I wish I could be the colour blue
Not sapphire or cerulean
But something old
And something new
As if waves of the ocean
Are carrying pieces of the sky
Moonlight and stardust
Dipped in indigo dye
A deeper azure
A cobalt that will fade
Part turquoise, part teal
Your shade, your shade…
It’s a terrible tragedy you see
To be away from you
The farther you are
The fainter I get
The harder you hold
The longer I wait
Tonight the edges of my soul are clear
And I can see my heartbeats through my chest
They come and disappear
They pulse and fade
Alive and dead
Red over red
I can hear the wall clock
Can hear the teeter tatter of the seconds
Turn into the silent hour
An hour without you
Then one and half, then two
I am mesmerised in the act of missing you
Part proud, part desperate
Juggling memories and dreams
Promises and themes
Like Picasso and his paint
Rhyming his story and history
Balancing the devil and the saint
I close my eyes now and then
And hold you to my chest
Close enough to collapse
Onto myself
First in tears, followed by laughter
Then silence much after
Dents in my denial
Rust on my reins
I falter like a colt
And stand still until it pains
Deep enough for my marrow
To call out your name
Madly enough for my mind
To believe that you indeed came
The night is falling fast
And I am writing against the flow
To reach the side of your shore
Where you await in your pink bow;
That tiara of innocence
Which broke me
Slowly apart
Till I lost all of my aces
To the hand of the queen of heart
So, I just want to wait and watch;
You are driving me slowly mad
Like the purple in your hair clips
My soul is right kind of sad
Ink on my puffed up lips
I kissed your poetry tonight
Blood on my fingertips
From the verses I had to fight
Now people they come and claim
That they know you as well as me
They may have tasted one drop sometime
But don’t know the depths of this sea
And I have fallen and I am falling
Hand me the hem of your chiffon dress
And I have called and I am calling
To surrender my pieces of chess
For it’s you who hold me now
Gravity is not part of the game
Let go and you shall see just how
I get lost in the search of your name
So, I just want to wait and watch;
You are driving me slowly mad
Like the purple in your hair clips
My soul is right kind of sad
I wrote on paper
And was called a poet
I wrote on walls
And was asked to wait
On a chair nailed to the floor
In a cold, cold white room
Where the only sound was of my breath;
No different from a writer’s womb
So I sat in the pleated emptiness
With a glass of water left to precipitate
Watching the walls seduce me to sadness
When the pendulum peeled an eight
And in came this ladybug green
Glasses carved on the tip of her nose
She had grey pad and a bald blue pen
And a red ring in the shape of rose
‘Ahem, ahem’ She said ‘Ahem, ahem’
And I coughed and cleared my throat
She looked at me for a second
Then this is what she wrote:
‘The subject is kind of rude
He has no manners so to speak
He sits like a beggar on his throne
A man of power sold in sale to the weak’
It made no sense, nonsense, I tell you
For she was no poet for god’s own sake
She was too tidy to have chaos inside
And that is how I knew she was fake
‘The subject now seems annoyed
He is watching me with furrowed brows
As if I have stolen something of his
And now pretending that everyone knows’
Ah the audacity of this usurper
Who claims my kingdom as her own
I have pieces of paper in my pocket
And a dozen verses to loan
‘The subject is trying to smile
And I am feeling all sick and ill
There is wrong with his mind
He says naught but I can feel’
She knows nothing of my madness
Of how it hurts to sit and smile
For only writing on the wall
I pretend to die once in a while
‘The subject has tears in his eyes
Maybe my saying something will change
But what should I say at this point
That will not make him seek revenge’
The fool, the fool is writing
And what a caricature does she draw
Looking from behind a pair of glasses
She writes what she thinks she saw
‘The subject does not comply
To any form of my treatment
So must be treated in harsher terms
Or in an asylum must be sent’
Oh I did snatch her pen and pad
And wrote down my own choice
Before you judge what others have said
First make sure if they even have a voice…
The sky begins
At the edge of your smile
And I am the star
You chose to find it
Willing to fall
To leave it all
Just to be the reason
Behind it
The broken flowers they fell at my feet
Gold and silver, ebony and peat
And I knew not where this road may lead
Will I find in the end what I need
And I need...
A silence in the shape of the sun
A bit of violence with the face of a nun
And someone who won't turn and run
When I face down the barrel of a gun
But hear now...
I don't have a penny to pay as your price
I spend my nights cold and filled up on rice
And I know my heart is my own greatest vice
Always afraid that my love won't suffice
You can see...
Out there those houses of princes and kings
Whilst I can only shelter you neath my own wings
And I have no diamonds to tie our rings
Just the hollow of my chest to rest your sufferings
So beware...
Of my sweet words that may seduce and sway
They only ache so to take you away
And keep you happy come what it may
We will be children till our hair turn grey
But I know...
This poem seems just a practice in rhymes
And does not cover the cost of past crimes
But I shall spend every penny and all of my dimes
For our today and the end of our times
So...
Never forgive if you want but don't forget
The magic of those moments we met
And I wonder if it's my heart you now so hate
But wasn't our love written by the hands of the fate?
