We grew up in the muddy puddle
That was our coffee
In a begrimed little café.
We ate in little bites of each other,
Rolled our tongues in our mouths,
Tasted each flavor and each seasoning.
I gulped you down and digested each little mishap of you.
I undid all the sordid belongings residing in your mouth,
You were the embodiment of shame and failure,
And I made it all such a part of my gut,
That I haven’t shaken it off
Thirty years hence.

How did I make it to here?
This is such a foreign rest.
The only familiarity was that,
Which settled around the corners of your eyes,
In the crevices beneath your breasts,
And the clarity of your skin.
There were snacks,
And books.
You had your brown sweater on.
Your moist brow was so restless that day,
That I was reminded of all of my desperation,
All the stories I hurled at myself,
All the children I knew were all right.
Oh Nara,
Your brow vanished all that I held true,
Even you, Nara,
Your brow swallowed you whole.
Oh Nara,
You killed a part of me that day.

You exploded into chemicals,
That stuck onto my skin.
Into hot tea that surprised me every day.
It crept into the jasmine oil smell of her hair.
In the sweat of her neck,
Into our lazy evenings filtered through with years
Of careful exclusion.
Everything I owned was only me
When I was naked, and writhing,
A baby in the womb of something so desperately motherly,
That it forgot to give birth.
She noticed, Nara, she noticed me.
She noticed these hands shaking through everything they did.
And she hid.
She hid into her red, pleated saris,
Into cookbooks and cakes,
Into soft butter, and hardened cookies.
Everything has been seeking to destroy itself since, Nara,
Cigarettes would paper itself into existence.
Now it burns smoke and blindness.
The trees move in fast forward,
They are arthritic fingers
Grasping for something,
Long since out of their reach.
Acid has been running in the veins of this house since years,
The wood is out of place.
The rot in the bamboo tables is only concealed
By the tinted glass.

And sometimes, I sit at the cadaver porch,
You are a mindless zombie of a woman,
Who decides to stay with me,
And leave me alone.
Destruction had become your favourite hobby when you were that real.
When did poetry become so important to you that
You quite forgot me?

I can't imagine a life without you

No one to comfort me
When I am weak,
No one to share the joy
When I do something dumb,
No one to tell me "Get well soon"
The same way you'd tell me,
No one to share secrets with
When they're dying to be let out,
No one to call me late at night
When everyone is sleeping but I'm afraid,
No one to crack lame jokes,
No one to say "I'm speshul" all the time and just
Laugh
Endlessly
Even though we might have just
Cried

I can't imagine a life without you

I've never laughed so much in my life
I've never felt so
Reassured
That someone
Understands
And
Looks out for me,
Worries for me if I
Die;
I've never felt so
Appreciated
Receiving all the
Beautiful cards and
Fanciful handicrafts
All made lovingly by
Your perfect hands;
I've never felt so
Comforted
To know that
You won't
Ever
Break your promise

I can't imagine a life without you

All the time we spent together
Fated or
Not so fated,
I was overjoyed to think
I knew someone in SAP!
All the time we talked to each other,
Told each other
Funny stories or
Sad stories or
Real-life stories that made us sad
And then the other party would
Somehow,
Always,
Magically relate
And try to help;
Might take a while
But it always
Makes me smile.
All the time we'd laugh that slow laugh
And no one would understand us
And we'd just
Laugh even more:
Heh...heh...Hahahahaha...

I can't imagine a life without you

The first day of school
Not meeting you
And there'd be no one to
Talk about having "the mood"
And there'd be no one to
Laugh about having a lao gong;
And there'd be no one to
Talk me out of dying or
Telling me
Time after time to
Appreciate my life or
Just be random with and
Cheer up :)

I can't imagine a life without you

Not you
And you
And you
And you

Just one gone
It means so much
Each one gave my life
Her special touch

So don't you ever
Try to leave
My heart would stop
And I won't breathe
I'd die right there
I'd die right then
It's not the same without you
Not ever again

