Reason

As evidence is marshalled through time,
As the biases of an age are criss-crossed
Against those of another, as the dots
From precedents rush towards their
Syllogistic antecedents drawing a fine
Iron line through time, the ascetic,
the reactionary and the entitled can spew
Bile, raise hell, cry foul, the tiny dots
Persist in connecting: this much is certain.

Art

Art is in the sleight of the wand that
In rapid strokes, in steady deliberate
Strokes, in contemplative non-strokes,
Illustrates what was lying potent on
The blank sheet waiting to be eked out
By the simple prod of external stimuli, aided by
The eye, the accomplice, the intermediary,
The medium, the human all too human midwife
In the process of giving birth to form.

The firmament

When the filament is lit up to match the fire
The specks of fire that flit out out are cousins

To the relativity of warmth that the burning
Gravitates towards, the firmament of burning

Sending familial sirens of belonging to the
Core of the hearth of the light that burns.

Back to basics

When the pain of the Other is put at par with
The countless permutations of other indulgences,

The uppity stakes in wholesome and not so
Wholesome tidbits, that must mean life, mustn’t it?

The injustice is obvious and you must get back to
The basics of how to count and what to value.

When the tiniest of tiny voices is easy to
Smudge over with the many many notes of

High fidelity, varying in scale and tenor of
Stupendous volume, that must mean life, mustn’t it?

The injustice is obvious and you must get back to
The 123’s of how to count and the abc’s of what to value.

And the gate opens

And  the gate opens, it brings with it goblets and
Greetings. It swings open in three dimensions

Chalking out the outlines of a fourth. The rebel
Is soothed, the cunning denied its due course.

Time is reconstructed anew with no thought for
Cathedral building, giving minarets the short shrift.

Statistics and Truth

There is the statistical trend, a roundup of scatterplots
Summarized for the logarithmic-ally minded while the
Rest spout the interpretation of the gist of the summary.

There is then the statistical truth, the underlying curve
Eyeing the trend, nudging the dots to acquiesce to
a less than feasible, not necessarily pragmatic, path.

And then there is the form which sits in the center and
Above it, encircling it, keeping quiet, while roaring with
A certainty that is the hallmark of a trepidatious maya.

Given to time

Given to time, given to useless time as
I pass by a door to inaction as it swings
By a fleet of nondescript men and women
As I groove along a tune that says adieu
To rhythm as I sing along an anthem of 
No home and do not stop, approximating 
rest by the relentlessness of perpetual motion.

When did noon

When did noon ever care enough
          to undo the salt? When does
the untasted salt get its right to breathe?
          Why do men discover women
in the afternoon when the sun refuses
          to talk? How come mistakes are
remembered only in two's and three's?
          Where is the light that burns only
when day has decided to sit down and 
          talk? Here then is the untasted
bit of salt, gathered by men and women
          over years and colors of space and
rhyme. Here then is the sight that confuses
          the child when she looks at salt and
sees no white. Here is the calm, the noise,
          the noise, the noose, the ride, the
choice, the voice.