Dawn

Another dawn, another day. . . 
A gentle breeze chases the shadows away.
The sun above the horizon glides with perfect ease,
and after days of turmoil brings infinite peace.

In too Deep

Just like a lost soul wandering

through a fog of unknowing

an untrodden path I took

that brought me to you --

here I stand at the crossroads

once more questioning my beliefs

questioning what I feel

against what I know I should shield --

'Coz I'm in too deep

Oh babe, I'm in too deep.

But this love I can't keep

For it burns like hell to feel

but I'm in too deep.

Was it my loneliness that called out

Through a universe of pain?

What a cosmic joke this is, then,

To have met you again!

The heart has its reasons

that have nothing to do with logic;

And impending doom hurtles

with sure certainty to smithereens.

And caught in these horns

of a dilemma that scorns

Lady Logic's calm unconsent

Defying rules of endearment --

Ah, but I'm in too deep

Though it hurts too much to keep

A love that is so wrong

But feels so goddamned right

'Coz I'm in too deep.

Not too jaded still by life

to walk on this insane edge

but the razor sharp hardness

cuts through, with pain in its wake --

Where's my best friend now?

In my hour of need, Lady Reason,

eludes my grasping mind

As devastating as treason --

For I'm in too deep

Oh yes babe, I'm in too deep

Though her counsel I must keep

But Logic can't help me believe

'Coz I'm in too deep.

So I send my uncertain verse

Into some fathomless void

Into your deeply corroded hollowness

Spawning feelings you avoid.

Through a haze of incipient insanity

A lonely shadow flits on a sigh

It flits alone stripped of all belief --

There, without the grace of you, go I.

Build a Bridge to Nowhere

Where is the place for caution

in a passionate life?

Does passion tear a life asunder?

Cause unimaginable strife?

A passionless existence with each

insipid,  mundane, rotten day

where the sun rises to dry rot

and sets in exactly the same way?

Poisoned by ennui, drowning in a quagmire

a continuum of blandness

framed by the violence of inaction

your life in the grip of darkness,

the profound darkness of compromise

when you give up the little things:

Joy, grace, compassion: the beauty

of life that gives you wings.

It creeps in insidiously cell by cell

paralyses every part of your soul

and you're stuck in a moment,

a life in a fish bowl.

Security, acceptability, each

A nail in your prison's bars --

Did you trade a warm home for a shell,

instead of reaching for the stars?

Did you trade your creativity

for a life with status quo?

Did you sell your soul

'coz you had nowhere left to go?

And there you go wandering

now looking for your soul

as the fog of insidious insecurity

inexorably draws you to your goal.

A goal fed at the cost of honesty,

the inevitable suicide of truth;

there it hangs, lonely, unmourned, unacknowledged,

unwanted as a broken tooth.

So build, if you will, a bridge to nowhere,

For nowhere is a good place to start.

A bridge to the past, to the future --

Take your prison cell apart.

Take the steel from your heart

And build your bridge brick by brick --

Layer it with honesty, truth, gentleness and caring,

With compassion and grace to make it stick.

Build a bridge out to nowhere

To your very own Zihuatanejo

to the dreams you traded for security

to the creativity you let go.

Tonight I blasted our music

through large speakers in honour of you --

To send a wish on winged flight

So you can blast through your prison cell too.

Do Not Move a Mountain

Do not move a mountain
In order to be with me
I'm not worth such a backache
This, I am sure, you see.

My love is calm and deep as the ocean
with the inviolable faith of the sea -
But if it gets any calmer or deeper
A complete flatline it will be!

Sometimes your texts are a flood
At others their drought parches the soul -
Your consistent inconsistency
Defies a well-defined goal.

In a city of 25 million people
What a miracle that we did meet!
There are moments when I do wonder
How we achieved such a feat!

But do not move a mountain
Certainly not to be with me -
Definitely not worth a herniated disc
Or the backache that comes free!

And besides, I am available.
As you know, on the phone -
So pick up yours, dammit!
Let me hear your special ringtone!

Across a Table

Across a table

Just a three by four --
Separated by
a universe and more

of rules, ideologies, distances,
vows and interstellar space,
untraversable, perhaps,
despite your amazing grace.

Yet each time our eyes met
my heart skipped a beat --
So near and yet so infinitely far
across barriers too unbreachable to meet.

"Forty eight, and my life still a mess,"
you said with a quick smile;
Gut wrenched, heart stopped,
stark darkness enveloped for a while.

They say, love is blindness,
And yet I see with crystal clarity:
What I may come to mean to you
What you have always meant to me.

I have often dreamt impossible dreams
Some I have made come true;
But this is a dream I am petrified to dream
dreading that it will hurt you.

And should these words break out of the undersea vault
Run free from their blackhole prison
And if your cold, steely heart should melt
For a lifetime or even if just for a season…

This is the story, then, that I would write for you --
Set in a place that has to be believed to be seen
Where desire, love, faith, lust, belief, untruth, madness, integrity, yearning, anger, anguish,
      compassion, sadness --
Dissolve, disintegrate, and no longer demean.

Cigarette on Skin

A low chuckle over the inaudible sizzle

Of cigarette on skin

The pain shoots up her arm

Zings over her shoulder

Bullets upwards and downwards

To her head

To her heart

And a scream forms in her gut

Rapidly rises with the bile

The throat constricts

But just before it is released, she swallows it.

She swallows it and turns

To look into the bloodshot eyes

Of her sociopath lover

Grinning

Reveling in her pain.

Reveling in her pain he asks, again and again

"Who is it?" "Who is it?"

"Who is it that you are sleeping with?"

The crumb on his lip twitches each time he speaks.

Numbed.

Crushed.

Pulverized.

