Avi Misra

BOAT PEOPLE

Million years now

We’ve been going

Ever moving

Ever flowing

We’ve been rowing

We’ve been rowing

We’ve been rowing

Some for love and

Some from hunger

Some from war

And some from thunder

We’ve been rowing

We’ve been rowing

We’ve been rowing

 

MILLENNIALS

You wore Kohl and

Sandal incense dreams

I played tapes and

Smoked those ancient leaves

We wrote films that

Never saw a frame

We saw world peace

Deep inside a flame

We were young and

We were so naive

You wore Kohl and

Ruby roze quartz dreams

Sa Re Ga Re Pa Re Ga Re Sa

 

WALA

Streaming light to the skies

Red and gold your designs

Wouldn't you call her?

Your sister? Your sister? Your sister?

Southern hills you defy

Hold the sun in your eye

Wala Oh Wala

Wala Oh Wala

Wala Oh Wala!

 

SMITH STREET

Walk up Smith Street

The ice head is losing it

The football gang’s

Rabid on the 86

Mullet Jim and Mohawk Jack

Smoke outside the Tote

And I feel so invisible

And I feel so invincible

The Wurrundjeri man’s

Ashamed of his beggary

Bespoke Lou and boutique Sam

Are sipping six dollar coffees

There's a bald white man

Fuming at the green store

There's a brown guard standing outside the Yoga floor

A yellow woman's selling cheap chicken by the score

There's an angry man screaming for the days of yore

And I feel so invisible

And I feel so invincible

Chaya hun main pardes main

 

TABHU’S QUESTION MARKS (Lyrics  by Amitav 'Tabhu' Misra, 1992)

People are question marks

They have no identity

Masquerading around in masks

No one knows anyone in reality

Question marks, aren’t we?

Question marks…

 

SLAVE TRADE

Age of misinformation

And all you see

Slaves of every colour

Serving thee

First divide and conquer

Then you rule

Numbed our brains didn’t you master?

Made us drool

Over entertained and underpaid

Mr Galileo turns in his grave

Love is the drug

(There’s another soul out there)

Cool is the fuel

(There’s another soul out there)

Age of information

And we will see

Minds of every nation

Fighting thee

Knowledge triumphs darkness

Knowledge wins

Knowledge smashes rules

And knowledge sings

Superhuman and super aware

Evolution just don’t care

Love is the drug

(There’s another soul out there)

Cool is the fuel

(There’s another soul out there)

 

 

THIRD WORLD WAR  (Lyrics written twenty years ago on 9/11/2001)

Split by a splinter

Lit by a flame

Caught by a sinner

Lost and insane

Luckless like a diplomat

Atheist like a priest

Killed like an angel

Blessed like a dog

The beauty of haste

The poetry of waste

Black in the white

Like a peaceful fight

Like a peaceful fight

Like a peaceful fight

 

LYN’S LOST PARADISE (Lyrics  by Lyn Gleeson)

I went for a drive

Looking for my lost paradise

And it opened up eyes

I found lots of beautiful spaces

I can feel it in my soul

The rain’s coming

Then the sunshine

My rainbow’s here

Now I face myself

I face myself

I face myself

Where is my lost paradise?

What am I looking for?

When will I let it happen?

Why am In blind to it all?

Where is my lost paradise?

What am I looking for?

When will I let it happen?

Why am In blind to it all?

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOXIC CITY

We met in a toxic city

Exchanging poison kisses

We met in a toxic city

Hard on the edges but trembling inside

And I was just a sailor

Drowning in the smog sea

Reading Keats and Shelly

On spit soaked buses in a toxic city

We met in a toxic city

In fumes we sighed

in smog we danced

We met in a toxic city

But now we live in a violet jacaranda valley

Surrounded by the deep blue sea

Can we exorcise this toxic city

This toxic city

This toxicity

 

OLD BOMBAY

In the streets of old Bombay

I heard you say

I heard you say

You'd chase my blues away

And waltz through lonesome Saturdays

With your neon matchbox lies

In the bright of your ocean dress

A lantern lights an amethyst

Its a joyful, joyful life

Say the young girls eyes

Say the young girls eyes

Celluloid Colaba dreams

In black and white

Washed away by the cool westerly night breeze

Cloaked in thick cigar smoke

Cloaked in thick cigar smoke

Portside smuggler handshakes

And a dead starlets eye mascara

And a dead starlets eye mascara

And a dead starlets eye mascara

With your neon matchbox lies...

