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 hyena 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

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 hyena 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

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
You throw away your toys and mask all your joys
You cloak your fears with hollow cheers
You sit in a home trying to forget all you’ve known
Watching the idiot box, the clown and the fox
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 libraries and antique stores and museums.
I've worshipped the beautiful and avoided the ugly.
I realized praise and blame are the same.
Very early in the game I learnt there is no shame.
I walk in the air and I don't care.
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

A memory nailed on each hand
You forget where your story began
The night caresses secrets in a dream
Speaking of promises unspoken
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
Remember you only die twice
Once when laid in the coffin
And once when you’re forgotten – Nausher Nash

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

I’ve made a religion out of beauty

it imprisons and it frees me

I catch my reflection

Kissing my assassin

Shadows shimmer intertwined

With the light we left behind

A breath separates heaven and hell

Nothing to buy and nothing to sell

Waiting to catch up with my past

I watch my future pass

I doubt and I falter

But still kneel at her altar.

Nausher Nash Banaji

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 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

Your picture mildews on the floor

Your beauty ghosts out the door

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

We just close our eyes and our lives are carried away by the river

What is left behind we cannot say – It’s just the play of the water

I feel my heart beat beneath her feet

it’s where my mind and body meet

just go with the flow my heart says

there’s things we’ll never know these days

future present perfect past

it’s all 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 see no point in living endlessly without end

i hope that when it happens, it happens suddenly

I see no point in living on without beauty

I don’t want to linger 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 memories 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

I woke up this morning and I had the blues

I saw the Nantes cathedral in the news

I watched arson fires burning on live feeds

My friends said why are you sharing these

This isn’t something we want to see

Show us someone taking the knee

Show us something that will make us feel guilty

I said what are you talking about

This is something we should cry and shout

I said this is our beauty and our heritage

This is something worthy of our rage

They said, don’t bother with the shares

Nobody cares darling, nobody cares

Don’t you get it, they are tearing it all down

Everything I love is being burnt to the ground

What can you do about it, they said shrugging

Wasn’t it just another old building or something

i guess nobody cares, I said, and you are right in what you say

But why the fuck did this have to happen on my birthday

Thank you darlings, it’s been nice

Hope I find my paradise

Hope your wishes all come true

Hope this new year brings me something new –

Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

,

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 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

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

In the dark you reach for the sky

Memories fade, memories lie

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

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 Banaji Duo

standing at the window looking out
I watch the angels play and shout
an oasis of elixir in a season of drought
I watch the sun play patterns on their golden skin
are they Siamese, Gemini or twins
I think I’m on earth but hope it must be 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

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

It doesn’t matter how you persist

If it is not in frame it doesn’t exist –

Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

Beauty makes a heaven of hell, there was a time it knew me well

Walls don’t work, you always say, but open the doors anyway

I can stand, I can fall, it’s my choice to fly or crawl

What I love and what I hate are the hands that guide my fate – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

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

Water on the shore, fate at my door
I dont care anymore if I’m a prince or a whore
The Savonarolas of the world 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 shoot and I write – That’s what takes me through the night
I have beauty on my brain like you probably 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

This is my temple
And I am it’s priest
This is my religion
And I am it’s prophet
This is my world
And I am it’s god
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
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

-Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

Come, let’s play Armchair Jesus

Saving the world online

One Facebook post at a time

Playing victim and saviour in turn

While our own house burns

We tear down our culture and what have we built

We’ve unlearned our history with flag-waving guilt

We just need clicks on our posts to feel fulfilled-

Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

If you are going to die anyway, you might as well die with memories of love, lust and desire

Your body may have failed but your heart is still on fire

There is something about nudity, and the cross, that takes me higher

Kissing you kissing me

The ebb and flow of the sheltering sea

Somewhere between here and why

The truth and lie of my alibi

 

Open your doors to what might be

The ebb and flow of the sheltering sea

Somewhere between where and why

The lost empire of the firefly

 

