and the ruled go hand in hand.Take the plague of 1350,which traveled like a caravanfrom China across the Pamirsto the caravanserai called Egypt;rested here, refilled its water-skinsand moved on to Europe.Twenty thousand died each day in Cairo,Mamluk, Emir and fellahin.But while the people sprouted buboesand the cattle broke out in blainsand the Nile was scaled…
They are naïve, those who suggestthat the fortunes of the rulerand the ruled go hand in hand.Take the plague of 1350,which traveled like a caravanfrom China across the Pamirsto the caravanserai called Egypt;rested here, refilled its water-skinsand moved on to Europe.Twenty thousand died each day in Cairo,Mamluk, Emir and fellahin.But while the people sprouted buboesand…
you do not haveto travel far.If you want to feelhemmed in, you’ll be hemmed in.Look for scarsyou’ll be full of scars.Even light can turninto a cage.The cage of lighthas seven bars.[From: The Map-maker]
Its ways were quite insidiousand odd to say the least.His experience was unhappy:His first stop had been Cairowhere he had gone to drop his cardand call on the Pharoah.They laid a banquet for himAt the Casino Mariotand placed by Pope Shenodahwho but Judas Iscariot!The Turks would be more organizedhe fondly hoped – and damn!He couldn’t…
to find the sea talking to itselfand rummaging among the lines I’ve drawn;looking for something, a voyager perhaps,gnarled as a thorn tree in whose loving hands,these map lines of mine, somnambulant,will wake and pulse and turn to shoreline, sand.The spyglass will alight on features I’ve forecast –cape, promontory – he’ll feel he’s been here,that voyaging…
you do not haveto travel far.If you want to feelhemmed in, you’ll be hemmed in.Look for scarsyou’ll be full of scars.Even light can turninto a cage.The cage of lighthas seven bars.
It is warmbut I feel cold.The doors swing open across the years.For someone who has no ancestral home,who doesn’t havethe long shadow of the pastto ruffle his hair,homecoming gets distorted.Time squints, space wobblesand the visit, encoded as it is,remains undeciphered.2It is cold,the windows are frost-smudged.Counsel yourself, there’s no oneelse to do it.Let hieroglyphsremain dented where…
Fire is holy especially for Zoroastrians,but before fire too there was life.Before the bowstring and the flint arrow sang,there was life.The word is great,yet there was life before the word.We can’t turn romantic and saywe were into bird speech or river-roar then,into the silence of frostor the language of rain.But forest speech and swamp speechcame…
her absence burns me, burns my sideswith love intense.Aphrodite, hail or sleet,I implore you to come down from Crete;my altar smokes, awaits your feet,with frankincense.Your love-demented Sappho pleads:Give me no manna and no mead.It’s love, not wine that Sappho needsyou understand.I haven’t had a word from her!Once again make her my loverin bed and bower…
and long threaded rose molespatterned on her body.The sea brought her and her curved snoutand her rose moles and her eyes still translucentas if half aware and half unawareof the state of her body.The sea came in with her and her scimitar snoutand her translucent eyesgreying into stone.The sea brought her in,wrapped in seaweedand slapped…
