I cried a few times
When the sky did too
And decided
That the sky reflects my mood.
Today, the sky cried,
And I cried with it too,
I took it upon myself
To reflect the sky's mood.

I refrained from reading
Books of poetry
Due to a festering fear
Of confirmation
Of my subpar talent.
With hesitation,
I opened my first,
And what an interesting surmise
Our poems
Were all equally bland.

An eye for an eye
Makes this a world
Of cyclopi,
And two,
Society goes back to
Being blind.

I know things seem to be difficult right now.
The energy seems to be low.
I don't know, but there's something in the air.
I found a page, fall out of a book, a single line scribbled in it:
Fear of nightmares evades sleep,
And fear of problems evades life.
Everything that's hapenning right now,
Is for a reason.
Stay strong🌻

The world is my oyster,
And the entire ocean is polluted.
The pearl inside, dead.

So many things
Are easier said than done
And maybe there's where
Half the fun lies.

We wonder what the future brings to us, expecting platters of silver and gold,
Such metals, precious, shine none without the rays of the sun, now so old,
Now have this thrum of energy sounding, music that means to push and pull,
The tides and the seasons, and all the will of man, to contain, now null.

We measure cowardice by the failure of tasks, the dauntless, we praise,
Eyes glistening with hope that these men at least, may let nature’s head raise,
With forlorn yearning, no, but pride, without the prejudice, as the days of yore,
This history of ours, to recreate, and live vicariously, to forget momentarily the gore.

So we treated, owned, and *****, all that we lay eyes on - claimed ours.
And now that this planet is done and dusted, with nothing more to yield, it mourns
For a respite that we cannot help but give, for what use is a lump of gray rock,
Without sweet sin, once green and blue and colors myriad, we draped in a dreary smock.

We send them out to scout, to find new ways to plunder, and regenerate, the daring,
All these resources, all this wealth, for why would we need gold platters, it holds no meaning
Devoid of air to breathe. And so we fashion the very fabric of existence,
To prove once and for all this is a species brimming with persistence.

As man takes his steps yet again, one by one, in another planet to make ours, expectant,
Gaze a million survivors’ faces toward the nether, hope abound, victory reluctant,
We hear echoes, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, all abound,
The future of this race of ruin, yet again grows roots, to fashion into a brave new world.

And so
Opportunities fly by
Until another
Claims what was,
No, is, yours
All because
You paused
At the threshold
Of an open door.

To wonder whether
The object of your romanticism
Would never match
A harsh reality;
We say the cup is half full
Or half empty.
I don't know that which is real,
Because I put a rosy filter
Over life's hardships
And cast a darker shadow
Over fairytales.
And you begin to wonder
Where the two things mix
And stay in the sweet middle
Of a contrasting ideal.

If not for the hope
That dreary days will once end,
I couldn't see forward.

Rare is the urge to laugh,
Rarer to control.

It weighs you down,
This baggage you carry.

The fun about puzzles
Is seeing an entire mural
Come alive
One piece after another
Connecting ends
And patterns-
That seem not to work
At first glance.
And maybe life is only all that,
A series of universal coincidences.

It's a pity, really,
That things bright and gold, subtle,
Cannot simply be caught on camera.
It demands the presence of the observer
Who in their true mind
That cannot conjure up it's radiance,
To watch it personally
With awe.

They say
Writing is best
When done with a heavy heart
So you delve
Deep
Searching for sorrows
To make stories out of.
And it feels queer
To carry the weight of the world
As if it's your own.

If my eyes
Are the windows
To my soul,
Let's see
How well
You can read
A void.

Souls are said to be connected
With red threads
Forming bonds to last.
Whenever I feel lost
I trace the thread
Connecting me and you
And manage
To find myself again.

