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Acknowledgements:

​​

Manuscript 2 “Open Conversations” put together in Liberia, West Africa, Kyrgyzstan, New York, and finally, put finishing touches on it in Ukraine.  It follows Manuscript No. 1 (now published as “The Sufi’s Garland” by Roman Books, 2011) put together in Kabul, Afghanistan.  Acknowledging the great support and love of my parents, fondness of my children, and most importantly, the steadiness of my wife’s belief.  I offer special acknowledgment to my teachers, dead and living, who have nurtured my writing.

 

Miyosaki says that a profession is that which one does a business that which one creates!

 

In this path, poetry is my profession, and my business that is the value that I profess through poetry, has to, should be, and must be beatific.  My profession is poetry and my business is lives gone from rage to relief.  If McDonald’s is in the profession of selling burgers and their business is measured by locations acquired, then Manav is in the profession of voicing (selling, recording, writing, reciting…poetry) and his business is measured by relief provided (lives relieved/relieved moments/relief in moments of revealed relief).  My business is lives gone from rage to relief.

A Dark Vision: A Prosaic
Nihilism of the Ignored Masses

We, the people, are arses.  We do not starve you of your caviar; we serve you knives to carve out the hearts of those who are serving you caviar.  We, the ones who you look at and not even spare your perfectly foiled spit on, we who give no shits about who wins or loses, we who want you to know that we have no hope nor desire to win, just to see you suffer.  We are the frogs who were kissed a million times, and remained frogs.  We, the weeds who don’t care because we lost count of the number of times we have been whacked for your perfect manicured looking gardens to look fabulous.  We who mow your lawns and sell you weedkill, we the weeds, we know your gardens are sickly and your grasses hollow yet we do not mind giving you weedkill knowing it will kill us. We, the weeds, know that the weedkill will weaken your perfect grass-fed sows for it is not the weeds, we, who can weaken you anymore; we know you have found alternate lives in your metropolis for us to be raked yes, and provide you with what you needs need; and so we went for the weedkiller so your roots and soil become soiled too for we, the weeds know, that the weedkiller will kill us but will weaken you too.  We, the weeds, got tired.  Got tired of being told that we matter.  That all lives matter.  That we have a chance and must have a chance to live.  All while you talked pretty, found ways to kill us and kill us without us having a chance to say anything to you coz you talked sweet. We couldn’t even partake of our deaths coz you took that away from us.  We, the weeds, organized ourselves.  We, the weeds, bought weedkiller not just as a suicide but as a suicide mission pact to destroy the roots of the grassy knolls so that they may never be sure again whether they have anything of pure value left growing in their hills.  We, the laughed at, uninvited weeds do not question whether we belong or know where or what we must be going; we know we belong nowhere, never have, never will so waste not your precious breath calling us further names of our nameless, worthless existence.  We, the weeds, are beyond your cutting aspersions, we are hardened and the only we can revenge our lot is the weedkiller.  We, the weeds, have no other saving grace; we do not belong in your ever growing need and world for faster, better, quicker.  We, the weeds, simply do not belong.  SO before you kill us, o grassmasters, watch us…for we have found the way to weaken you who have led us for far too long…we have found the gardenkiller but we, the useless weeds, have let it call itself gardenmaster, fooling even the fool into believing that he is the gardenmaster.  We know who the gardenmasters have always been; we, the weeds, have decided to bring in the gardenwrecker pretending to be gardenmaster, to wreck not just the grasses, never mind the garden weeds; we, the weeds, have finally found a wrecker who will take down the all the grassmasters.  We, the weeds, are happy we will die, finally, at the hands of the weedkiller, and not you grassmasters, always laughing your way to the grass banks.  We, the weeds, have finally hired and brought in a wrecker who knows how to kill us, meaningfully, not meaninglessly as you masters did all these years.    
We, the weeds, are happy now, real happy…

Ibteda (Opening Salvo)

Shouting in An Old City called Fraidoon in Gandahara (near modern day art and glass blowing magical Afghan city Herat, near Iran border)

…where they sell stuff one can't even imagine

this is an old world, the city of Fraidoon, there

I called out to Fraidoon        
I called out to Fraidoon

I called out to Fraidoon from the top

of the mounds where once his city stood

where once this city stood where once the city stood

           I called out Fraidoon Fraidoon         
Fraidoon Fraidoon Fraidoon

I have come

all the way

listen to me

Fraidoon Fraidoon Fraidoon

I walked all around

Fraidoon Fraidoon Fraidoon

all the ramparts of his fortress

his city

giving away

Fraidoon Fraidoon

after filling my heart

with conversation

with Fraidoon…

 

