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
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…
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
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
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…
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
What heaven and earth shall answer me What fire and brimstone shall answer me What thunder and tempest shall answer me When all I ask in a whisper Is the source of their silence
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
To speak Without being heard With words like wind Asleep in windchimes, To be far away, breathing in a distant past dyed sepia and smelling of crushed leaves: The aroma of time dried through the ages, To taste a fruit away from the tongue And let it linger in a seedless ecstasy On each pair of lips In every burnished breath between the lungs To weave sunlight In the skin of dewdrops And bare a rainbow upon the floor Brought home to a full circle To smile at the madness of it all And mean it in the mirror of mind Grassroots enveloping Memories I cannot find Now leads me to believe That life with all its thorns and petals Is more in the act of living Than waiting for it to settle
