THE HUMAN ANVIL

Tag: Poems

All poems

  • Comatose

    I found the whiskey sages
    Dancing in the dim
    Their eyes on the music
    And carved teeth on crystal rim 
    They wore leather gloves and spandex 
    They carried bullets in their heads
    They spoke of liberty and lunacy 
    And took daydreams to their beds

    I found the wounded women
    Walking down the aisle
    Their face a plastic painting
    Melting for a smile
    They held too many secrets
    Their eyes were far too bright
    For a world that loved the dark
    Who wished let there be no light 

    I found the neon soldiers 
    Trapped beneath a grenade pin
    Soon to be a sea of roses
    For it is the war that always win
    They guarded children in the basement 
    They were taught to stand and fight
    They were told the recoil’s same
    Even if the barrel’s wrong or right

    I found my fallen pieces
    Flowing down the ice cold river
    My skin the colour of water
    Burning with an old fever:
    I had seen the cards beforehand 
    And called out the eternal bluff
    With so many lives to play
    One life is not enough







  • December

    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…

  • The Men Behind Monuments

    Image by Jiyad Nassar @unsplash


    In this sudden stillness
    A final silence grows
    From beneath the dead branches
    Enveloping ants and Angels alike

    The dry mist of purpose
    That once haunted men
    Now haunts their monuments
    The mindless mortar
    Made and remade
    For each thought
    And every contour
    Which seeks in itself
    The forever form
    That everlasting aspiration
    Of becoming a being

    But the Promethean promises
    Are but promises
    Just as the silhouette stems from the shape
    So does the shape is rooted in the silhouette
    Like a circle trapped
    Within its own circumference
    Sans a seen beginning
    Sans any unseen end

    There is a witness
    For every arrival
    Till no one arrives anymore
    And then the fishes are left alone in the desert
    To drown in the mirage of memories
    The breathing carcass
    Reminiscent of living
    In an abandoned womb
    Never to awake
    Never to walk
    Like ages unspent
    Upon the faces of the rock

  • Remains of the Rain

    Image by Mehrsad Rajabi@unsplash


    I saw my children standing in the rain
    Their faces lined with age and late reason
    Watched the abandoned bicycles
    And broken seesaws
    Being pulled down by the weight of raindrops
    Their hands, long and thin, like dead seaweed in the summer wind
    Their legs green and gold, like new leaves suddenly old
    Seemed painted
    In the moist color of quiet
    The abandoned delight
    Having dissolved
    In the lament of the rain
    They turn; the motion a sad song
    An unfinished lullaby
    To look at me with eyes
    Half awake but never asleep
    As if I with my window earned wisdom
    Would know
    Why all things grow
    Only to die
    If life in the very virtue of living
    Is a lie
    But they know the answer
    As well as me
    It is better to forget than to believe what we see
    In the everyday aftermath
    Of the daily demise
    Of choices left to chances
    And promises made before goodbyes
    For in the end all paths
    Shall return where they began
    Even the oceans with all their eternity
    Are but remains of the rain…

  • Hubris

    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

  • Flame


    My life
    A candle
    Waning slowly
    Knows not
    For whom it’s burning
    Or why
    Just that it is
    And soon shall
    Dissolve
    Out of existence
    And there is nothing it can do now
    Except burn, burn and burn
    With a hope
    That when the wick goes out
    Atleast the wax will survive

  • One Drop Of A Lifetime

    Would I sleep tonight
    Knowing you have slept too
    Tucked into blankets without borders
    Dreaming of everything new
    Would I sleep tonight
    Knowing you have a mirror beside your bed
    Which answers all your questions
    With everything I left unsaid
    Would I sleep tonight
    Knowing we shan’t grow old
    Share wrinkles in the grey of night
    As we did lips in the days of gold
    Would I sleep tonight
    Knowing our fingers won’t anymore entwine
    For yours are ash upon the altar
    And I have ceased to saw my own as mine
    Would I sleep tonight
    Knowing you have slept too
    Tucked into blankets without borders
    Dreaming of everything new

  • Opaque

    I dream of a man dreaming:
    Only to awake and find
    A mirror in my hand

  • Light From Another Star

    The tommorow lingers far,
    Like light from another star,
    And there is mist,
    With eyes in the middle,
    That speaks with tears,
    Of smoke and tar.

    I talk not of human,
    And their negligible nuisance of narcissistic necessity,
    Nor of the world with it’s viscous veracity,
    I speak of nectar, world of gods,
    Poets and paramours, artists and art,
    Of the innumerable sand,
    Dreaming upon the beach,
    And those stars falling every night,
    Who never truly reach.

    I speak of the brilliant acting dumb,
    The sensitive roughened numb,
    Blind men holding hands,
    Children without a stand,
    And oasis with scarlet seas,
    Gold honey, dead bees.

    I invoke the untamed,
    I call the wild,
    Into this land of frozen blood,
    Where once were sowed diamonds,
    Now remains but dried mud.

    I know, my voice is hoarse,
    And these sharp words are truly coarse,
    For I too am of your kind,
    The omniscient God without a mind.

  • Damask

    Her bright cheeks,
    Were stately cold,
    My hand young,
    Hers far too old,
    Raven hair mine,
    Matched my gown,
    A snow pierced mantle,
    Covered her crown,
    I was night,
    She was day at dawn,
    I saw all,
    She looked blind as fawn,
    We held hand,
    And we walked our way,
    I left for the past,
    She came for today.