A Summer State of Mind
When you take left from nowhere
There is this little field quite near
With a locked gate and no boundaries so far
Take right and right turn again in this war zone
Stop at the signpost at the bend
Look, written all over the place
'The sun is a yo-yo here'
The sun is a yo-yo here, the sun is a yo-yo
Plopping all over this territory
In the middle of a cold war zone
Sending strange signals
To my summer state of mind
The sun is a yo-yo here
After hiding for a century or so
Just out of the box, red like fresh peach
Look out the window
How everything blossoms in the eye
Look, the sun is bouncing on our wooden floor
You talk in strange codes all day long
Sitting under a blossoming white tree
I can only supplement those in this log hut
I built this house when the wood was scarce
A bird drones strange signals on my balcony
'The sun is a yo-yo here
The sun is a yo-yo'
Bouncing back on our memories of snow
Here each tree blooms every night
Lets talk of daffodils and dragonflies
In this season of life, above all mine fields
Pollens get high on the air
With strange codes loaded in their throat
Let's lie down in this grassy field of our own fallacies
The sun plays like a yo-yo in your eyes
The sun is a yo-yo here, the sun is a yo-yo
I will take a bus straight along the equator
Which runs in our thoughts so deep horizontally
Just ride through all fallacies and scores
There is no dead end in this summer territory
The sun is a yo-yo here
The sun is a yo-yo here
I placed it under your windowsill
Because every leaf is now emitting strange signals
It's a summer state of my mind
Lunch At Silk Route Restaurant
You slam shut the door on your evening thought
Three buses speed past quickly
There is a fast train too at eleven thirty
On the pavement stands my valise, oddly enough
Next is the galloping mail at night
I think in straight lines,say, my next bus stop
Didnt I tell you beforehand? Can you still refute?
Why didnt we take a cab,take a train, a flight
Or take everything worthwhile
But I think in geometry, you talk of stone piles
While all memories are getting lost in the silk route
Last month, dead at night,our kitchen sink leaked
You called the plumber; he was out of his far sight
For his girlfriend was getting lost on that night
We stood looking at each other, knee deep in water
Remember, last winter, our wall clock stopped before dawn
I was far behind the timetable, chasing a routine sum
Since then it was foggy in the living room
I stood on the dining table to fix the clocks legs
You just stood motionless
It was morning when we moved again
Meantime, the hours fled and headed for the Silk Route
You never said you started collecting old stones and new maps
Why did you wipe out every road sign on the ground?
Oxygen is low here, caravans often pant
Glazed sand dots reflect cobalt of your right eye,
Beautiful are the sand dunes in the middle of this desert
I stand near a Uighur shop,alone, centuries go by
Winds sweep the sand and sand sweeps all footsteps fast
While we stand facing each other
All memories are getting lost in the Silk Route
Standing in the middle of the Silk Route
Now I can recall
You talked less and listened more this winter
While the caravans flow past me from Tibet to my sleep
Now I run alone behind them
Now I can recall
You talked about stone tablets and a lunch in the silk route
Why didn't we take a cab, take a train, a flight
Take everything worthwhile
I think in straight lines,you talk of stone piles
While all memories are getting lost in the Silk Route
Lunch At Silk Route Restaurant
You slam shut the door on your evening thought
Three buses speed past quickly
There is a fast train too at eleven thirty
On the pavement stands my valise, oddly enough
Next is the galloping mail at night
I think in straight lines,say, my next bus stop
Didnt I tell you beforehand? Can you still refute?
Why didnt we take a cab,take a train, a flight
Or take everything worthwhile
But I think in geometry, you talk of stone piles
While all memories are getting lost in the silk route
Last month, dead at night,our kitchen sink leaked
You called the plumber; he was out of his far sight
For his girlfriend was getting lost on that night
We stood looking at each other, knee deep in water
Remember, last winter, our wall clock stopped before dawn
I was far behind the timetable, chasing a routine sum
Since then it was foggy in the living room
I stood on the dining table to fix the clocks legs
You just stood motionless
It was morning when we moved again
Meantime, the hours fled and headed for the Silk Route
You never said you started collecting old stones and new maps
Why did you wipe out every road sign on the ground?