I left

I Will Die with Hundreds of Papers Unread

(first published in The Stewardship Report,
Nov 29, 2014)

I will die with hundreds of papers unread

Books unsorted, travels undone,

expectations unmet, places un-went,

foods untasted, things unsaid

I will die with thoughts unaired,

hearts un-lightened, glories unlived,

missions unfulfilled, loans unburdened

lovers unrequited, relatives unvisited,

experiences un-had.

 

I will die before my time,

hidden or sought, found unfound,

though time is no one’s slave or friend,

whether young or old, frail or fit, strong or weak, I will die a human death

…and that is all any of us can promise,

that I will die a human death

for I was born and I will die,

when born I promised nothing,

when dead hold not against me that

 

…death is my only surety none too sad nor to be avoided

just lean not heavy when I leave

for all the weight I couldn’t heave,

these mounts I put upon my shoulder

those weights were mine and mine alone

let them go with me when I

…on earth in heaven or in between lie.

Dearth of the Cherry Blossoms

Rough winds do blow in may 
melancholy notes travel on zephyr ends
delivering what was left of the time
when cherry blossoms blossomed
for just the ten days of April
adorning the national verse month
one cannot tell if the blooming buds
do know or care to know when they
gave light or meaning to mean March souls
that they may have saved a marriage
or a man or woman on their last thread
would they be pleased if they knew
that those Silk Road walks by the Oxus river
culminated at JFK
or that joshing grin one March afternoon
would have an April day
One cannot know nor say
if one feels this way
for a cherry blossom
or the hem of a skirt,
a curve of trousers
or that familiar feeling
of what the fledglings
knowingly
sweetly
softly
call

aimer

An Ode to “Whatever!”

Ah childhood where everything was “Whatever!”

Gone, squirrelled away cross-legged on a beach memoire,

And now when life’s spring, youthful, and summer arrives…

My dear, dear promising me, how shall I welcome thee?

 

Desolate can be its days yet seamless the nights

Falcons and nightingales I seem to see and hear

Blind peacocks mislead, spreading naiveté

While adulthood beckons round the bend

 

Ah but youth first—being and becoming are my easy pickings

What shall I do with my fins and feathers?

Shall I give them wings to fly or gills to glide

Or shall I await the tide to which way scatter

 

Easier indeed to drift and dither,

Let father time like an endless sitter,

Princesses and Princes we feign, we forger

Yet fear and wonder can I make up when older, weaker?

 

What shall I do with all that’s me, I ponder

Shall I do such no fellow man may hunger?

Shall I be such so troubles of friends asunder?

Shall I invent, imagine fuels like vapor fire cylinders?

 

Thus seized of purpose, on we thrust

Take some leaps over fence and thorn,

Burying “Whatever!” forever, exclaim—

I, too, am finally, fully born!

Oh those red tulips are indeed not prettier than your lips
And the sloping meadows will never understand
why when you lie on them and roll the way of pebble round
that heaven cannot be doubled yet doubled it was found

And when came leaders of Cyrus and Ashoka  and Alexander's names
And asked what happened to these lands we conquered, what became
If only their progeny would look askew and see
that nothing more glorious need be than my beautiful dame

And from a distance bellows a wind for fair is fair
it needed to go and took petals away
I looked my love, weary through wind's way
for summer winter and that treacherous fall to go away

Ah when love my love felt bold enough
And trembled to touch those lips with mine
Oh those red tulips were no match
for those pucker lips setting sail
a thousand ships

Freedom's Lips
Love Rhythm

Love is no pot to be filled

  Nor sorrow to be relived

Love is a canter

    In to the ever ever emptying

Saaz* of the universe

 

(Saaz…song, music, musical instrument, rhythmic flow)

To see an object as an object not a solution…

In non-depression, non-manic, a glimpse of the real, the true.  How painless, how simple, how less it has panic of the impending arrival, in fact none at this moment in the darkened …Do I feel.  None…

 

To see a book as a book not a solution

To see a CD as a CD not a solution

To see a place as a place not a solution

To see a lover as a lover not a solution

 

To see the beloved (even the eternal)

As the beloved not a solution

 

To see the sought as the sought not a solution

To see search as search not a solution

To see a sight as a sight not the solution

To see the silt as silt not solution

 

To see the solution as a solution not The Solution

I am not drawing.  I am being drawn.

