when we look away

A breeze meant to blow through the woodwind rushes lost itself in step.
And thunder once awoken grew older and older till forests swayed and broke.
And today the stars fell behind to sound impure by the darkness of a lens.
A flash where the laughter was – and the rest is old magic tomorrow.
And we forget – only to remember – the glint of an eye in the dark.
And magic where it wasn’t – old songs in the old rain.
Much that was ours is the wind and the sprites play softly.
Softly. In the dark when we look away. They listen for our tears.
And they grow wiser - the notes grow wiser at the wetness if things.
At the dryness of love washed away by the hours – and the wait.
The thought is remembered and the song plays on forever.
A whistled tune in the growing silence – till only silence moves on ahead.
Much that was ours is the earth and the sprites sing softly.
Softly. Beneath the dust when we look away. They listen for our tears.
And we hold the world to account – time to account for our mistakes.
Spent and sore in remembrance – till the laughter reaches us again.
And the dulled lights return – fleetingly – for a glimpse of something left behind.
The stars rock gently, cradling them to a lulled sleep. We stay awake.
And whisper things left unsaid across worlds that never existed.
Till the waves break again on the woodworked shore. A dream wakes.
Much that was ours are the dreams and the sprites play softly.
Softly. In the memories when we look away. They listen for our tears.

A Fable of Fools, Part 3

read part 1

read part2

Then the stars came up.
And the intellectual tried very hard
To trace out the constellations.
“That’s the Dancing Palmyra,” he said at last,
Pointing at a smudge of stars directly overhead.
“It means we’re in the southern hemisphere.”
“It means you’re making things up now.” I said.
The D#s were more frequent at night.
But no one asked the piper to stop.
Something was washed ashore in the dark.
But no one got down to find out what.
I noticed the plumber hardly slept
Or maybe it’s a little hard sleeping on a shared palmyra palm branch.
He wasn’t counting the stars and yet
His eyes followed their cycle all the way.
Dawn was shriek from the racehorse rider
Who had no memory of dawn.
And a loud swear from the intellectual
Followed immediately by a poetic description
Of the dazzle on the wet waves
And how the refracted rays reach us early.
This time I’m sure he knew but none of us were listening.
The piper had been playing through the night.
And now he began the morning with a major progression.
The D#s screeched in our heads.
As I joined the racehorse rider on the sand.
The something was a little black flag.
It didn’t have the skull and cross bones we were expecting.
But the painting of a small dog
With a pink ribbon on her head.
And a pink coat below it.
And a pink tongue hanging out of it.
And presumably a pink brain inside of it.
Since it had succeeded in washing up
Onto a five-foot diameter island
In the middle of the Pacific
With five people on a palmyra palm.
Which was hanging noticeably lower than yesterday.
And wrapped in the flag was an egg.
A bright pink egg with a small crack across it.

Since there are always cracks on eggs that turn up suddenly.
The intellectual was all for eating it up immediately.
And we guessed the piper agreed.
Because we heard an accelerando.
The racehorse rider was wearing the flag as a cape
When the plumber suddenly came out of his trance
And demanded the egg.
“I eat one-fifth!” the intellectual was saying –
“Not to eat – to hatch,” he said.

Chinese tea.

Chinese tea?
He looks up, confused.
At least his movements are confused…dazed…like he’s forgotten his glasses and just realized they weren’t on his nose.
But behind those shades…blind? Is he blind?…it’s impossible to tell.
There is a silver chain dangling out of his breastpocket.
A pocket watch? Vintage?
He slips his hand out of his coat pocket.
A handkerchief.
Laced…it’s laced?
White and laced.
And he wipes the sweat off his brows.
Only there wasn’t any sweat to begin with.
The swing doors glide apart and a blast of hot afternoon Kolkata air storms into the air-conditioned room.
Chinese tea?
No…er…what was that?
Chinese…
He waves his hand.
Not now.
His shoes…look for his shoes.
Kolapuri sandals.
And a bloodstain.
Blood.
Dull dark black gory magic.
Run away.
Is he hurt?
Are you hurt?
Just the market? Chicken? Fresh meat...?
He stands up.
Heavily.
The loo?
And sits down again.
Not sits…falls. Into the plush seats. Cheap plush seats. Beautiful cheap plush seats.
That way.
Which…what?
Drunk?
There’s a scent of aftershave. Cheap aftershave. But aftershave. Subtle.
Not drunk.
He’s breathing fast. Suddenly.
A doctor? No. Water? No.
There’s a shout outside. Traffic. Crowds. Heatwave.
April. Kolkata April afternoon sun.
A doctor.
Another shout outside.
The swing doors screech.
He’s standing up.
The loo?
They’re running. He’s running. The swing doors screech in the tension.
Kolkata April afternoon sun.
Traffic. Crowds. Heatwave.
They’re rushing in. Everything’s exploding. Fire?
Just the sun. And the crowds rushing in.
There’s been an accident.
He falls over.
On the floor.
Shiny polished marble. Kolapuri sandals. A bloodstain.
He’s run over someone.
A little girl coming home from school.
Two little pigtails.
Kolapuri sandles. And a bloodstain.
A shiny polished marbled floor.
A white ambassador. A red ambassador. An orange and yellow ambassador. A black ambassador. Dust. Rust. Dust. Rust.
In the wind.
Kolkata April afternoon sun wind.
A trail of sweat on the polished marble floor. Where they dragged him out.
Into the Kolkata April afternoon sun.
A white laced handkerchief. A red laced handkerchief. An orange and yellow laced handkerchief. A black laced handkerchief. Dust. Rust.
Shattered glass.
Not inside.
The temperature levels as the air-conditioner restores the cool.
Fresh meat.
Chinese tea?