Oxygen is low here, caravans often pant
Glazed sand dots reflect cobalt of your right eye,
Beautiful are the sand dunes in the middle of this desert
I stand near a Uighur shop,alone, centuries go by
Winds sweep the sand and sand sweeps all footsteps fast
While we stand facing each other
All memories are getting lost in the Silk Route
Standing in the middle of the Silk Route
Now I can recall
You talked less and listened more this winter
While the caravans flow past me from Tibet to my sleep
Now I run alone behind them
Now I can recall
You talked about stone tablets and a lunch in the silk route
Why didn't we take a cab, take a train, a flight
Take everything worthwhile
I think in straight lines,you talk of stone piles
While all memories are getting lost in the Silk Route
12, Harrington Row (West)
You have hidden the address somewhere
’12, Harrington Row (West),
Off the main street, City Centre’
I stand knee-deep in moonwater
Here every house looks the same at night
When the moon descends at normal height
Just behind my shoulders
Spraying fresh moon water
It’s night at last; I search Harrington Row (West)
With a huge load in myvalise
Everything is now submerged
Once we lived like college students there
Eating glass for breakfast
And more glass for dinner
This street had glassflowers
What else did anybody need
When the soul is transparent?
We don’t need so many bricks
Solid is a resolution that speaks
Like mud, hard rock and iron promises, gone
Did we really have time forall that?
The sun never rises in this locality
It’s moon’s hidden territory
I stumble at every house
They don't have our story
All houses are half submerged, closed
Each house in the row has a tablet
Declaring it something else
Some are churches, some abandoned homes
Others talk of being facades for something torn
Every house is ‘12 Harrington Street’
I stand in the middle with my valise
Full of letters for you
Every house has the same façade
Every house has the same façade
Every house has the same facade
All I wanted to see was a sign
That speaks of absence
____________________________
You have hidden the address somewhere
’12, Harrington Row (West),
Off the main street, City Centre’
I stand knee-deep in moonwater
Here every house looks the same at night
When the moon descends at normal height
Just behind my shoulders
Spraying fresh moon water
It’s night at last; I search Harrington Row (West)
With a huge load in myvalise
Everything is now submerged
Once we lived like college students there
Eating glass for breakfast
And more glass for dinner
This street had glassflowers
What else did anybody need
When the soul is transparent?
We don’t need so many bricks
Solid is a resolution that speaks
Like mud, hard rock and iron promises, gone
Did we really have time forall that?
The sun never rises in this locality
It’s moon’s hidden territory
I stumble at every house
They don't have our story
All houses are half submerged, closed
Each house in the row has a tablet
Declaring it something else
Some are churches, some abandoned homes
Others talk of being facades for something torn
Every house is ‘12 Harrington Street’
I stand in the middle with my valise
Full of letters for you
Every house has the same façade
Every house has the same façade
Every house has the same facade
All I wanted to see was a sign
That speaks of absence
____________________________
A Wild Plum Tree
Everybody knew
This year would be different
Oranges grew more
In the nearest hill
Like a morning, gold and green
Fine dust particles reclining
on the air
A horde of strong horses
Came into view
They ran through
The trees whole night
Their hoofs smeared
With dust and dew
My aunt, now dead, saw them in flight
Over the hills
Beyond the tea garden
All of them had wings
She smiled
Looking at the sky and me
I don’t know if it was a dream
Or a reality
She tended her long hair
The whole evening
Standing near a wild plum tree
Her hair had magical qualities, they say
At night her hair wove us together
Holding her knee, we used to look at the world
It was lighted and perfumed everywhere
Like a big orange
In every winter
The wild plum tree on our courtyard
Threw its wild fruits on our tin roof
All night
Like stories
We counted till we dozed off
Horses came and went in our courtyard
And they flew, too
Horses make rounds in our memory
