On the frozen wings of sleep - Gillani S. (ink book reader TXT) 📗

Table of contents

1. The Lodestar

2. Make-Believe

3. Hearth

4. Return

5. On the frozen wings of sleep

6. Walking pyramids

7. Shot star

8. A monk

9. A titled Lampshade

10.Dusk


The lodestar

In the pale winter of Peshawar
slip out hundreds of tiny imps, kissing
and licking at our doors and walls.
Aghast, we dig our heads in the sand
and whisper ancient magic.

From the wilderness is rising a tall, dark shadow
feeding on the silence;
on the secrets of our carcasses.

Has the citadel been toppled before?


Make-believe

The room is dead white.

Garingly a smile comes in and blots
the walls with a supreme purple. Curtains cough
to one another and whisper to the streets. They are flirtatious and run down to the edge of the sky.

Birds won’t lie;
snow is licking the sun.

Hours tickle the back of day
as time wanders through the empty bottles by the desk.
A chuckle.
Another.
Twilight is distrubed by the bubbles from the bulb.

The room is half purple now
and meddles with the night.


Hearth

Waiting for the sun
like an old man
counting death’s footsteps

my breath stinks
and those
to whom I have been
(or perhaps
I am) dear,
sleep.

Their warm bodies
give out life, which bounds itself
around the sides of their eyes;
those smile.

Outside
the frost trodden grass
is black.


Return

I remember being a slow child,
always getting the reds.
It was my elder sister who
led the way and I became
the angel. Flying everywhere
for the smaller bits
and pieces of stuff. My mom’s
friend smiled
her white teeth at me—
I was the angel.

And when my father came back
from work, we watched TV with God.
I thought we were salvaged.
Until the clouds gave way to the sun
and the rain dropped dead.


On the frozen wings of sleep.

It is getting silent.
The grey of the street is gradually visible.
The few faces lurking in the darkness
are dissolving into one another.

From beyond the moon you come
and visit the earth.
Oh the deep black silence.

As you rustle through the barren deserts,
sleep is screaming on cold streets.
Yellow mist nestles around each dwelling.
A baby whimpers.

With cat arrogance,
you tramp along the sickened peace.
You smell of age!

Wild darkness.
Wild darkness on the loose
runs from hither, to thither;
A free man

am I,
from whose heart every moment
a snatch?

As you slip back beyond the moon
it rains sunlight.


Walking Pyramids

The day has gone purple.
The sickly sun sulks behind the sea;
It hisses -- I have come a long way.
Those big crystal stars have shrunk
into sighing flakes. They fall
on the grass, whispering legends
to the winds and trees. Towards midnight
sleek fish come out of the green lake
mumbling prayers or magic;
they disappear again.

I am like a dark, black rose
grown over my own shadow.

Moon unloads its myths before me.
I gulp them down and sleep upon my stomach--
A white violin falls and breaks. Dark notes slip
down the page and prickle my feet. I sigh
for songs that are crucified. And curl
with the tunes which burn on stake.
I am the broken string; I hang
in silence.


Shot star

The world is neutral.

----Pounding in the resplendent pattern
----are my drunken dreams.

And I am alive.


A monk

In the garden
the robin and the rose
carry my tale
on their wings.

Silently
the moon creeps up
and hangs on the naked wire.
A drop of moonlight
quivers
on its black arm
and utters not
one
syllable.


A tilted lampshade

The windows are silent
winds still, life like rain is dead straight
or perhaps totally washed on the edges, and narrow
like the streets which carry a dozen desultory smiles.

I am aware of the eyes of women that brought me up:
laughters tinkling through teacups; painted walls;
a hundred nailed portraits, above and below
spiraling up the stairs, and the descent
would bring up a thousand yellow tunes
smelling of the girls tied to the bottom of every apron-

You said daughters were sorrow. I giggled.


Dusk

Beside the comatose sun
you and I meet
daily.

You talk about the deportment of earth and day;
I reckon the latitudes of moon and night.

You seem, always, to lie
flat upon the fields
and hum a tune.
I sit beside you
amid the dismal wilderness
that echoes from the sea
and measure my footsteps

not even snow can have
such tiny feet.

Publication Date: 02-02-2010

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