Saturday, August 4, 2007

Higher Education

Learning to breathe underwater,
       Learning my creed from my virgin Mother,
I know how to pick and count the scabs of my mistakes.
Learning to read treasure maps upsidedown,
Learning to find my way in sand-swept towns,
I know how to hold a hand unheeding of the complexion.

Mysterious,mysterious,hope you live there...
Where I glimpsed you last up ahead of me
On Eleventh Stair.
Oblivion,oh oblivion,do you sleep alone?
Like polka-dotted scapes in my head,
Revived from a street-side grayout...

Cold wind in my flame,warm upto this Fate.
Hail,your distortions of the shadows of the Night...
Upon the walls-
Where years passed in constancy,
Peace-the monsoon steeled for the solar eclipse.
...Shall not abide.

Education,...education--
Black words encroached on a page.
So very limp,on pages just as dead,
Unable to survive a splash of its own ink.
Drawled lectures and hallucinations,
Fevered chalked writings on the wall white beyond the blackboard.
Hushed utterances,
Silence lest the concrete pillars might hear...
That we did learn.

Learning to make my worship to closed closets,
Learning to steal their arms,stealthy,covet.
I see them grieving,bleeding over the clank of fallen armours.
Learning to paint starless skies,
Learning to look upto the rain on a bridge on the brink to break,
I know how to cling onto the last clothing of iron-hold.

Education,oh Education.
Black words encroach on their pages.
As limp as they are dead,
Cannot even see beyond the margins.
Cannot even comprehend the piercing nib,
Cannot even predict the fire that will turn them to ashdust,
Soon.

I shall not abide.

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