THE HUMAN ANVIL

Tag: poet

  • Origami

    It is the morning after
    And I awake as an origami undone
    Only yesterday I had her arm on my chest
    With mine anchored round her waist
    Balancing our seesaw soul
    Making whole
    Those pieces we planted 
    Like bookmarks to find
    The stories we memorised 
    Keeping in mind
    Going almost insane 
    Being blinded by pain
    Once kayaking in chaos
    To feel alive again

    Now I watch my face shiver 
    In the ether of her eyes
    Now I am fire cold with fever
    Falling on the rise
    She is here
    She is mine
    She has no say to say
    Far near  
    Dear divine 
    So I kneel but not to pray 
    Now I watch her face shiver
    In the ether of my eyes
    Now I am fire with her fever
    She is falling when I rise

    But I dare not confess that I dreamt of her
    In the early hours of last night 
    For that would be blasphemy 
    My being alone
    With only her memory 
    Drenched monochromes 
    Some charcoal art
    Of me painting her toenails pink
    And she murmuring shape of my heart
    Waiting for the words to sink

    For her voice is my hymn in exile
    And here I wander, mile by mile
    A broken kite
    Dead dynamite 
    Waiting for her mirage to draw me closer
    Towards sun kissed horizons
    Across daydreaming dunes
    And purple fields
    Of my pulsing past
    Through this desert vast, desolate and slow
    I search for her
    As the seconds grow
     
    I can see her white hands over black countertop 
    Passing pepper into the pot 
    Waiting for me to finish my worship of her
    Waiting for me to open the refrigerator 
    And take half a dozen eggs to scramble 
    To toss and turn
    The yolk and white 
    In the shade of the dim light 
    Wafting from her seashell skin
    With wafer thin petrichor 
    Of our last night’s rain
    (Did I drown in her hair?
    Did my gasps made her growl?
    Did we swim in stolen silence?
    Did our motions knew our goal?
    To be, to be
    Half mad in ecstasy 
    The sea falling apart
    At the lips of an estuary)

    The dress does to her
    What dust does to a diamond 
    But she knows it not
    Even when I beg; a child in disguise 
    To breathe over her facets
    Between her navel and her thighs 
    But she laughs and she turns
    Like flower between ferns
    She waxes into full moon 
    And I am a candle that ever burns
    To ignite at her sight
    To surrender without a fight 
    To be answer to her questions 
    Which were never answered right

  • It Isn’t Merry To Go Around


    I sleep, knee deep
    For my world weeps unaware
    I awake, in heart break 
    For I see you aren’t there

    Once in a blue moon
    I see the sun shining 
    I am lost in my past’s love
    In a search of silver lining 

    Tangerine toenails 
    I have henna on my feet
    I dance, in trance
    As old shadows come to greet 

    Do I dare, and I dare
    To touch the liner of my eye
    Wax in my flesh seeks
    A flame to make me cry

    And I cry, so I cry
    Was it an ocean that once said
    Remember the silence 
    For words can be unmade

    Blue lips, fingertips 
    I grasp the rosary and pray
    For life, that life 
    Gives no lesson everyday 

    I am cold, and I am told
    All my thoughts are a lie
    And my home is no home
    I must roam, no goodbye 

    I picture my own life 
    And my face is a blur
    Mutilated by soft fingernails
    Covered in the fur

    Should I if could I
    Breathe and then awake
    The armour on the inside 
    Dreaming for daybreak

    If so, I know
    The brook would then flow
    From the roots of my hair
    Where dreams do not grow

  • Lapis Lazuli

    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…

  • Last Card of the Castle

    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

  • The Myth of Silence


    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 History of Hope

    He was born broken; one of a kind,
    A scarecrow one can find
    Here and there with splintered limbs 
    Taught to always be half blind 
    He was afraid even being undead
    As if everything he never said
    Can be heard through the silence 
    Warring inside his uneven head

    His name he remembered still
    Amen; meaning to fulfil
    But there were ashes in his waistcoat 
    Of people he hurt but forgot to heal
    So he ran and walked and also crawled 
    Eyes wide for one who had solved
    How a caterpillar in the end
    In a butterfly gets evolved 

    Days he spent in the random heat
    With shivering hands and on hobbling feet
    And at night he sought strangers known
    Who could tell where few roads meet
    And on bed made of carpet and cold
    He laid his flesh when it could no more hold
    The dreams of being young again
    When the promises were getting old

    And in the morning, midst the fallen dew 
    He thought of his life when it all was new
    Now what he has was being taken away
    When he already had so few
    But as the sun climbs its ladder high
    He marches once more to relive the lie
    Believing same as Icarius
    Wearing feathers would make him fly

    And even today you can catch his glimpse
    The old man, who begs and limps, 
    Through the mirror of mortal minds
    He is the maker of all the hymns 
    One who tosses the coin for sun and rain
    The progeny of unrequited pain
    Hear his heartbeat as your own 
    And in your vein his name: Amen.

  • Make A Wish

    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

  • Transparent



    I painted a white line
    Upon a blank canvas
    And the people they praised me no more
    They could not see;
    That the painting was an echo
    Of my silence that wasn’t seen before

  • The Silver In My Song

    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

  • The Nuances of My Nights

                A poet knows
            The name of all places
            And directions to none
               - Not a Poet 


    I write because it hurts
    And if I scream they will know my pain 
    I don’t want to scream
    Don’t want to shatter the serene mirror
    That holds together 
    All false reflections 
    The world holds dear
    For the blame of it
    Would lie on me
    And I have enough confessions to pardon 
    In my soliloquy 

    I slept late yesterday 
    There was a tempest inside me
    And my mind was anchored loose
    I was swayed, buffeted
    And at once painted still
    As if my soul
    Was the albatross 
    From the Rime of the Ancient Mariner 
    And I thought: 
    Every murder is a suicide in a way
    Isn’t it?
    To surrender the right of your life to someone else
    Without a fight 
    There are many types of murders
    Of trust, flesh and mind
    Common massacres
    Gruesome
    One of a kind…
    It’s getting dark

    I should have had dinner
    But the lights were too bright
    And candles too dim
    The plate felt soft
    And the spoon too thin
    Or was it me
    Who felt brittle and blind
    With so many dreams to dream
    And so few days to do
    (Now that was a lie
    For I cherish my own incompetence 
    Like a child does it’s once favourite but now broken toy)

    I am afraid I have found
    The edge of my reason
    And the world beyond (And would you believe it?)
    Is a mirror…
    It seems me and this mirror
    We are obsessed with each other
    In finding faults
    In pointing out to one another 
    Our own shrinking horizons 
    Until one of us agrees
    The threshold of our limitations 

    I slept late yesterday 
    (No, I already said that
    Pardon, it’s the mirror reflecting my memories
    God I am tired)

    Good night