 

 

AGE OF KALI

Age Of Kali

The Lights go out

Age Of Kali

There is no sound

Dances on the dead lingam

Her tongue sticks out

Age Of Kali

The blackness shines

Age Of Kali

The end divine

Those eyes of red

Burn into you

Age Of Kali

Your form burns out

Age Of Kali

There is no doubt

The serpents hiss

And the men scream and shout

Rexxon mobil, Roka Cola, Ree MW, The moon we own her

Age of Kali’s going to bring you down

 

EULOGY

Sunbird sitting on a willow tree

The infant’s crying for the love supreme

The stars are shining beyond us

Their light wouldn’t set us free

The moon’s smiling above us

Her tales we’d never see

The salesmen’s selling his own suicide

The priest is looking for a place to hide

The stars are shining beyond us

Their light wouldn’t set us free

The moon’s smiling above us

Her tales we’d never see

Lets dance to our eulogy

Lets dance to our eulogy

Lets dance to our eulogy

 

OCEAN

Deep within the ocean

Voices seem to call

Deep within the ocean

Something seems to fall

You, I thought I knew you

Wrapped in winter haze

You, I thought I knew you

Silken in embraces

Deep within the ocean

Deep within the ocean

Deep within the ocean

Deep within the ocean

A ghost city does sigh

Deep within the ocean

I hear a lullaby

Deep within the ocean

Deep within the ocean

Deep within the ocean

You, I thought I knew you

Like a secret place

You, I thought I knew you

Like a yellowed page

Deep within the ocean

Deep within the ocean

Deep within the ocean

Hymns of long lost Vedas

Seem to whisper by…

 

USHA

Usha awakes

The goddess of dawn

Usha returns

To light up the morn

Usha’s golden skin illuminates the sky

Usha awakes, the goddess of dawn

Usha Usha Usha Usha Oh Usha

And Ratri

The goddess of the night

Lingers

In the darkness of the sky

In the eyes of the beast

The Vedic fire

Is leaping higher

The Vedic fire

Is leaping higher...

Usha Usha Usha Usha Oh Usha

 

RAJA OF INDRAPRASTHA

This city is a carcass

Of a thousand crowns

Our glory lies buried

Our stories have drowned

Invisible letters they scream

In Ashokan pillars

And in my dreams

Now that I notice

That you’re not around

I’m going to let it out

I’m going to shout

I am the Raja Of Indraprastha

I am the Raja Of Indraprastha

I am the Raja Of Indraprastha

Where is my kingdom?

Where is my crown?

I am the Raja Of Indraprastha

REBIRTH

I have been to other lifetimes

Though the scenes I cannot trace

Old pianos, walks in gardens

Don’t know you but I know your face

I have walked these streets before but

Cities come and cities they burn

The palace shone in diamond splendour

Your four words were death defined

I have scripted all these scenes where I’m

The seer and the seen

Do you see your lives flash by as

Seconds bloom and seconds burn

 

CLIMATE CHANGE MAN

It’s a Tuesday afternoon

He’s deep within the moon

Eyes lit up in silent rage

Lost in his cocoon

Cutouts in his room

Making speeches on the eve of doom

Screeching tales of glacial thirst

Of river whales that die in the mud

Of pesticides and stratospheres

Climate change, change man

What a strange, strange man

Climate change, change man

What a strange, strange man

Between the lama and the road

The drama and the lore

He shadows on a rural street

Chasing a skylark

The sun’s getting dark

Cause the whole world’s burning down

Screeching tales of glacial thirst

Of river whales that die in the mud

Of pesticides and stratospheres

Climate change, change man

What a strange, strange man

Climate change climate change

Climate change, climate change man

Says life’s like a store where people just want more

Of what has bought them to begin with…

 

