Goorkha

My dear dream
it is time for us to part
I have to report for duty.

My job is
to suspect and strangle
the dreams that roam around
at odd hours.
This uniform
the stick, the knife and the torch
are meant for that.

The dog that can smell death
is my companion.
The owl that preys on the mouse
that crawls under the fence
is my companion.

Some dreams come
as silence clothed in sound
as darkness in darkness
as colours in colours
as vigilance in wakefulness.
Some fruits of knowledge come
with no sign of time
However awake I am
they do not become my vision.
Dogs and owls
do not see them.

They will renew the sand
and the air
widening the path
enlivening the existence
making the silence vibrant.
These arrivals
which I do not see
renovate my vision
without my knowledge.

Some dreams go undetected
till they crawl up to you
and flash their hoods
like Godse in a crowd.
They can be caught
and killed
but what is the use,
when everything is over?

The dream that drops in
on House No. 4
at 9th Cross on 6th Street
leaves,
jumping over the wall.
The dog and the owl have noted this.

The dream that staggers on drugs
sinks into the gutter and rots there.
I need not run.
The dreams of wrath that move on
empty stomach will not die
however you may try
to lynch them.
A drop of rain
the smell of fresh soil
a grain of darkness
a touch of star-starch –
it will be back on foot.
Poor human soul!

Oh dream,
the desperate other of my
uniformed self,
I have caught you now.
I will sacrifice you
to the baying white bears
of moonlight.

Oh dream,
where shall I bury your remains?
your sweetness: on which
sad note of the stick striking the lamp post?
your beauty: in which fable?
your freedom: in which post-modern poem?
In whose forgetfulness?

GOORKHA