I have become more translucent
the moment I got together with you,
fading out of substance,
and into an undefined background.
I have to look harder now
to see myself when I look
into the mirror to search
for the woman
I find more difficult
to remember on a daily basis.
How surreal she seems,
the bold one
who danced without restraint,
questioned nothing and everything,
and was dangerously free.
I try to catch meaning again,
a Sisyphean enterprise
as my attention span
is in direct relation to
my ever increasing
level of ennui.
And I do get bored easily
these days.
She says,
Why ever? Do you not see
how much excitement
this world holds?
All the things we can do…
And I so want to
burst her bubble of
naivety with a spell of
disillusionment.
An overreaction, I admit,
but sometimes her
artless views
bring out the worst in me.
Oh, the eagerness of
a young soul.
Been there, done that.
They are all caught up
in the doing
which does not
equate to being.
Do they ever ponder
the necessity for activity
at all?
Wintergreen hedges
(no rotten leaves here, please),
cut precisely into square,
impenetrable walls,
fencing in narrow front yards,
doing no favour to the pricey
whitewashed houses
masquerading as the
epitome of respectability.
Double door garages, witness
to what a man is able to
provide, though red tile roofs have
lost their sheen because
money only goes that far,
multi-paneled windows
keep in the noise of
quarrels which, officially,
never took place.
Unbothered by Saturday’s
car washing and lawn mowing,
freedom beckons not too
far away, in the shape of
a night sky aglow with
the reflection of city lights,
the skyline visible
if you scramble up that hill.
I have to remove
a couple of
unfortunate strands
from the pattern of time.
I see now how
I got the weave all wrong,
creating a bit of chaos
I have to admit,
but I can fix this.
It is not tempting fate,
honestly, I am pretty good
at fixing things
like old furniture
and cracked china,
broken wings
and shattered hearts.
Adjusting time should not
be a problem at all,
I think.
Hopes, dreams, and wishes…
such overwrought creatures.
Little drama queens,
scattering grandiose ideas
like volcanoes spray ash.
Their exaggerated optimism
is quite annoying.
I have made it a habit
to misplace or
forget about them.
They never take kindly
to my pragmatic attitude,
rioting
in the back of my mind
with a vengeance.
My head rings with
their refusal
to be abandoned,
their insistence
I finally commit.
I sit quietly,
in sync with the rhythm of raindrops
and the veil of solitude
that morning mist drapes over
an abandoned landscape.
All the while
savouring the bouts of excitement
and the tingly feeling
that anticipation sends
through my veins in tiny currents.
I pluck words
from the rusty railroad tracks
and the rain-laden clouds
that tell stories of
a life on the road
under foreign skies
and will finally fill
the empty pages of my life.
I discover belatedly,
I am more addicted to the suspense
and the promise of adventure
that the idea of a journey instils,
than to the actual departure.
So I keep waiting,
though I have lost count of the trains,
I have let come and go
for fear of where
they might actually take me.
Lounge music now floods the room,
its slow groove and soft volume
a bit too lulling for my taste,
turning the brown leather couch
with its invitingly soft cushions
into a trap for tired minds.
We are saved from
falling into a happy delirium
by the smell of fresh coffee,
and the impatient hiss
of the Italian coffee machine
busily grinding the dark beans
for the addicted crowds.
Judging by the artful symbols
he is patiently sketching
onto cappuccino canvasses,
the barista surely is one of those
moody, starving art students,
my mother gravely warned me about.
His cats, carefully drawn
into the soft white foam,
are a marvel, so pretty,
you hesitate for a moment
of appreciation followed by regret
as your spoon collides
with the aromatic liquid.
I think my protests have developed
a life of their own,
they’ve become quite quirky and eccentric.
Instead of concentrating on
famine, climate change and peace,
they have started to give me an attitude.
Today, when I ranted about
all the wrongs in this world,
they dared to give me this pitying look
and told me very airily
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Quoting Ghandi to me, can you believe it?
Deception took a glance
at your plans
and found them lacking.
