Untitled 

Written on 17.4.2019; unedited

One fine morning, when the wind smells crisp and cool
Wake up and say, “I’ll be no man’s fool.”
Have a stiff black with a cookie on the side
Whip out your phone and start to write
All redundancies, here’s goodbye

 

Miscalculation

Written 29.10.2018 (probable date); edited 21.5.2024; original - mail

I have nothing to say

I have counted days

No. Minutes. Moments too.

Heartbeats, beads of sweat, pinpricks and shivers running through

I’ve counted them all

Like beads on a grill

Day over day over day

And still

One plus one doesn’t make two

The harder I try

The harder it seems

To justify what happened to me and you

“What happened?”

Nothing, it would seem

The sun rises in the east

Stars shine, stars die

In blinding skies

You live in your hole

And so do I

Yet some humongous, wondrous change

Creeps like the silent hand of the hour

Changing, changing, changing all

Friend to foe, foe to lover

A Promise to dust, an embrace to a pall

Songs to silence, life to loss

And words to garbage that we toss

Shreds and wisps

Don’t talk much

So I have nothing more to say

Let’s just pretend our journey’s end

Has come sooner by a day

And instead of songs, sing me a goodbye

So that I... oh wait!

For You’re already out of sight

And I’m out of mind

And what’s left behind

Are clouds of chalk hanging

O’er my empty black board...

You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

I have stopped claiming. 

I have stopped blaming

I have even stopped finding things to blame for

I have also stopped remembering old blames

And remembering to make new ones

I’ve stopped questioning why someone is 

Saying or doing

Or why I am hurting and crying

I don’t even know how much of me is dying

Or if or why or how

And if I’m not dying

Then how come not?

But I’m not asking

Because I have forgotten 

What it means

‘To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’

Flow

Be

Exist 

Breathe

Bee

Butterfly

Ant

Grass

Snake

I know not 

I know not

“How are you?”

“How are you?”

How should I begin to say how I am?

I am not sure

If I even am living and breathing,

My lungs inflating and deflating with 

A sad clockwork regularity

My brain ticking boxes

Like a pro paper checker

Who, by the way, needs switch off

All the lights upstairs but one,

And my brain

Has none

But walk I do and talk I do

Like a well coiled spring

As long as I twisted lie

Writhing, strangled, mutilated

Into a million shapes by hands

As long as I twisted lie

I’ll get by, putting my twos and twos together

Pen on paper

Taps of buttons

Bills and orders

The numbing monotony of a happy life 

So

I’ll not just get by

But go far

Touch the tailored sky

And wish upon a store-bought star

I have everything that money can buy

And for everything else, I have Mastercard 

I’m envious of those who cry

For they can boast of a life lived hard

But I

Can hardly deny

That I have locked the door and given away the key

To a passer by

Who happened to just stand and stare for a moment

At the baffling nothingness 

Of my full cup of life

I cry and cry and cry

Because that’s the one thing I’m good at.

To a Latecomer

You’re late

Too late when your stepped in

Stepped in and messed up my life

My life was a clean page before you

Before you 

I woke up at six

And I knew how to fix

Everything, from a washing machine to a white sauce Alfredo

Before you

I slept at nine

And dreamed of running through mazes behind closed doors

I was white

An angelic child in a field of ripe corn

A brightly painted swing in the sun

A blush-cheeked lass with a shepherd’s horn

Mary and her little lamb

Before you

I was them all

Even spring has an expiry date

Just as you were mine

Your madness spread

Like inky clouds

Across my sunny clime

You touched me with your siren voice

Made me love, then made me cry

Made me seek, then did deny

Made me live, then left me to die

Made me black! I, who was white

O west wind, tempestuous one

Leaf I was first, then stinging rain

And finally as lightning I came

Turned to ashes what I touched

In love, in hate, in guilt, in pain

I was never the same again

After you 

I was never the same again

A Letter to My Dear Friend

Dear friend

I’ll wear a smile

When I see you today

I’ll hold your hand

And give that tight all-knowing squeeze

I’ll tell you how much I have always loved

The sound of your tinkling laugh

And I will tell you ere you leave

That you mean the world to me

But I’ll not say how much it hurts

To see you smile at me

To hear you share with giggling smiles

Your evening at the beach

Your latest spree at H&Ms

Your spats with your boss

Your third cousin’s second child

Your fourth’s major loss

And then you’ll tell me how he said

All those words he once told me

How special he made you feel

With his silly jealousy

You’ll tell me how he called you

At midnight, with his tears

And how he spoke till the wake of dawn

And told you all his fears

And you told him yours, I know

It’s your strength, my dearest friend

How easily you take our fears away...

