NARRATION

yester night- I re-invented myself

as a poet,

created by the dalliance of words

with my muse in her schizophrenic sojourn

between surreal, real and imagined life

as she narrated her love

in the tunnels of cloistered alcoves

somewhat labyrinthine

and long nights of disastrous affairs

demons playing in the delight of deadlock

in her mind, distorted

nevertheless,

she let in poems, new words

set in rhyme

into my arms-

in the anatomy of jasmine nights

in a serpentine slide

in a glass of wine

I knew the silent haughtiness

her mind’s disguise

as her eyes welled with tears

she said my poems are lies-

lies in an empty notebook

in a boudoir of shadow stars

in the darkness of the autumn

in the careless subconscious

I heard the wind turning the pages

the whispers of Muses,

and shifting sand dunes…

EXISTENCE

Your names once belonged in soul to me

The seasoned, spiced wanderings of nuances

In the abysmal depths, in unbridled chasms

In the mirrors, murmurs became vapors

Shading the identity, the face

Quiet places, the arbor of sensual thoughts

Sunshine and shades, the trails

Intense wants, sometimes narcissistic

Knowing this was you- and you me…

Yes insane with wants, desire aflame

Names? Why wonder, is this my existence?

Mala Fide Malady

1965
Milady was our malady,

Madam Meddly Mala Dee

Once the threnody

Pretty faced

Misfortunes milled

Mala fide breezes

In many hearts

Mellowed memories

In my innocent stories

Was she my mistress, yes-

Fresher’s English class, no less!

Milady memorized, ready

With Pygmalion- My Fair Lady

She would talk Herrick

We would sometimes pick

The passages that most embarrassed

Malady- oh yes, she handled that

And turned cherry red

Stirred and coughed, perhaps inside she bled

Milady, malady, oh Mala Dee

She squirmed in our glee

We even asked if she had a neighbor

Lady Chatterley, she turned sour!

And she had an affair

A man with a family somewhere

Mala Dee’s malady- her cups of woe

Like monsoon rivers in spate overflow

As she entered the coffee house

She declared to none in particular, “bloody louse”

She was crying, we gathered around,

Somehow we no longer found

Malady, Mala Dee as the object of our perfidy

It was obvious she was ours, pretty

Our mistress in distress

She had our hearts sharing the mess…

Years went by, we graduated, strayed low and high

Yet our English Miss, that Malady Mala Dee, sigh

Unfazed memories she brought, mala fide

We craved her, we cried

2011

Mala Dee died a year ago, at her death,

Rose a threnody of a heart break

She stayed a spinster, for nearly fifty winters

Hardening to Herrick, Coleridge without fears

And of Mary Angelou Octavio Paz, Saul Bellow

She had taught well, lived life, speculations did flow

We remember you, roses to you, Miss Malady

We loved you like no one did, mala fide, Mala Dee!

Mala fide, Mala Dee, with melodies in our hearts

Roses for the Mistress who gave to us a literary start!

Snooze

Snooze

I wish you were an adolescent,

In need of adulation and feelings

Of whatever morsels that of you I could get-

I would then be your sugar, lover and bread, even board…

If you perchance called me to be more,

I would have vaguely made an effort, to find wings of wax,

Touched your red, kissable lips, freckled breasts

Like rye, simply illicit alcohol!

But you chose to be complete by yourself,

A woman hidden behind the thatch door,

Waiting to settle something-

Waiting for what?

It was just a thought that I knew,

Tying up the irritant-

The frayed laces on my shoe,

Hoping those were the strands that tied cups…

That made you look adult, grown…

Would you believe all this-

I made up while on snooze,

Waiting forty-six years,

And never awakened enough,

To say I loved that adolescent I found in you?

I know the scars on your breasts,

The stripes- veins, turning blue!

Unnamed Yet For You

…

…

It is never the time

To deny myself

The joys what was brought on a sword

That smote

Love

We got fucked up

Somberly, dreadfully by us

And by the demons

Why regret?

Why regress in the dreadful pits?

I know

I am bound by bounds, I am too old

Just that I forgot to add, for you…

No, why escape?

Barbs sometimes choose to be irritants,

And men are thorns

When they want you in the morns

They do speak out and leak

As they kiss

Orgasmic feelings come undeniably

I do have an inclination to ask

Or lurk around

Tell me, why do you cry? Or dream?

