There is so much poetry on your beautiful face
Speaking of lives you have loved
And memories you’ve erased
You look at your reflection, and there is nobody there
The empty heart, the hollow stare
People who come, and ghosts who go
You are the one you miss the most
Your fingers clutch your shadows hand
You only survive because you don’t understand
The wind carries voices but there’s nobody there
The bush is burning but the mountain is bare
Did the looking glass
look back at you in wonder,
Did you look through a mask
only to see a stranger – Nash Nausher
I am a dove descending
from the heaven to the ocean bed
I am the voice singing
silent in this wilderness of red
here i am on the blue mountain
halfway up, halfway down
stranded and exiled, looking out to sea
holding onto misplaced gods
and what i might have been
I reap what I sow
it comes and goes with a nod and a wink
but of all the ones who come
and all the ones who go
I am the one I miss the most I think- Nausher
you look at your reflection, and there is nobody there
the empty heart, the hollow stare
people who come, and ghosts who go
you are the one you miss the most
I hope I always love you darling
Because things change so fast
When I look at you I see sand whispering in the hour glass
I see the colour in your eyes change as the hours pass
You are a renaissance painting
In a light that’s fading
There is a hole in your heart
And you’ve filled it with art
I look in the mirror and all I see
Your eyes looking back at me – Nash Nausher
I hope I always love you darling
Because things change so fast
You inspire the images in my mind
And the words in my heart
But in the blink of an eye the feeling is gone
I sit and watch bygones be bygones
I’ve seen beauty and I’ve watched decay
I’ve heard the silence after the hurray
I’ve seen the indifference in their eyes
I’ve learnt the truth through their lies
I’ve touched the apple on the proverbial tree
I’ve felt the chains even when I was free
I look in the mirror and all I see
your eyes looking back at me
I hope I always love you darling
Because things change so fast
You inspire the images in my mind
And the words in my heart
Don’t kid yourself, darling, we’ve seen you before
you come up every generation to ‘reset’ and ‘restore’
you were the baying mob as Joan of Arc burned
you chanted death as Pontus Pilate turned
you rejoiced as the semites were taken away
you did nothing when Lincoln and Martin were slayed
you watched as Gandhi was shot to the ground
what did you do when Rabin was downed
don’t kid yourself, darling, we know who you are
nobody cares to read your memoir
we know how it plays out, your life and your death
living behind masks, fainting from your rancid breath
frothing your opinions about infections and elections
spare me, please., your pompous impressions
there isn’t an original thought in your woke head
you are just about as awake as you are dead
you know everything there is to know
because google and cnn told you so
go someplace else and beat your drum
just because I’m beautiful doesn’t mean I’m dumb
I’m so tired of your memes and your gotcha posts
Political commentary by you armchair hosts
I see your profile – the sagging skin and desperate lies
The average made lethal in the dead stare of a million eyes
It never stops, it will never stop, I’m no longer waiting for the penny to drop
I was searching for some beauty and some grace- something to wash out this fetid space
I follow the taillights in the sky
Starting and ending with a sigh
Fading down corridors into another world
Away from the trivial the babble the trash they hurled
i feel the warm breath of a stormy sea
Hear waves ebb and flow deep inside of me
Feel its heart beating like it is my own
They will still be here long after I am gone
A soul at peace in a world of violence
And the sower will sow the word
And the word will be silence – Nash Nausher
Let this be my ashes blowing in the wind
My epitaph, my prologue, my beginning, my end
I cannot find the door though I have the key
Crossing the rubicon on my way to the sea
Naked now my skin is crawling
I sit in my bones looking out from the hill
Face pressed against the window
