soul and bone

 
the soul thought firmly set
until love ransacked it blind
lungs, tendons, heart and all

the spirit ethered off
left but bled-out tissues
their fate the colour of mud

adamant to carve through
a paring knife, twist-gnawing
right where soul meets bone

 

Salt and ash

 
It was the last promise to be kept.

My grandparents reposed
where they had longed to be,
at last. For yes, I had tarried.

The morning sea was calm,
yet the hot air already at our throat,
cooled somewhat by the northeasterly.

The brief echo of thirty foghorns,
following long seconds of thunder,
resonated across the bay
with a harsh finality.
Those on the shore, invisible
but who later recounted hearing
the chilling call to salute and mourn,
bid their farewell, too.

Glints of tears and sweat
were quickly wiped,
though both were meant
to soothe body and soul.

The words exchanged on the boat
were perfunctory, hard as I tried.
The other words had clotted up,
lumped in the pharynx.

I was also distracted;
I was disappointed that I had
forgotten how heavy an urn was,
and the sheen of the sun
spangling on the wavecrest
caught my eye more than necessary.
They danced like dragonflies.

The urns swiftly sank out of sight.
My grandfather was with his wife,
my grandmother with her daughter,
my partner hopefully greeting them
with open arms and soft words.

I felt like the guardian of a time
of yore submerged by the seas,
a watchman over invisible ruins
whose existence only I could attest to
and point at on a map.

My word, as the last one alive and willing,
had been kept, yet the light felt heavy still,
unbearably ubiquitous and constant,
proscribing darkness also,
an offering on a propitious day.

Back on land, memories
were carried and shared,
glasses were raised,
as much to celebrate the past
with ones who mattered
but were no longer here,
as to hail in the future
of a resolute few who,
though tossed about by the waves,
had managed to keep the boat afloat
and their gaze fixed on the horizon
that we had been bequeathed.

It was the last promise to the dead.
On that day we the living,
amidst the silence of the seas,
where the sum of our love was,
dispersed yet present yet calm,

salt and ash parching our lips,
set foot on the shore to start afresh.

 

Some days it's hard not to hate myself

 
Some days it's hard not to hate myself
The constant state of constant failure
As if I didn’t take life seriously
As if tomorrow didn’t matter

Not even a case of Carpe diem
More like a fuck-this-shit issue

And all crumbles like a house of cards
But some cards didn’t seem to have existed

“The oeuvre was flawed from the start”
Said the old ghost strutting back in his chair
With this fingertips joined, he added
“Well well well, look who’s called”

Every time getting closer to the brink
The tiredness, the heaviness of existence
The energy and motivation getting lower
The wish to unbe turning to will
Waiting for the will to turn to dedication
Like swells heaving like heavy breaths

Fighting it still, but with less bravado
The élan dead longer than I thought

I am happy for my friends’ victories
“You are, but it doesn’t right the scales”
But I have none of my own
“Only soul-crushing defeats”

Yes, I am tired of being mediocre
And when I tried hard and failed
It was said I was unlucky
“But unluck can’t last this long, can it
It has to be something else”

I just want to be left alone now
And sleep it off, sleep for a long time
Long enough that I forget I’m sleeping
“What about the good old void
That would clear everything up”

I do not need a lot more persuasion
That it would be the best, yes
The timing makes sense, too

“Perhaps I won’t have to leave, this time”
No, perhaps you won’t have to.

 

Split voice

I want to leave an indelible mark upon this world

I want to leave the earth untouched, unmarred

I want to help, I want to shape the greater good

If we can’t make it better, we should leave it alone

I want to be in the spotlight of freedom

Let me remain in the shadow of freedom

I want to be remembered, a force of change that matters 

I want to be forgotten, my name struck out if reckoned

Let my deeds not be footnotes in History 

My donations shall remain anonymous

Acclaimed even in my sleep

Please leave me alone

I matter most because I’m better than most

What matters most is that you bettered yourself

Let people follow in my trailblazing footsteps

Let people see the steps in the snow and let them fade

I am what I am and what I do 

We are drowning in ourselves in action

Let my name echo in eternity

Let my name be lost for all eternity

Daffodils

 
Fists balled in the hollow of the eyes
Sat in the old, creaky wicker chair
The scream stuck in the pharynx
Blue-overalls despair taking hold
Between the exhaustion and the chaos
The spirit, there, at odds, blooming,
Like a, like a, daffodil

