Escape from time

Share

I flow from this book you gave

in the last of the under fifteen

minutes. Me over my head,

like a shocked reader

of those backward zeroes

printed in the purchase receipt:

in love with the lola magic

over the bridge I couldn’t pull out,

play nor call a trick to make

some obese scene consume

a page, swallow a space-

giving mystery before you

could ever figure it out.

 

Hardly a night passes I drown

in the disobedient waters of now,

for I punctuate once, twice

and almost repeatedly

so there’ll be enough seeking

and hiding between you—

who fascinate the future

and the order of falling objects

—and the narrative whose plot

contradicts the lust and laxity

of everything crepuscular.

 

There’s a kind of time feeling

the same, I don’t know what kind,

that greets 5th Avenue Street

with a stability in ways

and means you find incredible,

just as long queues

at bus terminals

are certain to re-contain motion,

such a line beginning

again and again. I guess

we’ve always tied

this fleet of ideas about

Hegel and commuters’ patience

around steady Meralco posts.

 

Motionless, I read the signs.

You couldn’t catch

any sound, colour, a name,

another day, half-life, nothing.

A resolution is set to arrive

at an unknown station.

Be ready, you know

we could go somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read More

Lines from My Nepal Notebook

A whiff of jasmine Rose petals scattering Mighty pines dancing Bamboos swaying, dipping, snapping back Sunflowers gazing at their namesake in giddy worship. A windy spring day in Godavari. (April, 2011)

A Portrait of My Father

Last night was your birthday Forgot to tell my cousin to light a candle on your grave. DID I LOVE YOU ENOUGH DID MY WORDS HURT YOU YOUR SHADOW STALKED ME I PROMISED THERE WILL BE NO TEARS I remember your...

The Arrangement of Falling Things

Along the walk to the InstituteThe Indian cork tree begins its silent shift.White, five-pointed stars rest on the pavement,not fallen, but arranged,as if the long night had paused hereto remember itself. Each blossom...

Making Believe

How long to carry on this pretense That, yes, I am now fine Making believe that you are just away on another Of your many leavings But how to walk In the shade of the trees And the...