Feel beauty and you are free

The ebb and flow of the sheltering sea

Somewhere between how and why

The prophecy of the magpie –

Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

Don’t play victim Don’t play saviour

We are bored with your behaviour

We are bored with all the flag-waving guilt

You tear down culture but what have you yourself built

You are just a creature who needs clicks to feel fulfilled – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

with every season and every passing year

we spend less and less time facing a mirror

we cross the bridge but not the river

until we can’t recognize the face in the picture – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

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

You ask me if I’m religious and this is what I say

I kneel to the naked and to beauty I pray

I can see the winding vines of history
Splattered with blood and blame
And every decision that was made
Had vanity in its name

 

 

 

When I look at you I see sand whispering in the hourglass

I see the colour in your eyes change as the hours pass

Beauty – there was a time it knew me

Changing turning I could never find the key

And our days fly by like fireflies into the sea

I’m happy not to survive to see the decay of your beauty

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

 

I can’t even remember what i came here to get away from

My mind is churning but my face is calm

We move to the symphony of lust

Until ashes turn to ashes and dust to dust

I’ve been standing watching the light fading
Watching the day passing and the night returning
Standing, watching the mirrors pretending
Losing beauty, watching my 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

Why this, why that, and why
Turn a blind eye, and say goodbye
in your dreams you can hear your laughter
You can hear your screams the morning after

Why this, why that, and why
Look up at the sky and wait for the lie
You loose your way walking down the track
Nothing to say, ricochet those dead years back

Why this, why that, and why
You wish you could fly, a pie in the sky
Counting your chances, a thousand to one,
Hand on your heart, eyes on the eclipsed sun

Why this, why that, and why
Raise your hands up high, on your lips feel a sigh
You go down on your knees
Open your heart to the moon and the chilling breeze

Why this, why that, and why
Look up at the sky and wait for the lie
White grows gray, gray glows black
Nothing to say, ricochet those dead years back

Why this, why that, and why
Looking up the hill at the pie in the sky
Counting your chances, a thousand to one,
An ear on your heart, eyes on an eclipsed sun

 

You go down on your knee
Open your heart to the moon and the bottomless sea
Look up at to the sky and sigh
Why this, why that, and why

White grows gray, gray glows 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 high at the pie in the sky

Why this, why that, and why

– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

 

 

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

Where is the Seraphim welcoming me in

When i 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 that 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

Truths change and lies are just a game

Tonight those distant stars are shining bright again

You learnt that praise and blame are all the same – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

The bellows are burned

The ire is consumed in the fire

Nothing is learned

You leave the ones you desire

The finger points to you but that is nothing new

The gods that created thunder and rain also created you

Provoke yourself with a myriad of mirrored faces

Trace the scars back to all those hidden places

You see yourself sitting naked on the sand

A promise and a prophecy in each hand

You mirror a mirage moving alone

You call out but it is gone

A ripple of gasps from behind a curtain

You part them only to enter oblivion

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

Ignorance about the past leads to arrogance about the future

Maybe a mirror will garner the truth better

The truth is time changes everything

In a film running backwards

Where a beginning is the end

But not everything ends well

Dream meets poetry

Words are the clay of history

You have reached the edge of the earth

And you are in danger of falling off

Out of the bubble and into the sea

Lemmings off the cliff who think they are free

Burnt at the stake for everyone else’s mistake

Constipated guilt as you march to save civilization

This relish to swim in this fetid sewer of self-flagellation. – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

Between rapture and ecstasy

Your gaze feels like summer to me

In the depths of your eyes the question lies

And for those who look so far

also lies the answer

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.

– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

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

 

 

 

 

Here I sit, there you stand

Silence has handcuffed your hands

Stretch the night to meet the sun

Open the day with the keys to the kingdom

Touch the space between your head and your face

Brace for the sacred in that secret place – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

The house on the rock, the writing on the wall

Watch the tides rise and fall

Inside of me, in spite of me

Mene mene, I have the key

Love, lust, desire are tightly braided

Beauty is sublime and the sublime sacred

The sacred, remember, is always naked – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

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

Something about power moves me

Fuse that with beauty

And you have god

This is the question

This is the answer

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

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

i am a poet in a nation of shopkeepers |
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

– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

 