The snow is melting and the earth is still – Nausher Nash
The house on the rock, the writing on the wall
Give me back my secrets before I fall
Inside of me, in spite of me
Only your lies will set me free
The wound I wear, look back and stare
Nobody cares darling, nobody cares
Fragile as glass, as reflections in glass
Put on your happy face and let it pass
Listen to the sound of the hourglass flow
Listen to the sound of your shadow
Throw back your head and feel the rain
Who drinks this water thirsts again – Nausher Nash
Riding the elevator, lights going dim
I saw your reflection coming in
Light playing with fabric and skin
The scent of your Chanel hanging
You step out and leave me standing
The memory of your reflection calling
The perfume, the fabric, and the skin
I bottle the memory burning within
To remind me of what might have been
you were the most beautiful person in the world I knew
and, for a while, walking with you, I felt beautiful too
but then one night in the harsh light, I saw the lie in your eye
I suddenly realized who I’d idealized and watched the halo around you die
i watched the chains wash away in the biblical rain
try as i might I could never feel the same way for you again – Nash Nausher
What do you think you will do for the next 40 years
when your face looks like a cobweb and you’ve dried up your tears
When no one gives you a second look and you sit staring at the phone
When growing up means you were wrong about everything you’ve known
Stalking your ghost, counting your stocks and gold
Count the lies that you bought, dreams that you sold
– Nash
You threw away your toys
and masked all your joys
you cloaked your fears
with hollow cheers
later you sat in an old age home
trying to forget all you’ve known
watching the idiot box
the clown and the fox
I've spent a good deal of my life travelling,
and I've spent it in museums and libraries,
I've worshipped the beautiful and avoided the ugly.
Very early in the game
I learned praise and blame are the same
I learnt that everything is related
everything is connected
Christ and crutches
Guilt and guillotines
Saviours and sadists
Martyrs and masochists
Press and propaganda
Erotica and enlightenment
History and hyperbole
Climate and constipation
Memories and mortuaries
Woke and broke - Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
I’ve seen beauty and I’ve watched decay
I’ve heard the silence after the hurray
I’ve seen the indifference in their eyes
I’ve learnt reality through their lies
I’ve touched the apple on the proverbial tree
I’ve felt the chains even when I was free
I look in the mirror and all I see
your eyes looking back at me
You are a poet in a nation of shopkeepers
You are a prophet in seas of insanity
You are the head on a coin
A message, a sign
You are nothing
Yet you are the messiah
You’re daughter of lightning
You’re goddess of thunder
The power of beauty
The beauty of power – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
roll the dice and pay the price
remember you only die twice
once when you’re laid in a coffin
and once when you are forgotten
The night caresses secrets in the sand
A memory nailed on each hand
Straining through the ebbs and falls
You capture a fleeting embrace
The paint is peeling off the walls
The past is etched on your face
You roll the dice and pay the price
You know only die twice
Once when you’re in the coffin
And once when you’re forgotten – Nausher Nash
It looks like your world, but everything is different
Everything seems close, but oddly distant
How were you to know
Where it all would go
For a moment all the world was right
How were you to get ready for the fight
What blink of an eye, whose tear, whose stare
What fork on which road is taking you where
You’re running down the track
The night burning down your back
You follow the ghost of you
And your ghosts are following you
Blinded by truth, enlightened by a lie
The die is cast in the blink of an eye
You are waiting on the crosswalk
Listening to the crosstalk
Waiting to catch up with your past
And your future just passed
You catch your reflection
Kissing your assassin
Waiting to catch up with your past
And your future just passed
Your mirror is a river
Painting in water