Flying in the sky beyond the hills
Falling on our tin roofs
Of adulthood
Sniffing the modalities of such stories
While my aunt, now dead,stood still
In front of the wild plum tree
Horses now coming down the hills
To my mind so gracefully
After so many years
One after another
Together
A feeling
Slicing the morning air
Sun shines in their mane and long tails
Flowing endlessly in my own fluidity
Near an absent wild plum tree
I stand and watch them
Silently
______________
Hush Factory
A road sign stands upturned
Near the mound of our follies
Tiptoe carefully
In this hush factory
We now stock piles of spent memories
Look for dismembered bodies
Of friends, relatives
After the battle in public
They killed their horses before they sleep
Blood still dripping
In the countless tresses
A hand, a leg
A smile without a face
A knife, a wish, a memory
A handful of flesh
A long procession of leaves
Identify a tree
Identify a friend, identify a wish
Their branches rising up to the ceiling
In a prayer for the spent horses
Dreams died in my old eyelashes
I’m still living dangerously in this hush factory
Beware before you tiptoe
Blood gushes out here in torrential flow
Pointless it is, devoid of any root
Why search your pocket
For something which you don’t hold anymore
I guard this silence still with you
Hear it at night, if anything at all
The answers and questions
They float in the whisper
Inside your ear
People are dying everywhere
For my public forum wisdom
You stand only in the corner
Shifting your gaze
Looking for unknown quantum of solace
Nothing really flows past you
How many deaths will I count
Before this season of fallacies is over?
You know it better, you still know it better
Everybody knew
This year would be different
Oranges grew more
In the nearest hill
Like a morning, gold and green
Fine dust particles reclining
on the air
A horde of strong horses
Came into view
They ran through
The trees whole night
Their hoofs smeared
With dust and dew
My aunt, now dead, saw them in flight
Over the hills
Beyond the tea garden
All of them had wings
She smiled
Looking at the sky and me
I don’t know if it was a dream
Or a reality
She tended her long hair
The whole evening
Standing near a wild plum tree
Her hair had magical qualities, they say
At night her hair wove us together
Holding her knee, we used to look at the world
It was lighted and perfumed everywhere
Like a big orange
In every winter
The wild plum tree on our courtyard
Threw its wild fruits on our tin roof
All night
Like stories
We counted till we dozed off
Horses came and went in our courtyard
And they flew, too
Horses make rounds in our memory
Flying in the sky beyond the hills
Falling on our tin roofs
Of adulthood
Sniffing the modalities of such stories
While my aunt, now dead,stood still
In front of the wild plum tree
Horses now coming down the hills
To my mind so gracefully
After so many years
One after another
Together
A feeling
Slicing the morning air
Sun shines in their mane and long tails
Flowing endlessly in my own fluidity
Near an absent wild plum tree
I stand and watch them
Silently
______________
Hush Factory
A road sign stands upturned
Near the mound of our follies
Tiptoe carefully
In this hush factory
We now stock piles of spent memories
Look for dismembered bodies
Of friends, relatives
After the battle in public
They killed their horses before they sleep
Blood still dripping
In the countless tresses
A hand, a leg
A smile without a face
A knife, a wish, a memory
A handful of flesh
A long procession of leaves
Identify a tree
Identify a friend, identify a wish
Their branches rising up to the ceiling
In a prayer for the spent horses
Dreams died in my old eyelashes
I’m still living dangerously in this hush factory
Beware before you tiptoe
Blood gushes out here in torrential flow
Pointless it is, devoid of any root
Why search your pocket
For something which you don’t hold anymore
I guard this silence still with you
Hear it at night, if anything at all
The answers and questions
They float in the whisper
Inside your ear
People are dying everywhere
For my public forum wisdom
You stand only in the corner
Shifting your gaze
Looking for unknown quantum of solace
Nothing really flows past you
How many deaths will I count
Before this season of fallacies is over?
You know it better, you still know it better