Upstairs cryin’ in my bed I lay
 
Since you left me that very day
 
I screamed and fought against the pain
 
I even rocked myself to sleep again and again
 
Then I gave upand called myself insane.

Lissandra…

Lissandra… red pearls and golden jeweled feet
Lissandra, you came to me
Through the morning dew brightly
Lissandra, would you know me again
When we meet tonight?

I’ve come to the land of dues
Only to find no solution call
Any more lower for my heart
I have no use at all

The waistline decline
And your hand in mine
There really is no end
Just another beginning
Until the next death
Just a bend in the river
Westward chances for redemption
Floating its carnage upstream
Until the next death
Scream, Scream, Scream

A silent casket screamed
With colored and loud squares
Entrances by payment only
Detractors should beware
Television and the medium churned
Turned around and mixed
From raw documentary to
Parental guidance restrained.

It’s nothing new since we came down from the trees
Just to learn that paper brings us to our knees
No matter how safe we keep the young
There’s nothing we can do to help them belong
They must learn anew from a previous generation
So they’re schooled until we’re through
Giving them their gods, telling them the odds
Against them just like you

Motherland

Let love fill your womb, O mother
Let freedom chime across your breasts
Your offspring who kill one-another
Shall know when time puts them to test.

Ode To Joy

Cross my heart and hope to die
Many’s the time I’ve borrowed your help
Many’s the time you’ve seen me through
This is just to say,
Man, I love you.

Delhi’s Civil Construction Safety Record & Metro

Take another look
I’ll be around
Stay the while
Don’t make a sound

Watch the deep
It’s there still
Shining above the dark
Shadow of the hill

Take another path
Take another route
Take another road
Traffic jam! Mixed fruit

This is a big city
It swallows us whole
The only time we stop
Better not be under
A crane or a traffic pole.

Won’t be long

When we wake up from childhood
And find things are not as they should
Do we stand and say it out?
If they don’t hear you whisper
Do you shout it aloud?

This time I will be heard
I tell you, this is absurd
The way things are going on
It won’t be long, it won’t be long.

Information isn’t meaning
So stop all that screaming
Can’t you see nobody’s winning
My imagination isn’t dreaming

Look where you’re headed
Your folks have already been
On this trip and dead-ended
Themselves to what could’ve been

This time I will be heard
I tell you, this is absurd
The way things are going on
I won’t belong, I won’t belong.

And So We Go On

Somewhere there’s a chance
That doesn’t need explanations
From you and me cause it’s easy to feel
Forgiven all around
Forgiven by the sound
Forgiven as it’s all around
Forgiven cause it’s surround sound
Everybody in this town
Everybody in this town
Makes their heart jump around
And so we go on, and so we go on
And so we go on, and so we go on

Take an another look
I’ll be around
Stay the while
Don’t make a sound

Watch the deep
Is there still
Shining above the dark
With shadows on the hill

Take another party
I don’t want to cook

Take another path
Take another route
Take another road
Traffic jam; mixed fruit

Is this a big city?
It’ll swallow us whole
If we call a stop.

Living in the holy land
Can’t you see it get canned?
2000 years of culture
Circle overhead like vultures
Demanding to pluck out eyes
As we stare at certain size thighs

Living in India
Just one in millions like me
Just for fun, just imagine
All that love, respect and freedom
Divided among three million
Sill my country’s up for grabs.

Too many quotes
Not enough séances
Too many presentations
Not enough production values
That’s where we’re headed
No one knowing where it ended
This river has the bends
Without telling where it flows
The stars button the skies
To tree-lined banks on both sides
Behind me is a beginning
Like so many others
Before me is an ending
That can only be mine.

Bad Brains

Bad brains, bad brains
Gonna beat it all out
Gonna stick it all up
Gonna gum up the works
Gonna kill it if it shrieks
Gonna hit it if it jerks
Bad brains, bad brains
My brains gone to town
Can you explain
Bad brains, bad brains

Warm chemicals
In my blood stream
O happy blood
Sounding out
Foam-flecked seashells
Float in the breeze
Another induced dream
Nicotine drenched clouds
Where rain comes down
Enchanting an amused smile
Paints her face with lies.

I made a lampshade

I made me a lampshade
It took all night and day
When I wasn’t working on it
I simply sat and stared
Till bit by bit, it began to grow
Each time I added some more
At last it began to take shape
By then I’d learned to gape
At it for hours on end.

Not Everyone Who Wanders

Go from pain
In a shell
They can’t explain
You must be well

Yesterday’s clouds
With their bloody lining
Are mental shrouds
Intertwining

Coiled together
Breed apart
Running forever
From the start

They like to roam
Not everyone who wanders
Is lost to the unknown

Legacies

So they ripped her flesh in birth
But the fruit were bias
The river ran deep
Deep and red in it’s death

Men were born no more
No more than they lived
But flew back to the system
For reasons only they knew
Power replaced no pain
While the fever ran cold
And tears ran so free

What could be left?
What could be done?
Ever.

Birds hit the wall
So their souls were united
Oppression, they screamed
When last sighted

Men left behind words
In silent hallways of truth
Words of learning ran amok
Anthems to revolution stood
Up words in effect
While outcasts strayed
To the edge, hand-in-hand

Their history in their creation
And their creation in limitation
Stood hollow and empty
Yet tall, by design and definition

Time was swollen
Winds began to shift
Uncovering golden visions
and original symbols of light

Times were wrong
Sanity was suspect
The edge was too close
It had to go wrong

The lights were across
The river in spate
The silent boat drifed
While fingers grew roots

Shedding all vestiges
Some screams to the wind
Same stories every night
Forgive me for I have sinned

Our father who would not exist
Fearing multitudes in need
Long since made to desist
Say naught of my call

Wrought-iron wafers slip
Along their memories of life
Leaving behind mense rust
In alleys of fate seized
Raped was her call
Wild-eyed before her kin
Her back against a familiar wall
Cold steel began to fall

No more should deeds bury
No more should colors dry
No more should outcasts recall
No more should words be small.

The need
To reflect
On life
Is every warriors
Strife

From creature comforts
To the horrid sort of danseuse
From narcotic chanteuse
To sheer verbal abuse
I’ve passed through my mind
Every kind of woman and even
Regretting missing those I could use

S. stood and stared

S. stood and stared
At accusations and fingers
Pointed at him and his sins
Till now in the world

Be gone united
Feel free divided
Stand straight
And get chided

When he was a boy
They never said
No matter what you do
Virtue is no reward

S. stood and smiled
At his confusion again
They knew his mistakes
But couldn’t explain the pain

It came and went
Until every memory
Was marked ‘sensitive’
Till he had a human moment

My Love

My love don’t bring me diamonds in the night
Suck the marrow from the core when my steel’s too tight
Or maybe she’ll bring pearls in her ovaries, lenses
Inferiority complexes and stage fright
By when she would’ve left me to make it all right
My love don’t bring me diamonds in the night