Waiting to catch up with your past
And your future just passed – Nash Nausher
Here you are at that special place
Halfway up, halfway down
Lost between your head and face
Lost in the space between conqueror and clown
Between stars and scars
Cigarettes and memoirs
Between fear and fate
All you can do is wait
Between truth and lullabies
Between lies, sighs and disguise
You know all your alibis
It doesn’t matter what you say
It’s not going to go away
It’s the price you pay
A universe apart and inches away
-Nausher Nash
you take nothing for your journey
and you take nothing from it
here you abide and there you departed
you dust memories off your feet
you ended your journey just as you started
you reached the water’s edge
but the water never parted
you’re a comma on a page
its the course that you charted
and no matter what you say
it doesn’t matter anyway
you cannot stay
– Nausher Nash
I close my eyes and life is carried away by the river
What’s left behind I cannot say – It’s just the sound of the water
Crossing the Rubicon on the way to the sea
I cannot find the door though I have the key
Go with the flow my heart says
You never know these days
Future present perfect past
It’s only good as long as it lasts – Nausher Nash
Take the leaves back to the forest
And the water back to the sea
Turn the stone back to ashes
Bring the dust back to me
Naked now my skin is crawling
I sit in my bones looking out from the hill
Face pressed against the window
The snow is melting and the earth is still – Nausher Nash
let this be my ashes blowing in the wind
my epitaph, my prologue, my beginning, my end
Let me walk this road until I reach the bend
i hope that when it happens, it happens suddenly
I see no point in living without beauty
Lingering in fools company
I just want to be alone with me
a transparent layer in history – Nash Nausher
In the dark you reach for the sky
Memories lie and promises die
Your fingers clutch your shadows hand
You survive only because you don’t understand
The wind carries voices but there’s nobody there
The bush is burning but the mountain is bare
Was it paradise lost or paradise found
Was it safety you sought in 6 feet of ground,
Were you tipping your eyes to make an impression,
Wearing a face with a borrowed expression,
Did the looking glass
look back at you in wonder,
Did you look through a mask
only to see a stranger –
Nausher Nash
Hope my new year brings something new –
,
I seek you in a renaissance painting
Unblemished by age, resplendent and serene
When the world was yours for the taking
My whore, my courtesan, my poet, my queen
In the end it is all just a speck in the eye
I just want to take a moment to say goodbye
I know I made a mistake coming here again
Can I remind myself of what, where and when
In a dream and a prophecy, barely a trace of that place in me
I look in the mirror and all I see, the ebb and flow of memory – NausherNash
I follow the taillights in the sky
Starting and ending
Fading down pillared corridors into another world
Away from the trivial the inane the babble the trash
Away from life’s symmetry of madness
i feel the warm breath of stormy seas
Hear waves ebb and flow deep inside of me
Feel their heart beating like it is my own
See them turn, retreat and return
They will still be here long after I am gone
A soul at peace in a world of violence
And the sower will sow the word
And the word will be silence – Nash Nausher
Your hands don’t hold the answer
Hold it higher, she said, hold it higher
Higher so I can see the cross above the flames
Praise and blame, darling, are all the same
It’s not tears, it’s smoke in my eyes
I seek the heavens, I search the skies
Born of tempests, a warrior at the mouth of dawn
I am a child of beauty in a storm
Standing in the fire looking out to sea
Waiting for the waves to bring the water back to me – NausherNash
standing at the window looking out
I watch the angels play and shout
an oasis of elixir in a season of drought
I watch patterns play on their golden skin
Siamese, Gemini or twins
I think I’m on earth but maybe it is heaven
🖤
Soon we will leave this world, this country, this love,
the eyes we view them with are eyes that must close before too long.