 He is drawing me.

I am not seeking.  I am being sought. He is seeking me.

I am not seeing.  I am being seen.

He is seeing me.

I am not kissing.  I am being kissed.

 He is kissing me.

I am not leaving.  I am being left.
 He is leaving me.

I am not talking.  I am being talked.
He is talking me.

I am not chasing.  I am being chased.

He is chasing me.

I am not saving.  I am being saved.
He is saving me.

I am not searching.  I am being searched.

He is searching me.

I am not seeking.  I am being sought.

He is seeking me.

I am not crying.  I am being cried.

He is crying me.

I am not weeping.  I am being wept.

He is weeping me.

I am not silent.  I am being silenced.

            He is silencing me.

I am not speaking.  I am being spoken.

He is speaking me.

I am not quiet.  I am being quietened.

He is quieting me.

I am not lying.  I am being lied.
He is lying me.

I am not changing.  I am being changed.

He is changing me.

I am not cheating.  I am being cheated.

He is cheating me.

I am not charioteering.  I am being charioted.

He is charioting me.

I am not claiming.  I am being claimed.

He is claiming me.

I am not sinking.  I am being sunk.
He is sinking me.

I am not solving.  I am being solved.

He is solving me.

I am not straying.  I am being strayed.

He is straying me.

I am not seething.  I am being seethed.

He is seething me.

I am not me.  I am being me.

He is being me.

I am not seeking.  I am being sought.

 He is seeking me.

 

I am not skirting.  I am being skirted.

            He is skirting me.

I am not



I have no soul.

 He has my soul.

 

​

​

Who is the Agent,
What is the Act
Silence is a language too

she understood my silences.  she had her share of difficulties but she understood my silences.

A Stormy Afternoon in Voinjama

The smell of rain, Liberian rain

Young boxers, ballers; boys of the battalion

A light wind swaying birches, troubled...
I lost myself years ago

and I sit on a white plasticene

in the doorway of my make-shift

in a blue suede and gray with brown, local tawny socks, and black

shoes, and yes, an ID, an ID that gives me strength, access, loss of

and presence of meaning

 

Why did I leave love

 

Why did I fill faith in me

to save, to work, to grow,

to be one away from the world

 

I am now

distant,

now distant as I couldn't see then

And there are beauties here

and flashes of light and roars of the sky-man

just as loud and just as bright

 

Why did I leave love

 

I have a bad back but I'm still young

Yet I'm not sore for haven’t been sung

Red Leaved Rainforest of Voinjama

Red leaf rainforests of Voinjama

Need I say more.

 

Need I describe to you that roads do not exist (a proposal is underway)

Need I tell you it isn't beautiful (in ways that you are packing it now and for away)

Need I tell you there is plenty of eat (and people are hungry but not in a way you let change fall)

 

I need to tell you for they are Africans, West Africans, Liberians to be sure

And their voice is the same as their complexion: surface

 

I see you turning, turning to someone, someone 'civilized'

some who can explain and ease you, someone slightly

light, lighter in sight

at least yellow or brown alright

 

I see , you see we don't exist

the place does

we never did

A Dull Dead

A dull dead is here

 

It pervades the boys and civil alike

It takes the kids and the 'with kids' alike

it's someone's house we call 'field'

affects us still, those on and off, alike

 

A dull dead is here

 

I cannot hear the cuckoo calling

I have seen my (b)earings spike

 

A dull dead is here

Of Quotes, Misquotes, and Greatness…

a poet is great only when he is misquoted

...and corrected

 

 

(…by some to his face, unbeknownst, that he is the poet; by others, unwary of the wastefulness of verification, in his absence)

Love Spoke And Reason Laughed, Reason Spoke and Love, well, still loved…

“A belief well founded in a task well planned is being on the road to success,” said Reason.  Replied Love, “Anyone can look and talk good in a suit. It’s those who can without one, who’ll go far in life.” Reason Laughed, Reason Spoke and Love, well, couldn’t help still…and still loved…

Insomnia

You come to me at odd hours

when fatigued and drenched I sit there

 

tired and sweaty this final crunch

I pass the hill and you meet me there. 

 

The waxing moon, the winking stars

The fading sun, the lingering fears. 