There are dreads, immature felicity

And alacrity, in thoughts that say

Our tomorrow in temporal frames

Is all you dread?

We are just there,

Love bares breasts

And exodus!

We have promises,

Betrothed, before me, in death

The moon waned,

The Muse wed to Hades

Lingering undressed

Instincts pledged

Solemnized on speeding throbs of a heart

Who would ever know

What the drunkard dreams of-

His yes blurred, slurring echoes

of darkness of love lost

reinforced melancholia

We know inadequately

What was played in the subconscious

Signals stuck amid

The sex act,

As we cursed and said,

Fuck!

A Light Year

A Light Year!

I can always ask someone, let me call her Lilly

To take a break for my sake, willy-nilly

May be I can make her day, or may be

She would make mine, I would see

So she is worried

I am dying slowly

May be in a year

A year of fear

May be

A century

Of days, months and may be

Years

And she

Is there,

Forever!

With an eye full

With tears!

There is always light,
At the end of a long day called life-

To love

To be a little more for her

And fade away

Like water colors

In a morning dream

Pastels and easels

Brushes and palettes

In thoughts deep

As I take on the last sleep

The last breathe

And gasp in awe…

A dream

Walking in sunlit tunnels

In shades of white

Rather bright

Yet I see

It has been a long day

May be

A place I would perhaps

Someday see…

Wreathes?

Or more, was this game over?

Level one

Well played

Am I

.

.

Gone

Dead?

Never!

TOMORROW IT WILL BE ALISHA

TOMORROW IT WILL BE ALISHA

I was smoking the peace pipe some days ago, when things began to happen on my writing table… a cockroach began to speak…

Psssssst! I have superstitions black cats and voodoo dolls on sale, in that little dark corner, in my stall, in the premonitions mall. I have drugs and more that can blow your mind, walking or should I put a gun to your head?

I have a babe who can make you strip- if you like dancing in the rain, and she'll make scream- she is touched in her head, and quite a lot insane. Come On!

Man, you want a lesson in psychology- I can see I drive you crazy!

And the cockroach began laughing and waved its antennas at me- and said hey, I am a female- I can change into everything with six legs, but not less!

She then changed, into a female flea, the size of a cockroach, and jumped/flew into my nose… it tickled, and then she punched me hard!

And popped out… ahem! She said it is a warm place to be, rather hairy, and cozy with watery mucosa but I would starve, there is hardly any bacteria in there…

And she began a dance!

I felt that the cockroach flea was making a fool of me, she was just giving a run for my money- I thought of an anti-cockroach spray…

And the female squirmed- Oooooh! She said, and flipped, into a spider, and I wondered- she lost count of her legs, a spider has eight of those… leg, leg, leg, leg, leg, leg, leg, leg, she had eight! Whee!

Interesting she changed again into a sexy tarantula, with lipstick and eight legged lingerie!

And she said- I spy! With her four eyes I bet! I looked into her eyes, all four of those, and she waved her left foreleg, walking with me- and I crawled the table top- and the mirror showed a pair of tarantulas, I lifted my left foreleg and touched my face- I felt alive!

Ah, I was upside down, living dangerously and inside out with a Tarantula bride, and we began a tug of war, in the light of the night the table lamp glow, we were war dancing to a twisty beat. I now began admiring the Lady’s torso, eight legs, devil red lips and coca cola skin and boy she was screaming a song and dancing! I wonder what next… and the tarantula grinned- I mean both of us, it was in our mind, love and lust, and we broke into a jive…

And the Tarantula dame said hell, let me teach you some psychology- Lesson One, Psyche, Id and Ego…

I was really enjoying the dance, I said no, but she did not hear me, Tarantulas are deaf, except me, and they talk to the mind directly, she said Psyche! She spoke to my Conscious, let us go!

And she entered my mind, it was dark, somewhere there was a voice singing eh, get her out, and the scream echoed- out, out, out! The Lessons began, she wrote on the wall with her web spit-

Psyche: The mind or self as a functional entity

Id: primitive instincts and energies underlying all psychic activity

I turned away, I looked sideways and still the Tarantula attack was on…

Ego: The self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves. In psychoanalysis, the division of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behavior, and is most in touch with external reality.

