April 13 : Oceans

I know it looks like I'm here,
dealing with my life.
But really,
I'm far away
I'm quite alone
in a distant blue bay.

My toes are blue
(but my feet are beautiful)
my hair flutters gently
(so silky, so long)
around my body
(so perfect in the blue).

The water is still
as I float. Empty.
There is beauty
somewhere here
I have known it before
seen the reefs and the fish
the smooth rocks
I have seen the underwater
in all it's glory and color
I have known the weeds
counted the leaves
exotic and majestic
the starfish and the shells
to the great grey whales
the purple sunsets
with wine-haired mermaids
and white backed gulls
I have known the beauties.

But today
beauty perhaps
(for once)
will not suffice.

Today I want no color
(just the endless blue of wavering dreams)
no fish (no life at all), no rocks.
I want only fluttering sand below me
and everywhere else, undulating blue
(today, I'd say, I don't even want you).
I will float
(half-conscious and numb)
I will float
(a flying rag-doll, so mum)
I will float
in the oceans
of my sad finite soul
(I try so hard to put away
the mountains of my
infinite wild heart
for today, just for today).

And today I don't want to find anything
in this sea (not you and not me),
today I perhaps simply want
to lose myself for a little while
in the gentle rocking rhythm
of this serene unending ocean.
Perhaps I need it.

April 12 : Happy nights

Slowly and steadily we shall descend
into delirium. It seems to be more
a sense of falling than of rising.
The night begins, arbitrarily
at some point in twilight.
The lamps are lit,
the glasses full.
Suitably dressed, we are,
bedraggled and harried,
the days are long.
And on sofas which see
the days of our lives move
steadily, steadily on;
we now sit and cuddle
the pillows whose fabrics
we handpicked once.
The lighting is yellow,
the music is set.
And so we settle into
known patterns
of nights that never
seem to happen to
anyone but us.
Happy nights, full
(like our hearts)
of laughter and talking.
Of beautiful music.
Eating and drinking,
we talk. Smiling, we sigh.
And it's 3 am but it's too early
(always too early) to ever get
away from this room. If you crane
your neck you can see the stars
(although the stars are really in our eyes).

And someday we will look back, so happily,
and a part of us will sit in the twilight. And
we could not possibly have chosen this
(most of us), but here it is. And if we had
a choice, we would choose us. And we
know, we know just where it hurts, we know
where to prick with maximum efficiency. We know
how to drive each other up the wall, but we know.
We trust. We fight, but we (always, always will,
not dramatically - but just because it's how it is)
we stay. And we stay happy, because we've figured it out.
And the nights move on, and perhaps there will be days
unhappy and nights so long they never end,
but as long as it lasts, this time, let it fill us (the edges
of our infinite souls) and complete us,
if only
for the future (and the past) in which we might
have to remain incomplete.

April 11 : No Man Is An Island

I always thought I would sail across
frozen oceans alone
(when I needed to).
And the stars were mine alone
(when the night smelled of
dreams and fresh rain),
and somedays with fairy lights
could not be shared with the world
because the world could not
Understand.

I laughed with people and smiled
a lot, and I loved thoughtlessly
and I believed in goodness -
but the sky was mine to keep.
That, I would not share with
stupid people. I would share
conversations and sitcoms,
sarcasm and some books,
but secret notebooks of
thick paper where I stuck
butterflies and rainbows
and rose petals and poetry
that was mine alone to love.

But No Man Is An Island.

And so maybe I can live with
the world and also
keep it at bay,
but when she came,
smiling and loving
the things I loved as mine
(mine), she came to stay.
And we found some and we
built some (and we made it up
inside our cloudy heads)
and the ship we will sit in
is yellow and flowered
(since No Man Is An Island
and thus we need to sail across
frozen oceans) and not alone.

And dried palash flowers
tangled in sea-dried hair
we will cross all them oceans
brave adventurers that we are
(together), on a ship made only
of joy and smiles, and wisdom
(that came through pain) and
love. And we will eat fresh
strawberries and we will smell
like rainbows, in purple sunsets
we will sail through life (only
our flower-tangled hair will
fly in the still oceans and
the seagulls will know us
from afar).

April 10 : But in the real world

We are not free.
Not at all, not even
a little bit. We cannot be.
Inside of us, perhaps
we have the possibility of being free
(and then, only as free as we let ourselves be)
but in the real world.

I talk of constrictions set by society
and boundries and limitations and
the place we are born in, I talk
of death and natural disaster, but
more than anything
I talk of the crisp green pieces
of paper and how freedom
(of walking and talking and
living and doing what you want
because you love it)
does not exist.

You can eat what you want
(if you can afford it)
and you can go wherever
(as long as it's within
your budget, ladies and gents)
and you can read and write
and you listen to what music you like
and you can have just as comfortable
a blanket as you wish you to sleep in
and you can have the freedom, too,
to explore your potential and learn
and fill up the spaces of what you can be
and achieve and give back to the world,
yes, you are free to do this
(oh wait a minute there).

And you can tell me that
I'm not as rich as Him or Her
but that doesn't stop me from
doing what I want and love and
will achieve because of determination.
And I agree. I don't want to work for money.
Money doesn't make you happy, I like
to think. Idealism. Philosophy. Morals.