 

What contains the night no one can fathom

realizing your need you come to soothe. 

 

The phantoms rejoice the circles they form

The weird dances these ghosts perform. 

 

Scare thee soul, the fears amount.

Unrest splattered, cleanse only by you. 

 

Dark mysteries revealed, several others confounded

A faint smile a distant squirm. 

 

Try as I do for you to come

The life I feel, the yearning unrequited. 

 

Close my eyes close the ears. 

Succumb as I do to the tough life. 

 

Pain you surround me my body and soul. 

Sleep—you come and rescue me…I love you.

Dishonorable Tomato

Honor must be protected, truth avoided

Truth is made of dangerous stuff

Potatoes and tomatoes and poison

Subtle mixes of antidote and curry

Death of Romeo

Has my love finally died today

Has it ceased to finally desist

Has no more anguish filtered through

Has my love axed itself too

Witness Existence

If nobody exists

then do you?

 

If witnesses were imaginary

Is memory created

(of the events)?

 

If Adam was the first

And there was no Eve

Would Adam have existed

False Dichotomies

I do not bide the dichotomy king nor slave divide

for me the world is wide,

and wider still is love's tide  

 

and so may I get the strength

to tide, and never walk

but in His stride

Judge Her O Great Patriarch

Don’t judge; listen to her

Don’t judge; listen to her

Don’t judge; listen to her

Don’t judge;

Don’t

 

Don’t try to help; listen

Don’t try to help; listen

 listen

    Acknowledge…

The Unspeakable

This leaves me bereft

Swilled over, no desires within

Banished and blocked by

This

 

This that doesn’t allow definition

Or recognition

A moment even of salvation

Dead many times over

 

This that is troubling

This that is tangible

As a wasp of thin

air…this that is behind all this

 

this that knows me

but not me this

this that is sadly mine

tis that thy would lovingly bestow to thine.

Alas, this, but this, is truly, sadly mine

This…that doesn’t even let me hint

Or give you so much as a whiff

 

This

The Curse of the Youthful Lover

With every gentle breeze

And every little sneeze

The love of your life

Misses the love of mine

 

The daydreams of times we’ll spend with each other

And the golden memories of time already spent together

Mingle beautifully and echo a wonderful chime

With the only dissonance coming from time

 

Time that separates two lovebirds apart

And distance that makes connecting hard

Are all but obstacles in this love divine

One day I’ll be yours and you’ll be mine

 

That day will dawn with a strange halo

The sun will possess a different yellow

The fields will slowly lose their mist

And slowly reveal its beautiful cyst

 

The cyst will resemble a shell of pearls

And from its core as it unfurls

Will appear the two lovebirds divine

United forever in space and time

 

Or so it seemed in that moment of time

Until a savage of this world saw our exuberant smiles

And shot an arrow and left us dying

Still united in that cyst sanguine

The curse of the Indian female

My hands know not how to touch

When the heart is not with it

 My hands are tied

Oh I have cried

Many a thousand sigh

For you not I

For I, I have it all

Women buds booze balls

You who in your home unwed

Can’t bulk, balk even quietly sulk

For your gender in our culture so fair

Isn’t allowed to live, nor die, my mare

Can Help

I am not helped

I can

Help

 

I am not helpless

I can

Help

 

People do want to help

But I

Can

Help

Orienting the Lost Migrant

As I went through camp on my daily soul search, Orientation Advisor asked if she could orient or direct.  And I, I just cried, an outer unsoft, ungainly cry.

 

Take me across, yeah, across to here, where,

Here where I can hear

You raking

Weeding, careening

The blossom

The foolish immortal

Thousands of poets of years before

Remind me of an act fully futile

They who die trying to change nature ultimately

Die

 

Observe and report that’s all you can

So echo the past and present blunder

For not the attempt of that which is,

Failure

 

Ha Ha I laugh, I laugh, Ha Ha I laugh

I challenge and wield my unique power

That which has not been attempted or achieved with thunder

That’s which I fight and accomplish daily—

Improve nature

From its future

 Whose Eye is this?

Oh in decisions big and bigger still

I speak to deep, of deeper still

“The I” I call this observing eye

This I

Looking at I

In the eye

Aye?

Naye?

Ah but that is simply now

I sleep at night able to quell

And sigh no more

Why no more?

 

The “I”

Looking at I

In the eye

 Whose Eye is this?

