Last night

Is this the same world

upon which we stand

Is this the same dusk

which covers our soul

Is this the same ground

which we take off from?

Last night we faked our own deaths

imagined we agonised

after a year-long dance on the shore

taken down by a sniper in Damascus

stopping a suicide bomber in Paris

by enveloping him in darkness

gasping for air on top of Mount Everest

jumping off a honeymoon cruise ship

watching air bubbles caress our face

staring in each other's eyes

hands locked

so no one would swim back up

is this the same world

is this the same soul

is this the same ground

is this the light we have to kiss

the same light which will take us

and tell us tales of wonderment

those for which we crave

and carved upon our walls

is this the same soul

is this the same world

is this the same soul

last night we did nothing special

an old couple missing out on life

unreading the other like

the same old newspaper

last night we did nothing special

an old couple understanding life

gazing at the other like

a shimmering wallpaper

last night we died a thousand times

woke up embracing

smelling of the other

is this the same ground

we take for granted

darting spinning piece of earth

hurtling in spacetime

mad spangling butterfly

in a blooming field of rainbows

is this us, right here, right now

holding hands we love

listening to heartbeats

we know like the back of our hands

last night we kept whirling clouds

into dreams of glory and death

hanging them like crowned wisteria

to embalm our fragrant bodies

is this the same us

is this the same word

is this the same world

no tomorrows to speak of

just the same today

which turns out differently

every time we wake up

for sleep is just a page turned

for sleep is just us swapping bodies

last night one of us died

for the other to mourn

for the other to weep

in a never-seen-before smash-up

from a grade four glioblastoma

saving a drowning child

from the furore of the seas

last night we attended funerals

delivered heart-rending eulogies

chanted our beloved,

bathed their body

cleansed their wounds

nuzzled one last time

in the fold of their soul

last night we sent them on a path

we know we'll have to tread

after a measure of wrath

and sadness

for time is just us swapping bodies

for death is just not an end

this is the same light

this is the same soul

this is the same night

last night we set out to find the other

for life is just breathing the same air

for light is just us clasping hands

the night the velvety canvas for our fingers

the soul the same song we never learnt

the same slow waltz on the same ground

which saw us take off a life ago

and land last night, tiptoeing in

this is the same us

this is us

at last.

 

Every. Precious. Heartbeat.

The brouhaha in a haze

held at bay by thick layers of glass

serpentine flow of passers-by

cars rushing like a dam overspill – 

such calm, alone in the coffee shop

the barista out of sight with a mop

– on my own in the heart of London,

that's one in ten million chances –

yet soon someone will

open the door and let it all in

avalanching the tundra in my heart.

 

Blazes

We saw from the hilltop

Rome and London ablaze

Ashurbanipal’s library 

Writhing in flames

Ur and Damascus

Torched to the ground

And today this Buddhist monk

Who set himself on fire

Was like standing there 

to watch the world burn

 

In the grey

I walked in the grey

Right after waking up.

In the unlate hours  

Passers-by were

Stolid effigies of fog.

It was too early to feel.

Stories were being woven.

Paths were being carved.

Whether my eyelids were close

Did not matter much. 

I walked in the grey of that day

Knowing full well the only light to be had

Was that which she would shine on me.

Necessity is the mother of intention

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

William Pitt, British Prime Minister (1759-1806), in a speech in the House of Commons on 18 November, 1783.
 

The hollow man

I realised I have nothing to share

no treasured memory of my mother

no great song to sing to praise my brother

no feeling normal folk feel they can spare

I have been on more battlefields

than I can care to count

the type of wars where no spoils

but your own skin may be claimed

I've seen rougher skirmishes than tonight

yet here I am, scared to live, to breathe,

scared of my own fright

and nothing whatsoever to bequeath

no darkness, no blinding rage

only the unchurning emptiness

at the pit of the stomach

only the silences – which have grown

deeper with age –

where my heart should beat

where my soul should lurk

so instead I read an author's memory

of her mother and I call it my own

I listen to a song about another's brother

which I pretend I'm the first to sing

I fake feelings I think others feel

so that folk makebelieve

I have a heart

 

Weighing in on the scales of Good and Evil

"I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something."

Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (1859-1930), in The Stark Munro Letters (1894).
 

Fragment #189

It was all too soon that we forgot what it was which made us what we were. Beasts of burden, that we became. They made us love the work. So we changed our mind. And we became intoxicated. We wouldn't question, after a while. We were thought important. We were overwhelmed. We thought we were central, that we were in control, that we had it all. We loved one another and when the stabbings began none batted an eye. It was the way life was, wasn't it, and had always been, hadn't it. We were we, and no one who mattered would be left behind. Words were what they had always been, yet were different now that we had only we to use. We didn't remember what we used before we, but we were so happy that we forgot. We was all which had weight. We were few, but the happy few. We were brothers, we had one another's back. We were formidable. We were infinite. We were and there would be no end to us, ever.

 

Fragment #177

"We thought it was over. We should have known better. We were tossed right inside the eye. The horizon had sunk behind billowing walls of grumbling wrath. The ship headwayed towards the edge, unseen in the growing darkness. Our sails, destroyed. The anchor line, snapped. Drifting inside the spiralling tower, electric arcs clawmarking the masts. Praying proved futile, Nature was stronger than any god."

 

Once heart

I know all too damn well
that I have a heart —
it’s pumping searing sadness
in my veins as I feel
the cold, unused space
on the other side of my bed