Tag: prose

  • Ether

    I rest my faults on my tongue
    And though it is textured as glass
    The taste is of raspberry
    Or blood
    I fail to distinguish
    My throat hurts
    From the cuts
    The bed is warm
    Like unwavering ash
    Like a tired pyre
    And I search with numb fingers
    My eyes; closed now
    For this is a dream
    I am not dead
    For this is a dream
    There is no bed
    The room I wake up to is all ochre
    And I am naked waist up
    Breath fills my belly
    And I shiver as the cold air claims my hunger
    My lungs, this ribcage holding together
    Heartbeats tearing to escape
    Stands out
    Like fingers from my skin
    I am a man no more
    Just random thoughts on a paper
    And my infinitesimal existence
    Like rings of rising vapour
    I remember being beautiful
    I remember being a being
    I remember writing those lyrics
    Which no man could ever sing
    But it is cold now
    And I feel I am too old to be young
    Now it is cold
    And I know I am too young to be old
    The winter is at the window
    And it is not going to wait
    The fire is long gone
    Now I am just a butterfly under the blanket
    And I would have closed my eyes
    Had the pillow not snored back
    Whispering to me
    All the things that I lack
    Privy to my dreams
    It does so on my behalf
    So when my dream does shatters
    I am not alone when I laugh
  • Razzmatazz

    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
  • The I in Why?

    I do not desire
    To lie naked in a rattrap life
    And lubricate my verse with victorian words;
    Filled with awe inspiring acts
    Led by mundane lust
    Of Angels and Men alike
    Nor do deep desires murder me
    Nerve by nerve
    Peeling away my eggshell skin
    To illuminate the onion within;
    A coiled rainbow, boiled white
    Neither am I a shadow
    Fallen far from crowded feet
    Awaiting on indifferent paths
    For a heavenly retreat
    If at all I were to bare myself and be
    One thing that should suffice how I see
    Myself, in this crystal world
    Of self reflection and askewed insight
    I would be a thoughtful statue
    Sitting alone in a far off land
    With infinity in my head
    And nothing in my hand

  • Thinking of You

    Thoughts of you 
    A wounded prism
    Bleeding rainbow blood
    From skin the colour of acrylic
    Water upon water
    Wet upon wet
    (Random noise;
    My pseudo poetry,
    Commas and semicolons limping across the verses
    In a desolate frequency
    Like an empty road echoing;
    The silhouettes of silent wheels
    The smell of burnt rubber
    And the touch of gasoline)
    I long to stare at your face that stands stark against the sky
    A newborn moon; unblemished
    Rolling upon tethered horizons
    Like a dime in the dark

    O how I ache to be in your arms now
    To be your ice and your fire
    Your utter despair and open desire
    I wish I could hold you
    Like ink in my paper palm
    Like an unformed word
    Like a fleeting thought
    I wish I could know how you see me
    Am I an anchor that keeps you calm
    Or wings that sets you free?
    I know I heal as an afterthought
    And you are careful in remembrance
    And although we have met few times
    These moments that pass
    This liquid life
    Is reshaped by our every touch
    For the fire that burns us feels the same
    Today, tomorrow, after an eternity again

    I remember being
    Your dream
    When you were wide awake
    A flower trapped within sunshine
    And I know I am not destiny’s choice
    For my voice
    That dark tobacco of my baritone
    Is neither honey nor nectar
    And my eyes that reach out
    Through the veiled carcass of some velveteen night
    Belongs to shadow and to spectre
    But love
    Through the shards of slow time
    That ebbed our feet away for many days
    Now we walk
    With our two hearts disguised as one

  • Part-time Philosophies

    The ocean does not speak of sadness
    For sadness has no voice that can say
    That being empty is like being filled forever
    An infinite without a way
    And when I with my eyes look out
    At a world where each face has a place
    I wonder who really wins
    If it’s in a circle that everyone does race
    True it is tragic that in the end
    There is no magic that holds all the cards
    For his is the glory of the game
    Who plays his joker as ace when it’s hard
    And I know in this mesmerizing madness
    For the follicle of that forever fame
    People play their pieces for practice
    Unaware that they will never be the same
    And so do I yearn to sit
    By the shore where horizons do cease
    And thank the seed of silence
    For this life that I had on a lease

  • Periphery


    Between sleeping and falling asleep
    I lost a lifetime
    To live some dreams
  • Branches in my Backyard


    I once had branches
    That burned in my backyard
    A pyre sans desire
    A fire drowned by its fire
    And at night
    In the dark
    When ghost grew like fruits
    From the shadow of its seeds
    From the ashes of its roots
    One could hear
    In the cast out whispers that they kept
    Broken words bandaged
    Pain yet un-wept
    And they said, they said
    In the black waves of bright flames
    We are faces without faces
    Nameless within our names
    And if night be a star in the ocean
    And infinity an eternal motion
    If silence be the words without sound
    And self a state never to be found
    Then the world with it’s weight held in a grain
    And poets with their pens dipped in pain
    The weathered visages with their vermillion words
    And the horizon a home for forgotten birds
    Is there to be seen, is there to be shown
    And not to be alone or utterly unknown

