The poetic contract killer

 When I kill a poem ever so silently..

Choke it’s neck without leisure 

Choose to work for a penny more

Rather than feed the hungry poet’s soul

When I choose to lie back in fatigue, in laziness 

And not give the words a pen to write.

My poems… killed, awaken from the dead..

Haunt me and say.. Have you sold your soul?

Your poetic soul for two pennies more..

A contract killer on hire.. Yes..

I kill poems for money now..

Calluses .. Excuses

 I faintly remember your chiseled face,

The stubble, the angles..some semblance of you

Trying to revive what I felt for you.:

Was it true? Was it all a lie to erase?

I remember our fingers entwined in a clasp, those times

Now all that remains is my rough callused hand..

The friction of holding and letting go..numerous times

Dry, unfeeling with a wart right on the fate line..my lone hand

 In an ocean of Indian Chai,

In an ocean of Indian Chai .. frothy

In cups and saucers as sailboats to buoy 

With teaspoons of  brown sugar oars..earthy..

You and I ..on an adventure of conversations..Ahoy!

Our naked minds revealing words like cookies soaked in Chai

Chatter.. silence..All our thoughts or lack of them.. 

Comfortably open in an ocean of Indian Chai..

Us.. Sailing away from the world.. Forget’ em..

You , me .. willfully pause for life to stay still…

Yes .. that moment would soak  in Chai

 Fake banter...Real Love...

In conversations …today and happy banter..

There was a question drowned in wine

They asked…What is your happiest moment.. like ever?

You.. Dancing in your arms alone..My happiest moment ever..

In that moment I felt your absence and yet I hid in cheery banter..

I remarked a fake “Now!" and  resumed the banter..

To fake lives..fake conversations and fake banter🥂

To help us survive real love!

Just love .. in childish scrawls

 I know not to frame words…

How does one frame words that spell feeling…

All words come out hollow..and loud

Like a loud screech from an untuned microphone 

In lieu of music .. a shriek..

Say.. you want a hug .. a moment in  light

Tenderness … Ask for it in words.. ugly words

The words.. they smell.. Unwashed laundry of whiny flaws

The moment’s yearning..morphs to monster in words 

 Painting an  needy expectation.. trite .. with clingy claws 

 In lieu of painting   unsaid desire..and chemistry

They come out all wrong, twisted ...my heart in knots …

“ I wish you would want me” .. I say

I sound like a  prosecutor losing his plea in court

 I wish instead, my words were a kindergarten scrawl,

A toddler scrawl of a  huge childish ❤️ heart.. 

You would then  atleast  smile… at the innocence ..

The innocence of childish  love and desire

And not see it as. grumble…quibble… a squabble

Not an ask .. a demand nor a cross for you to bear..

Just love .. a childish scrawl

 

The world is at my door,  

Loud chatter, parties and conversations..

There is love and happiness…

And yet I seek my silence with you..

Knowing that silent togetherness..

That silent togetherness will always ..

Will always be a moment ..

A moment in eternity..

I tell my mind to choose noise ..

Not listen to my naive heart..

For silence.. he is whimsical..

Silence, he betrays me..

Leaving me abandoned..

Abandoned in eternity..

Holding onto a moment 

Back to the world..

The world and it’s meaningless party ..

I go..

For noise, he is there .. constant..

Not eternity, not a moment..

But he is there..

Noise is steadfast…loyal

Silence …fleeting 

 Quicksand

The vicious quicksand in the deserts of Sahara..

Less vicious they are than men..

For they pull you into darkness just once..

But the men, who have a way like quicksand..

To pull you closer… for them just once won’t do

They pull you in deep and let you fight your way out

Breathe!

Just to pull you back in once more..

The sheer joy they see for a woman fall .. again and again

In her naivety to want love ..Love and Quicksand

Are all but one..

Men.. they are more..

Alas... Our love

 If our love was a butterfly...

It would live a few moments and fearlessly die..

If our love was a stubborn mountain..

It would  be for eternity,  resiliently waiting through the uncertain..

Alas, our love lives beyond the moment and less than eternity..

Me and You

Someone did ask me…(Actually nobody did...)

I guess that is poetic license.. poetic motive

But yes.. So somebody did ask me?

Why I write poetry…?  What higher motive?

Isn't it a rather useless pursuit.. if you ask me?

Is it just an outlet of escape for .. The rational 'Me'!

The emotional 'Me’! The lover 'Me'.! The lost ‘Me’!

Different outcomes! Different motives!

But the real answer that stood out for me..

Was one where I truly have no real reason..no motive…

Poetry stays beautiful..without manmade logic or motive.

It is not for a purpose that the words flow from me..

To have in life…an answer not intentional in motive..

Something that flows and ebbs alongside my soul and me..

With purpose… there is an end..as a final motive

Without real purpose, it remains endless beyond time and me..

Beautiful without reason.. somewhat like you and me..

Companions for life.. without purpose, without motive..

Me and my poetry… Me and you..

My lover has no face

 My lover has many faces..

He showed them in many phases..

The in-love face, the angry face, ..

The lusty face.. all of them a passing phase

But the one that stays.. now in this phase..

Is where my lover has no face...

He ghosts and disappears in this phase..

I have kissed and loved..every other passing face and phase...

How does one love a lover without a face?

Hidden Beauty

 Every tad day,

We grow a little more invisible..