Her silence the only defence.

His insane eyes gaze at her burning skin

His fingers lift the cigarette

A long drag and then smoke fills the car

Then, slowly, steadily, the burning end moves

To her arm again…

She bites her lip

Pushes her head back on the headrest

Braces her insides for the assault

And prays…

For death.

***********

And now, a decade later

the little scars on her arm

Sit benignly gazing

Up at the scars inside.

On A Highway Leading Nowhere

I threw the questions to the cosmos,
To echo amongst the stars -
Ones I ask so often and so deeply…

What is this puzzle I can't ever solve?
Where does this highway lead and
why am I on it?

…while my arms ache from longing to hold

…while my heart overflows to fill its lonely emptiness

…while my eyes flood and ebb

…while the sun rises or sets or stays still,
its heat mild compared to mine

…while I am on this highway leading nowhere

And you -
How do you go from
"lust for your company" and
"completely seduced" --
to completely silent?

Teach me, please, how to do the same.

Gossamer Web

The soft rush of tenderness in your eyes

As you speak of your girls;

Your voice gentle on the phone

To your partner;

I see your aura woven into this

gossamer web -

Holding your heart in place,

Enveloping your mind in an embrace…

Your beautiful, gentle soul shines in your eyes

As you speak of what you regret

And of what you don't -

Your "gamble" with creation

The two pieces of the puzzle that made you whole…

What does it matter then that you did not

Could not

Will not

Experience being

One with another?

I hear your gently sobbing heart

Flooded with regret at things unobserved,

Unnoticed -

Watch that quirky smile hide a pain intense

A pain born of the endless, hopeless search

For the blinding light of love.

Allow your gossamer web to be a warm

Blanket in the cold;

Let it cocoon your soft and tender heart

Against your deepest regrets and desires -

Till age and time can calm the deepest misery,

Till there is no line on the horizon,

With

Or without

you.

Ashes to Ash

A fistful of ash
Floats down the river; and your
Immortality.

Thursday, 06 May 2010, 11:14 PM

The Hermit Who Gave Up: A Folktale Retold

The Hermit Who Gave Up ...

Originally written on Friday, May 07, 2010, 8:23 PM 
I wrote this as the Editorial for Rewind 2010 but changed my mind about publishing it there. It comes from my "experiments with detachment"! 

When the hermit returned after many years to the home of his guru, he was sure for a few moments that he had reached the wrong place. Perhaps he had taken a wrong turn somewhere. For, he had left his guru in deep meditation in a basic structure of mud bricks, and here before him stood an edifice worthy of a rich businessman, lush fruit trees.... The hermit was disappointed. Perhaps his guru had moved away, he thought, making a move to go. Perhaps, oh dear god, perhaps this rich businessman had usurped his property and sent him packing. At this awful thought, he turned and strode up to the impressive door and rapped on it imperiously with his knuckles. He would find out where his poor old guru had gone and bring him back...

When the door opened, the hermit’s jaw dropped. There, framed by the polished teakwood doorway, stood his guru. The years had been kind to him and he didn’t look a day older; he still sported a beard and long hair, neat and tidy, glowing with the effect of cosmetic care. He was bare-chested, as in the old days, and all he wore was a loincloth made of beautiful, soft silk, tied in a very fashionable manner.

The guru looked his disciple up and down, grinned and held out his hand. “My child,” he rumbled in much the same old way, “I’ve waited for you to come back all these years. What an opportune time! I’m looking for someone... But what am I about? Come in, my son, come in.” He stood aside and waited for the hermit to enter the house.

The hermit, quite overcome, could only stutter, “But what...? How....? When I left you were....” He backed away from the door quite certain that maya, an illusion, had him in its grip, that his senses were playing tricks on him, or that this was some great and final test he was meant to pass in order to reach the ultimate truth. He stared as his guru whistled softly, bent down and picked up a brown, furry creature, and moved towards him.

“I know, my son; you must be completely disoriented by all this. But after you left, I made the greatest discovery of all, thanks to this little chap,” he held up the little brown mouse nestling in his large hands. “This guy taught me that this world is all about attachment, about connecting with other people and creatures; he showed me that the challenge does not lie in moving away from other people, from civilization, in order to discover the ultimate truth. It has to be found right here, right now, as we live in the challenge.”

His disciple stared at the mouse. “And how did he do that, Guruji?”

“By chewing up my loincloth, of course! He not only showed me how attached I was to my loincloth – that detachment was an illusion – but he also showed me that he was not chewing my loincloth to spite me, but because he had needs equal to mine. So I decided to give up the old life, which appears now to have been incredibly self-absorbed and selfish, to take on a new life in which I look after other people and creatures – there is purpose, meaning, and most importantly, a lot of joy!”

The hermit turned to watch as several children emerged from the house, accompanied by various animals of different sizes, tumbling, laughing, giggling. They ran past Guruji, some of them giving him high fives, and one of them called over her shoulder, “We are learning about area, Guruji, and Ma’am says that we are to find the largest leaves in the forest and bring them back!”

“What have you done, Guruji,” the hermit asked. “What is this place?”

“Why, it’s still a school, of course; only now we help children to enjoy every moment of the learning process."

From the Unjaded Bridge

A view from the unjaded bridge

not too sane to walk on
the insane edge...
I open my heart to whatever love I get
I give whatever love can be taken
unchoking
unbinding
unstilled by realities.

So that, when I go, so gentle
into that good night -
I don't go
unfettered
unshackled
untouched
unchallenged... by love.

And you --
weep not at my funeral because I am gone;

weep only for what you left unsaid
regret only what you left undone;
weep, yes weep, only
for stories unwritten
for dreams undreamt
for moments unlived
for what could have/should have been.