of a bygone era in Nepal

Of their time, the goal was set by dissident idealism
Cold air inside the darkness, makeshift home,
The winter birds in their cold cages,
Peering out at bare naked trees of ashen,
Ground level feeding under neon strobe
Where filled Maruthi taxis and fancy dress suits jingle
Turnstile iciness against the ancient land of Himalayas.

This is where children dream,
dirt and cardboard
Cushioning their hunger with cold and fierce eyes,
Holding them close, kissing their thinning red lips,
And the concrete humming low, echoing,
Hungry beasts marching toward their grief
Like a serenade of giants rising out of the fiery ash

They rise not for the hordes of sleep-tattered children,
They rise for the noise made of coldness, their heated
Hands wrapped in ice with the reaping of the unkind
Upon their breath. They’ll seek the cultivators of gloom,
The progenitors of war and the ravenous well-to-do
So there might be relief for the misery-born folds
Sleeping near death’s ragged claws.
Soon the beasts of winter will clap their fury
From end to end of the piercing streets
With only the names of greed upon their lips.

Alas

Weeping, wounded to the core
I go down the street
Puzzled, without solution
With the sadness of Floretino
And Majnun.

Rethinking
Infinite impossibilities
With the rhythm of a clock

Resolved

to watch carefully
how a person
drawn so near
could retreat
to an unattainable distance

Our last chance

If we do not act now
we will never again be able to find freedom's favour
to fill the emptiness surrounding us

if we do not act now
we will never be able to kiss again, or make love
or do any of the things that testify to our being free

we will end up puking flattery and gossip,
trembling our days away in submission, compromise and fear
worrying about what the neighbours are doing
living like squealing mice

venture out to night's supermarket only to find food
swarming damp dark gutters
in the deep dungeons
where our soul is locked up

Afternoon blue

fading into
shifting greys of
dusk