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180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
140 × 180 cm (55 × 71 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
180 × 140 cm (71 × 55 in.), 2010
Crushed
By the heady might
Of slumber
Countenance sublime
Silent before the
Melody of morning.
Papery opponent
You adorn her smile as
She poses with a certain ease
Swift strokes
Excite the air and flutter
Over lips of damson
Breathing zephyr
Across caressed cheeks
Boast no more.
Take your time
My very dear, in making your reply
Splendid, I must say
You are most generous with words
A shame you
Cannot even spell my name.
Minx; eyes bound shut
Hands, soft that you bring
Are playful with a feline elegance
Crystalline gaze
Falls upon unread features
Silent whispers turn to brutal panting
I am yours to keep
Wounded by your venom.
The moon manipulates
Gestures flake
As thoughts remake
The composition of a face
Tonight, we shall stay unnamed.
The ungainly moon
Has come and gone, many a time
Tonight, we shall stay unnamed.
Reminiscences
Of childhood
Colour another year
Of inconstant seasons
That escape unto
The broken sky.
Window of the past
Element of the present
Long hair covered my left eye
I was very different indeed.
Flying round and round
In a moonlit paradise
While others, hand in hand
Take to their jovial flight.
Losing my words to you
I am no longer great nor brave
Sheltering beneath your palm
Sweet sympathy turns to dew.
If only lightning could liberate
Aim and strike at the core
Where guilty passions rage
I would, this crown of thorns, replace.
Alas, towards a fading breath
Like the mellifluousness
Of a daydream
I am gone.
I belong in
This numbed silence
In this playground of thoughts
Where Truth lies still, skinned.
Seated at the helm of introspection
Entwined amidst an embroidered fallacy
Eyes gaze forth without condemnation
With nerves unsettled.
Soliloquy of praise
Perched on my hand like a dove
Without remonstrance
I release it to a forgotten paradise.
Fleeting moments
Subject to consequence
Melt at the brink
With every transgression.
The sustenance of pleasure
Flows from the essence of beauty.
Where charity has no measure
Providence reigns infinitely.
Generosity is not measured
By the amount you give
But by the amount
You sacrifice.
To draw on happiness
In between the frames of time
Is to capture a moment
In which many are denied.
The faint chime of prurience
Encroaches as dusk appears
Like the susurration of a heart-beat
Eyes closed, reality disappears.
Every feeling warrants an explanation
Like a whirlwind, emotions fumble without cause
As every word succumbs to the light
The temple of interpretation is preserved.
Life brings only decay: so
Damn the light, the mirrored hallways
The busy streets, the abject glances
That steer all hopes away.
Shame on you, fatherland
For wooing God’s trust
The glorification of conquest dangles like bait
With arms that chime a forgotten hour.
To seek is to follow ignorance
In waiting comes the unforeseen
In forgetting the paramount is delivered
In rejecting the all-conquering imbues within.
Bruised and battered
Like rotten plums
Fallen from a great height
They crouch at the foot of the cross.
Riding on the carousel of deceit
Screened by the flames of unreality
Such uncharted allegories
Do youthful minds trail.
To gaze through the eyes of an emperor
To smell the orchids and touch the gold
To lose it all, life grows
Old in an instant.
Surrendering to an infinite power
Where strength turns to its substitute
And the frame of composure skews
Fragments may be buried, but the cycle continues.
When the heart and the mind
Aligns itself with each other
Life’s simple complexities
Blossom like a rare flower.
To lose sight of ambition
Is to draw the dagger deeper
Words never fulfil prophecies
Without the deeds to accompany.
The torment of a reflection
Has made its imprint
The mind seeks validation
As reasons wrestle with expectations.
Love’s escapade
A mere fantasy
Surrendering from the womb
Tender arms embrace my kind.
Love is not the resounding tune of joy
But the unity of every beat.
Silent is the voice that speaks of loss
Still is the heart-beat that brims with fear
And empty is the mind
That demands forgiveness.
Gone are the colours and sounds of youth
Memories cling onto every wall
Momentum of life, led by crooked steps
Finally submits to the charge of dawn.
I am used to disappointment
What is it to wait another day?
Faith, revisited
Heartache, my Constance.
The vivid gesture of victory
Flickers with pathetic clarity.
With every truth-bearing admission
That finds its way to heaven
Another greed-driven sentiment
Bloats the heart with questions.
Beyond the sapphire complexion
Ridden with endearment
A semblance of a fractured moment
Etches poetically into lost time.
Dissembling the puzzle
With tortured breath
Perpetual beginnings
Renders false destinies.
The silken veil ascends
Dreams left undisturbed
Bosoms still wet with dew
Masked with a scent of allure.
Shards of light sublime
Pirouettes on the seared dunes
A matrimony of young spirits
Glide into the gleaming horizon.
Faith tied with a ribbon
Head bowed in contemplation
As the soul searches beyond
Senses rouse frustration.
As hours amend each dying hour
Irrelevance blends into oblivion
In wait of an apparition beneath the moon
Consciousness wilts as desires bloom.
Certainty ascends like a plume of smoke
Consequence bears no resemblance to hope
The gleaming peripheral allures distant glances
Bound onto ourselves with muted wishes.
Curiosity multiplies with every conquest
Yet passiveness has never strayed far
In search of another truth
This chair has never moved.
Daylight seeps in and fills
These walls with momentary light
The warmth becomes a memory
As dust settles on footprints.
Love’s conquest lies in its defeat
Its crowning glory; a veil of absence
With confessions, soft cheeks redden
A union sealed with remembrance.
I can feel her breath
In every recollection
A turmoil of sentiment
Plunders inside this chrysalis.
I turn to myself and not to God
With every anguish to Him I place
And in seeking reason
I flee from conviction.
Will my ending
Extract pity or humour
Would this inevitability stem
From misunderstanding?
Nurtured emotions
Like swollen buds
Sway in the heat
Waiting to unravel.
Hypnotized by cinders
Caressed by flames
Eyes sweep across
Her desert landscape.
My hands have touched God’s affinity
Yet where is the cross that bears his divinity
My flesh, an emblem
My mind, its keeper.
Morning invades;
The shoreline, infinite.
Questions of
Diverse proportions
Coalesce like the orb to the deep.
From stone to soul
We are gradually dismantled,
As destinies follow
The ebbs and flows
Of currents of time.
Pubescent grievances,
Unrefined.
I wake to dress my vanity
And not myself.
The heart no longer swells in
Revolutionary rigour;
Alas, such inconsequence,
Undefined.
Allegiance to the soul
Flounders with effeminacy.
Rugged mural lynched above thy death bed
Hangs like a white flag…
That once was a treasure trove for musing;
Benign
Could it be Ereshkigal’s depiction
Of life’s terrestrial trivialities?
I telepathically breed one word
From another;
The speech of the unworded speech
Resounds
In silence.
This decadent allusion
- The yoke -
Hangs profusely from my fingers.
Liberally decorated with colours;
Illiterate
Abstract compositions bear my disquiet
Obtuse words; embryonic
Bear the grudge of
Self-styled confessions.
The manifestation of insolence,
Coiled.
Truly, I am my own master
(… Am I not?)
Or have I eliminated all those around me
To be beneath me?
Upon every grave-stone
A face of a thousand faces cling.
Words on epitaph
Unlace past deeds, yet
Simple tributes,
A memento mori
To themselves,
Replicates the disintegration.
Irrepressible nerves
Scorched fortress
Beneath a hopeless cloud
Pitiful.
Hands and feet tied before the roasting…
The crimson flames of Catholicism
Suffocates and empties the very organ
That
Once
Symbolised my heart.
The contradiction of aggression and apathy
Swirls like cyclones amidst symbols and tunes,
Has me faltering
- Handicapped -
At twenty-four.
Self-fidelity
If only it could be reversed
The iconography of my own,
Primed, attributes
Has assumed my title and name;
Yet in a plume of smoke, in this haze
It is not the divine light that seeks me
But that of the halo upon which
Crowns Immanuel…
Thus, who will assume this name
Which gave birth to my identity?
Gilded ornamentations
Decorate the smiles of dreamers;
Their gifts, evidential,
Weaves a common net
That inevitably sequesters
Their self-defects.
Surveyor of thoughts
Curator of memories of dreams
A player amongst the Cachuchas…
The ignited forms,
In this mathematical maze beyond
The bright twinkling that illumines the dark canvas:
Man pondered these images and created signs;
Created mine.
Though composed of binary oppositions,
This self
- the purist symbolism of myself –
Evokes scepticism amongst friends.
