#48: The Silly Villanelle

I hope you never ask me to leave

The memory of this night, or your hand on mine,

And the little lies we have dared to believe.

Maybe your words and my faith deceive

The cynicism we work so hard to align,

And the fear that will soon ask me to leave.

Will you feel my absence, I wonder, or grieve

The emptinesses of space and futility of line

In the syntax of the lies we dare to believe.

Concoctions that arms and legs in tandem weave

To stop and slow the sands of passing time

Have now slowed, in time for me to leave.

The distances that separate us may cleave

Desire and halt hope and show us no sign

Of horizons that lie beyond what we believe.

May my hope find its home on the eave

Of possibilities- may your kisses live on my spine

For long enough for me to not leave

All that lies between our breaths to believe. 

#47: Abadan

Somewhere in the day I found two terrible things:

The first, that the word for never and always is

The same, the exact same, in Farsi, in Arabic.

I never/always forgot how your hands felt

This never/always brings memories I didn't know I had

You never/always remembered best

How to forget,

I never/always forgot the lies,

So the truths taste sweeter.

The second, as I played with nothingness and eternity,

Was the word, your word, the sodden,

Silly, splendidly sappy name that

I had lost, because time is kind like that;

I found it today, because I needed to learn another-

Zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity-

To put a name to the inky depths our

Pasts have heavily sunken into.

I have always/never fled from

The deadweight cinderblocks of remembering.

I apologize for my merciful forgetfulness

That blurs your smile in my mind,

And hope you never/always remember

The word that isn't ours anymore.

#46: Insurances

It will happen one of these days.

You will sit at an old table, meant

For more people, bent 

In wrought iron the way she'd liked.

Except that she isn't here,

And you overcooked the eggs 

And your coffee is warmer than blood and bitterer than bile.

And I will sit across from you,

The fruits whose bitter pips you forgot to spit.

Remember when we used to talk about

The end of morality and why capitalism

Always wins and how wars are quieter now?

This house is quieter, now.

You talk of taxes and subsidies and 

Heirless shop closures.

An inheritance of emptinesses

A legacy of voids I have always rushed

To fill, to feel some sense of

Having mattered. We mutter 

Of the hurt we are too tired to take.

Maybe I don't live 

Vicariously anymore, through your stories

About heroin and the 80s and

Eric Clapton singing for his dead kid.

I drive to work and buy milk

And worry about taxes and

Ask you what to do. 

You always know what to do.

And you pick up a paper,

And ask me to sign.

Just in case, you say.

And turn the page. 

#45: Leaving Your City

in the last minutes of the near-done day, 

we tie knots in the strings of borrowed time.

if you'd asked me to fall over the edge

of your words i probably would have.

it's probably why you wouldn't ask.

you wait for our photograph to blur

a little, for a lazier focus, for 

a little less exposure. 

i wait for my crime to be caught, my

stolen minutes to be found, unfurled,

let loose into merciful forgetting.

we wait for the warm flush

of love to leave, to heave

another sigh, then bid goodbye.

#44: Sestina to the State

Ten days have passed, and yet the wave
You tried to stem continues to grow.
Undefeated by water, wounds or words,
They trudge on, lifting soil-hardened hands
Together: does Lok Kalyan Marg hear them roar,
Or is it enshrined still in the silence you seek?

Do you fear, sir, the price of what your people seek?
The questions they ask cannot now be waved
Away, or drowned by your propaganda machines' roar.
Direst apologies, sir, for the dissent that grows,
For the milling masses that refuse to kiss your hand-
But "give us our rights" aren't dirty words.

Do you dread the weight of the words
That unwavering voices continue to seek?
You thrust batons and gas shells into hands
That cannot clutch at the crest of this wave.
Is your kisaan only worth what he grows?
In the face of travesty, sir, even the meekest roar.

Uninformed rebels, your primetime mouthpieces roar,
Separatists, your legion spreads the sneaky word.
When, sir, will your famously broad chest grow
A conscience, or compunction? As you squabble and seek
Malformed agenda to turn this tidal wave,
Your subverts offer love and langar with folded hands.

You witness spectacles and clap your hands,
Even as whispers twist into a resounding roar;
Smile, sir, nod and give the screen a wave,
And insist you can never hear a dissident word.
The broadcast, of course, will never seek
To let this foolish antinationalism grow.

Sooner or later, sir, you'll find, people outgrow
The tridents of hate you place in their hands,
And instead they begin to dare and seek
Explanations, with impunity and furore.
I hope, sir, your speeches have enough words
To keep you from capsizing in the next wave.

As we grow together and stage an uproar
We join hands and words, we come together
Seeking succour, we wave at you. Inquilaab.