The life springing from the rot
Always in need of a new pot
Always seems to thrive more
Than the one from the store
99p, bargain-of-the-day life
Just give it a poke with a knife
Not to, not to, daffodils

You care not for the ruin
You care not for the grime
As soon as you find yourself
Right on the edge of time
And running out of one
Second or minute, year or life
Time is, time is, daffodils

Then you blame all the gods
For forcing us to rely on strife
Forgetting the absolute beauty
Of a flower thriving on blights
Like a, like a, daffodils

Life is a songbird eating
The brain of a mouse
And you don’t get it, for
How could beauty do this
Eat seeds one day and the next brains
Survival dictates and hunger commands
Among the, among the, daffodils

Daffodils, it’s always daffodils they say
For lilacs are too sad and bitter for life
And hyacinths too sweet for death

Daffodils are the living, and the dead
The hot rot on a bed of mulch
The rising fruit and the fallen leaf
Green and yellow both the growth
Of moss and of mould
Of grief and of lief

The lines blurred until they burst

The body blooms and withers
Decays one season, feeds the next
Born to fester and feast

Prayers won’t get us there
But daffodils will, inevitably.

To Florence

This is my body

 

I stopped worrying one day
about how I looked
in the eyes of others

And I was able to say
“This is my body
It’s been through a lot
and it shows

It is not perfect
stretch marks and scars
but this is what I have
this is what I nurture
I keep it and treasure it

It wasn’t always like this
it was more nimble once
and its skin smoother

And even if I didn’t always
now you and I will
treat it with care

As though it may still
suffer some blows
I shan’t let it be buffeted in vain
ever again

This is my body
and if you don’t like it
I have no other”

One day I stopped worrying
and loved the soul and the vessel
my choice to keep or to change
and loved, loved, loved

 

A Study on Grief

 

Once I met a quite serious scientist

In the underground going east

On my way to a tryst in Bayleaf

They looked at me with googly eyes

And said I’d be perfect to study grief

There was a sadness in my gaze

A slowness in my hands

That’s all they needed to see the pain

Truly they were an expert

Yet said Science had much to gain

They ran all the tests they could

And long I lay and long I stood

They penned all the words I said

Elaborated many graphs and charts

About all those I loved who were dead.

In the end they had to let me leave

As they’d learnt all they could about grief

And what they found they couldn’t believe

And threw themselves under the tube to Bayleaf.

If I love you

 
If I love you, what business is it of yours
if I love you, it is no business of anyone’s
including mine own

You cannot exact any requirement
nor any demand from my love
I do not even know myself how I do
but I do, maybe even against my will
or against any form of logic

And should you suffer from it
rest assured that I do, too

And if I love passionately, irrationally
if I love you my antithesis
you shall feel whatsoever you may
it is no business of anyone’s
and certainly not mine

And if I love with the commitment
of one circumnavigating the cosmos
if I love with the desperation
of one parched and starved and feverish
let it be just that: love for love’s sake
none can have any say in the matter

And if in the great madness of things
you happen to love me
not in return but for love’s sake
perhaps we might mind
our own business together
and be content and serene
basking in each other

like a cat in the sun, eyes half-aclose

floating specks in a sunbeam

stardust whose movement started
before anything or anyone was

 

on the wind

// on the wind // I heard your name // on the grass // a long time ago // had to be a thousand years, at least // in the night // the thought-memory of you // like a seed // like a tree // in the soil under the fingernails // your name was there too // for such a long time // the sky too overcast to notice // cacophonies of feelings and yellings // no longer drowned therein // only whispers // this unsilence for such a long time // though not the right time // the hawk ascending on the wind // on man-made moonlit mythical wings // finding time slowing down in the shade // wanting to be near // holding hands // with all those years of gestures, silences, thoughts, questions and learnings // gowpens of tragedies, love, carry-ons and acquired smiles // that was the right time // on the cairn I made on the knoll // meant the wait had been the rainbow // how I learnt to make everything I do and say // a long time ago you had been there and stayed // carefully telling everything your name to be remembered // and found // to never end // on the tip of the ear and tongue always // there // gut-feeling me through the ground // never quite lost // like a bonding of molecules with no definite centre // here but also there // now but also then // the most negligible of forces // like the faintest of rustles // on the wind //

Homemory

 

I’ll mark you in my book of memories

between sunfires at dawn and dusk

and meteor waves jolting the spheres

the memory of you will be a home to me

as the sunshafts after the rain are home to me

as the goosebumps from music are home to me

as feeling the last page of a book is home to me

you will be a home to me

in my book of memories

though the shades have darkened 

and the pages will have faded

as the storm of the century raged

home to me, home to me

Circumstances

 
Where have you been? Missed you so.
You haven’t changed, I’ve moved on.