Off rue de Rivoli,
I have found an audience
Meticulous in their note-taking…
But it is I, who should resign
To this discretion.
So let them become those
Men, children and mothers, who
Gather, play and milk the daily
Orderliness of life
Where questions need no answers
Where boy stalks girl
Woman needs man.
This self-portrait
I leave behind
For past lovers
To judge, to laugh, to ponder at…
Yet, to ponder without laughter,
To laugh without judgement
Deems this representation
Cavernous like a crater.
They call me a chingado
Who awaits his place in society.
Painted wench-like yet dutiful
I was beautiful;
Even behind that hysterical gaze,
Life had become my death-mask.
I dance in the shadows
With and without
You
Beneath
The twilight
I fear no-one
(Yet fearlessness
Swathes my only
Fear)
My
Suicidal
Tendencies are to blame
I fear not the amorous
Acts I am capable
Of
But
The re-enactments
That plague my mind
The very transparency of my soul
Leaves me open to
Superstition.
I am as two-dimensional as God could wish for
Yet inward and concave as inhumanly possible.
He peeks at the under-skirt of life’s tragedies
And without care he becomes hard like a rock
Seemingly
Instantaneous, and
Superficially
Substantiated,
He calls on his foes to ask for forgiveness.
She smothers the cry of a new-born
As her existence yearned for non-existence
Crudely
Coercive, and
Subjectively
Calculated,
She climbs down and sobers up, murmuring a tune to Llorona.
Words have become a voice of self-flattery
These liquid expressions conjure only deception
Manically
Subtle, yet
Rudimentarily
Elementary;
And that life ever reaches its pinnacle is non-sensical.
Before I pack my things to leave
Before I wonder off in an imaginary state of travel
I shall bless myself with these words my father left me:
“The potential of your visit puts a smile of potentiality on my face…”
And with these words I carry on my back,
Stride upon stride
I shall remember to bid adieu to the Frenchmen
And to those familiar faces to whom
I was
Unfamiliar.
Upon every waking hour
The crucifix that hangs above my bed
Greets me with the usual pleasantries.
Jesus, with his loin-cloth
Stares as I lie naked with myself.
Though He lives within me
And, I, within Him
We both share nothing in common
Just our schedules seem to always
Coincide.
This is the Thursday
Their last Thursday
Of their last week (of adoration)
Take a graceful bow before it’s too late!
As the water slowly evaporates
From the sullied vase,
And the bloom of these Amaranthus’
Reaches their prime…
Time is not a keeper of souls
But a custodian of nostalgia.
You, narcissistic self,
A bottom-less well of self-love;
This is me yet an ellipsis of myself.
With every praise bewilderment impounds
It secedes the very cells;
The very synapses that bind
I see in others
Their physical majesty (only)
Be it, Foreign, alien… European.
I roam these corridors
While others break free beyond
I let my hair down
To cover any vilification
That could be passed
In front of the mirror.
Midnight hour;
Her dishevelled hair
Appears pleasant.
A face, feline and sinuous
Traced by the faintest
Glimmer of light,
Which found its way through
The fissures of someone else’s
Self-fragmentation.
As she deals her cards
Away from redemption,
The chores of everyday life
Of every unimportant person
Bears down like a tsunami.
Perhaps it is for her sake;
For the sake of
The eternal artist,
The insane artist.
Scent of sandal-wood
Schumann’s lieder in mother’s bedroom
The allure of perfection
Lingers like wet paint.
Manuals of good behaviour
Thrown out from this moving train
I left myself behind at the station
But the voice of my mother remains.
I have mislaid my gift
The gift that granted me
Lucidity of reasoning.
Yet clarity of thought has brought only diffidence.
If only I could, with a single blow to the throat,
Alleviate this nuisance
Than to be goaded by another glorious day.
Knowledge has not set me free nor has my naivety
Been able to cage me from combustion.
I am no longer the master of myself
But a slave to guilt trips and convulsions.
Complete, I stand
Precise as a pin-point
Formless like the next thought
Unrevealing as a nun’s garb
Unequivocal like the birth of a stream
Multi-faceted as a hive
Complete: In unison with infinity.
Pale maidens await
Beneath a cerebral mist;
Quivers to the torrent of
Centric bliss.
The essence of these indomitable words
That become the poetic frame
Of my declarations,
Thrives not in the liberation of
Paradigms encompassing human nature
But lies scattered amid
The elemental throngs;
In the crux of the unspoken mind.
I beat my breast
As if to drum up courage.
In the face of these demi-gods
Only, I, have myself to lose.
So long, oyster-flesh;
Scarred reminiscence
Of youth.
Coming-of-age:
The advent of self-possession.
The indigenous mould
Of innocence
In all its transience,
Is cast face down.
A boy in all his youthful grandeur
Aspires to supersede
His father’s legacy.
I squint my eyes,
Before the glaring day
That seeps intrepidly
Through the curtains.
Which of the three faces
Should I wear…
That of the artist
The poet or the philosopher?
Alas, none of them!
These faces are but masks
That give birth to other faces,
And in this process of self-creation
A sense of belonging
All but dissolves.
To seize a strand of life
To nestle it in our arms
To journey through a thousand landscapes
Yet home is not what we seek
All of this is but a poet’s abstraction
Where reality is misplaced.
Beast in the dark
Scavenger of soul-remains.
To gaze into Death’s eyes
To gaze deeply without fear…
This is the only lesson I have learnt
From life’s horizontal misfortunes.
The systematic dripping
Of translucent fluids
Play to the music of monitors.
Screens communicate erratically
As if in possession of a conscience.
The slow emphasis of time
Resonates within these floral walls.
The measured ticking of these
Mechanical arms
Welcome an unwelcome future.
She lies there
Like a primitive totem,
As the cornucopia of
Unfrequented feelings
Bleed from her womb.
I am not a poet
Of encyclopaedic fortitude.
Light up and shine
Hallowed flower in bloom
The iridescent moisture
Slides between your sheets
And enwraps your paleness
Sublime
Twisted at the stem
Reckless to the roots
Sway you
Osiris,
The sun’s ascension into play
Lures the glances of
Misguided fools.
The hours that consume
These tentative moments;
The assuredness of time’s
Constant miming of time’s passing,
Conceals yet commemorates
Every forsaken virginity
And every absurd toil.
Perched on the outer
Rims of purgatory:
Indistinguishable
Mirrored idealism
Of heaven
All that we feel
Is all that we need to see.
There is nothing
Profound in my creations as
Only remnants of passion linger
Like excessive rhapsodies
At the eve of Spring.
The root of the
Bona fide achievement
Is never fully up-rooted;
Locked in the mausoleum
Yet soothed by its
Own symphony
Obscurity.
Raw
Organic
Wide-eyed and howling
From mother’s womb
To lover’s tomb
We remain unbound until
Death.
I clench only a fragment
Of him
A
Silhouette
Of what is left behind
The chipped teeth
Upon my clavicle
Quiet moments
Bear the heartbeat of years
Processed thoughts
Subdued
I saddle myself for
Another awakened
Desire.
Before I could look
Deep into his eyes,
The sun came out
For the second time
And he was gone…
Torn apart by the
Heavenly rays,
Perhaps
Or by the allure of another
Pretty face?
Count away
Without puerile tears
Randomness is at play.
New found inhibitions
Senses unfettered
Words without prohibitions
Take heed to these
Impassioned words;
Arethusa’s out-going creed.
The glacial incandescence of pride
Preserves, in its depths,
A fluid trace of
Melancholy.
The reconciliation of mankind,
Placed delicately
On his shoulders…
Beacon of light,
Once scintillating, now
Bends in the fog of vacillation.
The heart no longer Beats in congruity;
His youthful verve has sunken
Into the mire
Into the desire
For mental composure.
A man with a black turban
(Cumulo-nimbus in nature)
Approaches me on my birthday,
At the eve of just another
Uneventful day…
Lets loose from his
Moustache-framed mouth
‘Predictions’ that left me soaking
(While asking for donations).
Sporadic night
Breaks into relentless day
Yet in this fatal wilderness
Self’s prototype is moulded in clay.
Boundary of light
Flutters in a measured vastness
Convictions,
Entrenched
Await the savage flames
To devour the last remnants
Of a prayer
The solitary streetlamp dims
And God is nowhere to be seen.
The trail of musk in imperial rooms;
Its silent flight across
Ether and light extends
A warm welcome, then labours
A hasty departure.
