[ Lost & found: Dated Nov 3rd, 2009. ]

minutes past three,
in the room at the end of the hallway
a swell of voices breaks
the air and pushes mahogany doors
away, breaks
into the corridor,
notices pinned to a board
(Olmert tonight, 8pm at Mandell, JavaJive!,
want to make $20 in five minutes?)
rustle against the thunder.
surely they could've offered
poli-sci twenty-eighty: political parties in
a dying state, or
losing gracefully for nationalists.
i wonder what happens then,
to the parks planning board,
the municipal buildings and courts,
what happens to the constitution and the
lawyers who studied it.
surely nations deserve a pension plan
for historians.

*

poets,
in a dying world, are almost
immediately idiomatic.
their careers, thankfully,
are secure.

[ river ]

Heading north on the river, north-
west, along the dappled grey, drowning blue
wheels against the concrete, wheels chasing bridges
against the sky,
To find the end of the bridge, and
to sail across the lovely, looming arches,
because it would feel like
riding through the air then,
weightless, curving across the earth
silent, lifted by desire and
at peace, at last, at peace.
Even as
we rode past the kayaks, blooming by the dock
even as the tree-sweet silence rose around us
even when we threw ourselves down, thighs throbbing,
wet earth, this corner of nowhere, some-where branches
glop and sink and spiders walk on nothing,

that bridge, I said to myself. I want to ride across that bridge.

Turns out I had been going north, all along.

[ thumb ]

Bite the tip of this greenchilli
seared my mouth and you
kissed me, grinned
"I don't taste anything,
it's only burning inside you."
inside, your white meat cooked, I add
a quarter teaspoon of haldi, half dhania,
kali mirch. learn something new.
sink your fingers into the heat,
whole pieces rip apart easily,
draw together the rice,
"how do I..."
let me show you.
Push it with my thumb, like this
sigh appreciatively.
lick my fingers clean.
lick my mouth dry.

I didn't bite through your skin,
notice you cut through my heart
till you held it up.
The niwaala,
like a prize, and say this
is delicious,
do you eat with your hands
all the time?

[ monkeys ]

I like it when you touch me, you said
it's because we're social
animals like monkeys
bug-picking comforting
skin-stroking family.
I'll write you into
my story, you said
I don't think I'm exciting enough
for you anymore.
It's the other way around, you thought
I'm too damn entertaining for
everyone.
It's easy, you tell me, like math
and love. I can't do one and
I'm bad at the other.
Maybe I'll call you over
tonight,
watch your skin sleep next to mine.
Make conversation. Pick
bugs out of my heart.

[ love. ]

one of those afternoons
waking up
at sundown.
up, out into the white sky-
shawl-covered sticks and bricks town,
billow blue smoke from the horizon.

it's a (always when i sleep)
different sky-
hot winter parades and
always when i wake
shots at her cavalcade
bright sirencars pile out, up
at the gate,
red on a blue screen eight
-y, seventy, a hundred and twenty
in Bolton market today.

the loaded question,
six yellow taxicabs in a dirty lot,
vegetable-walla on wheels and the
road that led to the Arabian Sea.
would you leave these
January mournings,
Saran-wrapped, postcard houses,
cold air and naked trees?
(
sex in Karachi would be wonderful
but
where would you have sex in Karachi.)

[ going home. ]

She packed my bags last night pre-flight

Zero hour nine a.m.

And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then

I miss the earth so much I miss my wife

It's lonely out in space

On such a timeless flight

And I think it's gonna be a long long time

Till touch down brings me round again to find

I'm not the man they think I am at home

Oh no, no, no - I'm a rocket man

Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids

In fact it's cold as hell

And there's no one there to raise them if you did

And all this science I don't understand

It's just my job five days a week

A rocket man, a rocket man

And I think it's gonna be a long long time...

[ when you're ready ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x52w8txtiQs

Cannot recommend this enough. If nothing else compels you, then perhaps he will.

Daniyal Mueenuddin

hurting heads,
hurting hearts.
playlist for the rudderless:
shush. stop crying.
stop reading.

jo naa janey, haq ki taaqat.



it's lonely and quiet in here baby,
but at least we're together.

I
would know your voice
in a storm, in the rain,
running between streetlamps
and dead cats and dirty trams.

dig me a deep hole,
drive me home, mama:
strawberry feels
like forever.

[ such grief ]

to leave a city forever
is heartbreak.

i wouldn't know such grief.
this is after all,
a poem.
ek ek kar key mein
terey naam likhun,
par iss dard ko kaun naam dey gaa?

[ Birdwings ]

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
if it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding,
The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

- JB

[ Wednesday morning, 7 a.m ]

my whole life is not here.
for which i am grateful,
leaving not-home is easy,
thoughtless.
airports are airports,
traffic jams, not wombs.
falling out of touch
simpler
as those we're suddenly in-
touch with smoothly
take over the hours.
i am grateful, un-rooted
un-being in this city.
and now it seems
the whole world could feel the same:
long itineraries of
not-home, sans the
thickness, gnawing desire to
be somewhere.
i could be
not-anywhere at all.

Go up on the roof at night
in this city of the soul:
God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Remember the lips,
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note.

(from Jelaluddin Balkhi, the Roman)

[ stooping to your clemency. ]

the slow month drifts
glacial, this side of the atlantic
two spies on a ship sail
to your kingdom.
which doesn't exist.
five hours later feet
pounding the cold sidewalk
teeth throbbing, this perfect tennis
morning, any goddamn
excuse to forget
last night would do.
but why the great absurdist,
are you not
satisfied with
my voice and flesh, must you
maggot your way into
my memories too?

[ Awwal tu, Aakhir tu ]

when everything you need is
exactly here. low train-siren,
singing softly
beaten boxcar, trash site,
this side of phaatak.

sometimes in my dreams i still
wander through your brick and stone-concrete
i still lose myself at the oily edges
of your iron sky.
smell your smoke dusty noise
i wear your memories out,
house by house, tree
by tree.
leave my bed and this cold, gladly i
slip inside your heat.

wrap myself in your fingers and faces
coarse laughter, thick voice
running beneath dark clouds
running to the endless sea.

Urban Journeys may have inspired this one.

[ happy birthday ]

If hands could free you, heart,
 Where would you fly?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate?  Would you cross
City and hill and sea,
 If hands could set you free?

I would not lift the latch;
 For I could run
Through fields, pit-valleys, catch
All beauty under the sun--
Still end in loss:
I should find no bent arm, no bed
 To rest my head.

- Philip Larkin

[ four ]

morning at five, halogen
bright, smoke dusted
lonely streets
you're fast a-sleeping,
the woman whispers
long and dark in my ear
long darkness that twists your hair,
soft mad darkness
slides across
the lake, breaks.
green filigree patchworked
Michigan skies, vines strangle
spindle fingers
witches cry and spin,
giddy-sick in between
green, lime green
fields, forests, factories.
in this other town.
this other life.
that four letter word
i forget we carried, i forget
selfish flesh, from
years gone by -

love is
the writing sickness.
hard and evil,
greedy.
mine.