Do you feel what I feel,
A red hot spike of rage cutting through the middle
Rocking the decaying boat of an age-old sanity
Blurring the edges of your conflicted reality.

Do you feel what I feel,
The blue electricity of angst through your head
Wreaking havoc on the balance hard fought
In the deepest crevices, all ambitions that are now lost.

Do you feel what I feel,
The blanket of warm sadness taking over
Your soul, as it seeks out a comforted ease
In the familiar drag of a mind diseased.

Do you feel what I feel,
The unstoppable gravity of a hate that you bred
Like an iron hook through your tender flesh
To hold you close or to cut you in a single lash.

Do you feel what I feel, (O say that you do)
The sufferings of a lonesome traveler of the blues
For in this blackened desert remains a timid ray of hope
A Samaritan comes my way and helps me elope.

I walked down the lanes of a familiar town,
A beautiful haze, a colourful maze
Of people old and young,
Of scenes jovial and bright,
Of happiness shared and upsets spared,
Of dreams realized and nightmares sterilised.
I walked through it all, through them all.
Through the smiles and the cheer,
Of the beauty and the innocence,
Of harmony and friendship,
Of the Christmas red, of another beginning bred
Of the untouched and the impure,
Of the rehabilitated state of sweet and sour.
I walked through it all,
Like a shadow.
There yet not there.
A dark unnatural blot in the natural beauty of it all.
Never belonging anywhere like a door left ajar,
I stick my hand out, so near yet so far.

After days at stretch
of his stoic distress,
of an endless time,
of their golden lapse,
that the dawn of an echo
of past souvenir
made way for a picture
of clarity and of fear.
Never, not once, it seemed
he was a part indeed
of the world that
had left him in dire need
of a path to walk
or a need to fulfill
the vision of visionaries
the oath of infidels.
A broken ship ever
aground in an empty bottle
protected by none
and threatened by the slightest tremble,
did he realize the folly
in his mind’s decree,
the doldrum is the curse
while the wind lets you free.

As I walk towards the shrine of blood and gold,

Reeking of the fallen and of the old

Unbeknownst to what might lay beyond,

A ******* in what comes after, a ******* in what came before.

This sack of maimed flesh that you see

A conquered ***** of the soul

This skin worn by all but one

A temple broken down to the bone.

Where once was a mind delighted,

A crown of jewels, of dreams of flight and

Of merriment and of might

A child of the stars that I once was

Burnt embers of olden coal that I am now.

Hence here I lay, astray, with no greed

No rage, no radiance and no leads

A destitute of life, fed and dressed

A king of the barren, a pastor amongst the wicked and unblessed.

And as I stand now at the altar of the fallen ghouls,

From suitor to gatekeeper of my own poisoned muse

Guiding sheep to a slaughter frayed

A purgatorial monument, unraveled and unswayed.

Boats of green, jets of red
A cry for help from the oppressed dread
Abodes of old, but now torn down
Unfurl the white or face the crown.

The mossy bricks and the gravel black
Wooden pyres and bodies stacked.
Battles and wars, left and right
Millions die when hundreds fight.

Homeless, vagrant, dignities defiled
Childhoods lost and old age viled.
Breads of honesty covered in mould
The plight of the plebeians hidden manifold.

A ruthless purge or an exodus to the unknown,
Parochial choice the guiltless bemoan.
Encumbered voices laden with rue
Dead men may tell no tales but the persecuted do.

The world has grown around her womb,

The beginning of all beginnings, the onus of creation upon whom.

While it is her whose life slowly ebbs away,

At the hands of the manics and the fools.

Her hands chained, mind refrained,

Tongue tied and body veiled.

Lies be sold, this is your world behold!

Here your prejudices are yours only, but your pride is collectively owned,

Of the family you are born in, and the family of your future,

And the society that allows you to breathe any further.

So don’t you dare, this is a world prepared

By some to define your modesty and others to violate it beyond repair.

Caught between the two, ever so stretched thin,

Striving for approvals when discontent is where you are stuck in.

Rather learn to live in this moratorium of rules,

That pays no heed to your desires, your esteem, your needs or your moods.

Your life has never been yours, a conjugation of time tested judgements,

A world build around everyone’s opinions and your very own helplessness.