The lesson continued, I yawned and slept off. Alicia smelt nice!

And woke up, the Tarantula was gone. The stark light in the ceiling said my mind was gone too- I had been psyched out- and found myself in a cheap funky hotel I fancied down town- she had taken my heart and she took my money. The Tarantula spoke in my mind- she was eating my heart with bread and honey- and that when the drug wears out, I would die, and in the meanwhile- there was scotch spilling out of a small rock, and a sleeping pill- she yelled, never drinks water and made me ring up, bring French Champagne. I was going insane!

Life would not be sane, I felt cold, I looked at myself- I was wow- human again!

I picked up the phone, and dialed 100, and said Hi Tarantula Woman, come in! And she had a skirt and top on, the red lipstick and coca cola hair in braid, red lipsticks and wow, spidery hips, and a grin, we can begin, let the waiter come it with champagne, and dance in the rain!

As we smoked the peace pipe again- she changed into an Amazonian Anaconda now, and she looked into my eyes… I got it! She was Mad Alicia the Temptress- python with a flicking, lip-smacking forked tongue and a scaled polka dot tiger-all-over-skin-wear, and she let go a split tongued whistle that sounded like a hiss!

I was mesmerized! It felt nice! Peace!

Two puffs later there was a knock- a poisoned soul slithered in. And he or she settled himself or herself, whatever, on a stool that appeared suddenly whatever, and grinned. It was time for the pipe again.

I came to a little or ages later again.

Alicia was screaming! She had freaked out again. And I was walking the roof lizard like, or whichever place was made of antigravity waves! Alicia continued screaming as I began the walk. A kaleidoscope of colors light sprayed the room…

The roof was rough. The floor was sandy, and the flowers were red- poppy like. The room had given way to a vast field, and Alicia was walking towards me, her hip swiveling walk, and the sun glaring at me with a white fiery face…

Alicia talked to my mind again- she loved open spaces and always grew chatty in the sun! I picked the giant lotus from the pond, where I was standing! Alicia popped out of the water, a mermaid now! I held out the flower that had changed into a bluebell, and Alicia was a gargoyle ogress grinning at the edge of nowhere! And she had wine flowing out her mouth, and she thought into my mind, sip this for an ever after!

I took a sip, rather a puff of the hookah! Peace, and there was Alicia, with gossamer wings- a Bird of Paradise, with a small spider in her beak… she dropped it in my hand, and the spider changed into my black dream, a dream where I see nothing…

The ground shook- the Hell Bound Express was coming into the Eternity Railway Depot- and it slowed down and came to a stop! Alicia peeped out from the third door and yelled all aboard! I hopped in!

I took the seat next to her, and she spoke into my mind, I wondered if her voice was velvet or satin but it had waves, not words, folded, wrapped, wrinkled, inviting like a stream of piano notes plucked slowly- the notes, and the words running in or out, a standstill tableau, in gypsy style and put my head on her lap! She crooned a song silently!

We peeped at each other- from two holes, we were worms in love in a tunnel in an apple and our apple was shriveling, the world shaking, and there was the smoke, peace again! Peace to our souls! Alicia grinned…

The lamp on the table was raining dust light, monsoon insects were dancing in the rain and the hazy smoke appeared Alicia. She was the seeping image of salt on the wall, a cloud and a face and a tarantula walking back home, and a child by her side holding her hands, and she waved at me!

Peace, my love! She often comes to me in my dreams, with my peace smoke- tomorrow perhaps she would hide!

I had smoked Alicia- Alicia the hashish is good! The best indeed! Alisha, in the brave new world of tomorrow! Smoking hot Alisha with the blazing blue eyes...

Peace!

Just a game!

Lover, yesterday it began
I ran- there was this cute little one
Drowning…
A pickled heart, dying,
I got curious why,
Was it time enough?

Well, there was something crazy
I had overlooked,
When I quit on one,
Leave everything
And restart
With a heart,
That has seen everything
I would know love
And cleaning up!

A woman, mine for long
That I hate her is alright
That I love you is also
Something true
A fright
Would money matter-
Or her,
Would she cry?

I saw a man who died
Only yesterday, he had left hospital
Cured,
But a weak heart
Today,
Sick of alcohol
Never mended
And of course
With him, romance died!