There once lived a king,
Only for the love of garb,
Who drained all the coffers,
To be adorned by something new each hour.
He cared not about the people,
Nor the soldiers at war,
Nor royal events,
Among other kingdoms,
Which failed to set a bar.
What can be said
Of a people,
Whose king himself
Was vain to a fault?
A glutton, nay, a fop,
Spent hours locked
Into a wardrobe much bigger
Than the royal throne room:
A room in which now stood two men
Before the billowing robes
Of a monarch whose face was barely seen,
And lay their case-
The only way to appeal
To a man ruled by cloth-
That they would make the finest
Most exquisite, most elaborate, wear,
Most adored, and adorn him in it,
A fabric that none can see
Except for the bright, and the fit,
Just the ones who were worthy
Of the seat on which they everyday sit.
The emperor, salivates, and says,
“Had I such a suit,
I shall know
The bright from the dim,
The wise from the foolish.
This fabric, nay, the stuff of gods,
Truth teller, must be woven,
For I will be then a king,
Who had it all”-
So as proclaimed, these rogues
Were put to work on the robes.
Given two looms,
And placed in the palace rooms,
They were provided with the finest of silk
The purest of gold thread
The sharpest of needles,
Never seen among their ilk.
They worked day and night,
Pretending to create something of might,
On something shimmeringly light
As thin air.
All the while usurping, pocketing
All the fine thread,
Sharing laughs at the dead of the night
At the foolishness of men.
Men were sent from the court
To check on the status of the weave-
No, the king wouldn’t come himself, no,
He had that much trust,
That a man of his status
Could see the working looms.
So, he sent others,
A test to their intelligence,
And all the people waited with bated breath,
For someone to proclaim
That what they beheld
Was, really, nothing, ahead.
The grand vizier,
Squirmed and stalled,
And the impostors, ever courteous,
Invited him in for a closer look,
“Oh, look at the colours, the designs,
The embroidery,
Will they suit the emperor’s fancy?”
Breaking a sweat,
Lying through his teeth, the wizened man said,
“Oh yes, indeed!”
He left with a long, parting look,
Looked and looked,
But could see nothing, so to save face,
He yells, hollers, to everyone who would hear,
That there is nothing more sheer
Than the one resting on the loom.
He spoke of the fabrics, and the designs,
The dyes and at lengths
Of the material.
With each visit from an imperial courtesan,
The knaves filled their knapsacks,
While the courtiers returned liars.
With each man
Spewing the cloth’s glory,
Each of the people claimed,
There were none as wise as he.
The emperor, further intrigued,
By hearing only praises, ears well fatigued,
Decided, on the word of two very honest men,
That the fabric would surpass everything he had ever beheld.
And on, he went to where the crafty impostors rested,
Crooned, “These splendid designs, these glorious colours,
Will soon become yours.”
He looked and looked, but could not see
Even a single thread passing the loom
And yet, exclaimed, “How wonderful,
Marvellous, stupendous, charming!”
And proceeded to empty his vocabulary
Describing something that didn’t exist.
Following his lead, his retinue echoed
Made sounds of affirmation and some of awe
For who would want to be a fool?
(in a world of fools)
The gentlemen presented the pretend weavers
With a riband, an order of knighthood,
Fitted to their button holes,
With the pretentious title of “Gentlemen Weavers”
The day before the emperor would wear the cloth,
They stayed up all night,
Pretended to cut and roll and thread
The stuff of gods
And with the first light of dawn, announced,
“The emperor’s new clothes are ready!”
They brought one article of clothing after another,
A pretentious show with nothing raised,
“Here are the trousers!
Here is the scarf!
Here is the mantle!
Here is the garb!”
To the backdrop of ooh’s and aah’s.
They made the emperor stand
And while they undressed him while he stood,
Looking at himself through the looking mirror,
Arranged and pleated the fabric, adjusted it to his tone.
Once done, the king turned this way and that
A whole round at that,
He examined his handsome suit.
“Do my new clothes fit well?”
“Yes, better than any royal garb!”
“All my people deserve to behold this lovely cloth!”
He marched through the streets,
With four men behind, holding up his trail
Men from all around the town agreed,
That none of his majesty’s other robes
Had ever made such an impression,
As much as these invisible ones.
A meek voice from the back,
One not prone to the ways of the world, said,
“But he wears nothing!”
Hands cupped his mouth, and he was dragged away,
While the whispers passed on.

