The Empyrean Orchestra

There's nothing profound here.

[theempyreanorchestra]

When summer's monsoon reigns boyish men imagine outstretched windows embrace the falling rain to gather damp air soaked in mud and wet plantations for sleepy lovers smoking cigarettes with wet fingers How wonderful the post pubescent mind when it is not fucking

[theempyreanorchestra]

Even on sultry nights

like 19 March 2017

you are a fiery Gulmohar

impressed beneath my forehead,

a pomander of summers bygone

bleeding indecent dreams

of turmeric tans in Madurai.

Tomorrow

I will wake up with a hard on.  

***

[theempyreanorchestra]

I like the weather like I like my women. #sultry #kerala

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Wore leather chappals and a linen shirt to my local barber today. Feel like I'm winning life. Shanmugan feels I should be a panchayat head in Nellai. Just need a few manslaughter acquittals under my belt.

[theempyreanorchestra]

Where are our miracles?

I know no God just god slayers so who are they slaying playing imitating good men Because there is no God without man We were made to think us flawed to succumb to the God of our fathers our fore fathers their fathers and their mothers to limp through religions we did not make prostrate at temples we did not build read books we do not write Because if we stand By God! if we stood we'd bring down temples sans devotion walk through water sans praise And in wee hours of morning light when the ram is ready when Samaria and Jerusalem are yet drowning in the lust of Assyrian generals when Kings are still spying undressing women from rooftops of cedar and gold we will kneel on the threshing floor reach with outstretched fingers for the hem of your robe your hips and shamelessly pray You are my God You are my people.

[theempyreanorchestra]

Going home. 

Circa - Jan 2015 

[theempyreanorchestra]

Song of Ishmael

When the crowds gathered

my father hoisted me

high upon his shoulder

'Crucify him' 'fuck that nigger'

We killed a God that day

and later we killed a goat for dinner.

Now we're even, father would joke

mother prayed for him.

In the morning

dew and a dead man

hung from our trees

like miniature crystal worlds

and maps of purple arteries.  

Mother was upset:

If you're going to die

hang from your own tree.

[theempyreanorchestra]

All the vices I admire.

[theempyreanorchestra]

Major Lazer

Circa - Dec 2014. 

[theempyreanorchestra]

Christmas present prototype #1 Hand carved salad spoon Indian teak

[theempyreanorchestra]

Who wants a postcard?

Come on, don't be shy. 

[theempyreanorchestra]

In thin light of dawn

the sky above

seduces us with

the possibility of a heaven.

We are born slaves,

to the wisdom of our mothers

who pray for their sons to return,

afraid to err;

too timid to care.

           - Manchanabele lake              24th, August 2014              06:57 hours

[theempyreanorchestra]

We ride.

Circa - June 2014, Goa.

[theempyreanorchestra]

Woe, captain!

Go on then my sailor

climb lanes and streets

what care we if this empire falls

go climb in alleys

high windows and roofs.

Declare your poems like stone tablets

and swagger on in piers

from Portugal to the great eastern wall.

Our maps remain;

new boundaries shall not alter the landscape

nor a relegated congress our song.

Pause not for my early knell

this ship disintegrates 

but the wooden anatomy of another will follow.

Hark, their saffron chariots draw near,

like locust swarming the wheat and wine.

Run you clever boy

wear my shawl upon your shoulder

and though I return not

with stories for our children,

remember me in them.

O, if I remain yet your captain

Ride on you handsome bastard

dream still of crumbling cities

and your hand upon my bosom.  

[theempyreanorchestra]

The River

I see you

in summer slopes

of morning mist

descend into slow waters

of coloured fish

to gently rise

and sit upon

wet rocks of moss

with twisted feet

as delicate as our lord

upon his cross.

Even the stems of grass

bend towards my song.

We have rolled in these meadows

trembling below dew drops

of lily and lilac;

beneath the oils of

a thousand stars

marching over like some

bright Crusade.

Oh the chariots of Israel

and the horsemen thereof

armoured in ivory and gold

rise against your marble god

and only stopped in the morning

when Spring woke the

austere trees

and some goat in the bushes. 

[theempyreanorchestra]

Hampi Circa - 20th April, 2014.

[theempyreanorchestra]

how to write poetry

Take a word – flower

The flower is simply a fact.

Don’t try to make it sound pretty

Do not attempt to make it beautiful.

The flower can do that all by itself.

It does not need your 

grand notions of innocence and frailty.

How do you know that the flower

doesn’t like a good fuck?

So don’t, even for a moment,

suggest that you know flowers more than anyone else.

The flower is not an opportunity

for you to feel;

it is not a chance for you to symbolize

your emotions.

Nobody gives a fuck about what you feel.

Just speak the word and step aside.