Poetry soothes me, at other times it moves me
They tell stories like books, plays and movies
It’s personal and public, some hate it, others love it
Some use it to manipulate like puppets on strings
Some sing, some talk, they can run or they can walk
Ink, lead, electric or chalk
From London to New York
It’s a sport and a hobby, or a life’s work
It can make you speculate on what life’s really worth
Painting pictures with scriptures of literature
Read it Monday but it takes till Sunday to hit ya
And make you wonder how could a poet write
So succinctly how I’ve felt my whole damn life
My troubles and strife, my happiness and joy
Look back just like I do when I was a boy
Put into words so well how my first kiss felt
Summer time 99, I remember how the air smelt
Fresh cut grass and baking tarmac
As I turned to walk away the girl I kissed pulled my arm back
She looked at me and said that roses are red
Violets are blue but she like tulips instead
Ever since then poetry’s been stuck in my head
Those words that she said
That’s why I touch paper with lead

The morning breaks through the clouds
and the sun hits the green in the hills
so right,
like a scene from a foreign movie.
The main character embarking into unknown,
captivating rocks cradling them
as they ride the train to new lands.

Steam from the heat of day
rising and mixing with the wind and the breath.
So full but so silent,
only nature's stories.

But it's not far away
or a place I've never known.
It's home.
And I can't believe it's mine.

Head full,
Pencil still

Images flying,
Pen dazed

Whispers screaming,
Voice mute

Face strong,
Eyes tearing

Stories telling,
Books shut.

Even now, as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write songs in my head for you. And though my voice will never sing them, they are the soundtrack of your kiss. Each record scratch on my heart like a pressed vinyl love letter. Shaping my sinking chest into drum skins that my pulse beats against.

If I were covered in magic dust, you would be my happy thought. And all my childish notions of what it means to be romantic would be written down the sides of Chianti bottles in melted wax, like an oak. And in that bottle we would keep our hungry mouths.

And still I find my heart adrift. Ripped sails and ropes leading skyward like veins. Split and tattered and stitched haphazardly together, waiting for the lightning to strike twice and bring it to life. My throat a bricked flue, leading to an open mouth, spitting smoke from the torches my heart fears but always seems to carry.

And I stretch my spine skyward. Trying to wedge my head back into the clouds but manage only to cast the shadow of an orchid that has begun to lose its color and wilt at the edges of its wingspan. Coming to terms with the idea that it may never be picked. Not even its petals, even numbered like a deck stacked against it that it might lose in a game of being loved and loved not.

We want for a little more time. Arm wrestling clock hands into submission with god like fury. Ticking tongues to dampen the prophecy of false mediums. We practice fighting so we may fight for each other. Fight for the greener grass on the other side of the pavement walls we draw our chalk hearts on.

The clock tower is a lighthouse. The lighthouse is a windmill. The windmill is a giant. The stories never end.

Even now as we lie here, heartbeats like a metronome for the coming storm, I write bed time stories in my head for you.

Now or never
whether we want to or not
they've got us by the balls
and though we built walls
to defend against these invaders of free will
we will need to be stronger
build our walls bigger and better than ever before
and let them kick out the windows and doors
we'll just brick them up and no one gets in
and no one gets out
and no one but no one knows what this is all about.
but the walls stay because they want us to rot
they've got us by the balls and all we can do is build more and more walls
and who wins in the end?
when we're all sent to Coventry with bags of cement so we can lend some authority to the people up there
and they don't give a damn
they jam us into categories with the same krappy old stories
that it's good for our health while they're spending the wealth that they stole from the miners and while they're dining on beef
we're starving
good grief
and they've got us by the balls
in glass coloured test tubes lubricated,dedicated to the rise of the monarchs
and it can't be for real
we'd never allow that
but laying flat on our back and winking eyes at the sun
is where this begun.
In the minds of the merchants and in the pockets of wise men
in the back alleys of bigots and bigshots
and what have we got?
you know it,
A box full of sawdust and a whole heap of shit
so the walls get a little longer
a little stronger
but they'll break us one day
and take us away to a recycle plant
and they'll plant us as seeds to service their needs
and their needs will get greater the later they leave it
there's a whole load of shit
a coming our way.