Both are scary, what’s come over us?
Perhaps because no one’s letting go.

All them big words and no brawn,
but we’ve never been ones to fuss.

Had nothing to do, so I moved mountains
and a third of the sky off my way:

never be a hostage from geography –
always prefer wild seas to fountains.

Twenty-one grams lighter we weigh
now on our sure sway to apathy

had nothing to do so you froze right there
deer-in-the-headlights of a human being

tried with all your might to stay real
blinded and scorched by the glare

– no cure for that sort of pain –
– you don’t have it in you, sweet girl –
– no cure needed as you’ll do it again –
– chaos in immobility you are –

looking for something which stopped becoming
when you silenced your symmetry

bending space on opposite sides
won’t make it come full circle
we couldn’t even if we tried

or we might have and

we might be, different

 

Scattering of flower

 
Strewn about the vase
the petals a vestige
of a gone beauty
randomly, perhaps

Gathering the withered
soft and dead dryness
the mind but wanders
in the palm of the hand

Left alone in the field or
left to wane in the house
plucked or unplucked
the flower’s sum and parts
ordered by a deeper chirality
disperse long before they were a seed
arrange long after the end of time
yet mathematically arranged
yet unordered, perhaps

By plucking its petals
one both gathers and disperses
the beauty of the flower
contained elsewhere
randomly, perhaps

 

Handshook

 

All it took was a handshake

to unsettle the masculined gaze

All it took was a kind look

– the warmth of a handshake –

for him to avert his teary eyes

All it took was a “Hello, Jack”

– the second-too-long handshake –

to expose the chink in the armour

to make him chin-on-chest humble

All it took was the simple kindness

– a handshake like an embrace –

of one who fought unseen battles

recognising one fighting another

telling them without stoic prattle:

“Feel no shame, and be brave, brother.”

In between dreams

Sometimes it’s hard for me

to fit in this world

sometimes I feel that I

could stop a rushing train

right there in its tracks

seconds before speeding off a cliff

absorbing its full momentum

saving hundreds at a time

that my roar could cause an avalanche 

which in one embrace I would stop

that I would devise an equation

quantising particles

manifolding them

thereby unlimiting food and fuel

that I could fly out in space

grab and chew a whole black hole

and spit out a new universe

in my mind’s eye I can

and have done all these things

of course in the real world I couldn’t

but my daydreams and nightdreams

are full of daily scenarios

because I am weak-bodied

and strong-willed

and because I know

what it takes to love

what it takes to be unloved

to seek refuge in dreams

when everything else

falls apart

for my inner world is larger

than the entire universe

Corps mourant

 
watching the cormorant
alert, scan the river
plucking torn feathers off –
bitter taste in the mouth
of the weary, backstabbed,
morose office worker

Enough

 
Not everything was stolen, of course, but enough was robbed. Enough that I cannot love anymore. It was not just the one robbery, of course, it happened over many years. One kiss, one tryst, one relationship at a time. “I’ll take this,” they said, “who cares if it leaves a hole.” “He won’t mind,” they thought, “he has a lot of love left anyway.” “He’ll pull through,” they reasoned, “heartaches never killed anyone.”

Like this one day on a hike when I saw a procession of mountain rams circling around the dead body of a black fox. At the time obscure explanations seemed the most obvious. Now that I am the fox, I know enough.

Leave me alone so that I don’t have to harness my breath, so that I can freely cycle to and from work, simply, Monday to Friday.

Leave me alone so that I can do my work without interruptions, so that I don’t have to overthink about past and present miseries. I want to be able to enjoy my evening walks, my weekend cooking and nightly reading, alone, unperturbed – undoubtedly sad but assured that the certainty of hurt has gone, or has at least abated enough that I can move about untroubled, assured that I can pour over my books uninterrupted, with the obsession of those yearning for answers who yet doubt everything.

Leave me alone so that I can enjoy my episodic sleep, my epic and magnificent dreams and nightmares. Let me enjoy the carefully-nurtured illusion that I could ever have been and done enough.

And no, you cannot ask me to learn to love again. I am too old and tired for that balancing act. I have seen enough. You’ve robbed me of enough. My heart is like those petrified skeletons in the natural history museum: chipped, glued back together with dirt, with bits missing and instead bits of wood and rocks in the crevices, hanging by invisible threads from the ceiling, weightless, gathering dust, projecting ghostly shadows when the moon shines through the windows.

Yes, leave me alone. Now, and for good. Enough is enough.

Had you by chance any fear, may they rest comforted in the assurance I shan’t need any help, for I have gone beyond that. Leave me alone in the tundra of solitude, when the body tenses and melts when touched, eager and desperate, weary and numb.

The body will rebel, of course, but the mind is resolute.

I’ve had enough.

 

The desperate and the mad

Folk say to look for the light within

and for the light above

beacons in a world of obscurity

but when every light goes out

it’s all dark, isn’t it

all dark

and in a world of fugitives

the person lighting the candle

will appear as either

the saviour or the traitor

the brave or the fool

the desperate and the mad

no light is eternal but darkness

only darkness can remain

 

Middles

 
Someone once wrote
that all beginnings
and all endings of
the things we do
are untidy

Vast understatement
if you ask me
as all the middles
are nothing short of
chaotic

Often one thinks
– so…this is how it ends
– how can life go on
– this storm can’t be weathered
– what is the fecking point

One thinks those things
when one feels gutted out
and all one can taste is ash
life a pile of smoggy ruins
and breathing feels sticky
like molasses, lumpy
when one feels
the heaviness in the lungs
the gurgling within the chest
the very air mud, like
bubbles slowly surfacing
as if wading through silt
murdering your lungs
when one has to run
for one’s life
gasping for more air
as the sludge gargles in

This, this isn’t the beginning
this, is far from being the end
this is the middle we all know
tougher than last week’s bread
gnarlier than a knot in a plank

Middles are hurricanes
to be embraced

This, is chaos.
This, is life.
 

Silly little details

 
You said
it was the way
I looked at you
played with your fingertips
drowned in your eyes

starving your skin
you felt happiness again

your very words
butterflies in droves

stomachquake of love

yes, happiness

I held as long as I could
until you went home
and fucked your partner
for yes, of course
he took precedence
over everything
and of course
I wasn’t legitimate
in any way
and you were a butterfly
intoxicated on fields of flowers
and I happened to have one
ready to bloom

I let you pick
bunches by the armful
you smelt them to exhaustion
examined each
cupped in your hands
then lovingly
you sapped them all
one by one wilted
until the hill, sombre, faded
and you went home
content, sated by
all of those silly little details
which, somehow, mattered
but, eventually, didn’t

who knows how many fields
how many silly little details
laid to waste there

I held as long as I could
until you went to love more
someone more deserving
and let’s face it, better
with all my silly little details
folded up in two
in a fraying petal
soon forgot
inconsequential
in the grand face of
the supernova
of your other love

 

Us all

Death born as us

borne within us

every second of every minute

not even masquerading or posing

undetectable not because 

it is a part of us

but because it is us

not even waiting to be

just being

Existing

as us

innocent until darkened

innocuous until stained

until the will to live eternal

grips it at its core

wrenches the madness

inside its shell

until finally, when the time has come

a time not even it could determine

it unleashes life as its ultimate weapon

killing us with an overabundance of it

cells upon cells upon cells

feeding us the life it takes from us

feasting with a gargantuan appetite 

until monstrous, adipose, ignoble

deformed beyond belief and recognition

now a behemoth, yet celerous and cunning 

with unlimited resources and craft

infests and corrupts, multiform

unique and multiple

insatiable, unoblivious but adamant

because in fine the lifeblood

can flow eternal

life only matters

its fear of death killing it eventually

Unstoppable, suicidal

outpacing our ability to cope 

with its greed, its power

the aporia irreconcilable 

killing us eventually

for just being

a cell, a soul, us all –

It starts, and ends, with us.