But this much is certain:
we will still have, left deep within us,
the light catching the reflection of rain on its cobbled streets,
a blaze of sun gilding off the dome of a duomo,
the perfection of the piazzas,
the thousands upon thousands
of shades and nuances of history,
the stones, the skin,
the colours of Italy. Nausher Nash
I don’t know which way the wind is blowing
I march to the beat of my own drum
If l want to know where I’m going
I look back to where I came from
I look into your eyes and see
A shimmer of that side of me
That beauty is truth, truth beauty
That’s all we need to know and all we need to be
I’m Looking for my past selves
Sleeping with my old self
I am just a shadow of my wild me
I can’t remember what that was like to be
I look into your eyes and see
A shimmer of that side of me
Through the sandglass and into the sea
I’m waiting for the waves to bring myself back to me – Nausher
the verdict is in, skin to stone, stone to skin
my brother, my siamese, my twin
my better half, my other side
my friend, philosopher, and guide
what’s left behind we do not know
it’s the way the story goes
here today, gone tomorrow
we live here on time borrowed
here we started and there we departed
lost in the count and never counted
no matter what you say it doesn’t matter anyway
you cannot return and you cannot stay
– Nausher
It draws their gaze across placid curves
Do they thirst for a sip of fire
The heart beats hollow in mind caves
Tribal moans in primal pyres
Bated breath baited eyes
Are we willing to wait for stillness
The perfume of cinnamon on your sighs
Surrounds our stones and our senses
In a ghostly haze that sets us free
We search what we carefully conceal
I wonder if we are aware
Of the shadows and light that haunt us there
We watch the beauty of the bare
The empty walls we cannot share
You walk with me in black and white
With velvet coat in velvet night
Through impervious apathy
And slavish parables of duty
Let us breathe even for a moment
At the edge of earth the skin of infinity –
– Nausher Nash
I shoot arrows into the air,
They fall on earth, I know not where,
But sometimes they touch a heart,
And that is a beautiful, and that’s a start
Standing, I am waiting at my door
One moment a prince, the next moment a whore
The Savonarolas have been at it for centuries
Burning down beauty in a bonfire of the vanities
Praising the ugly and questioning our sanity
In the name of love everything is profanity
I have beauty on my brain like you have money, god and fame
Let Savonarola come and burn it all down
My finger is on the shutter and I still wear the crown
When I see the rabid, virtue signalling pc mob on social media
I’m reminded of all the other times they frothed their hysteria
Here they come with pitchforks and pamphlets
Spitting out commandments from their broken tablets
I can smell the rancid sweat of their hate and ignorance,
Their bad breath and their bad opinions
I’m seeing their posts, gnarled, plastic and empty
Their faces oozing ugliness, wearing masks to hide the ugly
Out of their septic holes they hiss and they spew
Box cars to ‘protection camps’ – they are the first in que
-Nausher Nash
In the end it is all just a speck in my eye
I just want to take a moment to say goodbye
I know I made a mistake coming here again
Can I remind myself of what, where and when
In a dream and a prophecy, barely a trace of that place in me
I look in the mirror and all I see, the ebb and flow of memory – NausherNash
The night is done
Gone with the wind of the first sun
Dreams on ice
Crucified twice
I want to be alone with me
A transparent layer in history
You ask if I’m religious and this is what I say
This is my temple
And I am it’s priest
I kneel to the naked and to beauty I pray
I see the winding vines of history
Splattered with blood and blame
And every decision ever made
Has vanity in its name
I see you like this
naked on the veranda of an Italian villa
looking down at a throbbing mob of lovers
a cigarette in one hand, regret in the other
watching their yearning with your cold dark eyes
watching them burning, hearing their sighs
you see the swell of the surging crowd
you hear them chant your name aloud
enchantment in one hand, in the other hand a shroud
I can see the winding vines of history
Splattered with blood and blame
And every decision that was made
Had vanity in its name
Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
Don’t flatter yourself darling, it’s not to be
Don’t go confusing youth for beauty
Dont mistake the tautness of skin with the angles of bone