But what of he who drinks
from a trickle of dirty water
what of her who can live only
by living in a cage and selling
all that she has apart from herself
- her body - and what of
her children, condemned,
who were born in a brothel
(and for what fault of their own)
and have no food for the day
and what of the father whose baby
died in his shriveled arms (curled up
right next to his broken heart)
and of the man who had to throw
his mother (how much he loved her)
out of his one-roomed house so
his children could live to see
a better day
what of he who freezes to death
wrapped in a blanket only
of frostbite and frozen tears
(while somewhere we sleep
with air conditioners on so high
so we can cuddle in thick velvet blankets
in the peak of summer, warmth)
what of them?

Maybe inside of them they are free
(I hope with all my heart that they are)
but in the real world.

April 9 : Of Cages And Obnoxious Paint

And aren't we always confined
to cages (that we ourselves
have made, struggled to reach
and then locked ourselves in,
with the finality of passing
from a world to the next -
a gentle way of saying death)
and don't we always rot
in places which aren't really
where we wanted to be -
but are, still, somewhere
which in our ambition we
mistake as better than nowhere
(although nowhere specific might
really actually in some sense mean
everywhere, in all it's majesty)?

And I struggled to open that
bright yellow tube of paint
and I pulled and I teared up
I bit and yelled and scratched
I tried to cut it open with a blade
and twisted it up till it was a gory
mess (although it still looked beautiful
to me, lover of paint) and halfway
through this I checked the label
and it wasn't primary lemon yellow
(that was the color I knew I wanted)
it was really yellow ochre, and the outside
was simply a lie, inside it was a dirty
mustard, nowhere near a yellow at all
but still I fought, unwilling to accept
defeat (ah, human nature, is it not?)
and thoughtfully I let my face arrange
itself into the sorrow of not getting
what I wanted (although it wasn't true).

And what is it about us that makes us this way
fighting for things which we really (deep inside
and sometimes outside too) know aren't what
we need or even want or will accept at all?

And I've shut myself up in cages and
I struggle, sometimes, to remain in them
and why do I want myself to be constrained
when in the end I want to be somewhere
else (not here, perhaps not at all), and
inside I really know it yet still I let
myself bleed. And for what?

April 8 : Inside My Head (And Out)

Unable to start something new

before I wipe out the old.

I can live in a dump

(inside my head

and out)

but I must clean up

before I can move.

I must empty every drawer

and sift through the piles

of debris that gathered 

over years of neglect

(inside my head 

and out).

I must wipe it clean

to let new dust settle.

I must throw some -

vehemently crumple it up

stuff it in the trashcan and

never ever let it out -

and pack away the rest

must put away precious memories

wrapped up in old cloth

in shoeboxes in bottom drawers

(inside my head

and out).

I leave behind 

some of it, and

recreate some as I look back

in the drawers (of life).

Build up new piles

of papers and rocks and

pencils and socks

and broken remnants of

computer parts and glasses

and notes that meant something

but are now illegible 

and bills and books

and keychains (and smiles

and tears and hugs and

music and feelings

and smells and sounds

and moments and days

and walks and despair

and perfect kisses and

phone calls and 3 am 

conversations into the 

heart of forever and memories

all memories.)

So precious - so painful.

Every day they hurt -
the loss of them, perhaps,

but every day they 

make me smile - and

yet I would live them 

the crumpled chits and

chocolate wrappers and

conversations and smiles

flower petals that meant 

something (perhaps everything)

when I slid them in this drawer

(in this pocket? in this life?).

I would live them all again

and I would be my crazy self

loving posterity 

and I would save them all,

I would pile them all up

if only to clean them out.

April 7 : Ode To A Girl (I Love)

Her long brown curls dance around her laughing face.

She smiles, and I see
the whole world in her eyes.
Her eyes hold the stars themselves.
Shining. Full. Complete. The world.
Stardusted and rainbowsprinkled,
a suncoloured world if there ever was one.

She's beautiful in a million ways -
but the most beautiful (more beautiful
than her smile, than her wrinkly hands,
more beautiful than her eyes with the stars)
is her mind. The most beautiful is her joy.

And she knows not how she spreads
life (and love, too, and joy), and she lives.
She's sad sometimes, low, but she doesn't know
- doesn't know how the light within her (the
light, shining with the power of a thousand stars,
- all tucked up in her eyes, of course), how the
light within her is bright, too bright
to be dimmed by a day (or a year
or a lifetime, or more).

We shall live a lifetime (or
so I hope) of happy walks
through purple sunsets, with chilly
breezes on long sandy beaches, and
mountain streams bubbling along
through mossy rocks and caverns
(and we shall bubble along, I hope,
our own mossy paths and turns).
And we will (I know) look to the sky
and keep the sun for ourselves - we
will float along in the clouds, higher
than everyone else. We will
(we will always) go back to being happy,
for the world (and today, and tomorrow)
is too beautiful not to be (forever, happy).