...amazes me no end

And by and by as you became

The rock that he leans on

I receded like the weeds

That with the falling tide are gone

I was once that rock he swore

He couldn’t do without

I was once the reason why

He slept without self doubt

Or so he said. But that was once

A very long time ago

Today he calls you the reason for

Bringing him safe ashore

Today he calls you when you laugh

With friends he won’t let you have

Because he wants you all for him

And your love he will not share

Today you’re telling me I shouldn’t

Tell him you spoke to me

Coz he’d be hurt and he’d be sore

To have you speaking to strangers, you see...

Dear friend how easily tables have turned

And how easily you’ve forgot

It was me he chided for sharing things

With strangers, or those he thought

But T’was you I’d shared my deepest with

It was you my confidante

It was your name that had sounded strange

The exclusivity was mine

Today you’re me and I am you

For the tables have turned with time

But those were times and like you say

They belong to a different world

One where the butterfly

Keeps her wings unfurled

One where the giver gets

And doesn’t a beggar be

Where souls entwine and make a whole

Not a Venn diagram of “you” and “me”

My dear friend your all-knowing heart

Has found me a new universe!

Where in this place I fight for space

‘Mongst those who’d call me a curse

You’ve found me an entire world of my own!

Where my impossible dreams can be

A world where I can fly so high

Where a stage is set for me

For me! Oh my. I wouldn’t know

What to do with such ecstasy

The sheer joy of loving deep

And loved in return to be!

I guess I must have missed that bus

Coz I’m stuck here for eternity.

Oh lovely friend today you’re mine

And today you’re also his

And today we all must laugh and smile

(That’s another memo I think I missed)

For today is gone in the blink of an eye

And such a short today it is

So today I swear, I will not cry

Coz you’ll hurt to see me like this

So when we meet I’ll love you sweet

And with your love I shall heal

And when we meet I shall deny

This emptiness I feel

My dear friend, you weren’t meant

To be my scourge and salve

It’s Fate that played this cruel game

You aren’t to blame at all

I know you have the deepest love

I know you love me true

So today I’ll play Fortune’s fool

And smile and laugh with you.

The Artist Diaries

Resignation

never mind.
but hey, did you sleep last night?
or did demons keep you
awake, adrift
tossing and thrasing
like a splintered skiff
at large on an ominous sea?

I was so
and though i knew
you were awake, i knew
you were paralyzed

so when you sleep tonight
know that the storm
knows no end
and the rocks just come out of no certain where
and fear grips your wind pipe
like an old man grips his cane
chasing wretched mongrels that hound his heels
as he totters down a forgotten lane

know that fear
tastes perchance like marmalade
bitter and sweet at once
and when you bite back the rising bile
a hundredth time
you may not hate it anymore
you may secretly not hate it at all
you may, deep inside, perhaps...
perhaps...

but then, who knows?
I knew once
a man who was a lost cause
a woman who gathered no moss
but what do I know anymore?
what does anyone know anymore?
so
never mind.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Disenchantment

Hope is a vile thing
Takes us away into crazy places
Alternate universes and other lives
Loaves of bread and bread in slices
Shores where we go to crash and die

The artist is a hopeless man
He sits still and knows
That all that scribble
All the outpouring of his woes
Are but the stains under her eyes
Under his eyes
All the fine lines on his page
Are but the fine lines on his face...

Think about me kindly
But don't linger there
Memory is a strumpet's child
You'll try really hard
I have no doubt, I do believe
But look
Its a new morning now
And that angelic, delicious hope
Blows yesterdays' memories of you and I
Into smoke
Wisps
Coffee on a rainy day
See me in the dregs
For that's where I shall lie
That's where I shall lie.

11.3.2019