Trust your vaulted hallucinations
Trust your most ridiculous
impossibilities
Trust the wild visions that arise
from moments of boredom

Do not trust the larcenous glares
that surround you
Do not believe the gravity
in the black holes of pupils

Trust the improbabilities
and they will become realities

Once upon a time, sweet soldier, we were everything!

We were shy glances and piercing stares,
bitter coffee and sweet cider,
nervous laughter and easy smiles.

We were all-nighters and painfully early mornings,
utter exhaustion and unexplainable energy,
distracted work days and focused only on each other.

We were photographs and video recordings,
magic tricks and storytelling,
Monty Python and Charlie the Unicorn imitators.
(We were total dorks!)

We were late night jogs and wrestling,
motorcycle rides and beach-walking,
seekers of adventure and last minute decision making.

We were short pecks on the cheek,
and long passionate kisses,
fierce embraces and soft caresses.

We were soul-searchers and wound-healers,
dreamers and risk-takers,
keepers of secrets and whisperers of truth.

We were sanity and craziness,
possibilities and improbabilities,
with everything and yet nothing going for us.

We were in love.

She
deserves
far better than
the likes of
me.

As I sit in front of the feared book
mocking me with it's elaborative examples
of reminders
reminding me of all that I can't do...

the x's and the y's programs my brain
forcing an instant recall of memories
about all my ex's and my why's

and as I fail exercise after exercise
I start doubting my rationality...
What is the probability that
I , am nothing more than a common denominator??

the truth is, that while trying to figure out the identities
of sin, cos and tan...
I realise that my own is not yet figured out...
I am still lost somewhere in the Cartesian plane...

I have no hope for passing my exam tomorrow...
my sleepless nights are haunted by the statistics
, and the improbabilities that make up life
as we know it...

but that's okay
because I am not analytical...
I am not mathematical...
I am just lost between the letters and the numbers
of a world I will never understand...

Your hand fits in mine like it's made just for me,
But bear this in mind, it is meant to be
Since you've dreamed a vision of us together
And I'll love us, you and I, always and forever.
Cause when I'm with you, my world is so different from any hell I'm living
And when you're around me, your eyes light up like the stars have been spilled out along with all the suns of heaven into your eyes
You're the one who seems to love this wildflower so she feels as lovely as the sweetest camelias, and strong enough to push the planets out of orbit
As for you, I only know what you've said to me;
     That my kisses are oxygen when you can't breath, and that
     You feel such an intense desire to protect me from any potential harm
     That you plan to marry and live with me for years to come.
But I know with less certainty than you that we'll be together forever to come
All I know is you love me and you make me feel so loved
More loved than the moon is loved by the sun, chased endlessly and almost futilely for a mere glimpse of her silver face
And I know this is a scientifically proven-to-be-incorrect metaphor, but I still love you
And will love you, until the sun falls into the sea of milk, the knees of those arthritic elephants shake and kneel with feebleness, and the great sea turtle turns belly-up, drowning the world in the Milky Way
And even past then
Past the time where men and spirits fade into ghostly memories, forgotten because there's no one to remember them
Past the time that the sun is finally swallowed and held in the sea, past King Arthur's return, and when the giant serpent finally kills Ra
Past the time when the gods grow tired of their human games, and fall asleep at their chessboards, one hand dipped in the Adriatic and a finger spinning the galaxies ever slower as dust and cobwebs of invisible spiders come to blanket the universe
And even past then, past all these mythological improbabilities, past Death's abandonment of his duties and his scythe while sand no longer runs in glasses and he reaps himself
Past then will I love you and think of the spilled out flaming stars in your eyes and the velvety sparks in your fingertips and lips.

Every dawn is pregnant with aspirations and anticipation

It’s only at dusk that we are in limbo,

Fraught with a polarity of purpose and possibility;

and a duality to self and the soul.

