But that's not a poem

You are what you are, I am what I am,

I am what you are, you are what I am

east meets west somewhere, but that’s not a poem

north cuts south just here, the intersection’s home.

Parallel lines converge if I look hard enough

the vanishing point’s real, the rest’s just a bluff

and you are what you are, I am what I am

and we meet someplace, though no-one gives a damn.

The mountain’s just a pile of atom crumbs

the city’s gone ballistic, traffic’s a bit glum

and we’re what we are, we are what we were

when freedom was love, when freedom was war.

All the roads are dust, and all flesh is grass

the world is a clan and everything must pass

and I am what you were, you are what I’ll be

and it takes a sec for you to morph to me.

I am what I am, you are what you are

north meets south someplace, in café and bazaar

and east too meets west always and everywhere

but that’s not a poem as far as I’m aware.

You are what you are, I am what I am

the diff’rence’s slim, hardly a nanogram

and I am he and she, you are we and us

but that’s not a poem, that’s not a verse.

No capitals - cairo : delhi ; you : me

Everything need not begin with a capital, there
are many small beginnings, without a flourish,
without any punctuations or a clear closure
preceding them. No evident rhythms of anguish
nor the pulsing catchy beats of pleasure
nothing at all to mark the start, or indeed the finish.

Here there are roads that ring the cities, concentric walls

pierced by ruined arches of gates now and then,
once they may have been guarded and shut, but overall
they’re useless now, too much trouble, and left open.
There is no entry point, the fringe of suburbia and industrial
estates engulf and blur the limits at which cities begin.

And I too don’t know where it starts or ends and which mindzone

is exclusively you and stops being me, though there are gates and exits
and all the walls, each one in place and shut fast, the metal and stone
of existence marked clear and etched so that no-one forgets
and here I am far away yet next to you and distinct, alone,
and I respect but cannot recall any of those limits.

At which exact point do I stop being me and blur into you?

when each of us is a different thumb-print, unique chemicals
held together behind strict walls and windows,  a strong taboo
on blur and spill of minds and matter that are individuals,
no borders between ourselves, whether it’s cities or just us two
no start or finish, no punctuations or capitals.