Rubaiyat: respectfully yours

I have learnt yours off by heart and recited

each one of them outside and inside my head
till the domes of skulls were shaped with their echoes
and spines curved to hold the words they said

Your moving finger has crept down centuries

touched pawns and queens, and great pens and keys
and touched me too sitting in the darkness
with my hair lifting slightly in the breeze

Then there are those, whose delicate rubaiyat

I forget, at least, can’t recall the details of their art
but they get mixed in with the mortar of life
and they are in the paving of the path.

And sometimes I’m caught quite unawares

as to what I read, whether it’s yours or theirs
all words seem to blend in at the source
into one great poem, echoing everywhere.

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.