Some Nightmares

 
Where am I going?
The forest of lies is burning,
thought and understanding have been erased,
someone puts on a mask, someone's mask falls off.
Some guitars and violins
weep terribly from far away,
in their melody: memory, memory, and memory,
nothing grave, no pain either, just tears.


In the flood of fog, prayers wither—who understands!
My mother's heart was heavy
because our new house had no prayer room.
She was bewildered, wondering
couldn't we at least keep one on the roof?
God never comes by invitation—
if it were that easy, many would have seen Him and started dancing long ago!
I told mother none of this; you can't tell mother everything.
Mother keeps lamenting the lack of a prayer room.
In our house prayers happen, in their house prayer rooms happen.


Some relationships have broken.
The mind drowns in mountain depths, longing
to breathe the sick air of autumn twilight or dewy sunshine.
Some dreams have broken too.


Once, many elders together
wrote that rare poster stuck to the rain-soaked wall of a room.
The busy people in the bus
were suffocating winter's breath.
Eyes were racing toward the cool moon then!
A small boy had tied his heart to a lamppost
and stood gazing at the tower. Even seeing his resentment against the wind,
no one could tell what he had lost.
But we have seen—on walkways, under bridges,
in beds, in kisses, in one's own pocket—
everyone searching for something or other.


Something has broken somewhere, something was wrong—
no mistake becomes a mistake until it breaks.
...Dead birds on the border wire still curse us today.
Why are you so melancholy?...I heard a voice!
...Because those clouds
are coming again, it will rain again.
There will be mud again and
a sliver of thick fog will spread through the soul.
At night, I may stay awake again, tremors rising in walls and drains.
I have learned to listen to endless rain. This life is a life of listening to rain.


Again, I hope
this will end, as it did yesterday.
Yesterday I wanted to go somewhere
caught in the net of some fresh life—
to the village or hills, or maybe,
I don't even know where I must go by train at least once in my life!
This doubt will end. I am hoping.


And then joy often lasts barely five minutes.
The burden of foolish time...sometimes endures only a moment—
like this: sunshine, goodness, real life,
and everything else.
Often I see I cannot find my soul anywhere.
Then fog arrives, and
hatred accumulates and rolls down as tears.


I enter my room, close the door,
shut my eyes.
...Before me, I can see the many wheels
of some distant train, hear the sound of its life, and see
a vast sun rising over the railway tracks...


When fatigue possesses me in half-sleep, I wake to find
my body trapped on a wire net
goes unnoticed by anyone.
A body burns in the golden hue of electric fire—
that too is nothing worth anyone's notice. My whole body trembles, I shake
like fever patients, no one pays attention to that either.


Deep congealed bleeding—even I don't notice it anymore these days.
I have learned to scream like the wild and then fall silent,
everyone passes by me,
no one notices.
...I sleep, yet I hear.
I reach life only to die...
They don't notice.