this is home. She believes him.

The plot is home. 

WINDOW SCREEN

 

The southern window telecasts summer.

The news is the same as the day before

and the one before it. Bumblebees dance

inside squash and cucumber flower cones, 

their super-stinger cousins, honey bees 

flutter about with a slightly more 

no-nonsense, menacing buzz. 

Human feet comply and retreat.

Scenes of branches tilted with crab apples 

Reddening daily are occasionally flashed. 

Fillers, soft (Sunday) news, to bide the time, 

help thirsty eyes until something bigger, 

flashier comes along.

Sunflowers are temperamental as ever. 

Arriving late, exploding with a vengeance, 

stealing the thunder off every other flower. 

Also off the red apples. The bumbles shift 

base and don't leave the giant Fibonacci 

spheres. Some even sleep on the flower, 

a quick office nap. 

On a late August afternoon, the sunflower 

patch is the site of breaking news. Bigger 

wings, brighter, dyed in the flower's own 

hues, flutter on the plates of sunflower leaves. 

A goldfinch couple finds this bonanza, this feast 

of seeds. They invite friends to the buffet. The birds' 

calisthenics upturn their tiny frames to draw out 

seeds from drooping, once-gorgeous sunflowers. 

The sleepy bumblebee wakes up and sets 

about its collection business. 

The broadcaster window is back in business too.

September ghazal

Autumn clematis always knows - it's fall

Milky Way of scented stars shows - it's fall

Petals of the rose, leaves that turn 

to gold, like sunset, glow, then fall

Those summer days that never end

have flown, soon winter's blow will fall

Savour grapes left on the vine

and peaches, picked before they fall

Nectar on the tongue, sun distilled

like honey drips, overflows and falls

The notes of songs I used to sing

rise up, then low and slow, they fall

No Big Deal

You spend a lifetime not showing how you feel
Trying hard to be the person who fits in
Saying this is how it is, it is really no big deal.

Wrapped around your guts are spools of steel
Your heart practiced in echoing hollow tin
Saying this is how it is, it is really no big deal.

It doesn’t take very long for blood to congeal
Flowing out to the floor, growing deathly thin
Saying this is how it is, it is really no big deal.

Going round and round on a potter’s wheel
Forgotten clay out, out for a lonely spin
Saying this is how it is, it is really no big deal.

Still looking for a place to dig your heel
Settling for sand that will shift but give in
Saying this is how it is, it is really no big deal.

Healing, they say, will soften you to life’s appeal
Bring you back love embedded in your skin
You spent a life time not showing how you feel
Saying this is how it is, it is really no big deal.