And I hope I can tell her someday
(through long winding grassy paths
of forevers and sunsmiles) how she
helped me along (silly me, little me)
and reminded me (just now it's been
so little, the time, but it will be, someday
a long time since I met her, and then)
that the important things in life are always
(always always) the little ones, that
being alone is better than being unhappy,
that the sky and the trees will love us still
(children of the rainbows that we are)
when all else (all else) fails us.
And I hope someday (far into the future,
perhaps, hopefully only, when we're old and
cuddle with cats and flower-patterned blankets)
if she's ever down so low she can't
pick herself up, I hope I can remind her too.
Someday.

April 6 : Himalayan Trek 2012

The stars shone
(hundreds of them,
thousands) through
the thick blanket of
darkness (darker
than evil, darker
than darkness herself)
cast over the night.
They pierced through
the 8 pm blackness
with ease (so many,
oh, every inch of space
was taken up by the
shining points of light)
and danced overhead,
in constellations we
marked out in our journals
(and constellations we
will never see) and they
were silent. The fire blazed,
higher, higher into the sky,
crackling and sparking,
throwing light into faces.

Faces that shone
with the simple joy
of being at that moment
then. Faces that grinned
and faces that laughed.
Still faces, with the
overwhelming silence
of the night time and the
silhouettes of the mountains
against the infinite sky.
We sang, swaying
in the light of that night,
we spoke, shining
with the heat of the fire
and the cold. We hugged,
we giggled, we held hands,
in the face of beauty
so powerful - we loved
each other, and the sky.
And we lay on the ground
(but really, we lay
in the sky) and we pointed
out sights more amazing
than the last, and we
were silenced.

What is it about people
and wanting to save memories,
hold them and keep them close
to your chest so they never escape
(except sometimes to your dreams)?
I was in that moment, swaying
to the music of two dozen voices
I love, I saw those faces lit
by the light of that night, and
I loved them ever more. My
hands were warm and my back
was numb, and my heart
was so very full. The mountains
laughed with us that night, grand
and tall. The sky loved with us.
The stars knew us and liked us
the better for it, and I kept that
moment (with the heat and the cold
and the love and the songs) in my
little cove of memories, deep within,
because it was too precious to lose,
now or ever. The stars knew it too.

April 5 : Dusky Rose

Her shoulders shone in the
elegant evening sitting-room light.
Her fingers were slender and still.
Her dress was the color of a dusky rose,
and her eyes were the grey of the sky.

They all saw her glide gracefully along
and pick out strawberries from large blue bowls.
She was quiet unless spoken to, and always
always said the right things. Her legs were long,
her knees not brown, her smile a perfect curve.

Her mind was beautiful, they said, trying
(unsuccessfully) to not talk about her arms.
Her hair was the color of the starless night
(the stars were all tucked up in her sight -
her beautiful, sky-grey eyes). Together,
all, they admired and envied her. Looked.

Her collarbones were splendid, majestic;
her cheekbones high and lovely. Her skin
was the brown of sleek, supple, waxed wood;
her mind, they said, was divine. Someday
she would be old; her wrinkles would stretch her
and command her fragility until the wood melted
into leather and the shine wore off. Someday.

Until then, she clasped her second glass
of pink-bubbled champagne, her feet poised
upon the floor (almost ready to perform).
Until then, she smiled absently at them,
Quiet in her blanket of many-petaled beauty.
Her eyes (sky-grey, with all the stars) slid
around the grand room. Never stopping.

Her mind was underwater, with the
colorful fish and the deafening silence
and the smooth rocks and drifting thoughts.
Her slender fingers (upon her starched dress)
were still. Collarbones out. Feet poised.

April 4 : The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul

The clock ticks. The sun sits fatly in the still blue sky.

And I clutch my cup
swaying to the music
my mind meandering
through lanes and
untrimmed hedges
of sepia-toned memories
that I put away safely once
in shoeboxes and envelopes and drawers.

And there's nothing to do and
nowhere to be. There's no one
I want to say these things to,
                                least of all me.

So I pull the curtains on the world
and I pull the curtains on myself.
Leaving me in a dark, dark room
with nobody at all, nobody to be.

The music is slow and the music
is sad. The lamps are bright but
the light is still. Who knows
when the sun set? Who knows
when it will rise again?
My lamps are bright
and my light is still.

Happy memories,
of laughter and smiles
and being close, of
moments so precious
my glasses misted over
and I wanted to save it
(and I did but only in my head)
- they too fade. They too change.
Like roses, fat and red once,
now pale and limp and sad.

Now there's simply joy...
joy you had and left behind
and joy you would have had
but don't. Joy in his face and
joy in her face (unmirrored,
of course, in yours). Joy
that will never be yours
and joy that went it's own way
in the labyrinth of untrimmed hedges
and grey cement buildings, paths
that lead nowhere (and thus
lead everywhere - everywhere
that you will never be or know).

The clock ticks. The sun is gone.
It is that ambiguous time
of no light and no dark.
The curtains are thick
but I walk out of the room.
The sky is yours (clear
and still and painful), but
the sky is mine. I want to be
(and achieve and live) so much
but all I am is you. And all you
can ever hope to be
(and achieve and live)
                             am I.