Restless
Virgins, aloof
Fraught
Gazes, inferring
Dewy
Palms, proof
Fuming
Gestures, disconcerting.
Besotted sirens
You sit upon the rock
To lure delirium
Into your nefarious grip
Cadenced wails have
Become a withered glory
Like a flock of lost birds.
City of immaculate facades,
What a pity that behind
The walls lie obliquity;
That still desperately harbours
An antediluvian barrenness
Muffles, unanimously.
The indifference of a feather
Grey yet blessed with divinity
Adorns a deflated wing
Its aerial mobility, diffused.
Upright to attention
Muted from exclamation, the once
Laudable crest of flight
Has its expiatory manor, displayed
Tossed by tidal surges
Vertigo, adapted to a fuse;
Enrolled, alas, to a ghostly fate
The threat of soul-wreck, caressed.
The squareness of my mind
Like a round window that overlooks
A triangular, shoreless, tranquility
Profusely plays, enduringly,
To life’s universal geometry.
The sphere of reasoning
Through enfolded nebulas
Do this pergola of opaque memories
Measure the measurelessness
Of inward desires while
Courting the whispers
Of perpetual pampering.
Sub aqua
Dual column
Spuming swell
Buried light
Soul-evoking
Anat’s ring.
Songs of absolutes
Groom the passageways;
Glorious in its surrender
Into the belly of the sepulchre.
Upon dry wreaths
Of lustreless
Hyacinths
Spells of exultation lay,
Among airy speculations
This garland of white
Ashen, despondent
Crown the horns
Of hung heroes.
Amphora aloft
Inward-resonating
Clement dreams
Overgrown stalk.
Eight thousand five hundred and seventy-seven days, encounting
The time for re-resurrection has come;
My new birth-place, though, visible only in my mind
Crystallizes into the banal subsistence of this moment.
On the Day of the Annunciation
Of all the simple days, he
Came, aslanting, and combed
My hair away from my face;
Fragranced my skin with
Frankincense from head
To Aglaia’s torso.
Jeremiad aplenty
Apriori
Anthracite
Fumes…
Delayed.
Flights of midnight fancies
Decipher aromas that penetrate
And slake our lips to the core.
Visual sensations unfastened, with
The expulsion of ballistic anthems;
Upon the bed of forsaken petals
Bodies, lurid, in all its
Sacrificial splendour, bestows onto
Each other noble presages.
As the phantom cherubs take off
Into the enwoven embroidery
Of night, assuaged;
The honeyed sap, lukewarm,
Drips forth brazenly.
Plum groves
Veins to a bough
Her syrup drips from
Thorns onto tired soil
Bastion of ivory
A thousand silk parts
Flaking roots
Plucked by the oriole
Intricate undergrowths
Swirling rays unseen
The dragon-fly feigns
Acacia, ‘tis you
I attend.
The catafalque gleams under
Dawns arched luminosity
An untimely radiance wearily
Drapes her foul apparition
Embers vainly burn only
To sculpt a withered essence.
Seraphic nuances
Habitually recite
A forged demeanour
Self-abiding;
Natal
Is this not my own
Protracted awakening?
Sudden, disharmonized
Outpouring of melodic follies
Put to shame with a forewarning
From the much displeasured
Von Karajan.
Swans and unicorns
Are so very alike, not
In the Darwinian sense
Of course, but in their
Elegant diffusion between
Self and embellishment.
Lynxs and sphinxs too,
Carry this callow burden;
With a countenance divine
Their sublte smiles, smile
Away the ethereal inferences
That ungodly creatures
Unkindly perpetuate.
Worthless, ever-dying amber flare
Rust-coated knife, flesh-deep I tear.
St. Lucia, isle
Immortalized
Your metaphyiscal charm
Abates my anxious self… Self?
The playing of hours
Of days
Opens this portal
Where the tide of untruth
Flows out.
Listen! Don’t carp at the wind
Fellow brothers of this new generation
Glance out of your carrels
And forsake ‘carpe diem,’
Instead nourish your tree
With experientalism.
The landscape, nocturnal,
Careens unguided
Valley-high, cliff-deep
The mythical hands;
Always in control
Of the uncontrollable
Sets forth a precedence
For the untamed man.
It is not sorrow
That the heart secretes
In the eventual shut-down
Of a flushed heart
Insouciance
Cowers
Amid the flowers
That marks the
Territory of guilt.
From the emerald sands
Lift thy soul
The burden of lost time
Amends itself through
Creative pursuits.
Submerged Babylon, laid
To rest by an untenable fate.
Dethroned, overnight, by the
Ineluctable vegetation
That once coloured your streets.
Monuments that defined an epoch
Now, all but obscured, rise from
Torn pages of obscure texts
Only to disintegrate again
Until curiosity revives you.
So die then! Bequeath your possessions to me
They are more appealing than memories
And I shall this blood-stained cloth
Donate.
I have been blamed for my loitering;
My poise, my pursuits;
Assigned with a wingspan of a vulture;
The intimidating plumage
(The filtrate of a fad)
Has, unwantonly defined my
Character as predatory.
With all honesty, I agree
No aviaries, or secluded reserves
Can contain me…
And why should they?
The sky is my threshold
And Earth, my sovereignty.
Insecurities siphoned
Into the once unused flagon;
Now filled with burgundy lust
Await the once monogamous hand
To pour into a stranger’s cup
The wine of a once coveted sweetness.
If and when he leaves,
I shall become Basemath, and he, Esau
For I cannot uncurl the curve of
This convexed revelation.
As I have become an enstranged
Mirror-semblance
It is only sensible to change
My name.
Heart-quake
A self-yearned inquisition
Now, a mere tremor
Taciturn;
Only to convalesce the self
With a remedy of laudanum,
Lavishly employed.
Mother of all dynasties
Lay your head upon the crisp linen
And recite your prayers,
Even if nonchalantly.
The world is, at your command,
Huddled in a celestial-comb…
You are the Pieta
Solemn, transcendental
Formless to a form
And visible only as
An uncelebrated
Shadow-mistress
Upon shedding a tear
You become masculine.
Serpent, off-spring of avarice
Sloughs latitudinally along the lattice of reeds
It’s tongue rattles the air, slovenly,
And finds its way into another unguarded Eden.
Everyone’s concern
For my ‘well-being’ Has been duly noted (I say)
Yet a residue of astonishment
Hangs in my mouth
But, it should
Not come as a surprise
To me (they say),
As I have always been
The prodigal son.
Rally forth into the exposed night
With the resolute chanting of a forgotten cause;
Maybe then, your spartan life will seem worthy
To die for.
Every once in a while
Our monastic idealisms
Take the crooked path downhill
To the jostle of other life forms
Where human errors criss-cross
The pathways of forgiveness.
Woman, why pretend to sleep?
Even with eyes closed
Your eye-lids sputter
To a quickened heart-beat.
You hear a voice,
Yet unacquainted,
In the cramped room
At the back of your mind
But it is just the resonance
Of a ‘good-bye.’
You wait for him
In your wasted dreams
Though amorphously,
He is already here.
Falling, falling
The soul almost abandoned
Frameless to the knees
Frailty without origin
Final words, without finality
Rapes him of a warm breath
And slice every sane image
Into wafer-thin segments
Grounded
Paralytic
The source,
Jumbled.
Silken petals
Flushed by the autumn breeze,
Settles like early snow.
Aroused, yet embarrassed,
Its borne complexion reddens
By my sudden appearance.
She recites a tune heofon-bound;
The delicate, fine arm
That clasps the dense mass
Stands motionless,
Naked before us.
Is there someone for everyone?
Indeed I hope so.
This idea
- Immaterial faith -
Becomes nothing more than a
Cold touch of deliberation
To scour the senses from seclusion.
At youth, his responsibilities became domesticated.
This self-phenomenon was never to part;
Beyond fanatical realms, he sort for glory.
My simple mind
Is teeming with thoughts
Of yet unborn events
It is the itch
I cannot reach.
The savage heart beats
A brutal beat, and in
The forum of righteousness,
These hands, once capable,
Await execution.
Face of pious simplicity,
A reflection short
Of true portrayal.
The smile, now famous,
In the sight of which
Venus doth stray;
The eyes, your pair,
Where constellations dwell
And hemispheres they are.
Spoken word of you
Allures nature’s observation.
Soft, yet iron-brave,
Pristine without conformity
Even the flute-notes of cherubs
Endeavour to imitate.
You blossom and consecrate
The fruits of love,
And in the name of charity,
Love those who cannot be loved.
