Chimney-sweeperI tie a rope around my stomach And ask to be lowered again. I hang in the air And wipe the four sides of the walls with care: One layer at a time. I sing myself a song As I go lower and lower, Starting from the top Scratching the surface, Every day I see new depths I scrub and scrub, I toil and toil. Sometimes I get crushed Between the narrowing walls. Someday I will reach the bottom Having swept it clean All the way to the ground. I am journeying through my mind And all the darkness that has gathered From years of ungrateful, exhausting use. I run my fingers gently And dream of buried memories. Nothing passes here except for fire Nothing stays except for soot and ash. See-saw The God and the Human (In me) Play see-saw all day To see which one outweighs the other: The human self sins and repents, And the God self forgives and smiles And washes the slate clean; It's a ritual. They do it every day. Until one day The weight of the sins is so heavy, It dries up all the mercy In God's pocket, And with a dull thud The human side Crashes onto the ground, Then into it, And digs a hole -- so deep It reaches the womb of Brahma. On the other end of the see-saw, With the supplicant's sacrifice On bowed knees At His altar, The God Rises And soars Until the sun Is a halo around his head. The Eternal PostmanEach moment is a baton A parcel I must deliver A letter I must carry In my beak From the past To the future The only time I can call my own Is between the picking up Of the feathery gift And the setting down Of the wingéd weight. Under the Broken Bridge He sits stooping with his arms folded In the shady corner under the half-broken bridge. No vehicles pass through anymore. He has felt the pulse of the city throbbing through its veins, Now numbed, now dead. He sees another diabolic lash of the cosmic fang As a lightning flash lights up the world in violet. He prays and waits for the dark to return, like for an old friend. He wishes to be forgotten, drenched or drowned. The first drop leaks through the crack and shuts his eye blind He goes to sleep without praying for tomorrow. In his next birth, he hopes to be a crop So the sky can be his roof and he may learn to love the rain. Waking up I am alarmed out of my sleep
After a night of dreaming Which seems like a few seconds in Paradise. Like bird-shit, I find myself Dropped on earth again (Enacting a daily lapse) --- I collapse into a sanity that seems mad to me. Afraid of being seen naked And terrified of not being seen at all, I wear my language like a robe: Recall the sound of words and greetings and Brush my smile and take on my body I put my muscles to ignition and Drive myself to the car I console myself with photographs of my forefathers Who found solace in this daily trade And would be proud of me if they were here. On my way to work I mourn the freedom of those who sleep all day In railway platforms and under road-bridges, As I hawk my madness bit by bit: I dig drains to guide its flow into a sanitary pit. I bury my screams in jokes and dreams To remember I am sane.
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