Brightness lost, from under the clouds
muffled light diffuses out,
wrapping the earth in a blanket of darkness.
Not dark enough to be shown a light to,
not bright enough to warm the eyes.

A head full of laughter clubbed to death
by a nose full of snot,
constricting the flow of happiness
by a mere thought full of guilt.
Where was Lewdness born, who is his mother?

Sin is not to blame, the goodness is.
Judges we become.
Weeds of pride destroying the crops,
of love, happiness, and warm indifference.
They’re right when they sing the times are a-changin’.

The little man dangles on,
tired of generations spawning,
the symbol of ancestral mistakes,
the artefact of their guilt.

Surrounded by filth and sweat and lust
he still has the balls to rise up again
and maybe he is crying for salvation
when we thrust him in again.

Like Sisyphus he will stand again,
hope he hasn’t lost ever,
taking the burden of expectant souls,
he will climb the mountain again.

When we are the gods
when we push him into the caves,
when we forge his desires to spit on us
as a craving for the abysmal abysses,
are we being objective?
Or are we thinking with our dicks?

The illusion of speed, I have
a rain of colours, I am
livelier than the background,
which repeats and repeats.

I run over the cliff,
I walk on the air,
I eat stone and shit,
I fall only to run again.

I chase the Roadrunner,
I am the failure of the show,
I and my million schemes
don’t even annoy that asshole.

I can demand some dignity,
but what use would that be,
for if I catch the asshole,
what would the next show be?

Chuck has been unjust,
but I am the hero of the show,
for it’s not the little asshole
who people come to see.

A vain absurd delusion, you’d say
but he is not so unjust, I assure you,
he’s given me a mind of my own
to cook up delicacies like freedom.

I have the freedom to stop,
I can refuse to work,
but poor Chuck would then die of boredom
and that’s how I rule him.

So you see how every tunnel I traverse
has an end, and it’s only the faraway light I see.

Part-I: Accusations

Years I have spent with you,
yet I was alone,
you soaked all the pity,
dried all my tears too.

Choice I was left with none,
donned a mask of smiles,
songs of hope I sung,
drummed my hollowness for beats.

It was you who echoed within me
absorbing all the light,
leaving me lonelier than before,
leaving me darker than the night.

I sang to you songs of love
but you didn’t answer,
I sang to myself the songs of love
and heard you laughing at me.

Now you ask for my life,
to spend my life with you,
but your abject intensity
you won’t let me die too.

I surrendered my energy to you,
who grew more powerful
grew darker than before
and swallowed me whole.

My tragedy is your comedy,
oh villain of my life
smile now that I have survived
only to be eaten again by you.

Part-II: She retorts

Oh lover of mine,
how dull and blind you are,
stop wearing these glasses,
look how bright it is outside.

I was always there with you,
was I not? when you needed me,
did I ever leave you?
how selflessly I stood by your bedside.

I hummed when you sang to me,
I was the resonance in your beats,
I was never the hollow,
I was your character’s depth.

I doffed my hat always to you
I was the audience you performed to,
how true your characters were then,
how pure your acting!

I have a name very silly,
for I am the eternal companion,
yet you curse me-
call me by my name.

I was what you dreamed of,
I was your imagination,
bleeding, red as blood,
bloody perfect.

I have never complained
but you have been inadequate,
seeking treasures of dust
when you had all the stones.

Complain again my dear,
complain as much you want,
but I am merely the shadow
that confirms the light.

As I look out from my window,
my apparition shining its eyes on me,
at the sky, at the rays filtered
by the leaves decorating like jewels
the ghostly barren caricature of a tree,
I feel my body tremble in anticipation
of the life ahead of me,
lacking promise, lacking hope, lacking humour,
destined to end like the tree’s
when some million years later
someone digs out the little drop of oil
that would be me, soulless,
ready to be burned off into the air,
by a fuming exhaust of a car
traversing the path I once held so sacred,
which is as sacred to the car too,
but is a mere smile on the face of time,
to be crushed when it gets angry,
I see my apparition looking at me
laughing at me, mocking me silently,
showing me how ridiculously ephemeral
my life, your life, all life can be.

In the horror of this strange prospect,
I close my eyes, press my lids tightly close,
blocking out all the light filtered for me,
refusing to see any of the beauty meant for me,
spreading guilt and dismay like universal entropy,
which again, ridiculously, or hopefully,
is as ephemeral as humanity.

In my forgetfulness I sing
songs full of sadness
oblivious of the source
of the sound of the song:

Put on a mask
to hide your decadence,
contort your sadness
into a smile.

Find a suitable drug
dissolve your fears
and your hopes,
drink them till you piss them out.

For these are the things I do
when I look around me and at
all the passions that flow through men
but have deserted me.

Hard it is to be loveless
no blood now in my veins,
I sit here dissecting myself
to find and fill the holes.

The heart inside me wrenched
by an imploring invisible hand
leaves me bleeding
my memories to death.

One day I will cut my head
to find inside a carcass of longings,
once killed by the cruel laziness
tasting like sugar, smelling like love.

Eyes lulled by the mist
of imbecile longings:
I thought I had her,
oblivious of the million miles
hidden under a veneer of lies
separating her and me.

For in that moment of delusion
she was mine, for that moment
of delusion, I’d give my eyes.
A smile is a spark that can light
the wildfire of fantasies
I was tricked so.

The fire burned and burned
me with it. Eternally swirling
on a wheel of fire screaming
words of hate that tip off
their brims and intertwine,
leaving me meaningless.

Cramped between
restless walls
shifting cryptically.
Lost absolute,
searching frantically.
Lost rhyme.
Crumpled meter.

Waste ideologies,
burlesque drama,
detached debates.
Two words,
million words,
no words,
silver swords.
Ripe edges,
falling off,
cutting off
all communication.
Soul tethered,
circling eternally,
debating punctually,
drawing, redrawing
soul’s territory.
Brandishing swords,
bleeding screams,
charging words,
erasing lines,
phrasing lines,
tearing thoughts,
snuffing sleep;
swallowing sensibilities.

Songs I heard that took me places,
in the arms of women perfect as shadows.
Lines I read that whispered in my ear,
watering the dryland that my heart was,
masking its longing for real touches
with a fecundity that propped the inexistent.

I chewed on Ritalin,
my future was the glory of my past,
as unreal as the past itself.

Songs we hear and I watch her go places,
while I live serenely by her breaths.
Lines I speak that whisper in her ears,
watering her fantastic dreams of the past,
while I touch her hand and feel in me
love being propped by the inexistent.

I drown in wine now,
my present a cadaver of my desires,
as unreal as the future of my past.

Lovers insinuating earnest sentiments
masking a keen expectation;
understood properly,
telling how exogenous
the reality underneath the hoax
is. Nothingness drives eternal-ephemeral despondency.

That day I wore the truth.
It was made of a fabric,
which was made of truth,
which was made of a fabric,
made within and without of truth.