1.
Continually over the water, horizon,
Split River,
Forked Oxus,
Someone is making a stand;
Or maybe
A Hindu spell over the sand,
Moving, wandering, over paths and landing at the foothills of words;
Each time to become speech, to connect or maybe disconnect;
A wet inkpot,
Curled inside the glass vessel,
Connecting itself just so to leave the self behind,
The coiled breath touches the rims of a clay cup,
The five senses become three dimensional,
Curling, uncurling, in the excitement of sealed lips,
A wandering person moves along a path, carrying the cancer;

Steamed breath resting on the teacup,
The stares roped together,
And the melancholy of sweet Chinese aromas;
A body-part of ours has left for Tibet,
The cry of a mare about to become a butterfly.


2.
Cans of beer and a fistful of dollars,
He looks her down and up,
With his Mediterranean gaze,
Swaggering, he moves up the cannabis leaf,
Burning the gaze in the fire of words

August the third he packed his bags,
Setting off towards an illusion far away,
Way beyond civilization;


3.
One said let’s drink this cup of freedom,
One ran and ran along the corridor of electrons,
One entered the path,
One reached the bridge, the self becoming oneself,
The gods and laughter through the lips.
Are you there yet?
The place where the path is the path and the walker on the way;
When the shifting sands sharpen to become dunes, moving on and bringing you
To the Nimrooz desert,
The Malayalee is present;
A peculiar geometric composition.


4.
And I couldn’t carry on,
The self that I’ve been in the mountains;
Herding sheep,
Bent, carrying dead poppies on my back;
The lords of the land had already borne the fresh ones,
Yet the book found a new face,
The book became a clue to wisdom,
Opening doors so they are expanded,


5.
Dressed in the garment of purity,
The snow-covered firs of Herat,
An attempt for town life to return,
So that I need not write anything;
The one, the swirling one,
Looking at nothing, unlike a self,
Has walked the distance; has shown forbearance;
A non-self, swirling on the most feverish of Kabul nights,
The weather was not cold,
But curled in a corner,
Snow was moving up those veins.