...and a memory.

This is the story of a song.
It is a song that grew –
Running around the flowers
Bitter-sweet dewy mornings.
A song that tried
So hard – to break out
Into the world.
A song that hummed
Inane unheard fantasies
In a tousled head
Behind lost eyes.

This is the story of a song –
A song that found a tune
Among half-lit stubs
Of glowing cigarettes
And little toppling stacks of ash –
Dust grey and yellowing.
Among baby green blades
Of new grass – underfoot.
A song that flitted around
Untuned guitars –
Laying to dust in a sunlit corner
By a cracked window
And a misfit curtain
Canvas and the paints
Were lost somewhere in between
With the fifth string.

Between the broken semitones
Of an old piano
With a croak.
And lay to rest
In the folds of the draperies
Magic and coffee
On a winter morning.

A song that trembled
On drunk fingers
Yellowing skin and uneven nails
Resting against the keys
Jerking to life –
And then laying down again
Withered and wearied.
A song that died
On an empty gravestone
With a voice –
And a memory.

Tamu.

Tamalika. Running to the camera. As usual. The yelp at the beginning is bhoda, who she used to sing 'my bonnie lies over the ocean' for. You can see him at the door. Googli at the camera.

sketch. thing.

paint again.

just thinking

There’s always a word in my head.
It’s usually a shade of deep deep green.
Like when you stand at the foot of a christmas tree
When it isn’t christmas
And look up.
Then a little wind blows around you.
It starts at your feet
And reaches your fingers
Then your hair
Which, often as not, gets into your eye,
Then it plays with the leaves.
The darker ones first.
And then the softer ones.
Where the light doesn’t reach.
And everything is waving.
Waving like it was forever.
Right then.
There’s always a word in my head.

Behind a red light.

The car was a yellowing white sumo – with blackened windows. The left window of the back seat was rolled half down – and inside was complete darkness except a confusing extension of the dazed orange spill from the streetlight a little way ahead. A hand – an immaculate white kurta sleeve and a brown set of fingers – moved up and down, up and down, lifting a cigarette to a hidden mouth. The tip glowed momentarily red like a laser spotter as the smoke was drawn in and the swirls of darkened shifting haziness that followed from behind the glossy paint of the car body drifted across the street and merged, scattering, into the shimmering floodlight outside.
The glaring sounds of an early night were dulled and insignificant – a small picture – an image, clichéd and predictable, had lent a sharp direction to the moment, as confused and meaningless as the reel it was a part of. And a hidden face, the most mysterious and exhausted fantasy in misplaced detached thought, had lent different brushstrokes of possibilities to that direction. A sharp aquiline nose or a straight marble-cut face, eyes still shrouded beneath a hood of simple impenetrable darkness, descriptions from the printed pages, read and reread over and over again, but never really and completely imagined – something from a story, an adventure, waited behind that window, behind the glowing stub of that exhausted cigarette that dimmed and fell and rose again to be lit up and smoke.
And then some fluorescent bar ahead beyond the jammed piles of directionless metal parts waved, or some red ominous light turned to envious green, and the image was lost in another cliché of time taking off again from where it had stopped, with the sounds glaring full volume again in sudden frenzied early night activity. The face, a last and shattering anticlimax, leant forward and looked out the window – a round small nose and stupid but happy ordinary eyes and a mouth that pursed up to say “finally” in a most normal and final tone.
Perhaps the face was never meant to be seen, but to stay that ‘hidden’ face of a half-priced paperback bestseller in toppling piles by the stacks of magazines – each just a little different from the next like jarring semitones. Or maybe the moment wasn’t in the face – but in the life behind it. And those behind all the other people in all the other cars, walking down the road, waiting under the streetlamps, all those who shared – however unknowingly and ignorantly – that single still picture that lost to the traffic signal. A detached, directed but at the same time meaningless infinity of little pockets of personal thoughts.

Fireflies.

Fireflies. For the fireflies.
Dreams and stranded gold dust.
For candy-floss and monsters.
Sweet draughts of trembling whispers.
Tomorrow and day-after. Forever.
Horse-shoe bootstraps.
Upside-down pineapple cake.
Destiny. Desire. Thimbles.
Light. Rippling dappled stretches.
Pine forests. Frosted glass.
Hoods and XXX. Catches of songs.
Forgotten confusion.
Another Simon. Another story.
Another tear in winter. Frozen.
Amen. From the third-floor terraces and water-tank.
Yodelling yesterdays again.
Amen.

the writer

I can build a story out of anything and everything.

A girl said that to me once. Her hair was long and dark. Dark like a clear summer night sky and the stars I think I imagined. The darkness faded into the dull steamy lights behind without any definite edge. Maybe that was because I was a little bit drunk.

She was, too. I’d seen her do away with five. And judging by the number of empty glasses in front of her, she’d been there for a long long time.

She said she’d been telling stories all her life. She had two kids waiting at home to hear them before they fell asleep, a guy waiting at home who’d heard them all his life. And she was sick of it. Everytime she finished a drink she’d smile and say she’d never tell another story. Then she’d break down and ask for another one.

I remember telling her I wrote stories too. That’s all I remember saying.

