bliss station ~ poetry

a two body monastery

the vegetable vendor offers you two bundles of spinach
for the price of one when he sees the red-fonted ARMY
on your bullet. the priest's wife thanks you for letting her
use the canteen card. you nod into nothingness, the sum
of what remains after saying everything, a form whittled
of words suspended perpendicularly to body and shadow.

gazing out of the lofty cabins you realized when the monks
crossed mountains to grasp nothing that everything prevails
at retracement's end - the first step. you're holding the pen - like
a gun, like how a scout enters a forest with his arrow half -

drawn. this is a forest for you, isn't it? full of shallow people
who rouse at death, drinking aerated drinks and nibbling on
deep-fried food, who remember you when a child needs a
military discipline or a granddaughter from mumbai refuses
to drink milk without horlicks. in their unbraided hair, you see -

the two crimson snakes coalesced into an icy stream which
brush-washed a lone lotus petal that shouldn't be there in the
first place. but because you wanted to place a bootleg dove of peace,
picasso, after a successful raid but the field already was full of
deflated old guitarists, we will realize that mind and tongue are -

next-door neighbors and that there are no rifles behind the
grave, no matter how long or earnestly you search.

~Ajay
6/4/2019