Watercolor trickles in from the edges of the window,
Smudging out the clear sky.
I flee the angry bucketfuls of oily paint,
That splash and smear the smooth floor below.
Finally I can run no more,
And I am pounded into red, white and brown,
Adding to the beautiful photograph below me,
Stretching out to the horizon.

Within a floating
Bubble amidst the glowing
Chaos of an exploded star
I spin
In ever shrinking
Circles
I spiral
Towards a black destiny

A creeping crawling pain
That seems to control me
And slip away when I try
To find its controlling
Tendrils that have yet again
Succeeded in making me do
Something that I regret

Either I will
Be very good
Or very bad;
In my middle ground
Lie burnt bridges
And sunken ships.
One shore or the other
Is where I will land,
I refuse to drown
In the waters between.
Others have built
Makeshift rafts
And occasionally,
Large boats, on which
They peacefully navigate.
But this I scorn.
Though the horizon shows
No evidence of any other
Feature but endless water,
The isles do exist,
And I will not rest
Until I have found one of them.
I hope it is the better one.
But I have lived
Many years now,
Having spurned
The floating comforts
Where others gathered,
And can no longer guard against
The temptation of dry land
After a lifetime afloat.

These eyes, and
These hands, they
Tell me, I must
Change
My life.

A great wind, like a sandstorm,
Blows through my life,
And I try my best
To align with it.

Pounding legs
Hammering knees
Numbed toes
Fading strength
Blurred eyes
Dripping hair
I ran

Peel back the layers;
It's horrible to behold.
What is it saying?

Stone columns,
Half illuminated,
Half in shadow,
Hiding behind them
The numbers,
The ciphers,
The unknown,
The shadowy figures,
Massed,
Waiting.

Another day, another loss, another
Waste of useless energy,
Moving horizontally,
Slipping on the upward rope,
Hoping not to slip.

Upwards or downwards;
Does it matter ?

Either way,
We will
Transcend.

Great pain can be liberating.
It can lead to the place where
There is no mind,
Where your sense of limits and boundaries
Is dissolved,
And there is a temporary sense of
Freedom from the world.

I have heard that great joy does the same thing,
But I wouldn't know.

Pull out
Of the flower
The dead bee.
It gets in the way.

In memory of the note
In the bottle
On the beach
In the sand
Behind the rock
After I met
The beautiful girl
Under the trees
At noon
While the breeze
Swayed the leaves
And me
On the day
In my life
That I would most
Like to forget.

The veins of a leaf,
The veins of my hand,
Pumping fluid,
Pumping blood,
Watering,
Feeding,
One moves,
So does the other.
In different ways,
Both are alive.

A smile, a thoughtful glance,
A meeting of eyes,
The slow emergence
Of a self.

It is hard to write and hard not to write.
I hover over the next word or sentence, hesitating.
Perhaps I am searching what to write for,
Because I have no words to write.
But perhaps the words are pushing out,
Trying to be born,
To come out through me into the world.
It hurts.

Hey what what what are you doing?
Put that effing knife down!
This isn't how it's supposed to end,
This isn't why I came to town!

You wanted to see me, I'm here now,
Instead you just screaming at me, asking how
I'm gonna find all the money to pay you back,
This is out of whack!

My system's compromised, yo!
I'm running on empty,
I got no money for gas,
But I got plenty
Of blood in my veins
And you're gonna see,
I'mma make it rain,
Until I bleed.

And then you'll be stuck,
Look at me while I smile,
Throw your hands up and say, f*%$,
Where were you all this while?

After enough time passes,
All things become normal.

You get used to he great things in your life,
And you get used to all the troubles.

Very soon the need to change seems absurd,
In your mind.
But you don't stop feeling it,
In your heart.

Time to go
Around the sun again.

Can I get off this ride ?

What's that you say,
A non-refundable ticket?

In that case might as well make
The best of it.

Pull it out, ******!
The well is nearly empty,
We want to get all the water we can.
We must be quick, we do not want
To share it, little that we have. Don't complain,
Or else I'll do you in too. I don't care
About you or the others, I want
My own water.

And I'm just sitting here,
Biding my time.
Useless, you say?
Useless it may
Well be.
Am I lazy?
Am I revolting?
Am I just
Standing by,
Waiting for you,
To get behind you,
To make my move?

Say what you mean,
Do you mean what  you say ?

Say what you will,
Do you will what you say ?

Say what you want,
Do you want what you say ?

Say what you need,
Do you need what you say ?

I think it's bitter,
But better say it's sweet.
I could make this longer,
Then it wouldn't be a tweet.

I drew her with one arm and one leg.
Why? Because I could!

I'm making things now, aren't I ?
I can choose now how
To give form
To them.

I  drew her with blue eyes,
And a red dress.

And pink lips,
And short, dark hair.
It wasn't fair
To draw her any other way,
This is how
I did see
Her in her box.

Up all night, I'm in a funk,
Being quite sleepy's like being a bit drunk.
Stumble to a table, get my coffee, begin to write,
But hey, I'm still happy (yeah, who would've thunk?)

