My Love’s New Edition

 

Long time ago, my love, I promised

I would take you dancing by starlight,

take you to a dream-like paradise,

feed you the drink of immortality,

make us unforgettable history.

 

All of this was mistake, perhaps.

I even promised eternal youth. Menaka-like.

 

I can now tell you

I come from the soil.

I come from a flower.

 

I can buy you a sari,

feed you in restaurants,

and walk to the crossings with you.

 

I can be true to you,

I can be loyal to you,

my love, I can love you while I live.

 

You see,

flying towards Heaven,

I had forgotten to climb the stairs to my house.

Dreaming of immortality

I had nearly forgotten to live.

 

I made the earth cry,

insulted human heart.

 

But now I can say confidently,

I come from the soil.

I come from a flower.

 

My love, I can make you the woman of the poet’s pen,

I can make you the mother of a king like son,

I can accept defeat, I can love,

I am human, I can be human – for you.

I can love you, protect you as long as I live.

 

Look in my eyes,

I bring to you my love’s new edition.

I emerge from the ashes of my past

and here, in my eyes,

sparkling like my new poetry collection,

like the fresh flowers you have on the table this morning,

I bring to you my love’s new edition.

 

And it is here, in these eyes,

that you  find me

and I find you

every time.

 

The Remains

 

My love,

dreams are only for the night.

 

They are covered by a vest and a shirt,

by the howling of

unfortunate foxes and jackals.

 

Everything else is like the cavern by the village side

that we enter while there is still a little light.

On our chest – we find a pile of files from the office

and the weight of politeness and responsibilities.

 

Before we wash our face,

we look upon it on the mirror at the tableside,

and tell the person we see, ourselves,

that dreams are only for the night.

 

Dreams are only for the night –

they are true as long as we sleep

and as soon as we wake from black ignorance,

early, by the temple of the sun where virgins offer flowers –

we tear, pick off the petals of our dreams by hand.

 

(Today, I have buried my love

on a terrace far away. The love

that I burned for my parents says …

“See. Do you see there, a tree

that will bloom in flowers has grown again.”

Many times I have found yellow flowers there).

 

You live for yourself less, for others more.

Life is an institution. For it to have meaning,

for it to have history and a firm foundation,

you burn your life.

 

Dreams are unsatisfied souls

that scare us all our lives

in bed every night.

And in the sunlit mornings

weeping red tears that glisten upon leaves:

these souls are sacrificed.

They are like slaughtered pigeons, I feel sorry for them,

these gentle, gentle, dreams of mine.

 

But, then, life is an institution,

you respect and uphold life.

We unclench our fists,

stretch out our palms to live.

 

I shake off cigarette ashes

from pillows, from quilts,

along with scattered fragments of my sleep

in the mornings.

You find moths

with wings that are burned

or broken.

They had swarmed at the lantern,

they had come from far away – past the hills

and like our dreams, they are fallen.

 

Meanwhile, hands sunk in a pool of blood,

their own blood, dreams, belching,

lift their heads at the sun.

The sun is past half curtained windows

and they are stayed silent, incapable, dying.

 

We are left to take small steps, politely, towards living.

Each of us bears our dying

to the burial grounds.

Each of us takes our own visions

to the burning grounds.

We lift our love and our incapacities,

they are like lifeless insects, from red pools of sleep.

 

In the morning light,

as soon as the living start to rub their eyes,

we begin the suffering.

Every step fulfills the needs of another

and every morning we carry

the night’s dead dreams on our shoulders.

 

My love,

Dreams are only for the night.

 

At Planchet’s Table

 

Yes!

I am exhausted.

 

On each line that stretches across my palms

I have made roadblocks to secure a truce.

I wish to be away from this war.

 

I will rest.

I pause for a healing.

 

Enough! I cannot lift the world

with these hands.

Only this cup of tea.

Pay attention.

Or walls will rise,

people against people, as in Berlin.

 

Whew! I am tired.

I need to lean on elbows my todays

at Planchet’s table.

I need to hang my past on each eyelash

a little while.

I need this rest.

I am exhausted.