He had a lovely scrawny crying woman
Who asked why
The lover won over him
When she just tried
Sex
And had a child,
Ten years old

When they took him away,
His face in the sheet that brought him in
Declared DOA
As the ambulance took him home
Uncertified
No post mortems

But lover,
I tried
Always…
It was a game we loved to play!

Tell me
How many more
Would I love-
Beyond tonight
When you take my poems away?


The Muse came to me in a hospital as I waited for the surgeon outside Casualty/ER. This man had been brought in dead, of a heart attack! I wondered, stared at the wife, stoically braving the bleakness that had surrounded her. I asked the hospital superintendent, a friend, about him! Then he told me his story... a philanderer, drunkard, lover, father, husband... and I thought yet a man who had a world of his own, now lies covered in a shroud!

Where were his poems now?

The Tavern

The call of the Tavern left me long back, in shame

It had lit in me love, a flame,

And then each day,

It played a trick, it called my name

It lingered, it claimed the Muse, my soul and all, my say

What I could I did, the dried quill resigned

The inkpot left bare long behind

In shadows behind the curtains, blind

The call of the Tavern, where the wine

Poured down parched throats unimpeded left

Verse choked, slurred voices lost in theft

Deep inside, raked by pain as I lay in the cold outside,

The laughter wore a muffled croak

The heart dead, the tears dried,

For the Muse, she hid somewhere, the alcohol

Was saddled deep inside,

And the tavern just an alter, a shrine

To a million words, to the poems left behind…

There are odes I hear to the tavern they call life

It pleads, it gives a joy ride and yet, strife

There is wine- there is sunshine,

An incense permeates the flow of Time

As the Tavern changes its shape and shade

The Woman of Words just stays aloof, I fade

As the sounds of clinking glass

Gurgling flows of mellowing croons

Sung in the moods of indigo blues

Divided in ambivalence, the Muse

Watches perhaps from far away,

As twinkles in starlight astray

The poems mutilated, mindless

I witness the bouquet the Muse had shed

The Tavern still has poets, racing words

Laughter, mistresses and admirers

Critics and critiques, words of fire

And yes, the Muse lurks in hot desire

The old poet banished, famished,

His wine, sobriquets, epithets

Brickbats alike in exile, vanquished,

The Muse looks on heartless

The wine flows yet, hours in the darkness

Cries the poet, poems now a mattress of tears

In a sky, stellar, cosmic, immortal yet unread!

In the Tavern of Eternity, forever a shop

Of dreams, an ethereal bartender of words

Weaves secret tapestries, pours the wine of romance

Who cares? For poets drunken with the golden rye

Fizzes and cocktails of rhyme,

Time stands still, only favors die!

27 Nov 2009

Oracle!

Much before I met her,

I could infer,

I was green and small

Just an inch and half tall

It would not be long since

One day I would be a Prince

And someone, I knew,

Would be in love with me too!

My world was so tiny and dark

A corner of the neighborhood park

I peeped at the passersby

A yellow butterfly

Would nag me

Tease me

And ask- touch me

Why won’t you try!

But I knew

It wasn’t you,

I just let it be-

As the summer mellowed in melancholy!

The heart ached-

Not knowing why!

As I saw the starlit night

And the flitting firefly!

It was soon cold, a time

To sleep alone

Below a big stone!

Chirp, chirp, wakey!

A sparrow befriends me

To croak along

With her song!

In my little pool

By the white toad-stool

Stood my Princess

In a green wedding dress,

An inch and half tall

Waiting for the spring ball

A spectacle-

Predicted by the Oracle!

What do you think- do miracles happen every day?

Contemplation

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

I wonder why chicken try

To cross the road only to die

I wonder why that chicken stood

In a confused and befuddled mood

As I drove over him/her and thought of food

Don’t cry for the de-feathered dude

That did not die, but he/she thought it rude

To be left in the middle of the road in the nude…

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

The chicken was a disciple of Rajneesh the Osho

Whenever it could see a road it would say No!

No, for I cannot cross, I would transcend

My earthly habits I must resign and mend!

And the Godfather was negotiating a truce

He made her an offer she couldn't refuse

And the chicken crossed the highway at noon

They picked her up with a fork and spoon

But still I would not get my answer, dude, why

A chicken must cross the road, if only to die

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chicken must bear their life’s loss?

