Black city IV: Black Ink

In broad day light

Shot, shot, shot, shot and shot again.

The noise of death

Silenced by the echoes of screams in comatose.

Raised by the underbelly

Of a metropolitan deemed sound for living,

He fell to blood hounds,

And was dragged to the end of the abyss.

Shrouded by his own guardians,

And incinerated

By the democratic miscarriage.

This is how years of sweat was wiped off

By blood-rivers striking down the streets.

What a price to pay for lighting up

A path of misdemeanours with black ink!

Like you were never gone...

The tall glass of white wine,

Standing in my eyes,

The cafe, your favourite in town,

The bus stop, the walk,

The midnight pavement talk.

It’s for real.

But I look into those eyes and become

One with your dreams,

Standing on the boundary

Of truth and illusion.

The moment melts away in the darkness

Of the long night,

Fades away in shadows

Growing longer by the day.

A blur now, the memory finds

A home in the alleys of my mind.

When I close my eyes

You come back to me

Like you were never gone.

Black City

Black city I

You have been used, abused

And exploited by your own.

Mistreated and humiliated

By those who’ve been inside you.

Raped and assaulted

By your own pimp,

And even by those you’ve fed

Your own milk and those who reached

New highs by stepping

On your corpse-like remains.

Yet flooded in tears, wounded by arms,

Slit into pieces, into sects and segments

By those who’ve grown up in your lap,

You crawl to them with open arms

And give them your last breath—

To those who took away from you

And never gave back.

(June 30, 2009)

Black City II

To the sweet sound of horn

I dance, no spot to hold

My foot.  Work, work, everywhere.

I sell my feet, for you to build your tomb.

I wake to drills, and sleep to shrills;

Every season, a new reason

To cheer the falling apart

Of me, the machine

And the rich fat mansion.

I come to feed my womb,

An ant stuck in a hive of bees

I’m stung, hurt and crying for help

But the Lords just raise their hands

Bringing me down on my knees.

Surrendered to laws,

I cut my children to pieces.

But save them from the lethal water,

The guns and bullets of their father

And the hopelessness of the air.

Then they build me wings to fly,

Tracks to race and barns to feed my soul,

They show me height, only to cushion my fall.

Dying to live in a paradise sold

I survive, I dig myself a hole.

(April 17, 2010)

Black City III

The Sith whispers

The darkest scene on the brightest star—

The fashionistas, frugalistas, the arc lights,

The beefcakes and social butterflies.

The stars, the sons

And the moon-lit heights.

All shine, no glory,

They wrap their story

In a bubble of lie.

It’s no star wars, no heroes,

No Jedi.  Just a shadow

Of the old, gold era of a galaxy of hitchhikers.

There is no sign of truce, no peace

No freedom fighters,

No idols for mere mortals,

Pawns in the hands of democracy.

Pawn, the twenty-first century soldier,

The winged horse with an idiosyncrasy,

The habit to look for a white queen,

A mad-hatter. No Alice,

You just see red and see clean,

Don’t weep for the coming of the Gods.

Pray for the return of the dark lords.

(April 17, 2010)

Words

I try to mumble

but my broken tongue and paralyzed lips

Fail.

Can every emotion find its way

into the world of words?

A world with confused grammar,

Punctuated sentences

And organised paragraphs—

from one chaotic world into another.

tangled up in the “rules”.

I try but the wild insane overflow

Of feelings speaks in tongues

Alien to you

and powerless against the wall

you build around your senses.

I wish you could fly you blind

Filings with stray dreams

And build a nest inside

The heart of the one

Who can’t understand

the language of love.

Fireflies in rhyme

Those crooked unstructured words,

Bound together by pure nickel

Sing in your eyes.

Shine in the darkness

Of a silent poem called 'night'.

Broken strings mend,

And the lines dance,

On tree-tops, in a breezy lullaby.

They discover a home

In the distant whispering sparks.

Sparks carrying love notes

And flying into the open skies,

Writing a lyric,

A sonnet, an epic

Of a million fireflies in rhyme.

Stillness

Stillness I

Stillness can be unnerving.
It can toss up a few dead feelings
And bring them back to life.

It can take you back,
Sometimes to a rainy afternoon
When you and I lay down next to each other.
I stretched my hand and tried to touch your finger
I heard you say something
Now I don’t quite remember what.
but I remember I closed my eyes and felt the kiss
Even before you came close enough
For me to feel your heart beat.
When I opened my eyes,
You were still fiddling with my fingertips.

Sometimes on a rainy afternoon
In an idle moment of unusual calmness
I close my eyes
And listen to the rain touch the ground,
Sense some drops running down the shed,
Some caressing the trees, the leaves on their way.

I imagine the pictures as my ears
Wander off to the sound
Of a speeding auto,
Distant voices and shouting children
And I wonder if they are playing a game of muck football.
And then all fades, bringing the music
Of the downpour back into foreground.

Stillness II

Stillness stirs you,
Makes you see things
You wouldn’t see with open eyes.
It pushes you to follow
The footsteps of your heart,
Tells you to find yourself in being lost.
Makes you feel longing,
Makes you feel your own breath,
And makes you seek the company of your own soul.
It tells you that sometimes it’s alright
To have nothing to do but think,
Or sit around listening to your own heartbeat,
Which so often stays drowned
In the noise of things you surround yourself with,
Just so that you feel alive.