Veil

Behind the veil of reason

lives unfettered desire.

I can list a thousand reasons

For why I love You,

But they are all rationalizations,

Born after the fact.

I used to wonder

Why the Cosmos exist

Before I found You.

Mirrors

It wants to know itself:

It breaks in two

So one half can see the other

The parts want to know

Their selves in turn

And so they break again

They split in surreal ways:

They swirl and shine

They twist and ache

They lose themselves

In dense intense realities

Mirrors everywhere!

We live in them

And they in us 

Wind

Trapped in my own creation

Trapped feeling me as I am

But when the wind blows

It blows me and with me my sense of time

With lawless waves I sway

Feel myself ache in this wild display

This lamp is lit and burning

Fumes of fragrant oil

This canvas is drowning

In colours exotic and unseen

This brew is brewing

And feeling itself evaporate 

This instrument strikes itself
And in doing so creates itself

I burn brighter now and then 

To remind me that I am

No Rain

It should be raining like hell,

But the skies are too blue.

Nights are blue too.

Out of one trance,

I'm pulled into another.

Was I awake then? Am I asleep now?

Days are haunting, nights blinding.

Dreams, visions, phantoms, apparitions

Know no time, form, or colour.

What is the truth? Is it worth knowing?

Will it show the way?

Who, here, is sane?

If the cosmos are finite,

Whom do they dance around?

If infinite, at their heart would be you.

I see omens wherever I look.

They laugh at me,

And lie instead.

My faith is weary,

My soul is too.

What do I thirst for, if not for you?

Vartalaap

यार मुझसे कहता है के
सुन्ने वाला भी मैं हूँ  |
अंदर देखो, आँखें खोलो,
रूह और परछाई मैं हूँ  ||

जंगल के हर फल में मैं हूँ,
तक़दीर के हर पल में मैं हूँ  |
सावन के हर कल में मैं हूँ,
रेशम और मलमल में मैं हूँ  ||

- . -

yaar mujhse kehta hai ke

sunney wala bhi main hoon |

andar dekho, aankhein kholo,

rooh aur parchhai main hoon ||

jangal ke har phal mein main hoon,

taqdeer ke har pal mein main hoon |

saavan ke har kal mein main hoon,

resham aur malmal mein main hoon ||

Them

They were puppet masters of the first order, 

with thick supply of slimy hands that rose menacingly from their pulsating innards

and shone dimly with viscous Ichor. 

They did what they wished to do - destroyed what they disliked,
reproduced what they thought proper.

They had countless faces, each more captivating than the last, 

with searing fury and wrath itching behind their deceptively thin hides. 

They consumed the finest and the filthiest, 

growing twofold with each burp

 that made hills with frozen tops shiver and shudder.

They had a billion eyes that were almost always watching. 

They saw but didn't observe at times, and at times tortured entire communities. 

What they sought, we can only wonder, but it was not to be found here,
amidst sprawling meadows and bubbling brooks, 

for they are antitheses.

They came from somewhere deep in space. 

They poisoned our environment, spread vicious diseases, mutilated our land, 

and gave us gold and fish for our troubles. 

They never went back - just took to resting 

in this hopeless nauseous world they had created and seemed to tolerate.

Yowl

Mumba whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Mumba whose skyscrapers idle in the streets like apathetic giants! Mumba whose buildings are judgment! 

Mumba whose mind is pure machinery! Mumba whose blood is running money! Mumba whose clogged veins threaten to rupture!

Mumba whose love is endless oil and stone! Mumba whose soul is electricity and banks! Mumba whose factories dream and croak in the smog!

Mumba whose poverty is the specter of genius! Mumba the incomprehensible prison! Mumba whose fate is a wave of the waiting sea!

-- (with due credit to Allen Ginsberg)