Every dusk comes with its share of positivity blended with negativity,

Practicality speckled with spirituality,

Optimism dusted with cynicism;

Possibilities punctuated with improbabilities;

And a reality rendered palatable through rose tinted fantasy.

Every dusk is witness to a purging of the unwanted and unnecessary;

And plays host to a catharsis that cleanses and calms the soul.

A bittersweet end to what could have been, would have been, should have been.

Every dusk is a pregnant pause of what can be and what will be.


*Inspired by a series of images captured at dusk through my lens, in different parts of the world.

I can see the numbers rolling back behind your eyes.
Never know what the slots will bring.
When I told you I liked surprises
I didn't mean I'd like to find you spilling your mathematics
all over the bedroom sheets
counting how many times you could divide yourself
from yourself
and the languages spoken by mumbling mathematicians
always failing to find the difference
between their science and the love you needed.

I was 7 digits from talking you down.
You felt you were born 6 feet too high.
There are 5 times I can remember you laughing
the last of those was on the 4th of July.
     How can anyone believe they are free
     when we are bought at this calendar price?
You were laughing at the irony of the time it took you to say it.
Silly woman,
time is not made of numbers,
but of songs.

I replay that memory at least 3 times a night.
Your 2 shoes are the only music I'd still like to hear playing
I am currently discovering that 1 is not a lonely number.
I have spent cozy evenings
cuddled up with the burden you left behind.
It is colder than I remember you
and always seems to squeeze my neck
just a little too tight.
You wanted to become 0,
ignoring my side of this equation,
but before you left you swallowed my equilibrium whole.
I fell down bell curve cliffs
until my words themselves became improbabilities.
My love was more than average,
I mean...
I miss you.
I mean...
You're so **** stupid.
I mean...
I loved you.
I mean...
I love you.

If you and I are numbers
we are easily replaceable,
replicable as science has always wanted us to be.
I am telling you now
that no one else fits.
I should have told you that a few days ago
when I had more of you to stand by
than fragments of memories
each one passing, blaspheming your sum.

Times between night and mornin,
Just when the chill about sets in,
Limbs frantically search for that crumpled quilt
Increasing warmth and ahh sweet grogginess.

A dream floats in my blank sleep
You and me tootling along a forgotten, familiar street
In a battered old Hyundai Santro?? it is.
Twenty years of acquired cobwebs melt
Evoke fond memories and unexplored possibilities
Overlaid with a wild imagination, the images move in slow motion

Me driving, your gaze surveying the landscape
You are older and plumper, I have a beer belly and a bald patch
There is not much to say, or too much to say but no time.
Four Eyes frequently lock and search for something
Knowing it but daring not to say.

Your sultry liquid voice breaks into a song, an old Urdu ghazal,
Of obscure origin and meaning,
The notes glide and acquire shapes in your husky abused throat,
Silvery quicksilver, flowing, and always round  at the edges
Unfettered and undisturbed by the bumpy ride and noisy springs
Brings whole of creation in the Battered old Hyundai Santro Still.

The vocal vibrates and resonates in my bones and skull and in my soul
Stimulates humours I didn’t know exist
Eyes lock again, a mild smile is exchanged,
We understand each other
Know the limits and improbabilities
Its not going to be in this life time dear.

Let’s seal it with a kiss
An embrace exchanged over the gear levers and handbrakes
Oblivious to the barreling old Hyundai Santro
Your tiny ******* and Pantene scented hair
Your lips still perfect, soft, warm, moist and downy at the corners,.
Unfamiliar yet so familiar.

Sitting here
Listening to the poetry
Of your inhale
Dreaming up possibilities
And improbabilities
Looking beyond horizons
And the skies of reasons
Your eyes like the fires
That burn in the hearts
Of all the children
The poets, the players, the actors
And every day dreamer
Wondering at the wandering
We all seem to engage in
What are we looking for
And where do we find it?
How do we define it?
What’s in a reality?
Who decides it?
Is it you, is it me
Is it that shadow clad they
Who loom over every second
Policing our every blink
Our every ******* thought.
Never a moment without them
Can’t we just find peace
And the beauty of time
Ideas and ideals racing,
Flashing like demented disco lights
On and off, on and off
Chaos and the whirlwind of feelings
And then
You exhale.