His image,
Still so vibrant and vivid,
Clings anonymously like fungus
To a tree.
Between the senses, unused;
The unseasoned night plunges
Into a fiery well.
Memoirs of a love,
A mere remnant of a lover’s kiss
The touch of our lips secured
Nature’s momentum once…
The only
Reality now
Is abandonment.
Take me for what I am,
For myself, for my beliefs
Do not look at me to despise me.
Turn your face… confront!
For, I too, can be as thoughtless
And as shrewd as you.
My eyes, and yours, blink away
Moments of the day, unchallenged.
As Time desensitizes us,
It is not our complexion that reveals
Our age.
Unperturbed
Polished intimacy;
Varnished hopes
Ride the sweet air
Alas, this is but a
Blistered reminiscence
Of a once entrapped
Once living
Carcass.
Autumnal ghosts
Cindery vibrations
All that is beneath my skin.
They permeate, virally,
Into the blood
A foregone elixir
Kindles the flame.
Swept into the dust and into the past
The hollow abbreviation of yet
Another refined amusement
Vexes the rain-gods from submission.
His short-sightedness
Has let his attention
Pursue the shadow
Of someone else’s
Jagged constitution.
Her passion for flaws has now subsided…
Past demurrals put to asunder
However magnanimous they stand on their Doric pedestal
She will become the greater storm that unleashes the thunder
So that once again, amid the cracks,
They become accountable.
I colour her
Savagely
Tempestuously
Musically
Her voice, beyond
Any rhythmical recognition
Recoils when
Our eyes meet
Lyrically.
Cradled, cornelian face
Stubborn you are in your budding!
Mere reflection of
The mercurial sun, upon a time
You were newly-weds.
You roam existentially
Beyond veils of an imperfect hue;
Equipoised in this bleak
Sacramental expanse.
Whispers in the cornfield
The chills of mid-spring
Bears with it the
Assumption of a new-born.
The presence
Of the last ten years
Ambrosial
Ventures deeper into
The cordial clasp
Of its denouement.
Phallic compass
Impetus of might
Amoral conquests
To instinct’s delight.
The breathing,
A little off…
Moist disequilibrium,
Without the feat of artifice,
Pieces together the chaste centuries
Of an earlier ancestry…
But wanton affection
Never left the scene.
Enamoured mind-swills
Silent vigil
The hope that one day
Life declines a miracle.
Convictions of pandemic magnitude
(Processed like pillow-talk)
Bipolar and universal
A strangeness…
Aureola.
I walk, bare-foot, curious as a sage;
The stimulation of past milenia fails
To wring dry the drunkeness of this age
And, of a life of purposelessness,
We convict ourselves as the forebearer.
You say my love
Is no good for you
But a boy’s obedience
Is never undue.
Your friends warn
That I am not
In the worthy few
My instincts forewarn
It is I you must woo.
Dissolved portrait
Doubled infinity
Salvaging temperamentalists
Make this face top heavy.
The penetration of a satiated mind
(A malediction of a milked, flesh-worship)
Gather in its stock, impiously,
A pile of derelict injustices
While bludgeoning the raising arms
Of a crippled figure;
High-pitched cry
His tongue, a vessel of malice.
Fly, Fly away
Into the vacant night,
Pure thoughts.
Sink into the lustre
Of the celestial abyss.
Intertwining, unfurling,
Exchanges encrusted;
Lixiviates our form
With veins inflamed.
This fixation, dimorphic,
Enshrouds naked North
And sullen South.
Brassy
Sardonic
Charlatan, my dearest.
A heavy heart ripens
Because of you…
Because it knows your secret well.
Performing deviltry
Upon any hot-blooded drifter;
Towed along by the groin-felt instinct
That has you on a leash;
A hellion you claim to be
To me you were never that real.
Chased by definition;
Now prolapsed
Meaning
Chastised.
Sweet criminal
You whine about your style
Yet you are masterful
With disguises.
Bloodthirsty, brazen
Human-trunk
Orphan-spirit
Give yourself up.
My friend, my virginal
Berlin acquaintance
You are but this open existence
That quenches my thirst
For the Art’s and for the impish…
You
Unfading blush.
The recollection of a yesteryear
Like a yesterday
Newly hatched.
Fertilized
By brief recognitions
Of a muted influence
This inner-séance
Dissolves time;
Present.
The thwarted jolt;
Disengaging
Livid senses;
Purulent
Chronic sensitivity;
Alleviated.
Latter-day clemencies
Intense undergrowth;
The mercy of a few Hail Mary’s
Enough to clear away the weed from
The copse…
A trend in modern religion.
Tasteful injustices
Like golden confetti thrown
Onto a festoon-clad procession;
Contamination in a soft,
Subtle manner
To a heart’s desire.
Stricken, lust-driven
Addict of passion
Come back to me
Inflammable fixations
With immortal obsessions;
Buoyant on this mind-ocean
Terminally
Lead-heavy.
Requiem to the Baptist
Herodion’s chime
A mindful jingling
Awarded for his crime.
Astray in the subliminal labyrinth,
The wanderer adorns a straight-jacket
Of claustrophobia
Innate;
Insulates
The insipid fumes of a desperation,
A warped distraction
Titivates the lithic soul
Before casting itself
To the tight-rope
Of another spectacle.
Almighty Hades,
Model of a sedated world,
Expands its border
To reach this encampment
Where refuge from the unknown
Has kept us on our toes.
Sub-human, lost property
Her frayed rag doll
Bead on a necklace
Pierced belly-button
She looks into me as
If a kaleidoscope.
Granite stature
With mood swings
Again nine month’s pregnant
Pregnant with the
‘flavour of the month’
Yet motherless to a child.
He is but a set of
Systematic measures;
The bruises on my chest,
Permanent like the tattoo
On his right ankle.
They reward me with painkillers
But it wears off like the
Caffeine of a morning coffee.
To them I am the truth behind their lie
Tarnished tin robot
A used syringe
In the forbidden den.
I am only eleven
I am an alcoholic
‘So where is my pint…?’
Says this non-conformist.
Conscience
The inexorable parasite
Shadow’s own copy…
Lacks self-control
From time to time
It sinks unaware into the quick-sand,
And waits for the absent hand
To heave us from unreality.
She plays with my attentiveness;
Like origami,
Folds me two-fold with papery affections.
Emotions bare the emblem of lust.
From love to hate, anger or sorrow,
The uncommon thirst to fulfil
And absorb each one;
Invokes a numbing pleasure
Which our minds will secure and
Consequently mend our parts to
Prime us for a subsequent displeasure.
If only the heart could speak words
What would mine say?
Will it be voiceless before the mind’s opprobrium
And thus, not speak freely?
Draconian reparations
Impressions of a rusty ochre
Glides through this glade
Along life’s meridian.
Thoughts of my eventual departure
Seize the minds of love-members
Yet what is inside mine
Is much less trivial…
I am not a prisoner,
But His prize.
An embossed metalanguage
Fills my page with a script
Of childish stupidities.
Like braille, these fingers
Are fed with an influx of sensations
That expose the undertone
Of an adult’s impropriety.
Unlike the convolvulus-attribute
Of earlier misdemeanours
That caricatured my youth,
My head is at last on my shoulders
And on my limbs…
Can I be forgiven
For yet another whim?
Death, you are a friend
Revered by many,
I need not pretend.
Like Life, your part is sacrosanct,
Though your tears are not of joy
They are still precious to the heart.
This soul, to you I send.
I cleave to you sacrilegiously
In wait of my inconsequential end.
Resign from resistance,
Pause the pain and
Silence the shooting.
Halt the hammering and havoc;
Relinquish all provocation
By dismantling your misery
At the door.
No stray bullets on this eve to dart
Through mustard clouds, but the
Stench of those perished, enshrouds
The men, entrenched, head down in prayer
On this cold, defended, holy day.
The calm, cerulean sky of a nearby dawn
Someone’s mother prepares to mourn
The death of her child and of innocence known
In front of a grave she stands alone.
Shy in my remembering;
Unkind in my forgetting
Secret lover,
Is this how it will end?
When I try to forget,
I merely recollect.
Will I come to my senses eventually
And proceed in taking off the disguises?
Will I come full circle and permit testimony
To my actions?
To reveal a face, as it is,
As it was, and perhaps even,
As it should be…
No! Cast off ‘the Pariah,’ ‘the Delinquent’
And this ‘Spoilt-brat,’
Set back instead the oriental smile
That everyone remembers you by.
Undue cravings,
An appetite for antics; my
Incorruptibility set myself
And the world apart.
