This...
The shaking of a reed
The movement of the water
The flicking of a flame.

This...
The crying of a child
The weariness of the labourer
The burning skin from the sun.

This...
The racking pain of guilt
The salty tears of loneliness
The swan song of past glories.

This...
The masks of complacency
The contracts of acceptance
The closing of the mind.

This...
The continuing saga
The words that fill the pages
The lot in life we all share.

Creating ripples
Serenity all around
When the last drop falls

Wake up at 4.30 am every day except Sunday
When I wake up at 5.00 am, coz it's a day off work
Same routine day in, day out, like it or not
Coz there's no alternative, for a working man
Except to churn the wheel of the Daily Grind

Grinding away, Grinding away, Grinding away
Wake up at 4.30 am, and start on the pranayam
Then some light exercises, before it's time
For the morning prayers, which are a must
Then a bath followed by breakfast

Out of the house by 7.00 am is my target
To catch the public mini bus to my workplace
Arrive by 7.30 am, ready to start the work
Grinding away till 5.00 pm when it's time to leave

But I am grateful, grateful to the Almighty
I have work and earn a reasonable income
Meet the needs of my family, even if just the basics
Always be grateful that my wife tells me, and it's true

But it's not my ideal life, not at all
Some lucky people do have it all
A seven or eight-figure income, a happy family
And they work as and when they want
No Daily Grind For Them

For the rest of us, the Daily Grind
Grinding away, grinding away on the wheel of life
Till the Almighty says, Enough grinding done
Now join me in a new world where there is no Grind

I dreamt that I was working, putting in a hard shift
It was exhausting
When my alarm clock rang I was relieved
I thought it was the quitting time bell
But of course, when I opened my eyes
I found I had a whole day ahead of me, to live
I thought "This life it's trying to **** me
It ain't fair!
Hell! They hadn't even paid me for last night".

Evil is born with little effort.
Goodness?
Through the struggle from within.

Evil eats from the inside out.
It tears at its own flesh, consumes 'self'.
Goodness?

It must be nurtured on the decomposed
Death of the evil growth within
Like some parasitic twin.

Goodness can win, must win.

Middle age is a drawer of bottles,
labels rubbed blank,
small tablets stamped
with numbers I can’t read,
others chalk-white,
anonymous as bones.

That August night I woke,
a moth in the moonlight,
wings two halves of a Viking ship.
They say if it maps all four corners
you’re finished.
My head bricked with mucus,
her throat raw-
our marriage a duet
two instruments coughing through the score.

I whispered- moth,
as her eyes opened, glowing like sunken lanterns.
It weighed two thousand pounds,
wings lifting her hair
like a bride of the dead.

Two optimism pills
waited on my table.
I chewed them dry,
chalk cementing my tongue,
the insect’s brain ticking in my skull
like a clock in a gothic castle.

Then water rose inside us-
first a seep, then a tide,
spilling warm rivers across the floorboards.
The dark room brightened green,
cypress arms cracked plaster,
reeds whispered spells older than fever.

Fireflies stitched lanterns along the walls,
crocodiles slid through like priests of the river.
We held hands as the bed turned pirogue,
drifting through brackwater green.

Above us the moth circled-
no longer omen but guide,
its wings stirring moonlight into spell.
Papa Legba opened the crossing,
Maman Brigitte lit the reeds with flame.
We: two elders slipping from sickness into swamp,
breath turned to whirlpools,
our oaths ferried
on the moth’s traité tide.

It's everybody's job.

Détente, rollback, middle-ground.

Working it until an internal weakness is found.

Surround the town with wire.

Eventually their voices will tire.

It does not work with fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to the logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to the logic of force.

For this reason, it can easily withdraw—and usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point.