The daily Roznama

We are terrified rabbits,
Falling into whiteness

(I)
So, phone the greying fire tenders
put out the remnants of my sleep
lest frozen hallucinations explode
don’t call out to me.

Cordoned heart is under arrest
(polite euphemism – arrest)
lest reinforcements be requisitioned
don’t call out loud to me.

Half slit rababs and half clogged
harmoniums play funeral veins
lest they churn another limerick
don’t yet call out loud to me.

After long, I long for some calm
What afflicts me today?
lest my skeleton be paraded
don’t yet call out loud today to me.

(II)

So, routine prisons could not prevail
upon the heart to turn stone
Foolish heart is foolish indeed
Bullets retreat off dead stone.

If you disown me
Who can lay a claim to me?
The tradeoff of desires
is cast in no firm stone.

Thus, did some muddled calm
concede defeat to me:
Marching regiments of your memory
met a pedestrian stone.

Which world was resurrected
by my blasted blood?
The map of the exploding street
lies stamped on a burnt stone.
(III)

So, every day you inquire the price
and temper of the prisoners.
How will they word their liberty –
whose prison is your beauty.

Separated from you
A day dream consoles me:
You are bound to be
tormented by my memory.

Why do you insist
on conversations with sad airs?
Every tearing idler
recalls a different sob story.

No expert committee
can translate senile graffiti
Modern, the city may be
its alphabet is ancient memory.

(IV)

You forecast a deflation
of my deposited sentiments,
No SRO has been signed
declaring I must be in love, I will not exhaust your tears.

All life you preached
tears can’t alter destiny
Society of folklore of death
too withholds endorsement, I will not exhaust your tears.

Please request your mourners
to place on record my condolences,
Your elegies have filed for impotence:
My pretext shares have crashed; I will not invest your tears.

I have long imagined
we will laugh over our meeting
The mutilated minutes failed
to convert the difference, I will not spend your tears.

Were it a one off circumstance
I could rethink my promise
Injury marshals routine raids
in all mapped directions, I will not exhaust my tears.