in this belated realization that it's a raw and cynical age
we search diligently in the rubble for relevance
just as we look where we shouldn't for excellence
and bemused by it all we find that we're in a cage

again and again we lap against the shores
of our sleepfulness as we do our chores
and hope for the echo that tells us move
even if there's no treasure trove promised

at the end of a dream we start another
at the start of another dream there's no bother
about detail or assurance it will happen this next time
it is in the nature of life to keep hoping and struggling

so now that times move quickly towards resolution
and now that contradictions dissolve in revolution
i hear the chiming of a distant bell in the far distance
it bids me move resolutely to my perpetual perch

where i shall crane my neck for metaphorical gold nuggets
So my wild adventurous friend and fellow traveller
let us be off then and be doing and let us truly be deserving
of the adoration and adulation that comes with being a winner

in victories that taste like ash because you begin to wonder
what it was all about and just who it was stole your thunder
it is a perpertual puzzle how everything only lasts a moment
and how we can't quite recall it all even though we would

the eclipse in me
    dissipated
and a primeval sun rose
from the depths of my being
you were the reason for all that
      and i celebrated you
with crazy little things:
   i leapt up a tree
  nimble as a cat
and hung upside down
from a supple branch on high
touching the ground again
i went into a crazy spin
till i felt i was too ragged and mean
to fathom incidental mysteries
then you told me things
that made me delirious
and like one fleeing the virus
     i ran around the block
reminiscing about a bleating flock
that could never be contrary
              when
    in the morning haze
    of my clogged mind
freedom was the absence of joy
and joy the nemesis of sadness

i'm the drone of a distant engine
   you hear it but never go to it
i'm the  rush of blood to your head
  you feel it but do not crumble
i'm the swishing wind in your garden
  i tell you about fads and phases
        but you pay me no heed
i'm the distracted man passing by
you want to know my destination
           but you never ask
lest that adage about curiosity and the cat
       should turn out to be true
i'm the love you know you're losing
      but sorrow and rejection
           were also made
                  for you
                  as for me
         So dear home-bound
   hold fast to what you found
            that nasty morning
of numb thoughts and frozen breath

gingerly on the knife-point of a problem
my inflated ego slowly was punctured
i heard the hiss of its demystification
in that constricted moment of revelation
a moment that enthused about the demise
of my avid hallucination now laid bare
salvation, the voice of naked truths chanted
is neither in the fig leaves nor in bashfulness
and the humming monotone of desperation
is a boost to candid inactivity and stillness
it is in such big-bore moments that we of
puerile yearnings recognize our childishness
a voice told me to stop tempting fate forthwith
for in truth i was a child with a dangerous toy
and only pampered tutors could stay the course

a wayward wind blasted heresies my way
and i rode its juggernaut almost to dusty oblivion
but my saviour was never ever too far away
that maestro whispering ditties at my window
and just before the fall she licked my ear
with a tongue laced with a golden truth:
the poetic route is a trip to redemptive ecstasy

i want you to know dear reader
that i've given up playing the saint
and it's time for a few home truths
i'm  shooting straight from the heart
and though toxic nothing will stop me
bleeding an ocean till i'm done for sure
this time my dripping words will go thud
into that shameless unfeeling love infidel
and i shall know peace of a kind at last
aaah, the beauty and the catharsis!