... unstable it was, so I retreated to a corner,
Not wanting to be tossed around like the
Bits and Pieces that flew around me, making me
Duck for cover and carefully look around, to
Find what I came for.
But no, not today;
Not in this dream.

Wow, I've been
Out of Action
For a while; I fell
Into the same old trap again.
The mind traps, the clever subterfuge,
The adversary always lurking.
When I let the poetry stop flowing,
It's pace and rhythm
Was replaced by a colder circuit.
Here's hoping I can
Claw my way back again.

The wicked, wicked man.
He took my clothes, my shoes,
My money. My leather wallet
He found it funny. But he took it anyway,
He grabbed it all and then he ran.

I could've caught him if I could stand,
He took the ring right off my hand!
And my new sunglasses, he tore them off
And left me lying in the sand.

Ah that man, that wicked man.
Couldn't some kindness been shown by him?
If he had to rob, couldn't he be gentle,
Instead of smiling his wicked grin?

I didn't see just where he went.
You see, I couldn't quite move my head.
I would if I could, but dearest reader,
I assure you I am quite dead.

The forms of things
Are ever in flux
On their margins,
But once in a long while,
Solid turns to liquid,
And there is a small window
To act,
To change
The boundaries,
As former things pass away,
And new ones come into being.

My hands were missing when I needed
To pay for my coffee
I took a sip
And walked away

Don't look at me like that
You don't have to be all stunned.
C'mon, relax, breathe a little,
The bullet wasn't even in the gun!

Turned and twisted out of shape,
I stagger away from the inferno,
When I come face to face with another,
My eyes staring into hollow sockets.
What apparition is this?
It's bony finger points the way
To a hollow opening.
I emerge into a
Vast cave,
Illuminated,
Where cloaked figures are
Conjuring up new forms
To replace what remains of the old.
"Is there no escape
From the wasteland?", I ask.
The solemn figures continue,
Mournfully,
Seriously.
The apparition returns,
And tells me it is I who
Perceive things wrongly.
The wasteland is my mind, it says,
If I did not earlier see the
Enchantment,
I will not see it now.

I clearly don't want to die,
So I need to crawl out of this pit.
So ***** you all,
I'll see you on the other side.
That is, if you make it too.

Busy, busy,
Keeping busy,
Always running,
Desperately fleeing
That awful, awful
Silence.

Ten years ago,
We built our worlds,
One for each dream.

And set then afloat,
Each with its shining happiness,
In its own way.

Till one by one these bubbles
Were pricked, and
I was drenched
In their debris.

Now I fashion
A single new world,
And sail on.

An old book
Stopped by today
To say hi.

Floating with the leaf,
I reached at last the
High point of the current,
After which came the dizzying falll
Down, as the wind died,
And the golden light
Rose up to meet me.

It's too funny. My mind
Is overheated. Hate when
This happens. I'm all
Twitchy, and
Jumpy, and
Unable to focus, which
Is not a bad thing, just
Tedious.

Poles apart, they circle the same star,
Whirling and turning furiously,
Yet predictably.
One good, the other bad,
One dark, the other light,
As day and night.
I broke the balance; I tried
To get rid of the bad, but this
Was unwise, and I lie
Con-fused and fragmented,
Waiting for two bodies to
Coalesce again, and resume
Their perpetual dance.

When I tried to write,
I could not write,
The words would not come,
Because I tried to write.

If I had let the words flow,
Perhaps I would have had a poem today.

But I didn't, so I don't.

I do not fear this state for long.
There is feeling now, where I have been numb,
I can feel,
I can feel myself coming back to life.

It is very hard;
I want to be as I am.
The fear, it stops me.

Tall trees like antennae
Rattling with lightning
The air thick, viscous, resisting
Walking in these parts
Is never fun

It's comic and tragic,
The cycles,
The ups and downs.
Sometimes the devil wins,
Sometimes I do
(But usually it's him).
I'm tired of these
Unnecessary spells of
Unceasing torture, they
Leave my
Body racked, and
Levy a terrible toll
On my mind.
"Crack!", they say.

Come down by the sea
And see what remains of it
She didn't leave much

Have I been wrong all this while?
Should I have done something different?
Should I change everything now?
Have I rejected wonderland for hell?
If yes, can I go back? Can I undo the past?
If no, how long can I go on this way?
It hurts! It pains! It stings!
The past claws at me,
And my faith grows weak.
How long can I go on,
Without a sign?

Passing through the fields,
He stopped by the lonely tree,
And tied his horse nearby.

A little further was the hill,
Overlooking the sea,
Green in time gone by.

Dug a hole ten paces west,
Got down on his knee,
Put his hands inside.

Pulled out the box,
Opened it up,
Then sat back and cried.

Hey man, get a move on,
I gotta leave now, gotta take on
The world and its many
Barbs, and see if there's any
Guards I can put up in time;
I'm committing a crime
Against myself, I'm
Keeping me down,
So who's gonna own
Me when I'm done?

His mother's hand,
His father's pen,
The empty land,
The hurt within.