Oh, I'm getting older
than I expected, than is becoming,
charged with too much of nothing,
working on one hundred pages
of rhymes without reason,
to be chanted in a torn falsetto voice,
occasionally accompanied
by the litophonic percussion
of loose rock layers
up on Mount Snipen nearby,
the expression I'm seeking inspired
by Raga Sindhi Bhairavi,
Teental, 16 beats,
with Laxmi Subramaniam
and Ali Akbar Khan

Oh, I long to return
to the basic elements,
the core of stars

Oh, St. Augustine, Avalokiteshvara,
Kuan-yin,
lift me out of this corpse,
this roller-coaster perception
under the laws of illusion