Thus I say…
The broken flowers they fell at my feet
Gold and silver, ebony and peat
And I knew not where this road may lead
Will I find in the end what I need
And I need…
You
Why cry about things you can laugh at
Said the quote on my bathroom mirror
It wasn’t funny
I thought
And smiled to myself
The nights have been short
Or perhaps it was I who has been stretched thin
Between two impossibilities
Of being here and being there
An almost everywhere
Every thought of mine now
Feels like a bullet through the brain
The very last; and in a way everlasting
But new ones creep out
Out of this philosophical yeast
Growing in the dark keeps of my mind
Nurtured with cold sweat
And self taught paralysis
The toothpaste tastes funny
Like old age
These are those days of winter
When sadness feels warm
Like a hug or a cup of coffee
Something to snuggle into and fall asleep
Sadness; the elixir of a dying man
Sadness, yes
And melancholy (Pretty word)
Made of me and the unholy:
Thoughts, dreams, desires
Snails creeping on a wet wire
I remember a time
When I dreamt of being a dog
And lie on the carpet
Of fallen leaves
Dogs can dream, can’t they? (Yes)
And so I dreamt of being a dog
To come full circle
A perfection
My being complete
A zero
The wind from the window
Touches my face
And I blush;
Love is in the air
Or is it despair?
How can one compare?
When being utterly unaware…
(I rhymed on purpose
For they say poetry must taste like a painting)
I gargle and gag
There is blood in my spit
A rose line
Branching out like a symphony
Clarinet and timpani
Violins and bassoons
Bach and Beethoven
Mozart who died too soon
The tap turns
A thunder
The tap turns
All silence
Good morning
My finger on the window
Made a rainbow in the dust
And I could see my watered down mirage
Gasping in surprise
Laughter; a dry mist
From the flesh of my throat
As if my heart knew the humour
Was the one that I wrote
(I wonder if the people sitting at the table
Can hear, discern, decode, confirm)
I should have worn socks
It’s cold;
The floor, the walls, the ceiling
The curtains, the furniture, the feeling
Should I wear it now?
My toes are already numb
And the ankles ache
Yes, a mistake
To wear it now
Better to regret not wearing it at all
Than knowing the comfort I lost
It won’t solve
Anything
As such
It is December
I do not remember the last December
Or the one before
All the memories of past winters
Are glued together
Indecipherable
I was alone then
In more ways than one
Incomplete, high strung
To come easily undone
But not anymore…
She came from far
The horizon was her home
I knew her reflection
Was same as my own
Yet the ocean between us
This sapphire separation
Was daunting, nigh haunting
With adrift ships and lost anchors
And mad sailor men upon the shore
And lighthouses blinking
“Advance No More”
We sell paper boats now
Made of torn poetry
And write poems upon onion peels
And ripe tomatoes
It’s beautiful
The fragrance of homemade chicken
And her smile
And that nodding head
And the dancing waist
She is happy
So am I
This December
So am I…
And the world
It is falling
And there are no secrets
Left to share
I am found
Someone’s calling
And all I need is
To be there
So it’s a goodbye
Everyone
And I shall see you
When the summer’s sun
Is finally won
Dry twigs wrestle the wind
Shadows burn on the ground
Here I stand in the center
And the world turns around
With yellow leaves laughing
White sand dyed brown
In Nameless nothingness
I named a pronoun
All of me
All of me
At the bottom of this sea
Sand dunes shrunk to seashell
Like past framed into memory
I watch dazed morning
Walk drunk upon the shore
Where my footsteps on the sand
Leave footprints no more
As if all of my life
Was a mirage from the start
A mirror holding together
A man falling apart
All of me
All of me
At the bottom of this sea
In the sky a sun wrinkled
And stars breaking free
Am I drowning
Am I drowning
Should I breathe this darkness and lay
As a dead man in a dying womb being fed everyday
The same old desires
The same old silver songs
The same old praise and promises
That nothing would go wrong
And only if only
I could no longer be here
Be a past that never happened
And a future always near
But never coming together
With the rhythm of our heart
An end that is unending
A beginning that never did start
You and me, you and me
The Sand and the sea
Away forever
Our little infinity
The edges of the world
Like pages from a play
A Recurring razzmatazz
Occurring everyday
The blue’s beats
Jarring jazz
And ballads on the way
Razzmatazz, razzmatazz
As Liquored lovers say
“You be thought and I the mind
To reminisce and remind
That love is not litmus
To be tested everyday
Let it flower, let it grow
Be careful what you sow
For the soil takes it all
Your flight and your fall
And it’s the way of the crowd
To take as truth what is loud
While our love is all silence
Strong sans the violence
So take care of the petals
They are flesh and not metal
And do not look for reflection
Till the water; it has settled”
Dry twigs wrestle the wind
Shadows burn on the ground
Here I stand at the edge
And the world is not round
Black leaves moan
Under heels; trodden down
In Nameless nothingness
I named a pronoun
All of me
All of me
At the bottom of this sea
Falling nowhere
With two skies above me
All of me
All of me
At the bottom of this sea
Fading in the distance
Once man now memory