Category: writings

Incandescent

I was born out of the blue
Like a star without a face
And shall one day be falling too
As dust without a trace
In hope that when I am gone
Those very few whom I knew
Kept something of the light
With which their wish came true…

Hubris

I am just another
Diluted human being
Strained with whetstone thoughts
And rhinestone dream
Tracing the echo of my footsteps
In silent halls
Sans any walls
Was I born to burn
And cling to life
Like cigarette ash
Dying and dying
One breath at a time?
I can hear the puppets talk
At night
Their voice
Made of wood and string
Mirrors of what the violin sing
My tragedy and ivory
A comedy and ebony
My face is falling apart
Like wallpaper
And what’s beneath is no longer me
It’s a different shade
This bruise beneath the bandage
I am alone
And awake
And I know
That I ache
Somewhere deep inside
Where those things hide
Which I keep
So not to weep
At every pain that passes
Like needle through my arm
For I am just another
Diluted human being
Strained with whetstone thoughts
And rhinestone dream

The Ash Blanket

Last night
In dim light
Of half closed fridge
My pale skin
Shone
Like snow on fire
And the blunt desire
To bruise
And break
These filial bonds
Of flesh and bones
Rose, untainted
Like waves on sea
Like a dream disguised as a memory

I was sleeping
Under the cold warmth
Of the ash blanket
Till people appeared
By my bedside
Beings sulphurous
Silhouettes of silver smoke
Which spoke:
‘Come to us
You child of gravity
There is a world beyond the world
Shaped by chaos and clarity
A latticework of lyrics
A synagogue sans any saint
A cosmos acclaimed by cynics
A painting without the paint’
And I alive in tenuous thoughts
Of nevermore and forever
Could only see and be
A shadow of a reflection
Unborn thus free
And so those excelsior people
With ghost hands bore me away
Astride the light they had saved
Back from their leftover days

What I saw thence I cannot say
There is nothing to remember
Between the first dawn of January
And the last night of December
But there are those half dreamt moments
When I seem to know
The truth breathed upon me:
That Soul is what the light don’t show

But last night
In dim light
Of half closed fridge
My pale skin
Shone
Like snow on fire…

Daydreams Of a Day

I wore a blanket for a cape
For only in dreams I can escape
The mortal wounds
So lovingly applied
As an afterthought of ache

Oft nights when the world
Is turning inside out
Being snowflake proud of rainbow vomit and papier-mâché pyramids
Growing in a mindless ocean of silver sweat
I sit as stillness amidst the walls
Like a spineless spider flat and small
Aping what I think
Is the rhythm I cannot find
Do I mind? Do I mind?
Stars falling like dandruff on blank shoulder of the night
Do I mind? Do I mind?
Knowing my common mind preaches that I am one of a kind

The cactus upon the windowsil
Looks down on the street and see
Other trees meditating
Like monks on a subway free
Half dead and half high
Having two views of one life
An ever burning driftwood
Entombed in blue ice
I am that monk
That beggar with bright face
Having known no sunshine, I shine
Having known no misery, I make mine
From the refrigerated leftover of a burnt down town
Crying over T-shirts and Blazers, Tank tops and gown

The world with its thorned tendrils and tremors of love
The world with its crow’s claws and feathers of a dove
Knows the weight and cost of a coin unspent
For this life; a tragedy, for this life; a parody
Is best lived,unmeasured and as if each day is on rent

I have seen geisha queens
Dance on aspen nights
Play with children made of fire
And love men afraid of light
I have known threadbare hearts
Bare it all upon the floor
And yet be trodden upon
Like a foot mat at the door
And so much more, so much more
I have seen and chosen to ignore
The what if and why not
The why now and not before
So much more, so much more, now no more anymore

The Painted Panther

She was a painted panther
Black skin and velvet dye
Her eyes had all the answers
But her lips knew when to lie
Her home was a silver wasteland
A piece of moon was her throne at night
She spoke only in shadows
And heard only the sound of light
Her shape was god and movement
And her name was without a face
People worshipped her from far
Like a pilgrim without a place
And before long we all will be dreaming
Her dreams on the final bed
Where all eyes turn inward ever after
And no more any word is said
Because she was a painted panther
Black skin and velvet dye
Her eyes had all the answers
But her lips knew when to lie

Akin

Let me go
And I shall be
Something akin
To a memory
My flesh it burns
My bones they weigh
The nights are tough
And it’s hard these days
For my soul it wanes
Like wax neath flame
And I know the pain
To always feel the same
Thus there is no way
Where I can sow
A seed of pearl
For a sea to grow
So I shall pass
Through the veil of sand
Alone with eternity
Hand in hand…