I am not good.
I am not good
at this thing
- we call it Life.

I wish I could
stop dreaming
this big.
But I shall not.

I wish I could
explore the souls
of all who exist(ed).
But I can not.

I wish I could
make you out
of clay and feathers.
But I will not.

For I am a dreamer of impossibilities.
and I am merely one natural girl.
For you are one of my improbabilities,
and there you are
- my untainted pearl;
my gift from an invaded world.

So, I may not be good,
but I feel that is better.

Moments of impact.
There was a second there before the kiss.
The ungodly hour spent
     And the night of secret fireflies.

The grains in an hourglass,
     How innumerable still.
There was a time I yearn for emptiness.
This loneliness, heaped up on my chest,
And in the afternoons,
     The melancholic burn.

A glimpse of your body.
The affinities of flowers
     With the bud.
An eternity of this and that, of improbabilities,
     Or of unrequited love.

A night without a star.
     A day without the sun.

But the sun's without a day,
     Without you.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

It's the tooth fairy. Yep, he'd do it.
He always answers people's wishes.
And after everyone's given up on their governments
more eager to spy on their people than
tackle crime, surely got to be Tooth Fairy.
But well, Tooth Fairies dont really exist, do they?
Well then, it's Santa. It's a Christmas present.
Santa's known to do it. Bring gifts
unknown to us every winter.
But then why would Santa be a non-state actor?
There's no evidence he's done that before.
Well, it's No-man from the Odyssey. Anonymous
No-men, are known to poke the eyes of Cyclops.
But then, no tales of no-men have emerged
since a thousand years, and who is anonymous anyway?
Enter the physicists: it's a combination of all these.
All improbabilities that are probable,
have probably occurred and there's every probability,
they coexist, improbably. Well then that's it.
There's no way of knowing who did it, but all we can say,
Schadenfreude, dear Leader, it all goes in circles anyways.

2 major anomalies that i didn't even
scratch upon, whatever university
education taught me with regards to
chemistry: i still don't know the
chemical formulae / formulas of
sea water... and timber -
                          carbon is obviously
included in the latter -
               but how the hell does Na-Cl
(sodium chloride) bind to water?
  the secret is in the quantity of it apparent,
but it's a ****** mystery to me -
as is the adequate formula for wood -
no one taught me that... mainly because
no one at university took an interest
in these two concern of mine... well,
now they're also your concerns;
which suggests that arguing the existence
of god, precipitates simpler argument
for something else,
while arguing against... precipitates shallow
comparisons, akin to statistical improbabilities -
added to the fact that paternal or maternal
theologies end in disaster - or crucifixions
and atom bombs - argued: i'll hang on
the cross until my words come true:
and people will cling to my words and
follow up my predictions with an atom bomb:
much easier to make satire with someone
sitting on a throne, or the throne of
thrones: a toilet.

I like the improbabilities that go with love,
Just as when I held your hand
But never really held it,
As the physicists would oppose to the idea,
Saying that it is because
Of the electrons and stuff, and quantum stuff
Which I find so hard to believe.

(But you, dear, frankly,
You need not make me believe,
Only wonder.)

See, I look
At you, closely,
And closer still as if
Two comets, themselves, defied
The distance of lightyears,
For me,
Just to look back.

You are a star, love, I think,
And I have likened my self to the Universe,
Not because you are near,
But because you are far,
Yet far enough...