The answer is not blowing in the wind,

It seems chicken are born with a genetic kink

The spirit of adventure in roosters and hen

Would lead them across the road now and then

The chicken was female and obviously interpreted

The pole on which the cross sign was erected

As a phallic symbol of which she was envious

But to herself, the point was never obvious

That when one is afraid to do something

One may be called chicken shit and sing

If they don’t do nothing to cross the road

Chickened out, someone will goad!

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

It is the Mother of all Chickens that cries

Whenever a road-crossing chicken dies

In pursuit of happiness on the other side

And scaring the trucker, on the road bona fide

I envision a world where all chickens will be free

Or not too cross when a truck they see

Without having their motives scrutinized

By humans on daily duties and or whims and wiles

That place them on speeding automobiles

That Leda sometimes would ask of Zeus

Don’t dress as a chicken it is of no use

Mortals have the power to kill chickens

And you, if you masquerade in your nonsense

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chicken must bear their life’s loss?

The other side is just as dull as this one

Don't talk to me about chickens. Not done!

If it was a historical inevitability chicken

That know not to cross the road when

Will not return, even if driven by economic necessity

They would certainly be martyred. A pity

The chicken that cross the road must know

For that one crossing, there is an equal and opposite

Crossing of merciless sixteen wheeler fleet

That may not stop. National Security was at stake

Who gives a fuck about a fucking chicken, for God’s sake

It is not a necessity at all, there already was a chicken

On the other side of the road, born of a different hen

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

I wonder and muse, why a chicken has to cross

Why can’t it fly, why does it not try a horse

The Newtonian dictum Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest

Chickens that do cross the road, are never cooked at best

It was a government conspiracy that built the highway

Such that hapless chicken would die straightaway

But why would chicken cross the concrete lane

Is a puzzle to drive all awfully insane,

And why we are at it, Bob Dylan sings

Of chicken dying on highways sans wings

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

Sir, for as long as I have, had you known the chicken,

You would not so readily enquire, but abstain

And feel rather the need to resist such a public display

Of your own lamentable and incorrigible ignorance everyday

The chicken that crossed the road is not the eternal chicken

Many a thinker and poet has gnashed and wrecked his pen

Star trekking may be, to boldly go where no chicken has gone before

Those who cluck do not know. Those who know do not cluck sure…

I did not have improper sexual relations with the chicken

I was asleep, when she crossed the road at ten

How many roads must one chicken cross?

How many chickens must bear their life’s loss?

The Dreamer from Beyond

I

I woke slowly. Two things were very clear- I was barely alive, wrapped in a hospital blanket. I could see the men in strange uniforms walking about in the corridors. The language they spoke was something I thought I knew, yet I could not make out. The air smelt of ether and of people crying, whimpering in low voices. Sleep was welcome, but my arms seemed locked somehow…

Once in a while a sterile figure in white walked in and looked at me and said something- I could see that she never understood me at all! She held my wrist high, and I saw the tube… and she made a brief note after sometime and faded out of my sight. I dreamt of a manhunt!

The prey was faceless- he had a mission, and he had erred while returning- he was wounded, crawling and thirsty for two days, caked with blood, wounds festering and dirty. The sporadic rain saved him from the tell tale smells of the hounds- but they were never far away! A hell as hell can be! Hills with very sharp sunrises and sunsets… these were the Pir Panjal Ranges! The hills had vegetation that could hide or betray at will, it depended which way the sun was shining. At night, the animals let off tell-tale noises of the alien. Barely sixty meters from the LOC, they saw him, and fired upon him- his own people! Return was difficult- these were his own countrymen, but they did not know he was there! Each time he tried to enter the forward defended lines, they let off a salvo, lit flares and brought down mortar shells too close for his comfort. Then one stray shell exploded near him with a blinding flash! And when he came to, he knew he had to get help! He turned back- for one last time, and then saw the Ranger Patrol… they had a dog!

There was no border, and there was no way he could go on indefinitely in his present state- he barely managed to be conscious- until he did go under, almost fatally!

The Rangers were in doubt. This man, wounded was coming towards them when they saw him. They lost him… and found him two hundred feet below- he had rolled down and bruised, incoherent and was calling out to someone- sounded like Fareeda! No not an Indian spy at least… but who knows!

Asleep, adrift, unmoored miles below the surface called consciousness, lay the poet in the dreamer’s mind… which way was up?