Now you wear your incredulity
wrapped tightly around you,
failing to comprehend
the adverse fate that befell you.
Weary and bedraggled
you have reached the limit
of your endurance
and the seams
that so precariously
held your life together
have come undone.
Your eyes film over
as you mourn
the loss of certainty,
while you stand there,
the lone sentry,
guarding the debris
of your destroyed dreams.
A fort of pillows and blankets
she has built,
a clumsy, pitiful refuge
from the thunderous battles
fought outside.
Clashes she is too young
to understand.
Her future fort
will be made of elusiveness,
boundaries, and distances
she will meticulously maintain.
A feisty little ghost he is,
my spectral guttersnipe.
He was only eight years old,
this tiny survivor of many brawls
with his running nose, bare feet,
chipped, broken teeth
and dirt streaked face,
no buttons on his frayed jacket.
He worked odd jobs
from early dawn ‘til dusk,
sweeping streets, selling matches
and ostrich feathers,
running the gentry’s errands
for farthings or food
or picking their pockets
for silk handkerchiefs.
He knows a lot of things
a child should not know
about being cold and hungry,
of floggings and the scars they leave,
served time in dirty cells at Newgate prison,
smoking and playing cards
with the other condemned
to relieve the inertia of waiting.
So I just let him sit
in front of the bird cage,
listening to the chirping chorus,
unsure if he is trapped here
like those birds
or if he just enjoys being
an untroubled child for once.
photo credit: Wikipedia
Into the storm we run again,
the proverbial flock of lemmings,
just one quantum step from the edge,
one second from hitting the water with a plop.
With the imprudence of children
we run ahead without a plan,
models of remote-controlled ignorance,
victims of oversight and custom
we are left to beat the odds.
Brazenly we face obvious disaster,
ignoring all transparent warnings.
We refrain from proper precautions,
ravelling things further with our discursive patterns.
Our common sense is tempered by arrogance
and we feel so sanguine about our ability
to weather anything that bars our way,
we callously dismiss the fact
that those storms were created by us.
Lies have eight arms
like a monstrous cuttlefish
attaching to the deceived
with a smothering grip,
dragging them deeply
into the vacuum
of anger and betrayal.
They have tentacles
that reach into the fabric
of everything sacred,
tearing the delicate tapestry
of faith and respect
whose intricate weave
took years to build.
They have stingers like bees
and with uncanny precision
they aim for what is unprotected,
gorging on lightness and purity,
a threat to innocent bystanders
by leaving overall distrust
in a festering swelling.
They have sparkling veils
of shiny, insincere promises
which flake off in a heartbeat,
their devious whispers
no longer mutable,
once the desperate wish
for ignorance has been released.
When days seem dreary
and pass with lulling slowness,
when we become paralysed
by the constraints of duty
that hold us firmly in place
as if by the jaws of a vice,
we both need a reminder.
A reminder of the promise to
hold hands at all times,
write love notes on napkins,
kiss in elevators,
dance in the parking lot,
count the craters of the moon
and oh, where is my dragon?
As long as together we fall
into new patterns and combinations
of goofiness and laughter
we escape the gloomy slumber
of boredom and habit
which so often proves
to be the slayer of love.
photo credt: Bernard Goldback via flickr
If we were to shed all our skins,
peeled off all our layers,
got rid of everything
that seems to define us
what would remain?
Who would we be?
Would it help
to take a long look at ourselves,
and muster up the courage to
be brutally honest with ourselves?
Would it help
if we recognized all the restrictions
we impose on ourselves?
Or those that we let other people’s
expectations impose on us?
Would it help
if we saw all those walls we build
around ourselves?
The ones we use to shield us
from our own fears and insecurities.
Would it help
if we realized all those activities
for the diversion they are
to keep us from looking inside
and finding our truth?
Would it help
if we got rid of all those layers
that were never ours to begin with?
And if then we only kept
what we chose of our own free will
and what was chosen with love
would that finally be the real us?
november child 