There are millions of stories
Drifting clouds paint
Each day brings
A new sunset.

...tangible, but not yet,
As feelings often aren't,
But feel like a person next to you,
Solid, within reach,)
That putting these thoughts into paper
Becomes a herculean task-
For how can you
Give form to something
That yearns to be formless?
It takes much courage to put your being on display,
Unguarded,
Where each word is laced with glass shards, kite ropes,
That can cut and make bleed,
Yet that's what artists do...

I sat down
Trying to write a script-
Something to awe,
Before you decide to draw
This entire joke to a close-
And I think my hands
Moved of their own accord
Some ghost possession, I guess,
Or maybe I just wanted to write about ghosts
Anyway (read twice)
There was this human
Who turned Fae-
Argh no, scratch that,
Too cliche,
This Fae, she turned human!
Ahh see now that the story begins to weave!
I mean, I guess,
I weave the story
Or rather
This ghost guiding my hand.
He seems the same type as Casper, though,
Except with the creative range
Of a twenty year old
In the middle of college,
And lost all his imagination.
Words- WORDS!
Ah woe is me, she cried,
Because in a world where
She was supposed to be immortal,
She was stripped of her pride.
And there the straw ****** dry,
No creative juice these days
The ghost came by.
(Because he was intangible?
And anyway couldn’t consume
All that gave our meat sacks
Ill deserved pleasure?)
I pat the ghost on his head
Like an affectionate pet
And ask him to go on,
Because even though trash,
(HA, GOLDEN)
The only reason I was writing
Was through his pen.
She used to be a goddess in her own realm,
All powerful, all mighty,
Beautiful, very pretty,
(here we both are stuck-
To catch words, flowery,
That they would attract the best of bees,
To pollinate, and pass on the word,
Of this unfinished story),
And we keep the pen down
As an attempt
To at least attract wasps-
But now,
She gave up what she treasured most
For a love
That promised itself until eternity
Into this man
She had looked all from afar
And decided
It was either him or nothing at all.
I turn to him,
Yes, the friendly
Burnt-out college dude,
“Wait, isn’t this the plot
Of every major fantasy?
Or are you just channeling yours’
Through me?
All the time wasted on assignments,
And I become your bard
Guiding through a weird
Fanfiction?”
I don’t get an answer,
Obviously, because,
As I said, he is intangible,
Beyond words, beyond form,
A presence
That might not be here at all.
(I also cannot see him
Shaking his head
As I type word after word, muddled,
As he chews on imaginary bread.)
But somehow the words erase
(I know this because of the
Frantic clicking of the backspace bar
And a cursor
The seems to have forgotten
All that was written
By the predecessor-)
Written over minutes long,
As though my will does not count
Into all that he had planned.
So we begin our charade again:
Him, channeling all his pent up anxiety
Over ghost college-
Ah I think the
Math assignment due
Did everything but spur him on
To finish this poem,
And his lack of creativity
Into this newfound hobby.
She went on to confess
Her undying love
For this man, mortal,
And he looked at her
Long and lost,
And said,
“Who are you?”
Sounding so similar to
All those I had
Tried to speak to-
Ah! The trauma!
Woe is me.
There are shitposts
And there is poetry
The artistic skill required to
Merge them both
Is just treachery
To everyone who possesses a brain.
And when I am just
On the verge of pressing the cross
Not one that will lead to salvation-
But definitely one that will
Liberate the reader’s sensibilities
My mouse moves,
Saves the file,
And mails it to you instead.