Coming Back Soon!
The musk

Had me pinned

It just called me in

I slept

Cradled

As you looked on

For eons!

To languor done

Dreamless

By the songs

Of sobs and wails

Sedated

As your eyes

Keep guard

I dream

Of caresses

Autumn leaves

Words

Echoes afloat,

A row boat and the oars

Drawing lines on my chest...

Millennia pass

The layers of crepe

Stripped offI hear

The muezzin

The clergy

I smell ether

Cleansing the scars

Of gunshots

I feel

The medicos

Fussing

And the merciful eyes

Wet

HopingI am not dead!

The beeps fade-

Another day

I know

I shall awake

Resurrected

From the stake!

The man on the bed was restless. Dr MKZ had been cautioned to keep this man alive for interrogations… there was an unaccounted for Indian intrusion some one month back- the same time when this man was brought in. The Ranger Captain had brought him in and dumped him, but the “other ones” were too curious about this handsome one, a twenty-six year old, obviously a soldier, lying semi-paralyzed in the bed- though the vital signs were good, and there was no other sign of permanent damage- severe concussion, perhaps ill treatment at the hands of his captors may have caused this condition. The two bullets that were recovered were evidence, kept in a locker somewhere. His shattered fibula was now well set. The loss of blood suffered was tremendous- they had put in three units of blood, and he wondered how at all he survived. He was certainly strong. The man’s breathing was disturbed, the monitors showed distress… Dr MKZ gathered his thoughts- he decide against enhancement of analgesic. Move him towards the southern window- let him soak in that glorious sunshine, and may be recovery would be better!

II

I saw myself lying on this hospital bed on and off… I knew I had been operated after I was caught- but why was I caught? I remember the pain- dragging myself, breathing hard, that abysmal pain in my leg… and I was put on a ventilator. Did I have chest injuries? But no, my chest felt whole… where exactly was my wound then? Why had they tied me up?

Signs

Gunshot Echoes!

My coma leads me

Through phases of dark and light

Amnesia

And drugged delight-

Battling for life

Docked like a submarine

To the oxygen machine

A stark roof

Limits me

When I am high!
The pips

Echo and measure

My heart,

Sometimes

When I die,

They call me back

From my friend-

Gabriel

He walks along in my dream,

And smiles!
The sounds of clinking bangles

Terrified squeaks

Of a woman at the bed side

Sobbing

Premonition speaks

Through her tears

I wonder why...

It is hard to leave

Love and hope carved

With the surgeon’s knife!

Wither?

Adrift in the twilight zone-

I wait-

For the road sign, alone!

Memories flooded in, still without a hint of who was I, where I am now, and why I was here. I feel a little hostility towards me when I see the people visiting they want to ask, and it is strange I cannot speak in the language they ask me- I have my own. They say some word for me- Baluchistan, yet I am not sure I know what it means!

III

The handsome patient, as they called him was now coming back from his long comatose sleep sessions. He smiled once in a while, moaned sometimes, and never spoke. There was something wrong with his EKG- it seemed he had amnesia too, he could not reply to any questions about himself so far. Nervous deficit was there in his back, yet there were involuntary movements in his lower limbs- was it a temporary thing. Dr MKZ thought, rather hoped that this man would recover enough to walk. One thing was sure, he was a fighter. And Dr MKZ knew he had no tattoos on his body, nothing that could tell who this patient was!

The handsome one was sleeping too much, one could see the smile on his face…

When!

When-

I awake and stare at the blue light above

I wonder from whence came the dust on my robe-

And why the birds that sang flew, the white feathers

Drew a boat afloat with my blood-

As I lay on a leaf bed,

Faces stared, was I dead?

When- I see you sit and face the West

And pray, I know I almost died to get your love,

And you are here today, don’t say

I just know, what all there is to know worth

My Gods live in the North!

When- I surface, every day,

The inquisitor waits- would I confess?

When- the chestnut hair touches the ground

As you rest on the chair, I know

How far it is from the barbed wire fence!

IV

The Diaries
I prayed silently- the only prayer I knew! Mother of God and Virgin, hail, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, for thou hast given birth to the Savior of our souls.

I was walking at last- the limp would go soon too… where is my memory?