Oh in decisions big and bigger still

I speak to deep, of deeper still

“The I” I call this observing eye

This I

Looking at I

In the eye

Aye?

Naye?

Ah but that is simply now

I sleep at night able to quell

And sigh no more

Why no more?

 

The “I”

Looking at I

In the eye

Young, Dumb, and Ready to…

Oh I hear in college everyone wants to come

They just need to hear, “Here!”

It was never about you

I was not born to think of me

To think of you

Of my me’s and you’s

I was not born to think of you

 

As mine

Or your own

I was not born

To think at all of you

Each head sprouting, sporting that fiery

One part teary one part querying askance

What of me?

Are you too

Joining the NRI and the PIO

Generically uncary, tentacles looming

Food food food; stomach; liver, cranium.

Are you too

Joining the busy bees

To be the un-busy

A day soon

What of me?

What of me?

 

I was born

To think

And think of

YOU

Losing my best self

A cloud of fog surrounds me

And shrouds my body and soul

I wonder if I will lose myself

If I run fast enough

 

I run a hundred yards, turn back

I have lost my past

I “be” happy, run some more

Funny, I lose some more!

 

The cocoon of whiteness I drift in

The purity of the blank outstretches

Carry me yonder and yonder

Until I know I have lost all I had

 

Or so I think

Until there is no yonder

Then it is me again

No one to turn to, nowhere to run

 

And then there is, an image,

One I wouldn’t discern, at first,

A mirage it seemed from afar

But Kaboom! It materialized.

 

A dying tender white dove

With an arrow piercing the heart

Writhing in pain, too beautiful to be earthly

Yet, so tragically mortal…

 

Approach as I do, this lovely creature

What’s ensuing, in the dark.

Empathetic as I am, the arrow I take out,

The bleeding doesn’t cease but the dove does.

 

I befuddle, was that a dream

Get up, look around and walk a few steps,

The fog clears, a strange heaven appears,

A place matched by none me trodded on.

 

The arrow still in my hand, I turn around,

And see what cause me to comprehend

Take that arrow and stab my throbbing heart…to be one with the bleeding you.

Love, Bread, and Peace

​

No man I know has ever wandered

If not for the disjunctive love or work

Masking it, calling it lust, a dog’s quest

Painfully revealing personal unrest

 

Why this ominous un-peace

Where is my tranquil, my soul’s bread and cheese

For no man I know has fully achieved

Both love and work, and total peace

Why do I have to go?

Alone not lonely

Sitting cross-legged

Like 34965 times before

Grass mower close by

Purple and pink skirt walks by

 

Lots of ink

Flowing yet contained

By paper, by plastic

By carpals, by construct

Of mind, state, surround

 

Church missionaries at a distance

Approaching, undeniably fierce

The conversion quota they need fill

Or no heavens for them, they shiver

 

Moving, shifting

My tarsals, my metatarsals

Away away, to be with

Just me, myself and I

The Useless, No Good Poet

He uses metaphors,

When others would use swords instead

Walks straight to his innocuous notebook,

Others waiting to be called to the battleground

 

The ink bleeds out his mighty pen

He is enraged, grabs his 8 by 11 at its collars

Chests pouring pints of red and white blood

Some of these could be used for donation he thinks

 

He is crying, his pamphlets aren’t published

No way to reach masses, or fellows in the guild

Thousands of eyes blankly staring, sky wards, wide open,

Wonder if they would care what those pamphlets contained

 

Opens his caches

Braves it more

Publishes them all by himself

Puts his money where his mouth is

 

Hops a third class sleeper rail

Forms a network, passes them at each city

Bishkion!  Thha!  Thha! there goes another one

“Those AK-47s sure work” so laughs the dying sipaahi

 

Galvanize! Wake up! Electrify! Stop the madness!

I deserve it I spent many an hour and inkpots

My son is dying, you want me to listen to what…

Bullshit!  Has your finger ever bled, you piece of goat meat!

 

No it hasn’t actually, you are right, not at all!

But I’ll tell you what has

My brain, every nerve, every neuron, in disbelief

How many sons-less fathers and mothers will it take…

The Rapist

You want me, you want me so bad

I don’t see it, I don’t see it at all

Your eyes seeking and searching,

My fully clothed body already naked

 

You cannot wait

Eyeing across university ave.

