Tasenda

(For my Peer, For my Shahid) If I could I would hide All your poems From the world If I could I would memorize Every word and Then burn all your books If I could I would turn Back time and visit You every day till I died If I could I would translate Your grief and pain And make it all mine If I could I would hoard Every verse, every ghazal And read it alone If I could I would bring You back from that land Where you never wanted to go

You stare at me From that torn poster Like the protagonist of Some sad Palestinian film Your eyes, a blaze of Rebellion, your still breath Glazing all fear Striping everything away Making me swear The impossibility of my Love for you never Stuck me till it was Too late in the day I keep replaying In my mind, like A broken record set on fire, All scenarios and solution To this quagmire Unrequited love, you once Said was too much To bear, now that I am here I see what you meant You wrote letters of love But they were never addressed To me, The man who got them Set them ablaze even Before he read the tears Gazelles and dogged mirrors All lie broken at the feet Of an imagined world, even as You stare at me From that torn poster --

-- In time my love will Be a museum where they will Store stale tobacco and more --

Reverse engineer the universe Dismantle this radio silence Strip away the pain All I hear is cold static, Every moment calculated On an abacus made of rain Disentangle those wires, Separate the red from the Green Wind those mechanical Owls and make them Sing Hack off pages from Those sad digital novels, Make them stop just Before the crappy ending When everyone is happy Sing sad sonatas, Take out the false falsettos Set them as ringtones For my phone calls Rip apart this solitude Unblock every channel Make me yours Strip away the Pain Dismantle this radio silence Reverse engineer the universe

Those phone calls that I never made, remain Unanswered Their phantom rings getting Louder with each passing Second, making my ears Bleed I can see you Calmly ignoring my Non-existent calls Deleting my unsent emails Without reading them, Blocking me everywhere, Even in my own imagination You return the gifts That I never send Never even opening them Shahid, Neruda, Angelou, Lorca, Ghosts all Haunt me as I search For nonexistent verses of Arabic Little bits of magic Hidden in the Quran To bring back dead love You mean well, you said In that conversation We never had, But I can’t do this anymore

There are mountains Just outside of Delhi, Made of decomposed Human souls and carcasses Of dreams Children play knee-deep In filth, even as The vultures watch Cavernously hoping for Them to Die                             Among the broken toys And discarded condoms Stories lie broken with Rusted promises and Mangled desires Monuments of defanged Glory lie buried under Tons of ruined organic Peristaltic pumps bearing Witness to the cancer of our being The stench of putrid Human existence takes Over the neighborhood,                                       With the amorous promiscuous Prostitution of our senses Piled sky high Just outside of Delhi --