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…
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…
I am, The face you never see, On posters and billboards, Half starved, naked, Beyond beautiful, to be Served on a silver platter, For you to touch, twist and take, Morsel after morsel.
I am, The laughter you never hear, Stirring lives, Rubbed together in plastic embrace, Made alive in the objectionable agony In the chimera of chemicals Praised at pawn shops By asthmatic Archdiocese To fall, to drip, Lip by lip Throat by sore throat Through hollow chests And wasted waists Of fools painting tears Upon torn faces.
I am, The play you never see, On streets below your tinted windows, Staged for the world to witness, For free, though None stays to admire, Too paltry, they say, too plain, Too painful, coarse and vain, This drama, That reminds us of our own lives.
I am, The speeches you never give, From proud pedestals, and altars, Like a speck of spit, Luring the sea of men, With words; carved and honed, Too bright for us, Of clouded eyes, To warm these hearths of our own.
I am, The truth you never know, From beyond your walls, And the sanctum of your own asylum Where you pray To the earthworms armed with earthquakes To the dead; dead from too much death To leper’s liberty To chronic charity Never to arise From the ashes Or seen through the uncertain curtains Of your marble eyelashes.
On a blue green morning Two men Sitting on a stone By a river still and deep Discussed the world’s demise Feeling old and feeling wise Till one of them caught a fish And left
I wish to speak with myself The conversation Neither a monologue nor a soliloquy But I am afraid I would not allow My own confessions This heart knows far too much Of envy and hate And much too less Of chance and fate; those dark mistresses Pulling and pushing The tide of each rebirth Should I excuse myself within reason then And let the age that passes through each of us Sunder me to atoms Annihilating; once and for all Each kingly cause And gangrene dream Festering upon the thin skin of mind; For the soul in the end is nothing more Than a shadow aware of it’s own existence. Or should I in opus thoughts claim The Midas Touch And let the pleasure and pain Every loss and gain, ravage me alive Into my own version of heaven and hell Beyond resistance and repercussions Or time and it’s tale And dare to be free For once all of me? Alas the soul cannot know Of which the mind did not sow Thus I remain here Within this blindness which seek The mirror left behind; And await my reflection to speak.