You tell me later, now I just wait for bus 63

You start to move sideways

 

I notice you, I don’t suspect

Impeccably dressed and well shaved

A man of your look and manner

Certainly not one with any intentions…no way

 

You cross the street, casually

And move to the bus stop

A couple is sitting by me

I am not afraid, oh no, not me

 

You politely sit, say hello, I am Charlie

I am tired, I reply briefly

The couple schmoozing, you notice them,

They don’t like attention, they leave…

 

Suddenly I am all alone

With you, and no one else

The place is well lit, the city of Irvine a big one

And me, certainly not me, “ain’t no one touching me!”

 

Besides I talk to you

You talk nice and sweet

The boy next door

You couldn’t even think of…

 

A gun, a gun you point at me

Out of nowhere, you push me

Command me to follow quietly

Paralyzed I am with shock, and fear

 

You follow behind, I quietly move,

Thinking of ways, not knowing what’s next

​

 

Charlie I ask, “What are you doing?” as if of a friend
You yell, “Shut up Anna.  Move on.”

 

I quietly cross that well lit avenue

With not a soul in sight, I wonder,

Tears well up, my kids flash before my third eye

I just want to live, just for them O God!

 

You push me towards a university classroom

I just hope and pray for this to end

You are ruthless and callous

Suddenly you remind me of my long lost brother

 

He was ruthless and callous, too,

Just like you

Did he also…I wonder

Did he also what? Oh no!!!

 

It hits me thoroughly and deep,

There is no escaping

I try to run, but my legs are frozen,

I fall, get slapped, and pushed closer towards the room

 

On reaching the room 1024

Keys fumbled for, grabbed from right pocket and used,

Opened and shoved in, my mind astray,

Keys! Keys! This guy is University faculty or staff.

 

Once in the room, he is at peace,

While I reach my height of unease

I beg, implore, kiss his feet, kneel before God,

Slowly but surely, then forcefully, you take my sweater off

 

I run around the room, the room is square and small

You grab me, throw me on the floor

I hit a desk; you push a few of them away

Then get on top, slap me once again

I am numb now can’t struggle

You are happy to see that

You Charlie…violently unbutton my shirt

Tear my bra, lay me raw

 

Defeated helpless faithless I lay

Don’t know if you have herpes or AIDS

But foremost you brutally, brute-ly violate

My buttons, my jeans, and today I wore no underwear

 

Twenty minutes, thirty, then forty

Should have worn undies

This class isn’t ending, teaching, demoing

Every step, every plan, every rejection known to man

 

While lying there I remember

This dear Physics graduate student friend of mine

He always argued, rape-an act enjoyed by the woman

Always between two active people…if he was watching:

 

Eighty minutes, you have violated me every possible way

You get up, grab your clothes

Devastated, Crying, Relieved it has stopped

You change your mind, back with the knife

 

And again I look away, then straight at you

You still look no different

The boy next door

You couldn’t even think of…

 

Me not me no way never

Can I say this anymore…

Utter Depression

No man

No woman

No child

No offshore/springs wild

 

Quiet

Completely

Disturbance

None at all

 

Word

None

Touch

None

 

Eat

None

Drink

None

 

Tantrums

None

Whining

None

None, none at all

 

Crying

None

Laughing

None

 

Praying

None

Playing

None

 

Thirst

None

Hunger

None

 

Living
none, no, not, ever, never, at all

Unforgiving Inner Parent

My alter burned

Toiled; toileted

Many a sleepless week

Many a despairing eve

 

Despising my self for

Encumbering me

Cursing me, sparing me no rod

How dare he

 

My self quiescently bearing

Aware of the forthcoming leaves

And flowers and fruits; willing

To bear the shove, hail and chills

 

Now that it is here, the diploma

Hey human, the self questions

Wasn’t the pain worth it.  Don’t you

Have the flowers and fruits and leaves.

 

Sure I do, dear self, sure I do but when

My dear, will they be sweet

Lies My Lover Told Me

Ends are not known

Of strings

That tie and bond

Man and Mighty

 

For extend they do

Like DNA

Histones and all

Twisting, turning, binding

 

And like true DNA they are

Original

A fingerprint

Inimitable

 

Errors happen

As in DNA processing

Endos and Ligos help

Sorrys and Roses do too

 

True love me

For maybe you don’t and I don’t

And we don’t and we question

And soon it is bye-bye and we die.

