A river
runs through
their heart
but yet
their throat is dry.

Their belly
has flattened out,
and their lips
are torrid and dry.

A dead lad
lies next to the door.
Several steps later,
a dead girl over the corridor.

As we stroll,
the toll mounts:
10, 15, 25, 30……

Some are young.
Some are old.
Some are black.
Some are white.

Some are nothing
but skeletons;
Others are
muffified corpses,
skin over ribs
like earthworm
over baits.

Some are
much newer,
-bloating corpses.
Their eyes
- star of the death,
dazzling but dry.

There exist
their remnants
and dikes of vent
-overlain by lavas
and the strata of death.

Ah! Desert,
it is just
- a symbol.

We are
the desert.
Desert, we are.

Our mind is dry
Our heart is dry
Our civilization is dry
Our ethics are dry.

We are dry.
Our laces of love
are becoming less dense
very much like a
broken palate of our sense.

We are
the desert.
Desert, we are
but not a cactus
blossoms in our core.

Ah! Desert,
we are not.

We are just
the greedy mirage
shining momentarily
over the desert of time.

We are not
a desert.
Desert ,
we are not.

We are,
“the deserts desert,”
Yes, that is what,
we really are.

We are dry
We are dry
We are so dry
We don’t hear their cries.

Our compassion
has died.
We are a ghost
in the human form,
under our body lie
sadistic sheets of imp
of thousand meters thick.


Copyright 2007 Bhuwan Thapaliya