The handsome one was walking- they had to let him go. But he did know where to go after the hospital phase ended. The police had come here too, and they seemed to have no interest in him anymore! The field security people from the Cantonment too had visited him, and taken his photographs and left. In fact it was they who had kept a few guards outside till yesterday- the 93rd day of the patient’s stay here! Dr MKZ hoped he could talk.

The Diary: 11 November 2003

When I heard the news, I was shocked… I am going to be discharged in about two weeks, perhaps into prison- where they keep spies, and other dirt! I do not know what I am hiding… they think I am from Baluchistan or from Sind! For God's sake, I crossed over for her, let’s call her FJH, and I find myself in a lot of shit!

FJH notes everything I say in my mind! The nurses hate her- I think for they must be aware that trans-border love is bad! She is also a bit tired! She cries a lot! It’s all in my mind, and my diary is unreal too… Fareeda, how far can you be, and how near too- I am hallucinating still I guess!

This place is difficult!

When I wrote this post in my diary, the world as I know today was not created! I am alive, and will tell you my story, somehow! FJH won't mind!

Lucidity

Lucidity-

comes in puffs of hashish,

when I lie alone,

praying for the satanic streams to pass,

and for Divine bliss!

I moan-

awash with thread-less wisps of thoughts,

dreaming of what not, weary.

Is this my forever fate?

V

Diary Entry: 04 Feb 2004

Somewhere deep within,

I know, this too will pass somehow,

The miracles and the broken shackles,

Something lies ahead in store!

There are layers and more-

Like my bedsores,

But the voices have gone,

I lie in a stone room with a cobbled floor.

The old crone comes every day-

She smiles and stokes the fireI hate her,

I ask where is Fareeda,

And where is this place…

She says Zannat,

And your houri is long dead!

When you sponge me Crone-Maid,

I hurt, and your smile, I hate!

I am not Zia- nor Noor Mohammad-

I am not Ansar, a shame

Who knows... my name?

Tomorrow, I want hashish,

And the viper on my lips,

And when I sleep,

Bless me God,

With the kiss of death!

Diary 7 Feb 2004

I dream from time to time- I have subconscious awakenings, and I am scared too.

Who am I? I wonder! Why do I have the thoughts that I feel are a sacrament? This century knows terror- it comes ready- a packaged environment friendly RDX with the grinning kamikaze… a young bomber, cuddling his guardian- the M36 grenade!

Orgies begin when the cowards call their slaves lashed in dread, parade and the AQ yells fuck you all!

I remember my village- walk along the village streets I see- Caucasoid and Mongolian mixed bred kids with golden hair, green eyes… the brats, they talk like locals, born of lies in captives, and I wonder how came babies suckle the oozing milk in local breasts!

The canons of decreed faith preached by radicals harvest death! Yes? This is politically incorrect, a slip, now face the whip!

Badtameez, kafer! As the rifle butts hit, I lie on the ground!

The flies feeding on caked blood, orchestrate my thoughts now! “Kill and propagate the Faith!” says God, Benevolent, Merciful, We bring the century of peace, wrapped in the Sacrament, Covenant of the Satan… Oh, how dare I?

So yelp, hear us, you have committed sacrilege!

Fareeda is here- just beyond the invisible line of control, so much a part of our lives- we were born with it dividing the village in the middle, and the soldiers watching over us like vultures! Do I dare?

Beyond The Fence

Eyes stare through the veil,

New one, where from do I hail?

Query the quarry-

The rabbit on the run,

Trudging the strange soil

The black band,

Toting the machine gun

Nothing new

But they know it is futile

When I trudge the last mile,

A bit weary,

But the unhurried steps

Disarm the inquest!

The gunfire begins,

The man knows trouble for sure

Lie low

Don't tempt fate

More wounds to endure…

He awaits the sunset,

Trailing the Rangers

And their counterforce

For the gap or the gate,

Past midnight,

The last of the moonlight gone

A fox slithers below

And calls its mate,

The rabbit wades

Home…
Something pings against my shin bone-

I am engulfed in a sea of fire…

Soldiers…

Walking me with hands tied,

This side knowsI crossed, not why,

I await the trial that may free me

From the shackles

Or like the terror merchants

Just throw me across,

To die!

Thus began my beginning… or my end! Incomplete yet!
From Poems in Captivity: A Book of Plastic Verse