So I could love.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

They say that scale can break the laws of science
A crime so high in magnitude
Yet they cannot police
This bully that reality turns out to be

We met by means of tunneling improbabilities
The kiss of a miracle
Punishing the God complex
Of the self-righteous
Because the real laws, unknowable,
Dwell in realms higher than dogmatic notion
Whose knowledge is the surface of an ocean

Hence judgement cannot be
Wrought by the swimmers
And their fear of mortality
That guides them through the waves
And so their laws are the transgression

And We
Are the justice of the storm

Every morning,
even being very old,
(or perhaps because of it),
I like to make my bed.
In fact, the starting of each day
unhelplessly,
is the biggest thing I ever do.
I smooth away the dreams disclosed by tangled sheets,
I smack the dented pillow’s revelations to oblivion,
I finish with the pattern of the spread exactly centered.
The night is won.
And now the day can open.

All this I like to do,
mastering the making of my bed
with hands that trust beginnings.
All this I need to do,
directed by the silent message
of the luxury of my breathing.

And every night,
I like to fold the covers back,
and get in bed,
and live the dark, wise poetry of the night’s dreaming,
dreading the extent of its improbabilities,
but surrendering to the truth it knows and I do not;
even though its technicolor cruelties,
or the music of its myths,
feels like someone else’s experience,
not mine.

I know that I could no more cease
to want to make my bed each morning,
and fold the covers back at night,
than I could cease
to want to put one foot before the other.

Being very old and so because of it,
all this I am compelled to do,
day after day,
night after night,
directed by the silent message
of the constancy of my breathing,
that bears the news I am alive.


A peom by Peggy Freydberg

Here and now is a pretty strange place
let's start from underneath-
we stand on two feet
what peculiar creatures we are forcing our weary, poorly engineered frames to stand up and walk every day

we make sounds at each other and all agree to pretend they make sense
i tie back the hair that dangles like remains around my face

we never want to change our ways but we force our eyes to the sky and conjure thoughts beyond ourselves
we pulse with electricity, chemistry dancing with consciousness

we've built structures that tower above our heads, we've built past, present, future we've built money, we've built music, we've built war

you shouldn't be able to reach me and yet here you are, present as light between my fingertips
why would any of you care for someone you've never met? for that matter why care for someone you know and love?

it's no wonder our brains stage mutiny so often with all of these thoughts

we're improbabilities
searching for purpose that isn't really there
we're so unlikely you can't help but shake your head at how we've made it so far

together, on our own, humans
we've made it this far

together, on our own
Humans

Life is possibilities
let me not pursue the improbabilities

the heavens had fallen
woe coiled about the earth
while his muse plucked the singing arrows
sticking out of his chest like harp strings
a mythical epic tearing into the clouds
a force for liberation in touch with its inertias
jiggling the ultimatums like **** on a treadmill
her radiant ***** lit the sunset like a comet
which doesn't come up in my spell checker either
anyhow charmed into her black widow arms
in front of a massive god-hewn stone altar
the peasants were praying to their media gods
the sky was torn off its thundering hinges
and cast under the hooves of their black unicorns
hurling us listlessly into the era of detail
which merely requires confrontation every time
the nemesis ******* print their news
with rhinoceros horn hammers on your head
Beauty's ******* sister Justice screams
laughing at the improbabilities
of a longish gauntlet running puzzle
right when you think you have it
they got you by the lips the nemesis *******
a shelf full of pain killers for your every move
I guess it's because rain is simpler than love
guess again was her habitual greeting
so we pounded until the bed broke
from the seething energies of speculation
spitting boiler sparks nostrils filled with soot
I saw through it all every granule
life is discovery in every banal instant
which makes it not so banal
seen from under a rustling riverbank willow
the wheat stalks were golden with fruit
still mortal after all these tears
an occasional sitcom laugh track ******
arise ye wretched derelicts
from trailer park to metropolis
I promise you a Jacuzzi spa
filled with the juice of nectarines
from the semi-divine Army of Grace
on every unlit street corner
a beer soaked rebuttal follows
while we feast upon the carrion of
plagiarists and Kafka magistrates
dead as a toad under the traction wheel
the world needs a gigantic Spring Break
an earnest burlesque before God's breezy perch
my head is now a gravitational anomaly

From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon