The banal, midnight architecture of this
high-rise building suddenly enlivened by

the inspired sounds of crashing saucers
followed by the raised, accusative tone

of a man in rage, matched sharply by a
feminine voice, quivering & high-pitched,

in turn, the machine gun of their mouths
firing everywhere and nowhere, invisible
 
blood splattered across the living room
walls; after about ten minutes, a low hush

descends upon the floor, and one hears
only the occasional screech of an elevator

ferrying the late-night homecomers up and
down the apartment, like a weaving loom

shuttle even as the wounded couple curl up
to their separate beds, tossing and turning

uneasily, each unsure, whether to regard
all of this as a proof of love or its absence.

-

The lovers march upon
the crackling carpet of

fallen autumn leaves,
their silence charitable -

perhaps a permission
for the earth to speak

through its dark tongue -
this long meandering road,

that keeps licking the
heavens.

-

THE ASCETIC LIFE
(poem in caption)

-

the sound of gravel
beneath the

clattering footsteps
across the street

of Wednesday flea
market and

the violent commotion
of vendors’ cries

selling illusory silver
necklaces etc.,

double horned cars
splitting apart heads

yet amidst all of this
earthly cacophony

the red motorbike
by the telephone pole

resting serenely on
its wheels of causation

like an accidental
Buddhist

-

At about this age, their hearts were halved like
an elephant's divided eyes of which one was

ancestral and bereaving, while the other was
learning to be wise enough to understand that

sons and daughters are discrete points in a
dilating map, and so it was just the two in their

dense house, middle-aged husband and wife
who contemplate each other's wilting faces in

the dark, watch the sharp edged tears trickle
down violently as a poacher's weapons carving

deep wrinkles underneath their wide open eyes -
no longer startled, no longer ambushed.

-

Sunday morning as I set out
for the airport in the cab, the
 
window rolled down to allow
me to catch a final glimpse of

you waving goodbye, and my
memory starts to play a movie

with your old hands as actors,
performing a hundred roles, all

fitting smoothly as a glove, and
I remember the heavy touch of

your hands pressed to my fore
head checking for fever, and

now, I nearly cry watching your
hands needing to work so very

hard like flapping a wing simply
to not fall down.

-

POET

ornithologist of feelings, astronaut to the soul,
sent to spy over passing things,

archaeologist of memory, detective of the ordinary,
sent to decrypt the dogs' howling,

data analyst of death, factory worker of desire,
sent to conjure birds from beyond,

pharmacist of words, historian of things unsaid,
sent to sound trumpets of apocalypse,

with no one to hear.

-

On a night lying rotten as
a carcass by the roadside,

the whole city laid out like
a giant X-ray film, the street-

lights like torches held in the
hands of invisible physicians,

their task urgent yet concealed,
to stitch back, to cast in plaster

all that is fractured, torn apart
by some unfathomable disease

even as we slumber, sending
forth our snores like milliions

of insects pouncing upon the
carcass, the scent of death

too seductive.

-

CHOPPING VEGETABLES

Tonight, as I prepare dinner, this kitchen knife
serves as an astronomical tool, slicing across

the planetary flesh of tomatoes, the soft scent
of chopped spring onions drifts through my

nose like light from faraway celestial bodies
utterly nameless as a potato, tunneling through

a telescope tube and I carry the silent wonder
of an astronomer in my heart, well aware that

for all of this to be occurring the exact way it is,
depends much, depends much,

on the universe being neither a millisecond
too late, nor too early.

-

The poet is an ornithologist of feelings.

-