“Yeah. But not like me. No one does them like me. Not every goddamned day of your goddamned life.”

If I met her again, I’d tell her how wrong she was.

When I walk down the street, my feet falling in turns between the tiny cracks on the sidewalk that no one else can see, I build up my own story. Brick by brick, crack by crack, till the brilliant red-gold monsters that step out suddenly from behind the parking meters and scare me almost into putting my feet right on the cracks blend into the everyday grey-blue of the city and everything – the strange reptilian flying live machine wearing pince-nez, the old lady staring at vacation posters of “YOU GO TOO – TO PERU!!”, the vanilla ice cream dancing with a mad impish toothy grin on the child’s chin by the ice-cream van – swirls into one crazy mesh of abstract forgotten meanings that are so random that I can’t put them together.

By the time I reach my apartment, all that is one screaming chaotic mess of whimsical nonsense in a corner of my brain.

I heave my type writer over to the table by the window – it grinds against the uneven unpolished grains on the wooden surface – nails on a blackboard? I see Mrs. Eckle the preschool English teacher leering at me from behind her thick distorted lenses and I know that she’s really a black witch from the north who plays with black magic and satanic rites, often managing to summon a giant smoky THING that enters your dreams and stays there. Then she, too, joins the screaming chaos in my brain.

I sit in front of the black shiny machine , roll a sheet of empty inviting paper into it and place my hands on the keys, the tips of my fingers fitting satisfyingly into the depressions in them where the letters are painted in bold white.

And I wait.
And I wait.
And I wait.

Like I’ve never tried before. Willing it all to come through. It’s not a long way. Not really. Just out from the corner into the front, down through my neck, my shoulder, into my arms and out…OUT… through my fingertips. Like I’ve imagined and pushed and pushed and pushed so many times.

The ghost in the broom cupboard peeps out a head and stares at me with those horrible sympathetic circled eyes.

The winged gargoyle hunches up to fit into the small window frame and grins, its tail waving at me from behind its stone back.

The little wisps of fire-creatures – tiny little things that breathe and feed fire leap out like forgotten embers in the dead empty fireplace.

Oh, I can too. Make up stories out of everything and anything. But I wish sometimes I could tell them. For real. Not just that fading dull scream tucked somewhere into the back of my brain. They only come alive for me. Only for me.

So I close my eyes and imagine my editor’s fingers drumming incessantly on his polished mahogany desk. Like horse hoofs. And I think of people. Men, women and drinks. Lots and lots of drinks – making them happy, sad, angry or just bored.

Their hair is usually almost always black and their eyes almost always dull brown – like they were fake cartoons drawn by the illustrator of the evening weekly – no life. But my editor never notices that. He never will.

This time I have no problem moving my fingers over the keys.

Mr. Jack

“Mr. Jack” said the brass nameplate on the door. Not “Jack the Giant Killer.” Or even “Jack the Terrible.” Or even just plain “Jack”.
I looked up at the house. It was beautiful. Like something out of a magazine cover. A magazine called “Modern Architecture and Comfort” or something even more boring. Because the house didn’t breathe. It was plastic. Like the nameplate.
All built out of some poor giant’s millions that he’d counted over his dinner table. Towering columns of toppling gold. Gold. Gold. Gold.
I rang the doorbell. It was just a plain old doorbell. Not very plain. Probably the most expensive money can buy. But not shaped like a decapitated giant head or a single bloody thumb or even a butcher’s knife, as you would have expected.
An electronic voice called out from somewhere overhead: “Welcome. State your name and your reasons for visit. The door will be opening shortly.”
And this was supposed to be not only a house, but also a home.
“An old friend planning a surprise.” I said and the machine kept shut. A moment later, the door was opened by a smart little man in white who looked over me in a superior kind of way which I didn’t quite like and led me into the house.
The staircase shone. The ceiling shone. The floor shone. The carpet shone. The walls shone. The doors shone. The windows shone. Even the bald patch on the butler’s head shone as immaculately as Jack’s old hand axe… before each kill. He led me into a huge airy room and made me sit on a giant sofa as red as Bolster’s blood. A huge painting hung on the opposite wall. The cliffs of Cornwall.
I was gazing whimsically at the painting when a tiny cough made me spin around. It was a little girl with Jack’s green eyes. About four years old and tall for her age. A determined little chin and a funny little nose.
I smiled. “Hallo. We haven’t met before. I’m an uncle. Your father’s friend.”
The girl grinned suddenly, a wide smile wrinkling up her face and touching the green of her eyes with a bright twinkle. “No you’re not. You’re Peter Pen Person.”
I stared at her for a bit and then broke into a laugh. “Not quite. Peter Pan I’ve met. He looks nothing like me. We both specialize in broadsword and have killed a pirate or two in our day. But apart from that, we’re chalk and cheese, really.”
She shrugged. “You don’t understand.” Then she gave another quick grin and shouted: “Catch me if you can!” and slipped away.
I chased her around the sofa and across the width of the room around the doorway – and bumped into softness.
“Taylor. Good to see you after all these years.”
I stood back and surveyed my old friend and barely stopped myself from screaming, “Good God, man, what have you done to yourself??”
It was Jack. But he was old. And he was stooping. And he was FAT. Not fat. Obese. Jack the Giant Killer – the tall broad man shouldering his mighty axe – was Jack the Giant Killer no more. The nameplate was right. Jack was dead. And this was Mr. Jack.
“I’ve changed a lot, haven’t I?” He smiled. “And look at you. You’re still the same. Still wearing that stupid belt, I see. I wonder that still fits you. Last I heard from you was when you sent a letter saying you’d changed your name. From ‘i’ to ‘y’. We’re all of us having to keep up with the times, haven’t we?”
I looked around at the electric fittings and the central air-conditioning slits. “Yes, we have.”
“So what’s the news, Taylor? Cormoran still grumbling ‘neath his grave?”
“As usual.”
“And seven’s still your lucky number?”
“Seven in one.”
The girl had been peeping in around the doorframe, trying to catch my eye. Jack turned and caught sight of her and smiled, calling her in with a wave of his arm.
“Met my little girl, Taylor?”
“Fairy Princess of the Green Isle. Yes.”
The child tossed her brown curls back and laughed. “Uncle Peter played catch with me.”
Jack frowned. “Uncle Taylor, darling.”
“That’s a joke between us, Jack. You won’t understand.” I didn’t understand either, but that didn’t matter. I winked at her.
Jack patted her on the head and sent her upstairs. “So what are you really here for?”
I lay back on the sofa and crossed my legs. “Work.”
“What kind?”
“The big kind. This one’s got five entire villages under his thumb.”
“Taylor – ”
“I know what you’re going to say, Jack. You’re too old. But don’t you see, you’re the only one. I can’t do it alone – ”
“Taylor – ”
“Remember the Creature of the Thyrian Isle? The first time we worked together. We’d both be under some old grey nameless tombstone if we hadn’t.”
“The point is, man, I can’t do it any more. I’ve lost the touch. I’ve got a family now.” He gestured vaguely around the living room, the posh sofa set and the shimmer of the marble floor.
I sighed. “Very well then, Jack. I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
Jack didn’t see me to the door. He sat back on his sofa, a dreamy lazy complacent smile on his lips. As the door closed behind me I caught a brief glimpse of a pair of green eyes behind the shrubbery. They followed me up the drive and out into the street. Maybe I’d get that partner in crime of mine yet. It was just a matter of waiting another few years. And what’s another few years to your average immortal?