When you face the mirror you stand alone
Everything is not equal, and everyone is not the same
I know everything there is to know about the blame game
Time changes everything in a film running backwards
You keep moving your goalposts and shifting your standards
The beginning is the end but not everything ends well
You will find hell in heaven and heaven in hell
They may mock you and jeer and you might scoff
You have reached the edge of earth my darling
And are in danger of falling off
our painted armies are soaked with youth and defiance
our naked bodies are cloaked with truth and silence
I sit and await the hand of fate
Walk the street to my own heartbeat
Love and hate are an open gate
I feel the heat beneath her feet
Watching day passing and night returning
Standing, watching mirrors pretending
Losing beauty, watching life turning
Burning, watching my past erasing
Unbeing, unseeing what i’m seeing
Even as the mirrors are breaking – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
I’m walking down my night mind
Searching for what is mine
I have been running down passages
But all I see is the empty spaces
Did I see a shadow stir
I’m still waiting for an answer
Through the sandglass and into the sea
I’m waiting for the waves to bring myself back to me
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
You go down on your knee
Open your heart to the moon and the bottomless sea
Look up at the sky and sigh
Why this, why that, and why
White grows gray, gray grows black
Nothing to say, ricochet those dead years back
Look up at the sky and lie
Why this, why that, and why
Count your chances, a thousand to one,
An ear on your heart, eyes on an eclipsed sun
Look up at the sky and cry
Why this, why that, and why
Where is the Seraphim welcoming me in
Watch me pass through heaven’s gate
I can’t remember where I have been
I’m sorry darling it’s been so late
Where is the Seraphim welcoming me in
See the power of beauty one last time
All the fairy tales were wrong in the end
They made ugliness a virtue and beauty a crime
Where is the Seraphim welcoming me in
Those truths are gone those lies were a game
Your sins are a gift your virtues forgiven
You learnt praise and blame are all the same – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
Mirror mirror on the wall
What do we see before we fall
The poetry of memories and lust
Ashes to ashes dust to dust
We stumble between the blur and the after
We leave behind our breath on the mirror
The power of beauty
The beauty of power
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
Spend enough time in libraries and you find
that everything is related, everything is connected
Christ and crutches
Guilt and guillotines
Penises and propaganda
Erotica and enlightenment
Climate and constipation
Martyrs and masturbation
Woke and broke
Between rapture and ecstasy
Your breath feels like autumn to me
In the depths of your eyes the question lies
The answer waits, starves and dies
We are just peasants floundering in the snow
What colour is the wind we do not know
Between rapture and ecstasy
Everything seems like summer to me
And everything seems like fall
It matters more than you will ever see
And it matters nothing at all
My god is beautiful, strong, and naked
I kneel at Her sculpted alter
And worship at Her renaissance feet
And when the music stops and the mirror shatters
She reminds me why beauty matters.
I was standing watching worlds falling
I could hear words colliding
Beauty speaking through your eyes
Through the pores of your skin
Speaking truth to lies
Your sins are a gift
Your virtues are forgiven
Everything always seems like summer to me.
And everything seems like fall
It matters more than you think
And it doesn’t matter at all – N
You preach love but you justify hate
Feelings are facts and words are bait
Flagellate yourself with guilt and demand reparations
You are the saviour you say of desperate nations
You talk about one world but are blind to all others
There is comfort among sheep when others are ogres
You say it is a debate but you argue with labels
Best blur the lines between facts and fables
You see truths as opinions, and opinions as slurs
You are falling over like lemmings to out-woke your brothers
You choose Barabbas to go free and burn Joan at the stake
You stone the Semites as they kneel and call history a fake
Your kindness is your shield, being offended is your sword
Tell me who died and anointed you god
All the simple truths are false and all the complex ones are unusable.
