A POEM ON THE BEAK OF A BIRD
I am a lonely tree inhabited by birds-
who have learnt to enjoy their songs.
they sing because this is the life they’ve come to know.
I am by a trench & my body is stealing; 
I melt once in a while so I can embrace a new shade & shape.
Tonight, the moon is seated on my balcony. she watches how I struggle to tally the pictures of my life.
I have also learnt to count the stars 
in cumulative frequencies, say the mean is; [summation of stars] by [the wishes in my heart].
I’m wrestling for words to slash this voyage into syllables.
Once in a while, I empty my mind into a pail by the booth.
Today I fade like a leaf fleeing its twig
I grope like one stranded amid a crowd in a strange city; it is part of life.
Getting lost is another way to know a place.
How does a dead man discern the parole of the earth if he has not learned to inhabit the grave?
The longer the ground knows your body, the refiner your bones become.
I heard a poem in my dream
I lay a sheet of paper on my bed & breathed on it; a bird jumps out & sits on my shoulder. & I become a poem on the beak of that bird.

Crippling Fear

My fears are not a car crash
As in they don't come, attack me, and take me by surprise like it did to the a school girl of
Hiroshima on 9th August 1945. 
It's not like a blinding light that puts a blind on my existence's door 
My fears are like waves 
And I am like a dead body on a sea shore
With fish like eyes that seem to have no life
But it cannot close so it takes in all of its share of dread without a semblance of choice. 
The waves wash over me. I just lay indifferent, accepting the inevitable drowning and
resurrection 
Like an unholy baptism in death
Again and again
To end up with a new life. 
I hate circles

with lady macbeth

something                                                                                                       
like a
salty spit
stays in your
mouth
regardless
of swallows:
some uranium
half-lifed
out of bloody
comprehension.
something
sub rosa,
a clue or maybe
a potent source
of fuel
too thick
for burning.
and
that’s the
problem
always
unburdening
itself
heavily
on our ears,
no one believes
a glaring lesion
that
won’t go away. and
in ad hoc night,
you hail a cab
in the 
street
without a trace
of sanity,
without an end
to the sax’s solo,
without one
pathetic pill
to 
at least
make the echoes
softer.
and now,
unable to understand anything old
or hear anything new,
still listening for music
in the sidewalk rain, you are
a hair’s breadth
away
from a simple tragedy.

//Unearthly//

It often happened at dinner
              the whistling, then came the blast
          followed by an expulsion of breath and knowing
      that i have been spared _
but only just

while somewhere, amid cries
               and choking clouds of smokes, there
                       was a scrambling, a barehanded digging
          of pulling out debris, what remained of a sister, a brother
                                                      a grandmother

i wasn't at all surprised
       when father said _
   fate is what is beyond man's control
        in every book, everyone has a chapter, we are
are mere words in pages 

of reincarnated scripts
            we come back again
                                   we are mere characters 
entertaining God
                                       but then I wonder
          
if God was smiling
             or sobbing when our
           breaths was rinsed by death
while we entertain

Queen of Pentacles
 
Forty dollars:
a moderate sum
for front-row seats
to the latest debacle.
 
She bought you with
a couple gin and tonics
and a plate of flesh.
 
Two thousand miles:
a trip you’ll never take
again, because
 
eventually you’d need
to work for love.
 
Your colleague complained 
that you were lazy, left 
tasks for him to do.
 
I can’t clean up
your soiled bathroom,
the moldy shower curtain
hanging upside down to dry,
 
or the fan that 
runs for hours 
to hide all traces of your habits.
 
Your blinds pulled down,
your phone shut off
and never charged.
 
So much I was unwilling
to witness: even as I
rode your bicycle
with its flattened tires
 
and was struck 
by a random motorist
a few blocks from your home.
 
How I wish
I had loved anyone else,
even a stranger in a bar,
 
or someone from the internet
wearing a cowboy hat,
looking for an honest woman.
 
At least I would know
where I stood. But you
slip like rain through crevices,
find the lowest ground,
 
as I swim in 
your leaden puddles,
searching for sky.

 "Rising"

Dirt in my nostrils
blowing it out

yelling

bloody tongue
bloody teeth

stones covering my legs
and aching chest

but I will get up

as the bombs fall
on the cities and countryside

all of us
will get up

rising again and again
to be free!

Hooligans

Dudes boisterous and loud,
Party animals laughing it up,
Parading thru the town streets
Like a bunch of wild hooligans
Downin’ the green beer and
Guzzling loads of Irish nectar,
What most would call whiskey.
‘Tis Patrick the saint’s own day.
Do a jig, tease a fairy.  What?
Where did you get that from?
That’s not the spirit of the day.
Leave the fairies alone before
They talk the wee people into
Punchin’ ya in the gilhoolies or
Wackin’ you in the noggin with
Their leprechaun pots of gold.
That’d make your eyes pop out.
It’d be worse than a hangover.

Amnesiac Memory

It starts with 
Just a trigger
A buzzer, an alarm. 
A shot fired from a practicing gun. 
A dart of aim, 
A gong of cacophony, 
Rattle of screeching steel tyres 
Its skin, tearing apart. 
Fire sparks stretching on the road. 
My voice, a shrill of tongue
Still unheard. 
Hard rain dripping 
Striking the tin roof. 
Any sound is a game here 
Playing with the disturbed politics. 
Sounds metamorphosed to war cries 
Creativity escaping through bullet holes. 
Broken vase of poetry 
Dead flowers of elegy
Decorating the epitaph 
Of silenced sound of amnesiac memory. 
Is it also easy to forget war? 

Wretched

Deeper I've drawn by distress, 
Flooded by the flooding river of discomfort
Leaving me shaky and shaggy within my heart and body

Turbulent sea is where I arrived
The whales and dolphins wanted to have a catch
After being freed from the shark
Trying to combat and to turn tail

The ribcage and the cardia jumbled
Eyes and its conjoins became reddish
Like the burned wood or an ember left to be eaten by the ash

My Heart

She ripped out my heart
And stomped on it,
Which made it break into hard,
Stone cold, razor sharp shards.
If she’d try that now,
She’d hurt her feet.


The Bar Room Floor

The bar room floor
Is more comfortable
Than you’d think it’d be.
The fall didn’t hurt much.
I know my drinkin’ limit.
I done passed it a while back.
Shoulda just stayed in the chair.
But, I needed to get to the bar
To get that “last call” drink.
I hope people are kind enough
To step around or over me.
This ain’t my first time down here.
Lately, as the nights wear on
I’ve become a regular fixture
On the floor of this fine establishment.
No worries, no woes, just a drunk.
Barkeep says I certainly make
A great conversation piece.
Likes my routine.
Closing time, everybody’s leaving.
Damn, lady.  Watch those stilettos.
I wanted to keep that hand.