Someone asked me, when will you settle down?

I would feel settled
if that is some sort of thing
I know my mother is settled
because she tells me - bring
good luck if not good money
There are threads of discontent
I leave behind, like flicking my
tail while in the middle of a dog-train
My father, who is also settled
weaves them into plain
soliloquies which I trust
him to share at some
point in the future
I know the neighbourhood
is settled because men
and women gather to tee-hee
in the streets - some misfortune
in each guffaw, some
dents in each car
The city, must be settled
as there is no escape from the
identity of its weak -
as is with every other city
There is a whole lot of chewed gum
sticking to the underbelly
Country, of course, is settled
since there are no second
births, there are just second
lives. Lives that cannot
be lost ,or lived for free -
the economy of all of it
I'm not settled because
I exist on maps, feed on
arguments, and unrealistically
valued as real, like - borders

Lingerie

At times, I detested you growing up.
As if my conscience had been nabbed
from remembering us, twined
in a corner of the yard, in summers -
tarrying sustenance of any kind -
in winters, the breakers of spring.
Your windows, once glazed
with poop pictures,
I drew for you-now with
spunky whites,laced with black and blue
unfit for scoping, through my hands.
Hands from whose shell, the oysters
have stepped out - as if toe to toe,
You still had bigger steps to take.
And now there is this void, of ineptitude-
You never talk. You only ask.
But I promise,
I will find something for us to do

Quietude,for Gaza

Room,
  cradled in whistling
silhouettes
      of men,women
and children,who were
    once there

away from the awful
       silence,
     unlike, my heart,

far from exploding

The infestation

At the table,opposite her
   peering through the window
 at a city,routinely unengaged.


    The photographs on the walls,often,
made
me sweat.Blown into a crevasse
   of reality,they were challenges
to it.
Carefully vacuumed,as always
          the plate tilted,
and the food tasteless,i saw 

 a rat scurry across
     the kitchen floor,and towards
her nonchalant face i stared,

the nerve of her-
   
    She knew poison could 
slow me down,but love,love
     would kill me

Dirty books

But what sparkling,
  little boats

the

pages
   of pornographic outrage,
           would make-

 by and by that
     happen to stick together

Sexual

Unpeeled oranges,
 in an overrun alley,
   Sewage as is seen
from the sky,unrelenting
  in its corruption

Visions out of romance
   have families stated,in them- 
the rope is tightest
   near the knot.
  
 From that point  

Back and fourth, if
   you were to walk,
 brow tipping the sunshine
    with a pint of shame,
 
unable to tell,two legs,apart
 for reason-
   momentary injustice

 "What do you do for oranges"
someone asked,and
    into the mouth of the wolf
  i howled

The missing tooth

On a not so common night,
searching for an aching
tooth in the backyard-
that new river sound
now,turned into loss,
I dreamt of pain
all night long,holding
one arm with the other.

Parapet after parapet
I keeled over,breaking
in and out of sleep
like concentric circles
I drew when i was five years
old,convinced with a sense
of incomprehensible gravity
that they were to be my
greatest attempt at art.

How playful can
asymmetry in life be-
unapologetically giving
me a mouthful of reasons
to smile each morning