Mortgaging My Life, All For My First Wheels

Barely legal

Barely employed

A small diner

The university cafeteria

 

5 bucks an hour

Serving main entrees

Washing plates

Giant dishwasher

 

Larger than life

Desires within

Running the country

Of birth, not of present dwelling

 

Only one step

Only one a day

End of the year

Nineteen nine five

 

Walked with fervor

Subterranean pride flow

Into the dealership

“Where’s my new car?”

 

They all look at me

Then the man within

The undeniable firmness

Show me the way

 

The way to the new cars, that is

I chose a black stallion

They threw over the keys

I drove away

 

Not exactly this simple

But close

I signed my life away

And drove away with another

My “SHARP” holds what my sharp mind cannot

The imagination it captures in words

The programmed monotone of everyday life…

Interspersed with an imaginative task or two

 

The 9 am wake-up alarm, the 9:15 shower and shave

The 9:30 freeway commute, the 10 am push and shove

The cars roaring around the lot, the parking spot,

Limited by the bottleneck, the population explosion

 

The meeting at 11, the lunch at 12

The usual baloney, the hackneyed jokes

The pager bawls, its time to call

The corporate boss, the big project

 

At 1 my planner beeps, beckons me back

To my desk where my hand belongs

The John Hancock’s the documents need

The silly memos I pass around

 

At 5 I walk to my Jaguar

Or so I dream and perceive my Fiat

My planner says buy some cheese;

My car finally starts, I jerk along

 

The Alpha-Beta I enter, a lavish enterprise

I get lost in the myriad of possibilities

I become fascinated, I buy a lot

And of course obey my planner’s command

 

I set the cheese and all in the car

And go home as my planner demands

The Stupid, or Organized…
Till Death Do Us Apart

I don’t quite remember when we met first

Or what’s the first thing we did together

And I don’t quite remember the second or even the third

Or exactly the millions that followed

 

But I did remember this and still do

Every year, year after year

The thread through our glorious 25

Simply put, you were there

 

Yes, my dear, you were there

You were there at every nook and every corner of my life

When friends were busy and family afar (too far away)

You were there

 

When fevers ran high and throats were sore

You were there

When spines twisted and my tennis knees hurt

You were there

When close ones died and new ones came

You were there

When new courses were taken and businesses ventured

You were there

 

When the children were young and needed your hand

You were there

When ugly lawyers knocked and legally stole our gold

You were there

When some colleagues and friends were less than friendly

You were there

 

When I felt lonely, sad, dejected, and alone

You were there

When I knew not who to turn to

Your magical you were there

Your magical you

 

Ah, what choice ingredients he must have had

When choosing to concoct a creation like you

The elaichi, the gulukand, the kaju, the laddoo

It’s all you

 

And now that I look forward

A glow, an effervescent glow radiates my eyes

A fleeting thought, my joy abounds

The golden road; the golden jubilee

Just you and me; silver 20 and 5 gone

To Golden, 25 and more to go

 

Only one thing left for me to say

I’ll be there.  Will you?

What my possible, potential lover is missing — The Sass that’s Me

He who hasn’t seen an ocean in his life

Is missing an ocean of life

He who hasn’t seen a mountain in his life

Is missing a mountain of life

He who hasn’t seen a waterfall

Is missing a waterfall of all that’s life

And he who hasn’t seen, of all, me

Is missing a whole lot, and of me, even though

He’s not missing me

Speaking to You When You are Not There

I love you and that is mostly true

Only there is no me anymore

Apparition of appearances

That’s all I have been

Some here, some not so here

Yet

Never too there, either

Not free or freeing

Bound, to self and your’s

Better, willingly so

Not wholly, just full and fully

No you, no I, no morrow, alas

No we for the rest to simply just see

Constant Lament

Chances lost; places ungone

People unmet; things not done

Lament, bemoan, soft cries

No tears, just pearls formed, unformed

Heights un-scaled, goals unachieved

Loves unrequited, mates unconsummated

Lament, bemoan, soft cries

No tears, just pearls formed, unformed

Expectations unmet; murals unmet

Delicacies untasted; morals untarnished

Lament, bemoan, soft cries

No tears, just pearls formed, unformed

Racism, Over-education, and Model Minority—Freedom Lost

​

I burned my degrees

One fine day

From the ashes

I created

My desires

 

I burned my knowns

One fine day

From the ashes

I created

My unknowns

 

I burned my references

One fine day

From the ashes

I created

My essences

 

And I burned my past

One fine day

In the ashes

I saw

My fears forecast

 

So I burned my fears

That fine day

From those ashes

I started creating

A fiery future

Died of a Global Heart

And he died.  And they did a post mortem.  And they mused the cause, the causes.  And hummed and hawed and finally said, “This man had no heart; not for the last 50 years!”  He was 73.