Molten ambitions,
Uncombed dreams;
Escape into
Eternal abeyance.
Bed-ridden
Fresh wisterias bear witness
To an asphyxiating discord with
A fat angel.
Song on a string
Ties unto the hand
Of a fugitive
The vague echo of
A glorious world
Expired.
The feral, now tamed
Parts with itself
An old, forgotten self
Leased at last with
A desirable attire
Unassuming.
Pure, unlearned
Willow-limbs drape
The crystal banks and mimic
A tune of early spring
Cluster of praise
Amid falling leaves.
Beneath the celestial symbols
Where earthly creatures
Honour nightly vigils
A random petal sealed
In the inner-sanctum
Of a momentary rapture.
The remaining days fill
This imaginary cavity
With laughter, unmeasured
At arms length, the light
Of all things caress like
The breeze of an unknown season.
The single gathering
Of a waning contribution
Of a life grown beyond
It’s human skin, finds
Solace in the lucent victuals
Of an intimate moment.
Oh! World of unattainable
Constants, where the foot
Treads it leaves no trace
And when the sun manifests
With an etch on the window-pane
A new beginning stirs, unborn.
Silence marks the distance
Between Earth and Heaven, and
The moon’s allure quiets our voice
When it speaks, it speaks to reveal
The splendour of a day’s uncharted
Journey, taken by an aged-youth.
Flora, fruit-resplendent
At the mouth of an exposed
Estuary, where mythical creatures
Once drank from its tepid stream
Here, love stole our virginal sip where
Our lips still cling to nature’s goblet.
A flame casts an uneven shadow
The moss-carpet stows a fair maiden
Water drips to the sound of a novel shrill
And beckons forth two metaphors
That lovingly find refuge in
The light of a glaring flame.
Words, face of an
Invisible impression
Combusts without purpose
Climbs the altitude of the mind
From cocoon to thread
Truth wrestles with faith.
Defiant and unworthy faith!
A vineyard of tangled emotions
Offer to sweeten the heart
Of a vagrant’s thirst, and
With a closing hand secures the
Avowal of another lost identity.
Twilight’s filament
Cascades from ornate sky-patterns
Punctures the cosy haven that nurtures
The whims of a man’s dream
A feast took place, and merriment has
Yet to evaporate from a waking smile.
The splinter of morning
Slits and peels off the ripened skin
That encases an unready love
For love of life seems unnatural
To this young man; as he counts the days
Death out-numbers Life.
Mislaid secrets huddle
At the point of a needle
It awaits the unaware hand
To weave a deadly-strain into the
Finely, coloured binding; the final
Feature to Earth’s infant dress.
Adolescence’s timeless majesty
Opulent with an unruffled motif
Imitates the unshakable trait of
Laboured hands; its work complete,
Slips back and rests upon
The cambered cushion.
Wishes of a
Withered decadence
Suckles the honeyed-sap
Of a bygone descendant
It’s spiral, lame; spurns
The help of a close relation.
Warm amber juice
Coats the remaining bark
The final remnants of
A decaying coffin, once
The residence of a confident
Man, now but a handful of soil.
Fern, nevermore; fingerless boughs
Recline in a poetic poise
Once steadfast in resolve
Vigilant guardians of
An ancient womb
A livier wreath becomes you.
The scent of pine loiters
At the foot of the hills
And intrudes to stroke the hair
Of grand-mothers sleeping
A message finds consolation
Before a wrinkled face.
How they triumph: the vines!
To capture a summer and
Its delayed ecstasy
Nocturnal pledges merge the soul
To eventual traitors, who already
Turn their heads to the confessional.
The contour of the soul’s
Constitution, defined by the
Abstracted version of ‘the other’
Collects a tarnished trophy
All but one hangs proudly
In wait of a restoration.
Brimful of ego, unfledged
Trickles down the chalice
The concatenation of mishap
Leads the common soul to the
Gates of the Inferno; but
Paradise is not in Dante’s mind.
To break free beyond the
Holy placenta, away from the Light
Only to re-enter; the recycled communion
Has lost credibility
Paradise is not beyond reach
Follow thy inner-god, homeward.
Garden gnomes sit
With a vacant stare
They wonder about
Life’s inaccuracies
And laugh at those
Who care.
They smile artificially
Just to imitate the
World’s hypocrisy
And as soon as we turn
Tucks their leer
Inside their hat.
Buried oblivion
A silhouette of a kite
Cordless, yet groped
By a skeletal fin
Flusters relentlessly
Rotating the spheres.
The sole watchman
Towers over the
Self-devouring night
Devil-mistress lends a
Helping hand and draws
It to the wasteland.
The parabola of
His scars sketched
On the dust plains
Tear-prints mark
His previous existence
As a nomad.
Into life and out
Of death as easily
He turns villages
Into empty cities
And ancestral homes
Into ready graves.
In between her thoughts
My face is residue
I have been reckless
In my sharing of love
Any more promises and
I will disavow myself.
I have learnt to be
Careful of stray words
Past deeds unearthed
Sooner or later
I will have to pay
Like always.
The profusion of
A girl’s purpose
Indefinable facets
Of the same truth
That truth resides
Beneath the skirt.
They say it is
The same for a boy
But is it only the boy
Who lacks emotion?
Unless of course
He chases himself.
They come and go
As and when it pleases them
The sun’s command has
Little influence on
Their colour or abundance
Saviour or imitator?
They mime a reflective
Existence to sentimentalize
A florid concupiscence
Cheap imitation!
What flowers can bloom when
Nourished with pesticide?
Sycamores line a stolen path
Blades of sepia blunt the horizon
Reduced to its core
Its seamless courage
Yields to another day of
An unwarrantable spell.
The vibrating crusts
Shake the hollow monuments
Tears confine to a bundle
Of leaves at it’s’ feet
A vanquished infinity
Wilts without a witness.
I am not myself
As I was a moment ago
These hands seem smaller
My skin less the gift it was
And these eyes were once
Supernovas that shone.
But I am still myself
As I write these words
But who is this self that
Lyrical thoughts pursue?
Time is the essence
That is transparent.
Our penultimate kiss
And nothing to savour it with
All has been a blur up to
This point; the circle swells
With corners, the triangle
Boasts four sides.
The shadow casts a form,
The light inwardly illuminates
All is a mess, here and beyond
The mind becomes
Unrecognisable like
A dried up lake.
Burlesque beast-man
His smile is filth, his
Memorial flower stripped
Artifice satisfies his candour
As he sifts through the silt
Subconscious turns on him.
Subtle note of myrrh
From what is left of a skin
Ribs propel forth
Like a bursting cage
He condemns her grievance
But instead it is his.
A thousand miles, my host
Tarmac and concrete
My proverbial companion
Soon we will harbour an
Urgent love, and just as soon
Become a distant memory.
My new love awaits
Beyond signs and turnings
After countless traffic lights
And washroom facilities
She will be there with the night
To welcome myself and morning.
