When I think
About you
I make sure to close the door
To dodge artfully
Your eyes that
Could seek out
The smallest *****
In my armour
Your touch had
A cruelty that could
Draw blood with
A caress
... or was that a slap?
Your words cut me
Off from myself
And everything
That I held dear
Till I fluttered around
You like a kite
Without a string in the
Forlorn sky
Was it love
Or its likeness
That cloaked itself
In hatred
There's a hole
Where my heart
Used to be
A crater that fills
Up with sunshine
When I open the
Door and stop
Thinking of you.
Apr 3, 2017
Apr 3, 2017 at 2:01 PM UTC
You can meet
Life and Death in the
Waiting room of any hospital
Where the Maker sends
His products
With parts
Worn, torn or never born
Internal passageways blocked
With the ash of
A million cigarettes
Larded with the residue
Of one meal too many
Half-despatched from
The world by
Speeding vehicles
Or minds scrambled
By relentless grief
Hope flickers as the
Soldiers line up
Their arsenal
Of tools, medicines
And little white lies
What will be
The toll on the
Battlefield today?
Only the waiting room knows
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 2:25 PM UTC
Yarn over needle
In the fond hope
That something
Will come out of this union
Stitches that create
Filled squares and empty
Walls that end a cell
Start off another
Like the Maker’s design
The pattern emerges
Unhurried,
Unworried by its beauty
Mar 12, 2017
Mar 12, 2017 at 1:57 AM UTC
Chip shop
Next to a heart hospital
A labourer sleeping under his truck
Unmindful of the hay overload above
Kids guzzling bottled water
As they protest to save rivers
Leaders flying hundreds of miles
To reinforce the status quo
Orphans roaming the streets
Where couples queue up outside fertility clinics
The clothes that get skimpier
As the actress grows older
The lies that get bolder
As the mountain gets higher
Life is full of oxymorons
In the post-truth city of my mind
Mar 5, 2017
Mar 5, 2017 at 9:48 AM UTC
There you go again,
Claiming to represent me
Because my fingers are
Marked with indelible ink
Vowing allegiance to you
And your unscrupulous colleagues
For the next five years
Which may just be an incubation
Period for the opposition
Party that will claim its
Right to rule next.
Dressed in pristine white
Hearts filled with
The blackest of thought
What gives you criminals
The right to roam free
After every year of looting us?
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 8:18 AM UTC
There’s something to
Be said for the way
The lips affirm or deny
What the heart desires
Why is it so hard
To pay the pharmacy bill
When money changes hands readily
At the cinema hall?
Why does a shiny suit of clothes
Feel so right and reasonable,
When a walking stick
Seems to be an extravagance?
It never seems right to
Pay a worker on time,
Because you can feel the
Reassuring bundle in your hand another day
Is it the result
Of knowing the price
Of everything
And the value of nothing?
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 8:16 AM UTC
She had a fine turn of phrase
Said her readers,
Who'd go no further
Than the spine of the book
To come to that conclusion
She listened to the voices
That jostled for a
Patient hearing
In her head.
Till they were ready
To step out on the
Pages and say their
Goodbyes to their
Birth mother.
No wonder then, that she
Felt the pang of
Irrevocable separation
Each time
Her fingers caressed
The keyboard.
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 12:19 PM UTC
There's a bird in a tree
Near my window that sings
Past midnight
The sweetest melodies.
It knows not,
Or perhaps doesn't want to
That the sky
It trills at so earnestly
Is brightened not by the sun
But by lights
That hide peril
In their electric embrace.
I'm a bit like that gullible bird,
Allowing my heart to
Soar at the false dawn
Of electronic relationships.
Feb 5, 2017
Feb 5, 2017 at 7:39 AM UTC
Everyday, we meet
In the same smog of a city’s ignorance.
My right hand stays
Raised - in farewell or salute?
I feel not a little ridiculous
A man of flesh and blood
Poured into a concrete
Shell and painted gold
Stuck in the middle of
A thoroughfare and
Given my own road,
Roundabout and
Peeing spots for dogs and men.
I turned a 100 recently
In potential earthly years
And so, I got a spa treatment
Of poems and posies
From my undead enemies
Everyone had a fable
To share about my
Supposedly wonderful life.
While, I, the scriptwriter
Of many a horror tale,
Continued to play mute witness
To my never-ending death
As I waited to meet you again
In the same smog of a city’s ignorance.
Jan 29, 2017
Jan 29, 2017 at 7:40 AM UTC
When the mind goes
about shutting
The doors left
Open by the careless heart,
Life muffles down
In the fog of memories
Comforted by the humdrum
Freed from the need to react
But it isn’t long
Before the heart awakens,
Looks around, and decides to teach
The mind a lesson
By opening a few windows
To let in the breeze
That will eventually
Knock open a few doors too.
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 7:23 AM UTC