Nothing at all.

Someone once told me that there was a word that could fix everything. “Jellywurbleponkyboo... at least, that’s not it, but it’s quite close,” he said. “And when you find it, all your troubles are over.”
The doctor said he had something that sounded like ‘asparagus’. Asparagus. I always confuse it with broccoli somehow. I think I mixed them up in a recipe once. It tasted funny, but I think that was because the person I was talking about emptied a packet of baking powder in it when I wasn’t looking.
Anyway, that was a long time ago.
And the coffee was getting cold. I hate black coffee. But another person I once knew used to say it was about the only thing that wasn’t killing you slowly in this world. Turned out he was lying. But I still walk all the way to The White Swan and take my old seat by the window and order a cup every third Saturday of the month at six. It helps keep the monsoons away.
And when the rains come down anyway, little sparkling crystals of fire sprayed across the cracked frosted glass that used to have two painted swans arching their fragile necks across the frame of the doorway once and is now as empty as the old hat stand beside it, I ask for an ash tray and pour the last little bit of the coffee into the ashes, watching it swirl around the grey lumps that wither away at its touch.
I’ve always hated the rain. Ever since I was little and my sister would run into the fields shrieking with laughter at the first sight of those huge grey masses of clouds rumbling in, over the green horizon. Her hair would fly out, jet black swinging braids, behind her and catch the first few invisible drops of rain that fell from the heavens before she reached the scarecrow that stood in the middle of the cotton fields.
My hair was always an aching dull brown.
And the skies are always grey now. Even when everyone else says they’re blue. I can always tell. If you look through the clear glass of a window or at a silvery mirror opposite your window, the blue fades to dull grey and that’s the real colour of the sky. Not what you see. Grey like the smoke that used to rise up from the jute mill that they built over our farmland.
I’ve always loved that colour. It used to mean ‘change’ before but now it means ‘life’. Because I don’t want any change anymore. That used to be all my life was about once. When I woke up in the morning and looked out the little circular window at the last dull stars and before I fell asleep on the damp little pillow that always smelt of mustard oil, I used to pray, not to God because I didn’t think that was allowed, but to the world, in general, “let everything change… change… change.”
And one day everything did.
And I thanked someone and set out to find the perfect word that would fix everything. Only, I haven’t found it yet. I used to think it didn’t really exist. Not for real. But now I know it’s out there somewhere. Waiting for someone who really needs it. I don’t.
Because I’ve never really loved the rain.
And “jellywurbleponkyboo” will always be that perfect word for me. Because it didn’t change anything either. It only made change something I didn’t need anymore. Like my old wooden rocking horse. One day I’d got up and chopped it up for firewood because suddenly I knew that I had no need for it.
It made me realize the same thing about change. My father did, I mean. When he died a few hours after saying that to me.
It was just another of those things you like holding on to. That I liked holding on to. Only they don’t really mean anything. Nothing does, really.
Nothing at all.

For tomorrow.

Remember Destiny?
She brushed past you yesterday in an orange raincoat.
You stopped her by the hand and pulled her back.
She smiled and you let her go.
Her eyes were crimson in the dappled sunlight through the frosted branches.
She didn’t speak.
But you heard the whisper hanging in the air eternities after the snow thawed.
And the rain swirled over the dying streetlight.
And you waited…
For yesterday.