days are shorter
I tell myself
the void must be filled
and what better than the night
like I she is no hunter
scours merely for acceptance
like / the loners
on pavements
why not act like a man / when you are
why carry a loose identity
to be peeled off when necessary
why the anxiety / the care
the world is not on your shoulders
you have handsomely
placed it on mine
it has always been on my term
sex
money / or lack of
drugs
such carefree existency
yet far from
careless
live by / rules
clouded with hypocrisy
while fastening a smile
turn on the light
and / I shall follow
willingly
one only needs to look outside
and smell the cruelty
abundant as summer’s / fruition
to revive what is left
in the wake of
an inspiration-drought
glorious / pigmentations
align the scope
everything swells
down to the feet
so why not the mind
mornings / what dreary events
the alarm goes of
and we carry our bodies out of bed
like squealing children
cursing
cursing
hating
we stumble / sit for a while
as temptation begins its masquerade
we savour our coffee
as if an exotic remedy
to wear off the pain
we stare at each other
faceless
expressions are cruel
we huddle together / like family
day-dreaming
sometimes / I neglect to thank
the Lord
and my days seem heavier
does he forget / who I am
words seek validation
as actions seek motivation
statements
neuter
fertilise nothing
it is selfish to love
to truly love
because we love
ourselves just as much
so love / makes us idle
it is always time for bed
but never time to wake / up
life becomes a chore
we roam we stalk we mingle
we do everything / that is meaningless
our destination is but a mirage
we become the joker
to kings
but in our dreams
we find ourselves
playing
fulfilling the unknown
no excuses to falter / no
intuition to maim us
what wonders
dreams do to us
daily
liberations
someone will forget to remember you
because death takes away
the privilege of / priority
the night
her cruel companion
seduces with sunken promises
and absconds with hers
she / calls on the day to
sit with her
a little longer
solace of the night
all / is oblivious
oblivious
o v s
monuments
remnants of a bygone supremacy
reminds us
of their monumental defeat
declarations
of a faded / glory
secrets
of others
will be kept
temporarily
to myself
when I get bored
I / will share
them
a leaf
begins a journey
downstream
into / the lines of
an unwritten / libretto
days / sting
like salt / on wounds
as they bear / no significance
walks along garden paths
the sound of birds corresponding
picture / of absolute serenity
quietude slips away / like smoke
into someone else’s mind
and my image of her fades
religion / an inconvenience
human nature / my sole dependency
this is where I station my faith
expectations shelter
beneath a roofless dwelling
its voice demands attention
yet / it holds no integrity
water runs cold
skies / confuse
elements reverse
I
write everything down so that
I
remember the things
I
need to do / yet when
I
re-read them / they are exposed to scrutiny
the cat relishes
my cashmere
we fondle / for a moment
shy away from eye contact
and before long
he reappears onto
the lap of another
nightly / widow
the world is at your feet
why trail a forbidden extravagance
consolations / spring
bring no security
formality / precedes
leads to absolution
my axis
floats in the rotunda
of / estimation
the sky never quite clears
and / the glorious morning pledged
has yet to reappear
the heart
is kept on a leash
muted
it mutates
instead
I lived / everywhere
east and west
now I live
where east meets west
I am at last at home
but this place I call / home
is not where I belong
waiting is an excuse to be uninterested
in the impending matter of / unimportance
the cigarette burns
minimally
the smoke / exhaled
charts her journey
he / smiles seamlessly
to align with
social conformity
he / takes off his glasses
to make him seem
less foreign
he / loses his accent
to abandon any childish
pretension
he / works at night
to justify
his days
unter den linden
wantonness / dallies beneath
your shade
words pulled in all directions
degrees of / assembly
settle without legitimacy
a / voice cries out
a murmur
ricochets
his aroma
my / morning
hair flaxen
frames a set of azure
a face
I barely / remember
anon
because / I no longer know
him
outcaste for at least another year
divided / without derision
unremorseful
he leaves his mark upon the bottle
it is easy to reject life
for what it is
what we have we should
take for granted
dreams / cannot
escape a reality
to live is to enact the sins
why waste ourselves with the bland
at the end we all see the light
let us hope it is our / heaven
sheathed in moonlight
a lean / figurine
draws an unlikely observer
he composes another sonata
in / her name
to be the constant cynosure
my back prepares for / another stab
but they fail to harm my vital organs
my pride and my arrogance
shades of grey
my / only colour
their simplicity
gave birth
to me
define me / with
your democracy
and you will only achieve
a step backwards
revive me / with
electric shocks
and all you will receive
is pity
as I try to delineate
moss from stone
my hair / thins
and everything
begins
to make / sense
///////////////
the dome shrinks as I raise an eyebrow
it stands mightier in the mind
many flock to react / awe-inspiringly
only to hide their disappointment
ingenious / your glass facade
but you stutter in your message
modernity curtsies
before the grandeur of old
birthdays
where is the point
they amass a deluded / anticipation
and leave us less of a person
we were the day / before
a year marks another year
towards an end
it passes through a toll-booth
of an unformed / adulthood
we whistle in tune with innocence
yet our melody is complex
even at / forty
we play in our cots
our days spent philandering
with our toys
at what age do we reach our prime
even now / I have become none the wiser
still make the same regrettable mistakes
my head stoops
as I count from one to ten
obligations / submerge
enthusiasm grinds to a halt
the exact time remains / unclear
the ticking bears no rhythm
the sound of trumpets
salute the last hour
of another day of
silent impressions
I have outgrown my primal shell
while my friends / remain in theirs
as I stare at the deserted cocoon
they inveigh / by labelling me
persona non grata
fortunately / my new family
needs no introduction
his / grievance
forth-coming
intrudes
the ergonomics / of friendship
broadens the scope / for exoneration
intumescence
of curiosity
maroons atop / a ledge
our hands never quite / touch
persiflage restores
our / childish ways
upon a diptych
as / she withdraws
with a decisive breath
she invites me
to re-enter her womb
his configuration / incomplete
harnesses a supple pre-text
to a
disengagement
she complicates our affair
with / her
ocho
boleo then media-luna
she leads as I / follow
this is our
argentine ritual
she fine-tunes me
with her body-language
dusk is slow / in letting go
like nature
her rain is merciless
her sister-summits / brutal
salvation hides
behind her facial-clouds
my roof / begins to leak
I am left doing cart-wheels
to / attract his attention
or perhaps I should cast / a spell
to seek out the faintest
glimmer of hope
his face / unamused
I am left doing cart-wheels
alone
I hate everyone outside my window
they seem to ease / into life
without the suspicion / of others
interactions of a pure morning
the squeal of a fire-engine
liberates me from my sleep
I wake / sodden
I question
all that is around me
is this my bed upon which I lay
he / strips me of my patina
only to find a mould-stricken
self
she guides me / paternally
scent of patchouli
mimics / her absence
to / wander
to / drift along her riverbed
to / sing a madrigal with her
my only purpose as a youth
our hearts synchronize
as we / rediscover our patois
she disinfects my wounds
the lies
covers / my bullet-holes
with her shroud
colours / me
she unties my hand and
and we talk diplomatically
the last cigarette / is lit
stoically
before he completes / his verse
his attention deflects towards
a defiant congregation
he moves in / light-years
to wrestle with Monoceros
and Lepus
I forbid myself / to count the lines
that form along my characteristics
I refuse to diffuse / into another streak
of self-engaging protests
I stand / further away than usual
from my beloved twin
I conquer / these demons
and sacrifice them in the name of good-will
women of the / spire
children of the / knave
no longer supports
the proceedings at the altar
feigned euphoria
keep-sake for the organist
his words are easy
mal-nourished /at best
but
hardly deformed / enough
flies buzz around my head
a certain greatness forms
a halo infringes upon my forehead
in a moment reborn
I swipe at them but to no avail
they rally in numbers build
a heaven without wood or nail
and enthrones a worthy king
I shift they follow
a fool who tries his best to
become immaterial
mere object to the eye
phone rings
and in a brief lapse of hysteria
I tame the person on the other end
after the immediate first round
the conversation earth-bound
o tannebaum of ancient song
I recite to myself a minute long
everything eases into rhyme
and all who stands bow to time
I no longer look beguiled
to these flies that have aged.
on the 18th she passed away
on the 23rd she was born
in the 8th hour
counting between breaths stopped
we said good-bye to may in august.
and with all that is said and done
a fado is scripted upon a stone
let our subconscious take us to the docks
where sea-farers bid farewell to wives
let the waters become our institution that
defines truth and buries injustices to the deep
and with all that is said and done
let the subconscious take us to the docks
where sea-farer and wife reunite.
she flavours me with envy
infatuation flows out with the tide
barren shores await the majesty
of a dawn in matrimony
the timbre in a stillness exalts
amid the pale imitation of night
I defy our silent pledge with a touch
only to redeem the power of speech.
there is no strobe of light that does not
value a home
so let the great masters find solace in the deep
shards of hypotheses venture into the depths
but they are mere renditions
let them come forth and breathe into them
the breath of exodus
the deep is but a foil and its eminence
but a profusion of foams and bubbles
yet you great masters lurk beneath
where time is inconsequential
where time surrenders to your whims.
fern of the heart opposes all words and its function
calyx of metaphors encircle a theatre of war
petal of the free church picked by callow hands
brings its only significance to a wreath
poetry of a glaring flame that emits no light
words that only tame a fraudulent display
mechanics of thought pioneer across the poles
to where north becomes south
landscape of impressions assemble into a featureless picture
while colours of salubrious hues inseminate nature
strokes of force initiate a whirl-wind that opens
the heart that tends the fern.
they turn from me and run run
I never know why this happens
perhaps it is the colour of my back pack
I am used to being left out of the loop loop
they share a laughter amongst themselves
is it the size of my shoes my entire attire
they point their fingers as I walk by by
head down I count my steps back home
and all I do is curse my father’s fair hair
day long I sit under the elm tree to read read
while thinking of ways to getting even
enough of their pranks and name games.
the water slowly rises
fringes the lip of a dream
as life becomes unreal
tears seep out into the gates
she waits her calling
she waits her turn the
water confines to the brim
a dream solidifies
she lays at the foot of a virgin’s alter
and revives a prayer to theotokos
words in deliberation falter
her victory doves left years ago.
the seeds are sown
satisfaction graces
the faces of men
who deflower the new
and deny the old.
bitter symphonies disguise
the voice of a vagabond
in the end clouds decay
as thoughts liquefy
embers electrify
the skies of a wintry morning
the residue of a memory
puts me in my place
spineless without the
compass of my sanity my
definition remains unclear as
he alternates between the hours
clouds fail to dispel
from our room
exoneration is sacrificed
in this ritual of awakening.
my unforgettable
her refusal
his anecdotal
paranormal.
the wind blows through
my book and life unravels
I leave it in the lilac fields and
these pages fill with stimulation
without discipline the mind
desires the liberty to roam
as senses resort to higher ground
in search of greener pastures
as life unravels in the wind
my pages come alive
and my tongue feels
the birth of a new song.