When everyone is saving the world you are disposable
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
You worship your celluloid puppets
Your sports shows, your stereo heroes
I must atone for everything I have known
I just worship the beauty of skin
The beauty of stone
You worship your intoxications
Your bundles of green, your what-might-have-beens
I must atone for everything I have known
I just worship the beauty of skin
The beauty of stone
You worship your TV noose
Your games of win or loose
I must atone for everything I have known
I just worship the beauty of skin
The beauty of stone – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
Now put on your mask
And let the show begin
Your sins are a gift
Your virtues are forgiven
You dance with an angel, walk with a ghost
All versions of you end at the goalpost
Is it the sound of a shutter, the drum of a heart beat
Is it heaven above or the ground beneath her feet – Nausher
You are standing on the crosswalk
Listening to the crosstalk
Waiting to catch up with your past
And your future just passed
You catch your reflection
Kissing your assassin
Waiting to catch up with your past
And your future just passed
You pictures mildew on the floor
Your beauty ghosts out the door
Waiting to catch up with your past
And your future just passed
You dance with an angel, walk with a ghost
All versions of you end at the goalpost
Is it the sound of a shutter, the drum of a heart beat
Is it heaven above or the ground beneath her feet – Nausher
You’ve been faulted and you’ve been feted
You’ve been excluded you’ve been exalted
When seeking the sacred always be naked
You’ve been exhausted and you’ve been enchanted
You’ve been devoted and you’ve been detested
When seeking the sacred always be naked
You’ve been beloved and you’ve been blighted
You’ve been invited and you’ve been invaded
When seeking the sacred always be naked
You’ve been heralded and you’ve been hated
You’ve been trumpeted and you’ve been tormented
When seeking the sacred always be naked
You’ve been perverted and you’ve been perfected
You’ve been erected and you’ve been eroded
When seeking the sacred always be naked
You’ve been lambasted and you’ve been lamented
You’ve been garrotted and you’ve been garlanded
When seeking the sacred always be naked – Nausher
If life teaches you anything it is this
If it is not in frame it does not exist
Life and love are tightly braided
Beauty is sublime and the sublime sacred
The sacred, remember, is always naked – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
The gods created night
Thunder, lightning and twilight
Created the shine in your eyes
As you searched the skies
For the whys, the sighs, the fireflies
And this is your prayer
This is your hour
The power of beauty
The beauty of power – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
Mirror mirror on the wall
What do we see before we fall
The poetry of memories and lust
Ashes to ashes dust to dust
Kissed by the flame, we meander in a mist
If we’re not in frame we do not exist
We stumble between the blur and the after
We leave behind our breath on the mirror
i am a prophet in seas of insanity |
i am the head on a coin |
a message, a sign |
i am Nothing |
yet i am the messiah – N
You look up to the skies
And this is your prayer
The power of beauty
The beauty of power
This is your pain
This is your pleasure
The power of beauty
The beauty of power
Put on your face
This is your armour
The power of beauty
The beauty of power
This is the question
This is the answer
The power of beauty
The beauty of power
You are the book
You are it’s author
The power of beauty
The beauty of power
Daughter of lightning
You’re goddess of thunder
The power of beauty
The beauty of power
Mirror mirror on the wall
What do we see before we fall
The poetry of memories and lust
Ashes to ashes dust to dust
We stumble between the blur and the after
We leave behind our breath on the mirror – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
The house on the rock, the writing on the wall
Give me back my secrets before I fall
Inside of me, in spite of me
I have the key, I have the key
The wound I wear, look back and stare
Nobody cares darling, nobody cares
Fragile as glass, as reflections in glass
Put on your happy face and let it pass
I leave the mirror, I enter the room
I walk the path from bloom to tomb
I stumble between the blur and the after
I leave behind my breath on the mirror
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
Holding up the sky and I can feel the rain
Holding day to night, I break the chain
A ear to the ground, my lips to your ear
It is not over yet but it’s getting near
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
Vanity of vanities, sayeth the preacher, all is vanity.
Me, myself, my eyes, the mirror never lies
Kissed by the flame, I meander in a mist
If I’m not in frame I do not exist – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo
I have been walking a straight line
Searching for what is mine
I’m looking over my shoulder
Searching for the soul in sculpture
I have been running down passages
Can’t turn the page, I can’t turn the pages
Waiting in the dark for dawn to near
I’m waiting for an end, the end is clear
Through the sandglass and into the sea
I’m waiting for the waves to bring myself back to me
I love watching the city when it is raining
I watch it cry like its heart is breaking
I watch lights shimmer by my side
Watch shadows glow and glide
I’m standing watching people run
Watching them praying for the sun
Another one bites the dust
And another one bites the dust
I could hear words colliding
Beauty speaking through your eyes
Through the pores of your skin
Speaking truth to lies
All is forgiven – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo