If music could be made, Then all rhythms would need a roof.
I am just a quiet kid walking on a silent sidewalk, Measuring the distance between two tiles, Counting yellow leaves amongst green, Ticketing my thoughts beside the traffic light, And being a lamppost to remain unseen.
My eraser is razor sharp And my pencilled Picassos Burn without vapours, Leaving white carbon, Like an unprinted newspaper.
This is the heading of the day: “Do you not do not believe what you say.” (Was that a question. And…was that a question too? Yes, two. Perhaps. Who am I to question…)
They brought me from zero And they taught me infinity, So I could extrapolate The contraption called concession, That middle ground Where, no one is around, To plant a seed, Or to paint a shade.
So, my mind, like every mind has come To a common conclusion: That each drawing needs The name of an artist, For then, the art can be torn apart. You cannot hang an anonymous, can you?
It’s the way of the world, boy, It’s the task of time. If you divide your days Between work and play, You can have coffee at eight, And your wine at nine.
I am writing like a maniac, Mesmerised by my own vanity.
Didn’t once, amongst scientists posing as philosophers, In a shivering old shanty By the backdoor of my dream, I said that needle is the greatest weapon ever invented; For it sews together torn men And sends them back to be torn apart again, Stitch by violent stitch, Till it cannot know which is which: Cain or Abel, Bible or Aesop’s Fable, Eliot or Gertrude Stein, The Monster or Frankenstein.
Often, when my mind stills, I can smell my nostrils And taste my tongue, Draw mirrors with my eyes, And make my face go young.
It is a miracle that in silence One can hear more of all: The cocoon breathing for caterpillar, And incense stick in the prayer hall.
I have toothache since yesterday, So pardon if I seem to mumble, Bottling sulphur in my philosophy And murder whilst being humble.
I am a student of disguise; To believe me is to mimic surprise.
I dropped a coin in the wishing well But did not wish at all
And so it began The exodus of my existence: At night I painted The black skies On white bed sheets Spilling ink Spilling tar Spilling ashes sent back from war I painted Night after night From dusk till dawn But the stars never showed Neither the moon manifested Nor the auroras appeared The only light I saw Was from the white of my eyes
Rubies line my lips I bury diamond in the dark Deep in my throat Foams a rabid, rabid bark But I do not dare For the censure is too strong Lashes even if you are right Why wonder when you are wrong So I paint And I paint A monk And some saint Both parts of same hypocrisy Part blotch and part a taint
This endless evolution Is just revision of the rot Mirages made images And themes turned to thought For we begin our blasphemies By begging to be left Away from the trials While accepting the act of theft For then the onus lies On those ailing institutions Who accepts blood and bile To darken words of the constitutions Oh how I wither in this weather Where all claim the right to rest Whilst walking naked through the fire Hoping for the best
So, my bed sheet it is dark My bed sheet; it is wet, And my menstruating mind Loves to water hate And grow flowers that are golden And encased in a thousand thorn A beauty to be envied Not to be woven and worn Thus I sleep In the shadows Aware at my loss Dreaming of the silver disc Falling at the toss
I dropped a coin in the wishing well But did not wish at all
The poet in me, wants to write of pain, And the child inside is euphoric At the nigh nakedness At the bare it all bluntness For once, it won’t be alone Like a lotus left In the middle of the forest For once, it would be a dandelion Seeding away the agony In search of answers
Pain, I write, Willing for it to appear To bloom out Like wave, like lava Inescapable, obliterating And free me And my own Christ on the cross; Those wounds on my memory, So that I may get paralysed From the things heretofore unrealised, But all I found Were the dust motes Blowing from my breath
Pain, I thought As I smiled in the dark At the death of my spark In the hollow of my heart Was it empty from the start? It takes all my willpower To ignore the whispers from the wall And breathe in the ground So while floating I do not fall
Nobody knows a poet, you see For he is a never was And thus never will be; A saint, a servant, a shadow of the soul, All but the devil’s advocate And someone who stole Each morsel of truth From those immortal minds Who lived their lives Beyond the hives
Ashes in my ink I am the fire from the far A hope never igniting But guiding like a star An untouched absolution A dye that does not dissolve A rhythm sans rhyme An equation that does not solve But remains like a constant A fulcrum on the edge All the weight of the world Against the end of my page
Hold me And let go Of the world Like a child’s hand Getting lost in the fair
This partial and minuscule mould Of slow moods and slower murders Is not for us We of souls made of cotton candy And sandpaper We of transparent flesh and silver bones We suffer from the sulphur, Sold by this world An ounce for a pound So much glitter in my hand This velvet turned sand
Most nights I watch the stars go dim and die Most days I sit and hear people birth a lie Thus, I and this world Are not for each other But You and I Are made for one another Like a spiral chiral Part dust, Part DNA
Beneath my fingernails I find Dreams that I once wrote on the wall A wall now painted over White and light blue To hang a new Modern art of some kind Ah, the delusion of time What river gets lost in search of the sea? Would a dying tree wish for lesser roots to be free?
I wish I could breathe in your nuances Those pigments of your pain Your open skin Your bottled sin Your morning blues And your rain And on my lips lie vestiges Of our time spent together Like a coin in a wishing well Alas, not all wishes can come true Alas, nothing was and will ever come through So like you now I too Stand by and blow Dandelions on a dying breeze And fire on falling snow
I opened the bathroom door And in the dim and damning septic light Of the months old lightbulb My face, blurred and bludgeoned, By night’s nihilistic apparatus Smiled back through the broken mirror Hanging above the dripping, dead sink And I think, that is how it feels To wake up, in the middle of the night Hours after having a fight
I cupped the cold water Felt my fingers sting where the ring Has cut in my flesh Had I punched too hard at the bouquet? Were the petals bruised and bloodied? As if freshly plucked on a dewy morning By a miner’s hand Oh the anger in my throat Blue Eve around my Red Adam’s apple I knew if I let loose the bile of my belly And roar the bull’s breeding call My landlord will knock And the door would open A sliver, then a centimetre Till I am naked in the flooding light Of the gallery Absolutely awake And utterly ashamed To mutter an excuse And retire in solace
I cannot shave without tasting something of the foam It’s bitter This taste on my lips Like a thirst long not satiated Lips, last kissed Perhaps a decade ago In an alley behind an alley Where a beautiful nymph in rotten rags Had found my face handsome than those walls Closing in around us “You look much better than the bricks” She said I smiled, hiding the mortar in my molars As the rain pattered down like tar Peeling away rust from the pipes Drenching us Head to toes Like a wet painting
It has been three hours But my beard still showed Dancing around my face like a Rorschach’s blot I felt my fingers feel my skin Smooth it was Like warm pages of a new novel A novel about this modern day Don Quixote Who spent hours shaving the black spot left on the mirror My blade had blood on it And the sink sprouted red roots I watched as they dissolved And slipped down the drain It was only when the last drop was gone That I did felt the pain
I stood still till the sunlight streamed in From the half open window Like an intruder Creeping along the floor Till the corner of the door Illumined And left me cold Years old So I turned, back to my bed Where nightmares awaited Under the blanket In a dark sequin gown For dark was my friend For dark is the end And beyond that I feel nothing And nothing I comprehend
I wonder if being truly lost Is the same as never being found Would I know I am able to speak If I never did hear any sound There, I have spoken A pencil pushing philosopher Watching the sunset out of the window And sunrise in my bed My years passed like traffic on tarmac But I am still a kid in my head
Before you I was an afterthought A sunflower shy of the sun Walking the slow shades beneath lost footpaths Afraid of every turn So I searched for radio-silence And grew deserts in my yard Thus no one came to claim me I was both bastard and a bard
I open my eyes and your face evaporates, In thin threads of memories From the diaphanous diary Of our love that is losing Its scent by the mile So I smile and you smile And wait for time to take its toll When our flesh turns to foliage And two souls are made whole
I know that my name For you is a blessing and a curse And I am holding still your world And trying to reverse Your agony and your pain And instances insane Like catching your falling tears In the middle of the rain And I have lost some And the rest I am losing Neither by choice nor by choosing The best for us both Promising a broken oath To heal and to mend Nightmares that never end But goes on like this poem With an intent to ascend The fate of a dying flower; Which has no beauty left to lend
Before you I was an afterthought With you I breathe and burn I now have sun on my left shoulder And towards you, my sunflower, I turn
My past now grows impatient Under its tortoise shell Eons passed and I have moved Only a fingernail Closer to you
Much of my music is lost Listening to the wall clock Counting, sixty seconds and a minute Sixty minutes and an hour Twelve hours, twice over, Again and again Through wind, winter and rain This dilemma, delusion and pain Of having met you And loved you for a millennia But having no permanent memory No cup of your captured laughter No mirror of your misty eyes No sunlight captured by your tresses No sweet scent of your sighs All I am left with, are yellow pieces of fractured time And a heart that mostly murmurs For all truths out aloud are lies
The blanket we wear Smells like Sunday morning A waking warmth Of hay and honeysuckle And a quiet happiness Equally sad and empty So we hold each other From falling apart From drifting into different dreamlands Where one of us ends and the other starts
I watch as you breathe in Life, my life For I am haunted By the ghost of your breasts Buried and hidden A catacomb of our heartbeats Growing restless Like a river ever running But never reaching The estuary of my arms
You see I am obsessed With the idea of your existence Insanely infatuated So unequivocally infantile To see your warm womb As the walls of my tomb And the pulse of your veins Like all the seasons I have ever seen
I know, I know I am mad to my bones But my death is being alone Without your hand in my own So, I place myself in your hand like a petal You drop me I am cold I am hard I am metal With nothing more to see And nothing more to be With nothing to call mine And nothing is for free
My life is a loose translation Barely read, rarely understood And sits, with an air of years spent Suspended between two strokes Of a broken down pendulum Ages have passed undivided A single line, perpetually drawn Getting thin and thinner Till the Parallax Error Caters for my silence At the center of my heart And I am able to remember The taste of my first breath The warmth of my first touch The colour of my first view All amounting to nothing much
I submit to the auguries made about me By people who claim to know When the leaves of a tree in the autumn would fall And when the sun would melt the snow
Fire in the birdcage Would the wings be able to save? Can feathers and the flame Be the same Can the ashes for once be brave?
I humour the dinner table My hands carefully caressing The cold, silver cutlery And my words Churning in my mouth with the morsels Breaking down With every bite, with every conversation Leaves a taste Something lingering upon the tongue They watch me as I listen They listen as I watch The thin sound, going around A tiptoeing whisper Toeing a line; I am known to these strangers I am shared and savoured Wound licked with salt I am a pariah and thus favoured
Long into the night I stare at my soul Standing by the window Stitching itself whole And the night breeze is painting And the dark woods; they dream Only the blind sky is witness As I thread down my scream
I heard There are things Out in the woollen nights Mosaics of happenstances And matchstick quick delights A life of unbuttoned jeans and restless jazz And lipstick stained tissue papers Left on countertops Under empty whiskey glasses and beer mugs filled with vapour Proof of a life at once loud and empty Like a vacant microphone Filled with dreams of hunger Like a dog with a buried bone O how the mind meanders In the test tube alleyways A ghetto full of false fire Spreading shadow for many days
I heard There are people Who count the twelve strokes of midnight Yawn at the break of dawn And search for moon in the twilight And gather molten menagerie In the effervescence of aftershave Wherein the limbs are nests of Nirvana And love a motion to enslave Till the flame of faces; it withers, And only wax is left to blame Those shivering shadows differ Like every lover with a new name
I heard There are places Where mortal wounds entwine And life is bet on races Which has no finish line Here the dyslexic dystopia Begins beneath one’s roof And the mythical myopia Does not end without a proof Dying under disco lights I lay colour blind to the pain Needles upon my tongue And yet I am singing in the rain