I turn my back
against existentialism
quadruples
as he enters the room
to where I sit
every morning
reading
waiting.
the composure of youth
reclines in the wake of
an insistence to love
the mast is strained
cracks form and
another ship-wreck looms.
passed out
head first
stomach in view
needs another kick
in the right direction.
fields of laurels cascade into the sky
polished skin of morning dew
glistens from head to sunken petals
the world is too modest
for my cultivation.
severed
loose at the tongue
fingers tap
on an empty table
I tell myself
to think a little less
of his departure
but three months
is a death sentence.
the morning
remakes itself
knocks irritatingly
at my door
evening follows
and I embrace my trial.
tender expressions
rest upon this berth of indifference
two souls
two minds
rhythm trance
heads turn to the beat
eyes swallow the insanity
dark rooms to my left
young boys to my right
the scent of ecstasy
fails to capture the mind
whiffs of odour beautiful
translate my night
into a vocabulary
of unuttered senses.
fresh lips touch
as memories
of past lovers breach
a hallowed moment
unrefined.
love begins where love ends
the vault within the heart unseals
and again we tend our love
like a shepherd to his flock.
grace falters
as I discriminate
against the values I had sown
persuasion filters
into the domain of a conscience
and again I bow to my addiction.
to what do I owe this pleasure
fatal mistress of the gospel
my internal healing is well under way
and flowers of dawn has been laid to rest
under your name and supervision
beds of sapphire desires
once an earthly sanctuary
softens even the most astounding critics
who once tortured vows
so quickly raise their brows
and their glasses
to our reunion.
forgive and let live
vengeance is but a thought
revenge but a blunt blade
death by the sword
tenders life with
another meaning.
reason catapults
nothingness abound
clarity sliced into morsels
suspicion renders false
and edible.
at the back seat
the panorama widens
the world is ploughed through
like a mast in the fog
sympathy stirs
at the onset of a new beginning
the whole-hearted games
we play have no ending.
the cut was surgical
the humming continues
eyes gaze downward
to a civilian no longer
who would have known
the consequences
of a birth could
salvage a husband’s loss.
I stole the morning hours
With wordless thoughts
As we lay amongst the leaves
We drew the lines of our ancestry
Moments of introspection
Command the flight of our soul
And in fleeing
I sacrifice them to Hyperion.
A flock of wild geese
Cries out an ancient song
With their praises
I forsake autonomy
The river bends and
The water from the marina
Preaches another sermon
To a boy that grew beyond
A father’s expectations.
My love nestles in the twigs
Scent of rotting wood
Evaporates amid heavy mist
In the twilight the moon
Refracts my penance
As time delays a song
My first and final tribute.
Oh! How the overture of life
Resists the silent damnation of casualty
We talk on a first-name basis,
My childhood God and I.
Dear Kin
Parted at birth
Until now
Who imparts with
A due embrace
Yet I have nothing
To share
Perhaps distant strangers
We were meant to be.
Boy beyond this barricade
‘Tis my blood that I owe
The night brings comfort
To a heart that once was yours
That was stolen from you
Prayers reach this poly-god
But do they hear me like you do?
Justifications fail
To wake the gentle giant
That is satisfaction
I have rallied through
Many paths that sought
The silver light
Yet I return without prize
Do I owe it to half-heartedness
Or is it just the design of life?
Supple skin
I never had
Though boyish charms
I cradled at birth
Rich with ego
And nothing more
Content I am
With this crystal ball
While others are
Tied by a noose
Fear that is the hand
That reins them in
So it is I that will
Set them loose.
Free-falling into a state of flux
Reversing the light
Rousing the flames
Sifting through the ashes of a wreck
Joyriding the carousel of time
Speaking in a speechless rhyme
Being one and only
Belonging to myself but not I.
Embellished upon a shroud
Randomness prevails
Laughter succumbs to reason
That mounts on a saddle
Of inappropriateness
Hands touch a faded eminence
And with each stone hurled
Liberates a moment
That chronicles a life misplaced.
Questions haunt waking moments
A life pieced together
By a determination to play
The cold whispers of friends
Upbraid excessiveness
As I wrestle with my conscience
Do they not know that my actions
Are as transparent as they are?
I have been judged on numerous occasions
I have explicated myself just as many times
A moment of peace I relish the most
Yet a dose of that moment has a perverse price.
Family and friends are institutions
They belong to a realm of self-design
To our families we owe ourselves
To our friends we owe our invention.
Union of a totality
Severs along its seams
As bygone words
Brought only confusion
The heart forfeited earns
A medal of remorse
I have just lost a friend
A partner in this scheme of life.
A primeval world casts its shadow
Like a diagram of a universal manifest
I am charged with the penalty of life
As I sit at my desk pouting in silence
The fruition of years of trail and error
Earns a warrant to further search my soul
Yet the story is not complete without
The daily hysteria of a manic-depressant.
I lay a command upon the soil
Like a kid wishing upon the stars
On the edge of consciousness
My whole is being carved
As one dream fosters another
An unknown hand stitches
Them like patch-work
As I plough through them
I wake only to define myself.
Oh! How you wane
By the slightest of petitions
You carry messages
Shed by lovers and dreamers
Carrying their song
To the deep
Immersing the
Credence of the sun
You become the soul
Of the night
Harbouring the voice
Of a millennia
Yet you stir like
A jester before court.
I look around me
And all is at right-angle
I look inside myself
And all that remains
Is but a jumbled
Deck of cards.
Reflections fail
To portray ourselves
As appearances suffocate
Our potential to be
Yet beauty needs
No reflection to
Reach its own potential.
The night has matured into day
And yet I write these words
Upon this page as if my day
Has no importance
Time for bed delays with each word
And as if with every word
I charm myself to sleep.
How I yearn for another baptism
The light sprinkling of that holy water
To cleanse me of my sexuality
Perhaps good fortune
Will then lead me back
To some semblance
Of a righteous human being.
The tanks came as
If God’s hand had swept by
And carried the children away
The face of humanity
Burnt off without mercy
The innocence of laughter
Now buried six feet under.
I learnt the Ten Commandments
Just as I turned my head from
A life of absolution
I sought the pleasures of adulthood
As I unsheathed myself from
The carapace of religion.
On this day I turn twenty-five
And I am slow in waking
The sensuality of dawn
Resuscitates the epitome of youth
Back to the pulsating rhythm
Of a church bell’s chime
Playing amongst the groves
When sweat poured down onto my face
Without care or derision
I am slow in waking
As this memory is mine to keep.
Boredom inspires great things
Our soul unwraps and
Beneath the echelons of the mind
The flurry of questions
Conciliate one another
When the gaze salutes at nothing
When the heartbeat slows
Inspiration swells like a bud
And wakes us from our boredom.
I douse the flames
Of hypocrisy
As the world resumes
Its interactions like
The day before
I am no longer Hephaestion
But a relic of old.
Mornings begin its
Ritual of blessings
With a hymn from Selene
From dream to the privilege
Of motion and memory
Eyes open as unfamiliar gods
Shine their rays on you
And I alone.
She came in time
For my upbringing
Her songs at bedtime
Were pure and willing
She sang of legends
That soon became
A part of me and
Through the art of words
I rested my faith upon a fate
As the lyrics remained
Within these walls
Even when we parted.
Moments of truth reveal itself
In times of strife and heart-ache
Within the soul
Two parts marry
And the frailty of the self
No longer hides its face
In the soil of consolation.
