Shell of a man In Hell, as he can: Only think of the deeds, You did. When he trusted you most, You just played the host, And when the guests were all gone, You left.
It is four in the morning And I am cold in my blanket, With yesterday’s breakfast Still fresh in its mourning. The honey runs warm, But the bread is tough I stoke coals under my coat, And now my flesh says enough I melt, and I merge Am I the candle on the cake? Years have passed unmarked, I worry about the last second before being awake.
This pain wasn’t in my plan, you know, Nobody caters for such cataclysm, The eventual demise, That permanent procrastination In watching star-filled skies Reflecting in the unseeing eyes; the dead light Like diluted dynamite.
Why the world shifts, flutters, ebbs and flood, Why tears are closer to the heart than colour of the blood, I have no answers, just assumptions; Half drawn sketches Plucked from memory In this Gaussian garden Of life’s self-centredness.
Old age It knocked on my door Like neighbour. He had nowhere to go, And I had nowhere to be, So we sat down together; An empty mouth and a bad knee. He spoke of the past, And I smiled at his tone, Mimicking a million voices, To make me forget: I was alone.
Shell of a man In Hell, as he can: Only think of the deeds, You did. When he trusted you most, You just played the host, And when the guests were all gone, You left.
I have never spoken of it. The secret, although not shameful on its own, makes me feel ashamed. It’s like being able to see among a group of blind people. You want to describe the beauty of the world or dissect the violence of a man’s motion, to complete the cracks of a woman’s expression but you can’t: without feeling acutely guilty. So, here I speak of it—
I preyed on promises Like a thoughtful vulture Of culture and cheap compromise For facade of feeling was important To alter the illusion That gift-wrapped horrors Are comedy of errors A reality divided By the cause and the causality: For a broken man Does not bleed in the mirror
(Perhaps heaven is a heart That is heavier to hold)
I know my poem feels like practice A frozen hand Combing through rough edges of life To even out the answers So music may appear Vibrating crystal clear A tear tainted with tear Like lyrics of King Lear Alas, this exercise Is not to exorcise any answer But to await and witness The silent decay Of solitude
(For has any mind every mastered The art of interrupting its own soliloquy?)
I thread my threshold; Some common words are never welcome, Words that suture out from chafed lips Carried over as gangrene For whom mind’s a myth And memory a mind Words that evolve as themselves Over and over A curated cancer called as a cure The next iteration The final step On life’s drowning ladder
(Do they know that the ocean Is deeper at the top?)
Beyond the compass needle I discover a horizon Painted in haste Made of waste paper And a pulverised sun It stretches-this myriad moment This suspended time This grotesque mask of shattering beauty Like a dragon’s yawn And near her maw I dance: daring death to dandelions Till the fire came Like algebra on music-sheet Unreadable Exquisite And I was reborn A particle Singular Similar A sinner
(I summarise in theory That a poem knows more of the poetry Than a poet does)
The hall was open Well lit by the intruding sky Peeping from the roof Like dry tongue behind a lie
I remember being here Since forever was yesterday
My heartbeats echoed when my footsteps went quiet And the walls watched When I shifted the silence Like a decade old calendar (Tick Tock but it’s not a clock) For I heard that death in the desert Comes from weight of the ship
Ah, these dark thoughts Burnt cognac on charred cinnamon Keeps me awake For these festive ashes Are kohl for my eyelashes
The piano plays Her faded ebony and darkened ivory But the tune is not twofold It is syrup in syringe It is grease on my hinge Making me murmur and mould my moves To her jazz and her blues Till I saw light in the dark Her flesh flint and my soul spark Oh, and did I burn from her breath Do I roam now as wraith In this hall that stands stilled By my heart that was sealed When she held me and said: I am naked and you are afraid But dare not clothe me For my love, I am sea I have whispered those words Which for even memory weren’t free
I found her seashells burning Sand soaked Scented with cardamom They shone; as white stars neath violent waves As fading scars Of a fallen sky
I touched the constellations on her skin Like a morse code of our memories: The soft bed, warm blanket, cold window and quiet tea Mornings melting into afternoons so the nights could be free
But those dreams kept us awake With heartbeats hiding behind the hour hand A little early, a little late Others plans against our fate
And I know my reminiscence Does not remind one of anything In its vague wordings Of my own ossuary But I rather turn back time, than tiptoe, Into the arms of my love And watch our world burn around us So people could find a path To solace To sanity To self
Burning seashells Can fire keep the water alive? Like the past that feeds on and into the future Fostering the festering Those needlework lies That sewed together the sewers of my soul From overflowing into my eyes To break the view, and the vision The same as that of flies
Man overboard There is mermaid on his mind: Holding his private pearl Made of pieces one of a kind, His heart has no anchor But his toes are touching the shore Waiting to become a fin So he does not drown anymore And be one with that blue She promised with her lips Of how ocean would taste sweet In sharing of their sips