The Paint-box Man

There’s a man who lives inside
A branded paint-box.
And although the paint brush is too high
For him to reach the top,
Every morning just before
The sun peeps out his head,
He prises up the lid and goes
Softly with each tread.

Paint-box man,
Why do you paint the world so blue
Take your colours back with you
Into –
Your paint-box man,
Why do you paint the sky so high,
Your colours cannot cry
But we can.
Paint-box man.

His strokes are real tiny
But really really fast.
And although he knows only too well
That his paint just will not last.
He will run over his white canvas
With his blue and red and black
And touch up the twilight
But by dawn he will be back.

Paint-box man,
Why do you paint the world so blue
Take your colours back with you
Into –
Your paint-box man,
Why do you paint the sky so high,
Your colours cannot cry
But we can.
Paint-box man.

His paint-box is filled to the brim
With all the colours that he needs.
And when he thinks he is running out
He fills it up with all our greed.
His colours are beautiful –
But in places empty, say
When he paints the outside with all the colours that he has
Why inside he paints us grey…

Paint-box man,
Why do you paint the world so blue
Take your colours back with you
Into –
Your paint-box man,
Why do you paint the sky so high,
Your colours cannot cry
But we can.
Paint-box man.

behind the paintbrush

Ashok peeped over the top of his copy of the Times. The man in the opposite seat had drifted off to sleep. His snores came out in intervals, coinciding with the rhythm of the train. His moustaches quivered with each breath, a silver mass of frost on the branch of a bare tree in the wind. Ashok smiled and folded his newspaper. Then, slipping out a small black notebook, he opened it to an empty page and hid behind it with a miniscule wood pencil. His strokes were light, quick and clever and the empty page soon changed form and the yellowing white of the page transformed into a man, a fat old man, snoring with his mouth half open and his head tilted up against the headrest, who has just dropped off to sleep on a moving train.
There was humour in the lines of the drawing and Ashok could feel it. The problem was, people never saw his pictures the way he did. Every one of Ashok’s paintings was perfect in his eyes. Every hint of expression on each of his subjects’ faces was there for all the world to see, his compositions were clever, the colours just right and yet…he never seemed to make it big.
The carriage gave a sudden heavy jolt and the man woke up, yawning. He shook his head to clear it and, staring hard at Ashok and his glance, eased out of his seat and went off for a smoke. Ashok sighed and banged the notebook down on the seat beside him. He’d just have to finish the sketch without a model. He glanced around the car.
The girl in the window seat was laughing at him. Ashok stared defiantly at her, wondering whether he should have let his mother iron out the wrinkles in his shirt when she’d offered to instead of shooing her out of his room as usual.
“You were drawing that man,” she grinned. “I saw you.”
Ashok rolled his eyes. “Clever observation.” He pointed out, keeping the sarcasm in his voice as low as his irritation permitted.
“Sorry,” she started again. “I guess that was a stupid thing to begin with. You knew that better than I did.”
He nodded abruptly and turned back to his paper, hoping she’d take the hint.
She didn’t. “Do you draw for a living or is it just a hobby? Can I see what you drew just now?” She held out her palm for the notebook.
The way she talked was a little annoying. Ashok handed her the notebook and hoped that’d keep her quiet for sometime. “I’m an artist…”
She flipped open the notebooks and flipped through the pages and smiled. Ashok didn’t understand whether it was a smile of appreciation or one of contempt. Knowing people, it was probably the latter. She looked longer at the last picture – the one he’d been drawing – and then handed it back.
He pocketed it and waited for an observation. None were forthcoming, however, and he told himself that he was glad and escaped behind his newspaper again. He was not, however, to be let off that easy.
“Can I tell you something - ” She started again, hesitantly. “…about yourself?”
Ashok grunted from behind his precarious shelter. The girl looked at the sports page of the newspaper for a long time, as if she was looking through it at the reader’s face, a strange look in her liquid grey eyes.
“You hide behind your paintbrush…”
The train rattled to a stop as Ashok lowered the morning paper but the girl had already reached the door. She hesitated at the step and then looked back at him.
“Just…be the paintbrush. Be the painting. It’s not about the subjects. It’s about you.”

"That day will come."

“That day will come.”
When the green fields sigh with their white cotton burden
And the stars turn again and once more to carry on
When the sun blazes forth bristling with the glare of scorched summers
And the winter dews settle for yet another round.
The wind circles and sets course for yet another circle
The lost girl looks upwards to the stormy skies
Her black braids swinging in the passion of the moment
Asking again for the freedom,
Asking again for the answer,
Asking again for the memories
That reply with conviction,
“That day will come.”

Does she remember that clash of thunder
And the old cold hearth where the ghosts were burnt alive?
In a towering column of smoke and mist swirling together
Blending and battling – as if they were one.
Fire and ice and that dry wet winter
That forgotten heap of everything dear.
And everything else that didn’t matter
Lost forever. To an empty soul.

“That day will come.”
When the grasses shine yellow in the sunshine.
And the stars sink down into a red-gold dawn.
When the sun yields to the grey-blue line of rainclouds
And the cart road is overrun by a mass of green life.
The wind sighs and gives way to the stillness before the storm
The ghost girl looks upwards into the smiling sunshine,
Her black braids swinging in the passion of the moment
Asking again and yet again for the freedom,
Asking again and yet again for the answer,
Asking again and yet again for the memories
That reply …. with conviction….
“That day will come.”

Alive.