LOVE

My baby she don’t really watch television

The show she loves to see is life

My baby she don’t ever shop on a Sunday

Knows the beautiful is free

She gives me love, love, sweet love

She gives me love, love, sweet love

My baby she don’t really understand them brandings

Knows that everything is one

My baby’s grooving to the cricket orchestra

Loves designs in the sky

She gives me love, love, sweet love

She gives me love, love, sweet love

My baby she don’t think that saying is believing

Don’t understand them lies

My baby loves the blood of justice

Knows two wrongs don’t make a right

She gives me love, love, sweet love

She gives me love, love, sweet love

The sky is love

Why is love

I’m love

You are love

Love, love, love, Sweet love

 

WAHE GURU

Sometimes there are no roads

Some roads just have no time

Some rhymes are understood

Some lines they circle back

Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru

Dravid hits a six

Dhoni rolls his arm

Sachin loses calm

Bradman faces Warne

Wahe Guru Wahe Guru

You love so much you hate

You run so much you’re still

You hurt so much you laugh

You laugh so much you cry

Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru

Some die to show us life

Some gods may be unkind

Some burn in rhythmic fire

Some beats they'll always breathe

Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru

You love so much you hate

You run so much you're still

You laugh so much you cry

You cry so much you laugh

Wahe Guru, Wahe Guru

 

BOOM BOOM SHIVA

Shiva’s such a lonesome guy

With his house up in the sky

Shiva loves to dress in black

Ash clad with matted hair

Shiva does the yoga too

His apartment’s coloured blue

Boom Boom Shiva bring me down

Boom Boom Shiva bring me down

Shiva plays a drum solo

Dances frantic, breathes real slow

Shiva loves to get real high

Soma helps to make him fly

Shiva loves to run so fast

He’s got no future he's got no past

Boom Boom Shiva bring me down

Shiva roams the streets at night

Breaks the rules and loves a fight

Shiva's been to the cities dens

Where black money numbs your sense

Shiva saw the mushroom sky

Atoms form his next third eye

Boom Boom Shiva

Bring me down

 

WHO

Who says that a piece of paper, gets me what I want?

Who says that a barbed wire fence, tells me what I’m not?

Who says that the seen, heard, spoken is everything there is?

It aint me

It ain't you

Who says some are born to riches, others to rags?

Who says that this profit motive aint just a load of gas?

Who says that we can’t grow food for everyone to eat?

It aint me

It ain't you

Who says what is one and hundred, who says what is none?

Who says that a circle ain't just a square on the run?

Who says that all that’s added isn’t just subtracted?

It aint me

It ain't you

Is it an eye in the sky?

Is it a lullaby?

Is it an open field?

Is it a stock exchange?

Is it an ancient book?

It aint me

 

TAMASIC ELECTRIC TOOLS

Men use

Women consume

Mist in the dune

Dance to my tunes

Might don’t do

Might can’t be cool

Blood without drool

Light is fuel

Tamasic electric tools

Flow with the tide

Don’t erase light

Spacious flight tide

Room without sight

Lying on lies

Sighing in signs

Middle of lines

You’re gonna be fine

Tamasic electric tools

Plastic can flow

It don’t glow

Gold is sown

And the reaper was morose, Joe

Lying on lies

Sighing in signs

Middle of lines

You’re gonna be fine

Tamasic electric tools

 

EYES ON THE RADIO

Everybody’s looking for my eyes on the radio

See the tide rise as the moon starts to flow

I have always known that the telepathy starts to grow

Do you see me whisper all the sights that you’ve never known?

Everybody's looking for my eyes on the radio

See the golden dawn as the canvas of night unfolds

The lake in the mirror of a sign in a Mughal fort

Glows as the moonlit mystic maiden, she sings alone

Everybody's looking for my eyes on the radio

See the golden dawn as the canvas of light unfolds

The moon was a ship of conversations

Emerald green and silken wondrous flow

And we sail on the river

And we sail

And we sail on the river of bliss…