Nescience

I wait at the newspaper stand
Reading, the morning is grey
Ash tinted
Like an old man’s asthma

Buds of people are sprouting
From windows and eggshell alleyways
Dressed in yesterday’s dreams
And tommorow’s promises
Faces creased, bespectacled
With white hairs a halo
From the century long sunlight
Age ever ached to swallow

A ballad pours from the the barbershop
The old stereo is crooning about
Footsteps falling on azure fields
And carts on country roads
I can smell the aftershave
At once bitter and sweet
The razor once again vacant
Without the borrowed heartbeat

There is a fallacy here
Between the words and vision
I read and see
The stories seem vibrant but life colour-free
Perhaps it is the weight of being
That makes it so
For all of us do wither
But only some of us grow

The children have gathered on the footpath
A bell in some temple tolls
The priests are praying for bliss
And in laughter a football rolls
I watch, I watch
The world divided in unison
Each hour be day or night
Being a part of every season

So I pay my fair share
It’s time for me to leave
And be one amongst the masses
Who in eternity believe
Of everyday man and their everyday deeds
In the cycle of fruit from the flower and flower from the seeds
If only one would question; Does the roots if ever know?
Of the world that blooms outside from their breaths buried below

Raiment

Image by Francesca Zama @unsplash

Naked pictures painted on the world map, a global ache this systematic subjugation, arraigned with signatures and rubber stamps and blue and black ink with red smeared hands from…

Ants committing suicide for sugar cubes, mountains sundered for a grain of sand, weighing a ton by common belief of a wishful world running in a race without an end around a toilet flush
I hear music in the smoking firmament, the guttural snort and fart of the engine like Mozart’s Requiem for Modern Times; graveyards filled with scraps, dusty medals pinned upon pigeon chests, chest with springs and cogs inside, all mechanisms of a meager mind,

Breathed upon by gunpowder gods never crucified, but kept alive, unchained unlike Prometheus or castrated unlike Cronus, with 9mm eyes watching over the supposed universe,
Lives televised, a miniscule mime renting life per hour, human carcass threaded, talking puppets mimicking everyday shambles with double exclamation and undying opinions; graffiti upon bathroom walls, the enlightenment of our age; our Bible, our Koran, our Commandments, our Veda,

An ocean of umbilical madness, Medusas of mind, writhing in the depths of drowned time, left helpless at the bottom, garbage cans, lobster traps, Ahab’s ambition, little mermaid’s fin, all part of the abyss, woven tales of Atlantis

Beggars upon sidewalk, watching the neon lights blink at the mannequins dressed and fed better than them, breathing in glass case while the Caesar supine on steps as flat piece of bread looks on: Et tu, Et tu, until a coin clatters in the bowl and Rome falls, democracy dissolved under the acid rain of paint thinner,

Red sky running, blind horse racing against the rider till the tollbooth where hands on hips the old man walks the zebra crossing, unmindful of the airplanes lined at the red light, waiting one and all to fly away, without passengers or Blackbox, to a land where runways end

Phantoms fasting upon a fingernail, the sound of anarchy, electric guitar with strings of lightning, rainbow flooding the floor, and the people waving, a mingled marsh undecipherable, a canvas coated with paint, avant-garde asylum overflowing with stone heads

Rows of velvet cushion upon glass, red carpet laid upon mud, hyenas laughing in the hallway in high heels and mothball tuxedos from pawn shop, faceless fornication behind the screen, lips locked together in war, breathes dying with alcohol,

And outside the Ghost of Christmas Past selling mint in the rain, poets pass him and politicians, all made of papers full of question marks and Venn diagram that depicts everything said and done, the saying it has the bigger circle and the deeds it had none,

The Van Gogh World waking, rivers of gas flowing under matchstick houses waiting for madmen, toothpick buildings dancing for children playing whack-a-mole, Las Vegas without lights like teeth of a key; all cards of the fleeting reality playing pinochle with constant uncertainty,

Dismal days these, age of enlightenment, recoilless Renaissance, people paying people to understand people paying people, round around the circumference of Drachma with Copernicus we fly, we fly, taking one day kryptonian crash course, and pretend to die with cries towards the sky; O father thou art in heaven, look down now and weep, for seven days you worked, and on the eighth it all went to dust, you knew it and yet you left it so, now weeds gather in your garden, and even Lucifer stays away and pray free from this drama; Hare Rama, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama