Hames

Flipping through a newspaper  is like a world

in a still shot of words. A night sky of falling stars

against the backdrop of inkblots and faded graphite.

Filling out the whiteness of pages parched with yesterday

scenes captured and distilled in silence.  Here, where

its blackness became a cure to this ennui.  A distraction.

A flotsam of unhappy events, of somebody’s tale.

The never-ending saga of tragedies and its epic struggle

to survive. Looking for signs, of parallelisms

which might ephemerally keep that connection.

While tomorrow is another news rolling off the press

harping that life will still stay relevant. Each day.

Either way, we will neglect

this guesswork.

Swimming in the stream

of people encapsulated

in their self-made walls.

Jammed in traffic

of clues and hints,

lip synching the same

old line of self-defense.

A justification

followed by explanations.

Why do we choose to stay

the same?

For you, love is

a crossword puzzle

deciphering codes

stitching words.

If words would say rightly

the true meaning from the heart.

Then, we don’t need

a second chance

to feel as if the world around us

stood still. It will only leave

a language that we

both understood eversince,

that day we met

for the first time.

There will be a single spark of light.

But not from the stars. Because even them,

they have shied away and have forgotten.

Here, only from my birthday candle

casting shadows waltzing the wall

and the chilly wind whistling a tune,

sending wisps of wishes, for tonight.

While the rest of the world snoozes

in its deafening silence. Getting used

with the normalcy of tragedies.

And in their lukewarm sympathies.

In the quiet corner of the city, littered

and battered of the rain-drenched

images of chaos and shattered hopes,

on the table a bowl of rice

and a can of sardine. In a color

charcoaled space,  I breath as a man

determined to celebrate my existence

among the ruins with this twist of fate.

I shifted my gaze from the table

to the broken windows and watch

the passing of the storm clouds

in the evening sky. I am happy

but no sound of laughter. Hearing

the incessant drop of water

from a leaking roof.  Contented

among the shadows. Decided

to bury the hatchet of what is past.

Gathering what’s left after the storm.

As I dream of patching the tattered

and pock-marked walls, then hide

the traces of mud  in fresh white paint.

Believing nature has a way to let people

start anew. De-cluttering my life of things

that entangle men of never-ending want.

Until now,  when I had less.

There was a time in our lives

when we thought of the raincloud

as omen, spoiling the day

for us to play in the open.

The rain fills the street canals like rivers.

And if it has stopped, then hurriedly,

we rip pages from our notepads

to make us- paper boats.

We were so young then.

We are fond of races. We will race to see.

Whose boat comes first crossing the finish line?

If our paper boats were like voyages

of our little dreams. Would it be?

I didn’t cross the finish line first.

As mine have wilted wet, moving slow.

I have to be content coming in

as number two, a  second placer.

You always come away as the victor

in almost every races we used to play.

We are not so young anymore.

The tough gets going and it’s me

who have stayed behind, year after year

bobbing at sea. Sailing the ocean because

I didn’t win. Crossing first the finish line.

I have tried everything I was taught

to do. Trying to fit in the world

by becoming someone who,

I am not. An everyman.

What’s going on? How tragic

is this shallow happiness

becoming emptiness, seeking

where is the enlightenment?

Punch me hard to bleed.

Hit me more. Be harsh to me

like a nihilist. Obliterate

my every apprehensions.

Pull me away from this reality,

sheltered in my comfort zone.

Stripped me off with this fear of pain.

I need another revolution.

Break down this prison walls

closing me in. Out of this

sanity’s edge,  I will escape

my disillusions and never return.

Wake me up from my deep slumber.

that I have to die, to gain.  

I will not pursue my defense now.

I will surrender to your every blow.

I will lie here half-dead in bloodbath,

the glory of my sweet liberation.

Beyond the years and graying hairs

I am keeping in a book of dreams.

Like dried leaves and dried petals

flooding my way  to the mailbox,

togetherness is just one simple note

of words handwritten in a page.

And in my dreams I am trading places

of happy photographs and postcards.

Those promises that fill my head

I am dreaming still. Wondering

what’s like to be on the other side

traversing like pigeons. Drifting on

edifices, and parks, and monuments,

wide-eyed in surprise, collecting moments.

This morning, I waited for the postman

dropping another note to my mailbox.

And I’ll begin to step back in time

miles and miles away from yesterday.

Wishing and hoping memories can be

such like these,  just keeping souvenirs. 

You lied to me about baptism. The intoxication

and its sinful concoction sweating from some bottles

whose name sounds like a saint I worshipped

night after night. 

I gulped down gallons like the torrential rains outside.

Submerged in the bubble of nameless strangers

in the watering hole. Kindred souls searching

for some kind of salvation.

The cloud of smoke, its humid and hazy steam blurred

my visions into hallucinations. Of angels and demons

dancing in revelry. The dirt and grime camouflaging

the filth of the mundane.

The surging numbness of a hundred knives dripping down

my throat. Felt like hell on earth, whose flame creeping

a river of fire. Dissecting, invading, lacerating my innards

into a violent storm.

A deluge I have cried and my salty tears breaching

these floodgates of the dam. I swam away from this murky tide,

its rampaging waters, swelling a flood into my bloodstream.

Drowned in a landslide.

This is not the heaven you promised. You lied.

Like a man in his fishing, so is writing.

You throw the fishing rod as if throwing on chances

while anchoring your boat on a chosen spot. In the open water.

And your fishing line sink deep in the ocean of words. You wait

in the hope that the hook lay captive to some imaginary mouths

snapped on a bait, struggling to come away like thoughts.

They are like fishes- these thoughts. They are swimming against the current.

Trapped and tackled. You hold the reel, winding down farther and farther

in search for the bounty of inspiration.  Luring its elusiveness to a catch.

The waves of emotion might crashed into your shore.

The sinkers might get stucked through the rocks. Buried in sand.

Or in a desperate attempt, you cut the line and start anew.

But again, you throw the fishing rod. To wait and to hope

that a big catch is on its way to lock its jaw on the bait.

You keep gripping the reel firm awaiting for the prize.

And soon in the mid-air, after all hours spent in silence

like a child born out of the  womb. Eureka! The feeling

of winning, the silver fish glimmer in your hands.

The writer has become a fisherman, persevering

in solitude, diving deeper into a mea culpa.

Hoisting the fishing line catching hearts, once again.

Enter, then log in

typed pseudonym.

Overrate, appear

to be someone else’s

smart and sassy.

Pimp a profile,

flaunt narcissism

boosting ego.

Tweet the world

on a last night’s gig.

Be something odd.

Somebody cool.

Tell big things,

hip and bubbly.

Charm your way

becoming the only

everybody’s man.

Post Photoshop pictures.

Brag your virility,

your insanities.

Your profanities.

Intrude a firewall

spamming privacy.

Be like a Trojan

killing time

embedding

potential threat.

A virtual stranger.

Lurking leecher

of vain identity.

Bored to death

as a tombstone.

Limbo in a cyberworld.

No string quartet.

No conductor to signal the baton.

No orchestra to anticipate my usual swoon

of randomly plucked staccato

alternating octaves

like a mad man in Vienna.

Alone in the stage,

I would linger

unvigorous in vibrato,

punctuating this sadness

in glissando. A solo part- how I wish

to serenade the muse. Longing

to tell her story in music-

under the sweet  delicate pitch

sorrow of Cremona.

The episodes, I have written on

mellow notes, resonant harmony-

bowing cello. Passionately

romancing my fingers to the smoothness

of her nape, the ebony board. While

sitting on a chair, I am a young lover

in blue, embracing memories.

My gentle touch travels

her body,  her maple waist

to her bridge, her sensual curves.

Choreographed my movements

spiked to her gravity. My slow breath

became whispers reverberating,

counter-pointing her lucid melody.          

I chose to be soft rather than loud,

my cello swooning treble of a tenor-

overwhelmed by a mezzo-soprano.

Quenching beneath this segmented,

disjointed and abruptly shifted

monotony of a lifetime

asking for her forgiveness.