The endlessly lost migrant

I do not allow you illness

Neither wish to become an American eagle

At age and stage of fluttering peacock manes

Nor inflict I with transferent whatever ails

You, you I do not allow any illness

Illness that clogs my body wheels

Oiled in and out, departs in to out

When flag-bearer looks un-fresh, un-green

The red, bright coaches become dead, pale down and out

Only My Heart Smiles When it Sees You

there are some seeing

whom we break into a smile

and then some

seeing who

nothing is visible;

 

only the heart smiles.

Unaware of my weaknesses

Roses do not know thorns

Roses of Kosovo

Roses do not have senses

Roses

Do not have thorns

 

Roses do not know fences

They only know

 

How to be born.

Love is not a house to be possessed

I am not going to stop

Loving you

Just because you don’t

I have love to give and

It is mine, and mine to give

 

I will not stop giving

Love

Just because you don’t

 

Your love is your’s, your’s

To give, your’s to keep

My love, mine, mine love

Mine

Between Love and Not Love

I can’t say I have not fallen in love

And I can’t say I have;

It is too early for either

First Aid to the Hurt at Heart

Go to the quietest one

They are not crying or yelling

They can’t.

Go to silences.

First Aid before they allow or

Before family

Or friends or

 

(the love)

 

is found.

Drifter

Not for me to swift through vales of beauty with Martin

Mine to drift, to sail through heights of Villa Escudero

Corruption Digestion Issues

I won’t for that which my heart will not allow

My stomach

Will not digest

Traumatized Birds

Listen to the Birds

In the Balkans

 

They will not balk

At telling

The truth

Of trees

 

And will chirp away

The silence

Of axes

 

Listen to the birds perched

Unafraid

Of the Serbs

Listen to their voices

Unafraid

Of their choices

 

Listen to the birds of Pristina

They sing the region’s

Rudraveena*

 

 

Rudraveena* - sitar like instrument that evokes the melancholy in music (of India and sadnesses everywhere)

The Long Arm of Abuse

Self-censored

Self-silenced

Miles away miles miles miles

 

Away

Still silenced

Censored

Far from sensors

In India

In Nuyorica

But

In me

Still

In Kosovo

In me

Of Victims and Killers

We are all victims at some level

Of someone or something

Yet

We are all victimizers at some level

Of someone or something

(the latter harder to digest)

Heart Smiling Friend

there are some

seeing whom we break
into a smile

 

and then one

seeing who

nothing is visible;

 

only the heart smiles

Jumpy Skin of the Drugged Wanderer

I see so many

Visions

I could

Die

I drink

Wine

Cognac

Just to contain

My gizzards

And the jumping

Jackals

Within

In

The skin

Sexual Exchanges Between Flower Fangs and Honey Bees

flowers riding motorcycles on the streets of Kosovo...male pollen honking away at female stigmata on vespas showing off their sweet honey fangs

Anarkali Sweet Daughter of the Development Sea

If not for the development heart at sea 
I shall not have met, sweet pea,
your mother on that beautiful eve
whilst celebrations were on for Uncle Bee

It was a magical time my little blossom
when the winds of war had left that earth
With the season of fruits and flowers on song
A sweet one, your mum, for peace arrived

Whilst nations and regions set us apart
Home is after home at heart
And a simple hug while dancing still
signaled the time to settle at last

So sweet pea we started thus
And now you're here a mere six months
For years we to each other showed love 
to bring dear thrush our best in trust

And now dearest pomegranate dear little bud
though father papa your pops lives far away, 
in each child, baby, little girl's eyes, sees 
sweet ringing laughs of his six month old Anarkali

A True Nest

Comfort, personal, together presence

Yet air, wings, safe

Without doors, unhatched, unsecured:

Safe only by coziness felt, the need for being.

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Disclaimer: All intellectual and content copyrights reserved for Author: Manav Sachdeva /and in all his aliases i.e. Manav Sachdeva Maasoom / Maasoom Shah / Maasoom Shah Aliyaar.  Any infringement of copyrighted material without permission, or any plagiarism will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of international law

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