I’ve lived the rain.
And felt it dry.
Dry like cold drops of heaven slithering down the dome of a black umbrella.
Funny how heaven’s white.
And hell’s red.
Like black doesn’t really belong.
Someone died today.
And someone was born.
And someone said goodbye.
I wonder which was hardest.
They won the game.
And lost the day.
The last red haze of twilight sinking into a bleak horizon.
And they said it looked ‘alive’.

EVOLUTION: The Story of a Pompous Ass (Some old stuff)

PHASE I: The Pompous Revelation


Oct, ’96. The first poem I wrote. Accompanied by illustrations, of course.

Our World.

Beautiful flowers all red and blue
Butterflies fly here and there too
In the little world that is held upon
The hands of our own God.

Happiness and sadness in the world there is
So much to write upon
Books are being sent all over the world
In peace and in happiness.

Meanwhile the angry wind does sound
“Why sunshine throughout the town?”
Storms and rain sent over the world
Causes damage and crops grow.

Happiness is when books are read
And when written down.
Teaching and learning with our friends
We grow to learn God.

Referring to lines 8 and 11: ??????????

PHASE II : The Pompous Rhyme Freak with the Age Old Subjects :

Oct ’96.

MY PET DOG(Also known as: A Study in Multiple Adjectives)

My pet dog is very sweet.
Her colour is black and she eats meat.
She has a big white rubber bone
She plays with it, all alone.
She has a long, black thin tail
Her eyes are black and blue and pale.
She bathes every week, once a day,
And it’s mostly a holiday.
Her name is Tupsy, she’s a dear.
Her skin is very soft and clear!

Referring, again, to line 7: ????????

PHASE II: The Pompous Ass Yields.

June, ’98.

The Visitor.

Wearing a black suit and hat,
Came in a man holding a cat.
His face was hidden by the shadow of the cap,
The cat kept purring in his lap.
He smiled a little, by his dark mouth.
When the cat started to hiss, he did shout!
When the cat in his lap slowly calmed down,
He sat on a carpet on the ground.
The cat jumped down and sat down too.
The man took off his cap and said, “how do you do?”

Except a slight but mysterious change of a hat into a cap, the pompous ass seems to have given way.

August 2000

Wait.

Exams are almost over
Just one more day to go.
My books are in the cupboard
All standing in a row.
I won’t be needing them for a long time any more.
I can play throughout the day or go to the toy store!
The last day I have history
My favourite of the lot.
So I want to give it
Everything I’ve got.
Study, study, study.
Just another day.
From tomorrow onwards I can have my own way!

PHASE III: The Pompous Ass Returns, ‘Stronger and more powerful than ever before’. Possibly the most embarrassing phase in history.

Dec 2001.
Life

Love, joy, pleasure
A struggle for perfection.
Grief, strife, distress
A blend of creation and destruction.
Thoughts, words, affection
A description of life
An unbreakable bond with
Parents, children, husband, wife
An immature bud
Pink with a touch of love
Wet with he dews of sadness
Free like the songs of the dove.
Gazing up at the world
At the vast blue sky.
Comparing its minor self
To an endless Universe with a sigh.
Such seeming greatness
In just one out of millions
Such a number of feelings
And thoughts in just one cranium.
So powerful, so mighty –
And undefeatable
And yet so frail
And highly destructible.
Just a breath of the wind
Or a few teardrops of rain
Or the simple trembling of the earth
Can end all thoughts and pain.
Just a minor change of season.
Or a heat wave so small
Can put an end to heartbeats,
Feelings, thoughts, movement, all.

Referring to lines 12, 20, 24: heh. heh.

March ‘02

My Road – The Peak of the Reign of the Pompous Ass.

Somewhere across the horizon I shall find what I seek
Somewhere along my journey my fate I shall meet
No stars shall shine in the heavens to guide me
No maps on my road shall I see
No path will be there for me to follow
‘Ere along with the rising of the sun dawns the ‘morrow.
For then I hall look back upon the road of my past
And draw from it lessons which I may put to use till the last
I shall plunge onwards into dark shadows and fearful mists
If I am to find eternal bliss.
I must struggle onwards along my self-made road
On a path where perhaps none ever strode
And achieve a goal none ever set eyes upon.
But before that I must endure many-a-dawn.
And accept guidance and aid from those worth trust.
And suffer pain and sorrow if I must.
And if my will be too hard to bend
I shall find victory awaiting me at my road’s very end.


Dec ‘02

A Stop.

A distant wild tune came floating to my ears,
It didn’t’ lift my spirit it didn’t let flow tears
But, somewhere deep in my memory,
It stirred some long-forgotten story.
Something about it reminded me
Of something I’d experienced and yet failed to see.
In my mind the past I had left behind
Floated endlessly like the countless clouds that ornamented the evening sky.
The breezes of dusk to which bent the grass
In respect; and the pool with clear waters of rippled glass
Completed the evening’s indefinable glories
And struggled to awaken my sleeping memories.
I remembered a hand that held mine strong
When I couldn’t sleep and a comforting song –
The tune that the far-away shepherd played
On his self-made flute and slowly it began to fade
As the sheep turned, homeward-bound
And towards a sailor’s sea I turned myself around.

PHASE IV: Trial and Error.

Dec. ’04.

Deer in the Snow. (or, a little speed.)

