In this haunting city where the summer is humid and also sticky,
the sun blisters the naked skin
As silver Beads of sweat trickle
Like sweet gelato drizzling in the blazing heat.

There is poetry in the streets
Of graffiti, mellow lights and yellowed walls.
Of cobblestones and of riches
Dazzling every inch of this old city.

The air is laden with soulful music
Of long, lost love
Of passion
And of words rolling melodically and melancholically in modern Latin.

The souls gone by
Of artists, slaves and martyrs
Wander eternally in this ancient city.

They whisper softly in the evening wind
Knowing every tourist and every Roman,
Enchanting gently to their soulful being.

So with longing I think of Rome
As i feel the whispers in the evening wind.
Hypnotised, spellbound; knowing that somehow -
i  am rome.

Amid the cloudless blue sky
And the last of the green grass
A wrinkled tree trunk lies lone and bold.

It lived through a many a
Sunrise and a sunset.
Grew green leaves and dropped its yellowed leaves
Bloomed flowers, bore fruit
Witnessed births, witnessed deaths
Was a shelter, Was a home.

This wrinkled tree trunk lies no more
For the men axed it rot
Pulled it from the root.

There will be no more trees in this land of mine
But a concrete landscape; an eyesore to all.

Some thoughts flow melodically
like one eloquently orchestrated masterpiece
Or a well-woven tapestry.
Other thoughts erratic and staccato.
Pauses.
Discordant.
Confusing.
A cacaphony of noises.

Some thoughts are soft and comforting
Like floating clouds of pink, golden sunsets
Over calm, and glistening waters.
Other thoughts are as sharp as pointed ice.
Cutting.
Jarring.
Deceptive.
Malice spoken from evil tongues.

Streams of thoughts can be elusive.
They run
They jump
They swirl in a whirlpool
Unable to steady.
They ​branch
From one thought to another
Shifting like quicksand
Melting into nothing
Forgotten.

Other thoughts can seem iridescent
Changing hue by the light's movement.
Some sparkle, some are bright,
others a dull, faded colour
Turning blank as the light morphs into darkness.
A train of thought now stopped to a halt.
With its own mind
With its own heartbeat.

Words - they flow and they ebb,
they reverberate eternally in this brain chamber of mine.

They echo, they roll, they slide, they rhyme and most of the  time they're nonsensical like these lines.

They're twisted and convoluted,
Ominous and auspicious.
Silly and simple.
Rhythmic and staccato.
They certainly have a life of their own.

One moment they're infused with scents of vanilla ,
The next moment it's dettol mixed with ***** of a gorilla. 

Sometimes they'll roll sweetly like cinnamon and baked apple pies.
Other times they'll dangle daintly like merrigolds and ponsiettas.

Then there are moments when they will leave me awake with the ultimate conundrum like am I charmed or beguiled?

What can I say?
A hodgepodge of words praying to be thought of; unforgot.
They sing me to sleep  like a sweetly sung lullaby .

Dare I pine, for a time gone by
Of ferns, trees and bees?
Of poems and songs my homeland boasts
I've only really read and heard.

Dare I wonder, the young and old
Burnt out and deep in debt.
Busy, lone and disgruntled
What future can one hold?

Dare I live, an Orwellian dream
the powerful blind and deaf.
Famished for votes and riches
Callous of others' pain.

Dare I remember an island,
Once proud of its own sweet name.
Unafraid, undivided, unyielding
Dying for its beloved land.

Dare I dream for a country whole
Of people told their truth.
Of people  freed from self-made cages
Of people healthy and content.

Dare I dream or be pinched awoke
before it is too late?
To sing for this sinking land,
To rediscover its singing soul.

I dream of Paris
Drunk in colours of Pink,
And warm, soft hues
Of gold and blue.

The leaves, they fall.
They waltz and dance
among feathers white,
In a wind, their guide.

Then a pitter, then a patter
Then a lightning trembling Paris' every café.
The leaves, the feathers -
They dance no more
But float in waters that they have always known.

Morning comes as night is forgot -
And crooners croon
And painters paint.
And the glamour of the Tour Eiffel is captured through.

As cafés brew
And Tourists walk
Over stories told,
Over stories untold
And the struggles of the night before
makes todays skies so clear and oh so blue.

We boast we love our land
our people, our economy.
And, without any remorse

We ****** the living
and say atrocious words
like they should have stayed in their homeland
and they deserved to drown.

No apology, no fallen tear.

We boast we love our freedom
we long to go out
some do go out
even though they should not go out.

And then, we let the hunters hunt
To shoot the fragile, winged creatures
To crush their wingless dreams
To sing no more
For the game of a moment
For the pride of a moment.

No apology, no fallen tear.

We say we love our nature
Yet we **** the land that we have
To fields of concrete

And greed leads to death
As our lives become void
As long as money makers get richer.
And then we forget.

No apology, no fallen tear.

Yet,

Somewhere deep inside,
a soul resides.
A heart which dreams and feels
which is compassionate and empathic.

And if we stop for a moment
To let all sink in,
and we realise that
our hurts and pains are making us all blind -
We want to apologise, to cry and to forgive.

What has the power to destabilise the economy;
shut down schools;
put millions of people under lockdown; inspire people to buy inordinate amounts of toilet paper;
wish they had never gone on that cruise and cause global uncertainty, fear and mayhem.

Yet is invisible to the naked eye, inaudible, cannot be per se physically touched and is borderline between living and non living?

Oh how glorious life would be
To have no life or song within!
A need for no bones, no cells
No vessels or no muscles
Pumping nothing; needing nothing.

Oh how glorious life would be
To feel no pain
And see no stain.
Nothing gory; nothing sorry
Only a body in its glory.