All too quiet is the mind
That seeks to become second
To the edicts of men
As nature’s voice rings truer
To our hearts within
And the pounding might
Of pulses rage
All is not lost when
We succumb to these demons.
As the day stretches beyond
Into undiscovered plains
My heart roams to where
The hyacinths grow
This garden of unthawed beauty
Remains my sacred asylum
Where thoughts of the purest kind
Loiters without prejudice.
Shoeless
Faceless
Glaring in the pale
Shadow of an eternal light
A hand shakes off the dust
Again it settles
Upon a brow
The shackles of a love
Binds
Like calligraphy upon
A page
A prayer
Reclusive
Breaches the heavenly summit
To where mercy
Clings amid the twilight
A yawn
Overtakes a breath
An apology
Awaits another rendition
Graceful gestures
Only to liquefy into dew.
Amongst my friends
I rise like a totem
Yet into the trenches
I call my home
I soak in the soil
Cleansing me of my sins
Reborn I lay
Naked without a whim
A man they once called me
Yet so much I neglected to prove
Now I know how to be that man
As truth begins to envelope me.
The darkness
Blankets
Days muted
Silenced
Fleeing
There goes the soul
Such abandonment
Yet the body
Remains
Intact
These limbs belong to another
And my palm is wet
From hesitation
Who am I
The speaker
Of verse
A child of hope
Perhaps
Or of wantonness?
Silent
Besotted
Depraved
Of a voice
Love tackles me
To my knees
I begin with another
Familiar story
And my mind recoils
To speak.
And so life goes on
Without the daily remedy
Of purification
The night proves hard to defeat
As hours are mimed
Dreams vaporise
Dawn begins its charge
And to all those at hand
Believers
Of faith or fortune
Arise to be summoned.
Wrenching
At the possibility
Of happiness
Quenching
The thirst
That itself dictates
Melting
Upon the superficiality
Of it all
Splitting
The minutetist of details
That life summons
Rendering
A true belief
To be false.
Four things I hold
Dear to me
Four systems of function
Renders me anonymous.
Who is holier
Than he
Who speaks in rhyme?
I sit as an observer
My eyes set upon nature
Closeted
My thoughts vary in magnitude
My voice is carried with a soft breath
In the hope that father will find
Faultless
Yet it is he who
Seeks my praise.
Fluid breath
Of spring
Twilight extends
Beyond
Nectar of life
Brings to union
Hand and heart.
I lock horns to kill off
Any remnants of dignity
I battle head-to-head
With those who coincide with me.
Fight
Again we fight
A new terror to come ashore
Sing
Again we sing
Across oceans my song of folklore
To rest
Again laid to rest
These infants who lived before
time
there is no time
but to dream of a life no more.
If I am one
Then I am the sum of my parts
Two halves
That assume one façade
One façade that equates
To a whole
But what entity is this
If the quality of each part
Is unaccountable?
I think therefore I am?
Or I think because I am
Programmed?
Incidental / accidental?
Which is definite
The smashed head upon the floor
Or the motion or the motion of the fall?
Flowers
(colour and scent).
Bees
(colour and buzzing sound).
Hive
(colour, buzzing sound and scent of honey).
I am unknown to myself
But not to you
The clarity of my voice
Is like the rhythm of a trance
It fixates you
While I cast a spell
You listen to me
As I annihilate you.
Dreams materialise
Like an answered prayer
I sleep while I feel
All the emotions
Of a human
Yet this body is
At a standstill
I feel drunk and sober
At the same time
Conversations
Whispered at my ear
Molestations occur
With my warrant
So dreaming is what I want
As dreaming is to be.
Captive in a moment
Singular
Held at ransom
Plural.
Modifications
Come at a price
A constitution derived from grass and weed.
I shall let my spine dictate where I go and when I shall leave
How to lean on top of my table
How I recline on an empty chair
I shall dominate the north
And abandon the south
I shall harvest the crops
Under the twilight
And disintegrate
Like morning dew.
Salome of my own imagination
Jesus from a much needed faith
Holy trinity I stole from a pedestal
Berlin I came without opposition.
Where must I look
Why did I turn my back
I look around and I see unfamiliar faces
Yet the face that makes me happy
Is the face that I put the blame
Which path leads me to a better place
A place where shame cannot shelter
Where is the guiding beam of light
That grants illumination of the mind
I am to bear this burden
Yet the fault is not mine nor his
But ours which we failed to nurse
Peace was ours yet we chose war
Moments of purity was within grasp
Like a petal it was plucked from our souls
We created our destiny and destiny tore us apart
We were good as two
But as one we failed
The bigger picture still lingers in my mind
Yet the small became the priority
Should forgiveness be asked over and over
Should there be another chance given
Will these wounds heal in time
Before love itself expires?
My heart was true
That much he knew
Our love was strong
Where did it go wrong
My mind was clear
Yet we lived in fear
My faith never wavered
It’s yet to be savoured.
I long to be nineteen again when all
I wanted was to chase away my virtues
At the prime of life when childhood fancies
Gave way to adult proclamations
It was a time when beauty was skin-deep
And the pace at which I gambled with life
Never seem to take its toll
Self-indulgence surrendered to no one
And I chose to asphyxiate self-control
Time came and went
With every action unaccounted for
I had no shame but lessons were learnt
And the campaign for truth was linear
Now all that seems true seems careless.
New faces
Adorn my screen
Too young or too old
Nothing in-between
No one left
He’s far and away
Past mistakes
I’m left to pay
Hope fades as
The tide rolls in
I ask myself
To whom have I sinned?
The thought of him cramps my stomach
It is a pain that bears the mark of a martyr
Yet I have been less than self-sacrificing
When all I did was point the finger
This is it for us as a singular
We as plural live lives apart
Him in the country and I in the city
Both forgetting where to start
That is life but it’s not the end
The past has no place in our future
With heart and mind given over
What we destroyed we shall nurture.
My wits stray from sunlight to shadow
While I remember the trip to Vienna
I wipe the sleep from my eyes
And I think of Good Times together
I take a deep breath and exhale
The bitter morning air fills my chest
I clean up the mess that is my home
But fail to clean myself at best
The tune of a fading voice remains
Terre de Hermes lingers in my bed
I change the sheets but to no avail
The scent has settled in my head
Drifting between sunlight and shadow
His memory keeps my bed warm
Days are too long while nights give way
To a sky where thunder clouds form.
I am most ugly
When dull thoughts fill my mind
In the dead of night
The mind stirs with one eye blind
I talk to no one
But everyone hears my cry
Nowhere to turn
I set myself up for the fall
Emotions wane as
And I confuse shock with euphoria
I pray in his name
For the sweet thrill of surrender
My voice dissolves
As I try to make things clearer
Grant me one wish
So we could all sleep easier.
I owe him more than he does to me
Since lies were told both ways
Each and every time we called a truce
We tried to remember better days
As I emerge from the wreck
I stand by this little prophecy
That time will be my healer
To be single without the urgency.
All this talking
And to what end
Fist-less fights
Around the bend
We turn a blind eye
But the damage is done
Another verbal joust
We become undone
All this pain
Without sense or reason
Our moods swing
Like the changing season
My heart is tender
And so is your pride
Where do we go
To put our fears aside
Love is blind
Or so they say
Love is the reason
You should stay
But we rushed a love
That could not be
This is our curse
That much we agree
In time we shall see
What fate will bring
This song now ends
At the onset of Spring.
If and when we meet again
Will it be anti-climatic
Will we be familiar strangers
And laugh at being over-dramatic
If and when we kiss again
Would it make us coy
Our minds once read as one
Where speech needed no voice
Indeed I hope we meet again
When both our manners are calm
For who have not made mistakes
Let those raise their palm
So let us meet each other again
For our lives are fused as one
Even as friends I would not mind
Just say the word and I will come.
Almost a month
And the same charade
Now is the time
That peace is made
Where do we go
To move ahead
This pit where I lie
Has become my bed
I need to know
Who and where you are
I feel you near
When you are far
There comes a time
When our time must end
Only to begin again
As we become friends.
Bark and I shall sing
I could even dance
To your command
Pull these strings
And my body belongs
As my arms flap about
Like fish out of water
Traces of you lie everywhere
Like the dust of dead skin
I flake in your name
As you fill my double-void
Use me as mere possession
And when I earn my freedom
You will have yours.
The season turns
Leaves grow profusely
At the onset of Spring
The urge to kill
Every feeling
Time does its own healing
I come to you
To beg forgiveness
Yet I hold my tongue
So send in the clouds
And raise your shield
As I begin to my masquerade.