Cold was the air
The treetops bare
The sun all lost
In the imminent frost.
The frozen ice
Seemed oddly nice.
On the white-blue lakes
Beneath the flakes.
The snow was soft
The cool wind oft
Bristling through
The leaves so few
Of evergreen trees
In twos and threes
That bravely stood
In the faraway wood.
The timid deer
Twitched both his ears
And then his nose
In his raised-hoof pose.
Peeping forth
In the wind from the north.
To see in fear
If the coast was clear.
He stepped front
Without a grunt
Back again
All in vain.
The squirrel passed
On his last journey to his horde
Of nuts all stored.
Once again
The silence was plain
And out he came
In the same
Cautious way.
So as not to say
“Farewell adieu – ”
“I told you so”
Would be the words
Of answer from the world.
He stood aloof
One raised hoof.
On the white, white snow
His fur aglow,
And then behind,
All in a line,
Came his family,
In twos and threes
Of does and fawns
On the rolling white lawns.
Relatives and friends
From the front to the end.
The mountain stream
A picture from a dream
In the bed of rock
Was out of stock
Of a gushing flow
Yet a trickle slow
Had failed to freeze
In the morning breeze.
Melting snow.
Coming down below
From a high white peak
Though the sun was weak.
One by one
The battle won
They bent to drink
And then to sink
Their little snouts
In the miniature spout
Heads low until
They’d had their fill
And then suddenly,
No time for the glee,
Of quenched thirst,
Safety first,
About turn
Before forest fires can burn
They were gone.
From the deer to the fawns.
And the silent flakes
Fell on the lakes.
And in the snow
Several hoof-prints showed
Till they too were lost
In the imminent frost.
And all was still.
And all was still.

It was a little difficult ending the rhyming scheme and hence the meaningless apparent Robert Frost influence at the end.

Feb ’05.
An Ignorant Attempt at Freeverse.

There are times
When I can’t rhyme
A word with another
It’s a bother
But it’s life
A strife
Between what can be
And what can’t
What you want
What you don’t
Or simply won’t
Accept
Without regret
It’s always there
You never know where
What you’re searching for
Neither true nor
False
Without cause
Evil and good
Shouldn’t and should
Happy sad
Decent and bad
Which is which?
What if you switch
From one to the other
Or even take it further
Or if you don’t know
If you can’t go
The way you want
‘Cause you don’t know which that way is.
Eternal bliss
Depths of Hell
Oh swell
Is there life in death
One last breath
In the light of dawn
And then its gone
In day
Far away
In a land with no land
Where you can’t stand
But only dream
And scream
Out loud
Draped in a shroud
Hidden behind
The depths of your mind
What do you find
Feelings of what kind
When it’ all unveiled
Truth is sealed
Locked in a trunk
Silent as a monk.
Never fear
A hundred tears
Only why
You can’t cry.
Is there pain
In excessive gain
Or just the negation
Of realization.
One blank stare
Without care
Existance
An instant
Of thought
What not.
It’s there
And not there
Again
And again.
In a circle
A whirlpool
Of emotion.
No notion
Of why
A sigh
Confusion
A nuisance.
However
Forever
Eternity
Infinity.
On and on and on.
A tuneless endless song.
That’s all.
You’re small.
That’s all.

March ’05.

Giving up on rhyme.

I sat down with a pen in my hand.
Thinking what to write.
The pages were empty
The lines seemed to call
For the blue of the ink of my pen.
And then,
I put my pen down on the paper.
They seemed to go together.
Blue and black and white.
And the words.
Everytime I wrote a line
I created a world.
Everytime I moved my pen
Something happened.
Leading my characters round and round and round.
I could do what I wanted
Whatever I wanted.
They were helpless.
They had to follow.
I was the rider
And they the horses.
Who couldn’t throw me off
Nor lead me astray.
I was the artist
And they the canvas
Mine to create
Mine to do what I liked.
I was the little girl
Playing with her dolls.
“Mute insensate things.”
I was the architect
And they the rubble
Out of which I built my creation
Placing them in what way I chose.
They were people.
I was God.

PHASE V: The God Poems. And Reflection.

March ’05. God poem 1.

April ’05. God poem 2.
God Poem 3.

Somewhat.

I am a character
In someone’s dream.
Just a character
That doesn’t matter.
That someone is dreaming
A dream with himself in it.
Therefore that someone
Must be someone
Somewhere
Around me.
That someone is making
The world go round
Without realizing it.
That someone is turning our lives up and down
Unconsciously.
That someone is God.
In our world.
He is God
Without knowing
He is God.
( I could be that someone too!)


God Poem 4.

God,
The sands of time are slipping through my fingers like water trickling through a sieve.

I wave my hand,
Trying to grasp the coarse grains,
But in vain.

How do you live a moment to the fullest
When that moment passes like dust in the wind?

How do you experience reality when reality doesn’t pause for you?

Stars, blinking, shimmering, in the deep blue sea of the sky.

I won’t wait.

I won’t wait for time to pause.

I won’t wait for eternity to shrivel up like a dry rose.

I won’t wait for the candle flame to flicker and die in the passing storm.

But I’ll wait.
Wait a while.
Wait and take
A deep breath.
Breathe in the hurrying breeze.
Take in the fleeing clouds.
The departing day.
The setting sun
And the fading stars.
Take in the change.
And the pace.
This race
Of life.

PHASE V: Using Melancholy

Dec ’05.

Search.