    O the desire to be
    Loved by all
    And the ache of letting go
    When it is harder to fall
    Because of the world with it’s quiet words left to rot
    On transparent eyelashes
    Of eyes that dream, of eyes that dare
    Of eyes that hold, of eyes that care
    Should I wish upon myself an early demise
    Would the darkness in it’s view find it wise
    Why then sometimes I want to be
    The silence that shapes the sea
    Why then sometimes I want to be
    Someone whom none can see

    Despair, beware
    I am a sky without cause
    My pain, insane
    Do not ache for applause
    Stare in the mirror
    O horror of my mind
    What you see is what you are
    Be gentle if not kind
    And whisper unto the wind
    These fables of your own
    For you are no Pietá
    But a statue turned to stone

  • My Woman


    He carried a corpse on his shoulder
    A straw man made of stone
    And walked the nowhere path
    A footstep in a crowd; alone
    He had feathers on his broken back
    Which wept on silent nights
    And he wished for a shooting star
    Having never had one in sight
    The man was armed with silence
    And buried tears in each eye
    Had no heart of which to speak of
    And dared not ask why
    So he searched his own shadow
    That wet the mosaic floor
    And wondered if his life
    Even mattered anymore
    For he was a mortal man
    Who died in his own dreams
    And come night only his pillow
    Answered back his screams
    He thought of leaving it all
    And be dust and be free
    He thought of casting his anchor
    In the middle of the barren sea
    For him the changing world
    Was a wave that ever repeats
    And he questioned unto the chaos
    Why do I rhyme when nothing fits?

    Her face was a prison of prisms
    Her eyes twin melodies of mind
    Her skin shone like vanishing velvet
    Her kiss was one of a kind
    But she was no fabled princess
    Wandering lost at his open door
    Nor was she a cast away goddess
    He had once prayed to before
    She was a woman in making
    And held her heart in her own hand
    She knew the world as her oyster
    And she a pearl in the prophetic sand
    She saw the world with its visage brimming
    With light bulbs and bright lies
    So she searched for the one who stood
    With bruises like midnight skies
    He was a naked man
    Unclothed; without a name
    Who counted a single star
    Thinking that all were same
    To her he was a child unfed
    Left to roam as a newborn in wild
    Once without a home
    Through fate utterly exiled

    He saw her hand in the ocean
    And the world closed around his eyes
    As he drowned in the water that whispered
    Breathe now or the dream dies
    He felt her fingers upon his shoulder
    And he answered back in kind
    Till their lips sealed shut a secret
    Which no soul could ever find
    And they danced in the depths like dolphins
    Two kindred hearts as one
    Who wished so much for the stars
    That they grew their own sun
    So that when the leaves now rustle
    And the colours do not make sense
    They can watch the silence get slower
    And the rainbow go back in rain

  • Rowing Till The Riverbed

    Let me fall now, no
    Let me fade away instead
    I am tired of being ever alone
    Of being always afraid

    I was a fool to grapple with the dark, you know,
    A fool to light my heart on fire
    A fool to eat the wounded ashes
    To taste the honey of that sweet desire

    I was blind with my eyes open
    Blind to the water rising around my waist
    Blind to see that I with my words
    Was no different than the rest

    So here I am now, here,
    A face amongst other faces:
    All fools condemned henceforth
    To die; by hanging on her tresses

    I should have known it, I should have
    For it was no secret after all
    That there was magic in her voice
    And that it was a siren’s call

    It was this damned dream, you see,
    To be together in the end
    So surreal that I forgot
    It was all make-believe, a pretend

    I am going now, I am gone
    There are other lovers in the line
    They ask me if she is a goddess
    And I answer: Yes, if the Devil’s Divine…

  • The Silence Along My Spine


    It is a dream I do not remember
    But remember all the same
    Like those faces I desire
    Without knowing their name
    As if in the grand scheme of things
    Wherein a million stories unfold
    I am just a chapter
    Of a young man who grew old

    These oceans which are open
    These skies which are blind
    These forests which aren’t silent
    These mountains sans a mind
    Are mine to behold and break
    To bind and to find
    For the similes to be kept never similar
    And metaphors ever one of a kind

    You can call my claims childish
    Or let my words make you weep
    When you see the vacuum in my voice
    Hover upon my lower lip
    Where the broken wind balances
    Those desires and despair
    And life in its likeliest form
    Is heartbeat at the end of a hair

    If only I could myself see and show
    What I have lost in my pursuit to know
    The allegories of living
    Without wanting to grow
    Alas, I have my own
    Reason to bear the blame:
    For to the man who shall leave no footprints
    The dust is all the same