In youth and it's hey day..

You are serenaded .. Your youth visible!

Then your middle age marches in.. mid-day

You know you are the background music, felt light

You march on to being older, wiser.. pale twilight

You notice.. you are noticed lesser.. each day..

You almost learn to love your solitude...

Little do they know.. that this day..

You have more to serenade than that lost heyday..

That lost heyday  in youth's altitude

Wider hips, grey hair , puffy eyes, creepy skin and wrinkles

Hark! Those days await...everyone someday

But the strength is in knowing... beyond age's wrinkles

That you now no longer care ..what the world thinks...

I guess  that strength is worth living to that someday!

Without a care...Me thinks!

That is the  beauty .. Hidden beauty to serenade everyday!

The Loneliness Epidemic

 We have an Epidemic.. of endemic loneliness..

It spreads in the crowd.. and when alone..

When you speak..and When you don't...

In the air you breathe and when breatheless

We talk but don't converse

We see but don't notice..

We understand but don't feel..

We care and yet don't really care..

We want our way, all of us..

We want another to share our way..

Though we be in each other's way..

Never ready to walk a mile in another's way

We stay alone and avoid people..

We wait for the One..

Someone to get you..

Anyone really!

We have every one

And yet..No"One"  will do...

Reach out

 Today, they found a new creature…

Deep down in the seas in Antarctica..

They say it has twenty arms…

All I know is.. if I were in Antarctica..

Deep down in the oceans...

if I were that odd creature..

All my arms and more .. 

They would reach out for you…

Your choice ..always …was

to run  afar or embrace…

You chose to do both!

Hush!

 Hush! Little baby.. Don’t say a word!

All the words you want to say..

All the love your want to give..

All the tears you want to cry…

Hush! Little baby.. Don’t say a word..

All words are insufferable in this indifferent  world..

So .. Hush! Little baby.. Don’t say a word..

 

My heart and I are strangers today...

y heart and I are strangers tonight…

I ask my heart…what she seeks...

I implore…plead…her to answer...

She chose not to speak to me...

Like an angry silent couple...we fight..

Knowing…not knowing what the other wants

Our heart beats in a jarring grumpy silence

My heart and I are strangers tonight..

Following the race…an arduous climb…

I pursue the crowd .. Lost.. somewhere 

I look back searching for the real …

In the distance…I see her..my heart distant

She chose to  rest… to pause..to stay back

I beseech her to take me back…to her will

Away from the  noisy din of this world..

My heart and I are strangers today...

I implore ..I plead ..her to answer

Take me back to that moment...where she spoke

Far from... this din of this world..

My heart and I were not strangers ..then

Yes…I heard her heartbeat…my heartbeat…

gently ever so gently...you let me go

.

Slipping from the slopes of  passion... careless

It is so much more...love? Much more...

We fall gently ever so gently to something less

 A "familiar "something" ...We know no more

What do we remember? What did we forget?

We hold dear... yesterday's promise.

And care not to ask  for more..lest the other did forget.

We cling to today, until tomorrow's demise

All that is less...The heart tries to ignore...

We fall..silent... gently ever so gently..

More... than the heart can endure

Less. That we let go gently...ever so gently

Ever..Tho' Never

If you wish to cleave..stab my heart..

Hold me cruelly as yours alone..to never part

If you demanded my soul, my whole, my sin

Yes, to you, I would oblige...Yours! An easy win...

If you asked for all but my one prized possession.

It would be all yours..such is my obsession...

But ask...in the chill of this cold night...to share my warm blanket..

And..I will promptly refuse..Tho' our love is a dear trinket...

Hmphf!, I won't share my blanket!..Never..

To tell the world ...it ain't normal....an ode...to mental illness

How do I tell the world?

Of the ghosts that live hidden in the mind..

That make a man fear his very shadow..

The ghosts that make a man just his shadow

A shadow of what he used to be...his mind

Of how, depressed.. he cowers in tears and fear

Hush! The world must never know..Never Mind!

And tomorrow, he will be another man, dear..!

Super invincible with dreams and incoherent passion..

From depressed south to bipolar north, he will waver

Sadness, tears to an invincible God..from pride to compassion..

The world can't know his woes...for normalcy would waver..

Hide in veils..his days of wrath and anger..

Blasphemy...that there exist an absurd world outside this world?

Dismiss the ghosts that he alone sees...and it's danger

His wife..his kids..who straddle his world and this world...

Paint his dark shadow in...light colors acceptable...

This world has no place for darkness...Stay normal...!

Hide him, his shadow..for it ain't to society...palatable..

How do I tell the world that this isn't normal?

The End of the Line

I walk along the shores of freedom...

The sea weeds tangle my feet..

My feet sinks into the sinking sand

As the waves wash away memories and my feet

Childhood memories...youth...even yesterday..

Seems distant like another life...not mine

Ties.. relationships...a passing glimmer for the day

The sunset waits further down...the end of the line

just be

To go someplace where nobody knows my name..

Somewhere far where life ain't a race to name and fame

A nook, a cranny....of the world where I can just be....Just be

To mix in a crowd, to smile at strangers...

To let my eyes wander and observe the kindred in strangers

To love for moment... someone's smile, a laugh...Just be

To watch the sea of humanity like riding an endless wave

See them and feel their soul in a passing hello..a wave!

To know another without ever knowing them...Just be