They told me God lives in the clouds.
Behind the rainbow and the rain.
Behind the mist and the smoke…
So I built a ship from prayers
And a sail from a hundred wishes
And I set sail for the skies.
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me god lives up in space
Beyond the blue and beyond the beauty
Beyond the warmth and the life…
So I built a ship from whispers
And a sail from a hundred sighs
And I set sail for the void
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me God lives out there
Behind the sun and behind the stars
Behind the world that we’ve heard of.
So I built a ship from pleadings
And a sail from a hundred chants
And I set sail for the beyond.
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me God lives at the edge.
Beyond the void and behind the rift.
Behind all that we can imagine.
So I built a ship from cries
And a sail from a hundred tears
And I set sail for the end.
But when I reached it He wasn’t there.

They told me God lives in the beyond.
Somewhere out beyond space and time.
Somewhere out behind thought and dreams.
So I built a ship from my soul
And a sail from my faith.
And I set sail for eternity.
And I’m still searching…

Jan ’06

Letting go.

I tried…
Again and again I tried to let go.
But his had was clutched in mine
At the edge of nothingness.
His eyes stared up pleadingly at me.
Sightless eyes.
Because he was dead.
And I wasn’t hanging on to him at all
But what used to be him.
And yet…
I couldn’t let go.
Not after all we’d gone through together
After ages of petty emotions
That tossed and tore
Wild horses in the wind
Around me…
Like ghosts that wouldn’t let go.
Because I couldn’t.
And I couldn’t accept that I was hanging on to nothing
Except those ghosts
After all.

God Poem 5

God,
Have you ever turned away from a sunset…
And looked at the clouded east
Like tearing away from gold
And turning to the grey
Because it gave you more
Once upon a time..?
The world is not about the grey
The old and the dull.
And they’re forgotten.
Lost.
Erased.
It’s like the wind sighing over a withered branch
Or sands blowing through the desert.
Christmas trees lying in the gutter the week after Christmas.
Used.
Wet.
Cold.
Alone.
Should I wait for the rain?
And forget the summer?
The red-gold bits of dried paint that peeled off my wall in the sun?
The shafts of light through the iron shutters, rusted in the winter dew…
The piercing blue behind the smoke and behind the scarlet curtains that spoke of the hours.
It’s all gone.
Like a breath of the wind that’s losing its echo.
Little by little
To the waves of novelty.
And I’m fighting a losing battle trying to ward off time…
But how can you ward off something that keeps you going?
It’s like being lost in the desert
And wiping away your prints in the sand
To spite the misshapen steps that led you there.
And everybody says that I’m not alone.
But they haven’t heard
The frozen silence that’s inside me.
The soundless din
That rises above the city speaking
Through its cars and its clouds
And its stray crows
That survive like a lone pair of electrons in empty nothingness.
I am alone.
Alone and stranded
Stranded in the darkness
Only that darkness is stranded in light
A light I cannot reach.
And everybody says that I’m not trying.
But they haven’t known
The impenetrability.
The pain.
The despair.
When I’m stretching out my hands for nothing – to nothing.
And walking, blinded, in circles, till I’m mad…
I have tried.
But I’m tired
And scared
Of being pushed down again.
Of being forgotten again.
And everybody says they’ll always be there.
So where are they?
All I can see are miles and miles of dust blowing away in the wind.
And I’m stretching out my hand through the bars
But no one’s grasping it.
They are there.
But outside the iron bars.
Not knowing what its like to be inside them.
Not caring what its like to be inside them.
I wish they’d turn away from the sunset
And look at the clouded east
And understand.
Just once.
That’d be enough to set me free.

Feb ’06.

I heard it again –
The whispers from what was
Seeping into my thought
Pleading for remembrance
And I shut my eyes to them
But they were already inside.

Every tick of the old clock
On the wall painted anew.
Painted yellow for a beginning
But paint peels off fast
And it’s another pathetic attempt
To ignore.

And sweeping new layers of dust off the floor
Waiting till it gets renewed
But the layer’s never gone
Off the corners – it won’t go
Piling up every time I wipe it away
Like the memories.

I tried to scrub off the handprints on the door
Again and again they cleared
And returned – there will be no end.
And every time I tried – I left a new set
Which had to be cleared but came back
Inevitably.

I shut my windows –
Latched and bolted them to the winds
Which howled and rattled the door on its rusted hinges
But my shields are made of glass
And I keep them at bay – but they taunt me
Continuously, from behind the panes.

Maybe I’m trying too hard.
Maybe I should throw open the windows
Maybe I should let the handprints be and the dust grow
Maybe I should leave the walls to their grey.
But I’m just alone – and the whispers haunt me.
Like cricket song in dark silence.
I can’t.

PHASE VI: Experiments…..

The Gobblers

A Fable of Fools, Part 2

I think he didn’t understand but he pretended he had.
But I wouldn’t be the one to know.
But I’m sure it was the racehorse rider
Who screamed “fire!”
When he saw the cigarette
And jumped off the palmyra palm
And the piper just went on playing
His Cs at D#.
He didn’t care but he couldn’t help it either.
I don’t know how long the racehorse rider took
To realize he wasn’t drowning
And swam back to the foot of the palm tree
As wet as the plumber’s cigarette
And forgot to ask us the time.
I was relieved.
But no one else noticed.
And when it started to rain
The intellectual went to a lower sheltered branch
And said he loved the rain.
While the plumber just gazed at the clouds and waited for eternity.
The racehorse rider was sheltered
And by then he’d already fallen asleep
Snoring hopelessly loud
In time with the D#s.
Which couldn’t be heard anyway
Because of the rain.