Akshaya Pawaskar
I dream I am standing
on a pretty street in Paris
only to look down and find
bloodied cobbles underneath.
I run and run until
I am looking at the London eye
and get stabbed in my own
and go reeling down
the river Thames.
I float and float until
I see a Shikara on the Dal lake
drifting with the calm
of objects about to explode
and it does, shattering
paradise to pieces
of flesh and fate.
Bones and their fragments,
Pashmina shawl flying
with stains of death.
I pray and pray until
I am in a peaceful mosque
In Canterbury
And have a gun to my head.
Beauty loses its edge.
I am holding your head now
touching it to mine like
a sacred urn,
but I wake up to find
you wrapped in a cold
blanket of memories
Stale air of rot,
A fresh wave of terror.
Can a night, carry so much pain?
Yes, I am the sole custodian
of my dreams but
lately I wish to drop off
the keys and let them be
found by a stranger who
will empty the trash and
repopulate my land
of Morpheus where
I will rise on a flying carpet
Seeing in the dark of the dusk
Something bandaged and healing
Something spotless and clean
a world, newly born which knows no hate,
no loss thick as thieves.
l will let him build a ladder to god
I will have no wings
he will have sturdy rungs.
If I fall into the same nightmares
I will let him catch me
by my hair and pull up to his heaven
where all the flimsy people
possessive of their gods
will line up to see that God cannot be
broken piecemeal for our greedy hands
and clam shut minds to feast upon.
That dreams will again be as pretty
as used to be the terror less dawn.
This work has been published in Beetle Magazine's August 2020 Issue.