 

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

Beneath my mask I see a face

An angel beneath my wings

I hear the skies whisper grace

Whisper of those little things

I’m the bones beneath the clay

In the hours time swept away

I sit and wait for tomorrow

To remove the mask that I borrowed – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

 

 

 

I have been walking a straight line

 

Walking down my night mind

 

Searching for what is mine

 

Looking into my rear view mirror

 

Looking over my shoulder

 

I don’t know what I’m searching for

 

I have been running down passages

 

Can’t turn the page, I can’t turn the pages

 

All I see is empty spaces

 

Did I see a shadow stir

 

I’m still waiting for the answer

 

I’m waiting for your answer – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

 

 

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
All is forgiven – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

Remember Joan of Arc?

 

Betrayed by the very king and country she gave her life for

 

Burnt alive at 19 by the very church she lived her life for

 

Is this what happens when you answer the call

 

What chance have you got darling, no chance at all

 

Hold it higher she said, I can see the river bend

 

Keep it always in my sight until the end

 

Higher so I can see the cross above the flames

 

I have learned praise and blame are all the same

 

It’s not tears, it’s smoke in my eyes

 

I seek the heavens, I search the skies

 

Standing in the fire looking out to sea

 

Waiting for the waves to bring the water back to me

 

– NausherNash

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

Listen to the sound of the hourglass flow

Listen to the sound of your shadow

Break the chains and feel the rain

I drink this water and am parched again – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

Achingly naked, seeking the sacred
All the love and all the hatred
You know, Odi et amo

In this year of grace, fallen from grace
Follow your heart to that secret place
You know, Odi et amo

Nothing is the same, its all a game
Start the day by laying blame
You know, Odi et amo

Dust to dust, the ache of lust,
Your blood resembles the color of rust
You know, Odi et amo – Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

Achingly naked, seeking the sacred
All the love and all the hatred
You know, Odi et amo

In this year of grace, fallen from grace
Follow your heart to that secret place
You know, Odi et amo

Nothing is the same, its all a game
Start the day by laying blame
You know, Odi et amo

The ache of longing, the dust of lust,
Your blood resembles the color of rust
You know, Odi et amo
– Nausher Nash Banaji

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

See my face beneath this mask, it is me
See the angel beneath the wings, it is me
I’m that face, I’m the skin, I am the girth beneath it
I’m the angel, I’m the wings, I’m the earth beneath it
I’m the bones beneath the clay
In the hours time swept away
I sit and wait for tomorrow
to remove the mask that I borrowed
– N|M

See my face beneath this mask, it is me
See the angel beneath the wings, it is me
I’m that face, I’m the skin, I am the girth beneath it
I’m the angel, I’m the wings, I’m the earth beneath it
I’m the bones beneath the clay
I’m the hours time swept away
Here I sit waiting for the morrow
Here today gone to sorrow
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

See my face beneath this mask, it is me
See the angel beneath the wings, it is me
I’m that face, I’m the skin, I am the girth beneath it
I’m the angel, I’m the wings, I’m the earth beneath it
I’m the bones beneath the clay
I’m the storm it swept away
Here I sit waiting for the morrow
Here today gone to sorrow
– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

See my face beneath this mask, it is me

I’m that face, I’m the skin and I am the girth beneath it

I’m the bones beneath the clay

Here I sit waiting for the morrow

Here today gone to sorrow

See the archangel beneath the wings, it is me

I’m the archangel, and the wings, and the earth beneath it

I’m the storm I’m feeling swept away

Here I sit waiting for the morrow

Here today gone to sorrow

– Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

The light is fading and we’ve been waiting all day

I’m too tired to sleep, tell me can I please stay

Feels like my heart is beating in these stones

Feels like their scars run deep into my bones

On the breath of the wind the murmur of prayers pass

It’s a thing of beauty and so it cannot last

The bells ring and it’s more than I can bear

It’s not over yet, but it’s getting there

–Nausher Nash Banaji Duo

When we left the mirror and entered the room

When we walked the path from bloom to tomb

We stumbled between the blur and the after

We left behind our breath on the mirror