How victorious it should be
To feel the wind; to be the wind.
Floating and flying,
Needing no sense of time;
Needing no sense of rhyme.

Letting Earth's beauty astound,
Its colours delight
and its melody transcend to hope, light and might.

In the stillness of the night
Across the river, under the stars
A Silhouette of a dancer
Hunched,
Forsaken,
Alone.

Sits lone dancer
Dreaming of a holding hand.
Whispering in the silence
For no ears to hear.

Once the crowd cheered
Now the light has ebbed
The glory is over
The name long forgot.

The dancer looks up
To the moonlit sky
Counting the stars
To a million and one.

A shadow appears
Embracing dancer warm.
A lover long dead
A lover and friend.

Now A pair of wings each
both dancing in the skies.
Dancer no more lonely
Dancer no more alive.

Far away, eons away from home  
A child is praying to the stars,
Underneath the canopy of milky way
Is round lone moon, beaming  in delight -
Echoed by the sea
As midnight strikes
And wishes are granted to those  whose  lives hang within a dream.

Here the colour  yellow floods back in each vein
The flowers bloom back to their glory
Whilst the earth breathes harmoniously
As silence becomes poetry.

Droplets of rain
Pitter patter on glass panes,
Leaving a trail
Like dew on red rose petals.

The lightning strikes
Shattering and trembling the Earth.
The sky looms dark
Now a flash of white.

Heavy clouds
Move hastily,
Obscuring the heavens
And stars and moon.
Cars honk their horns
So much traffic and danger does cause.

A stillness.

clouds ebb away
Revealing a bright white orb whilst
stars flutter their lids
Underneath the deep blue skies.

Oh how glorious life would be
To have no life or song within!
A need for no bones, no cells
No vessels or no muscles
Pumping nothing; needing nothing.

Oh how glorious life would be
To feel no pain
And see no stain.
Nothing gory; nothing sorry
Only a body in its glory.

How victorious it should be
To feel the wind; to be the wind.
Floating and flying,
Needing no sense of time;
Needing no sense of rhyme.

Letting Earth's beauty astound,
Its colours delight
and its melody transcend to hope, light and might.

The crowd cheers at you
as you play slowly in a beat
and now i hear
the faint sound of tortured memory.
Do you know what it is?

Memories I have created
stronger than reality itself
leaving me breathless, soundless -
so refreshingly alive.

As your voice shimmers in rays of light
filling these ears of mine
clasping my heart;
tearing to a thousand pieces.

Torturing me evermore
as my head spins down memories
I feel but never felt.
This music so haunting and so enchanting
makes me weep with such divine joy.
How can someone have such a voice?

Take me decades away from now
**** me softly
make my heart stop a beat
make me want to weep,
eat myself inside out
so beautiful; so engulfing.

I remember last September,
My name disappeared
from the crevices of your brain.

I remember last September,
The pain etched deeply in your eyes -
Trying to remember
But forgetting
The name you gave to your own loved child.

I remember last September,
As words fail to then utter my name.

I remember last September,
Tears rolling down your now changed face.

I remember...
Why didn't you remember me no more?

Imagine waking up on a filthy, uneven floor -
light coming solely through the flimsy wooden wall.

Imagine trudging through the mud barefoot -
mud merged with remnants of God knows who.

Imagine breathing in thick layers of sooty dust -
the colors sullen, lifeless and dull.

Imagine smelling the scent of faeces and decay,
of diseases and of death every single day.

Imagine your belly gurgling with hunger and distraught,
sniffing glue - the only way to delude.

Imagine walking on rickety bridges -
a step amiss and drown you will in these murky watery ditches.

Imagine wearing the same old rags - all tattered and torn,
being beaten and battered, no rights of which to call your own.

Imagine having silly daydreams of going to school
but there's not a penny to spare - not even for a worn-out book.

But alas, imagine no more for such children exist,
with ghosts clouding their starry dreams
And death hanging heavy upon their tiny, little feet.

I wish I know the road to hell
As only there will I e'er belong.

Lonely roads and shattered glass with splinters thrown my way,
And masques and lies of these honest men
Guiding me to fly astray.

My heart is hollow, raw and burning,
Spewing the bits of blood still remaining.
Cut berserk in the early day,
Stripped and squashed and stiff and squeezed.

Silent tears will ne'er be enough
To forget the misery I hast become.
Madness, come hastily:

For I cannot flow when the wind decides to blow.

I am impermeable
To the wind, to the rain
To the snowflakes
And to the purring of some cat.

I am impermeable
To the high-strung emotions
To the callousness of men
To the laughter and the words that hurt.

I am impermeable
To September's rain,
The lightning of thunder
The gasps and the screams.

I am impermeable
But not to others pain.
Yet I will not drown in a whirlpool of memories,
Or a tornado of dreams.

I am a colourful raincoat.

With eyes closed tight I walk the street,
Breathing in to northern wind.

Drowning me in memories,
Like an ecstasy of forgotten dreams.

Memories:
Never fading;
Never waning.

Take me back to Italy.

Underneath a crescent moon and twinkling stars
Lost in depths of infinite skies,
On calm soft seas and melodies
In long lost love and in old red wine.

I return with longing in my heart,
As I open my eyes and follow the light
Never to return but in memory.

Take me back to Italy.

When a soul dreams upon a sleepless star,
it unfolds through the seas twinkling of its eye.

On the night upon the star's last plight,
it's frail old soul morphs into Starfish,
amid sand, shells and violet light.

Today I’m happy. Ecstatic. Or as they used to say, ‘over the moon’. And rightly so. Why? Because I’ve finally figured out my ideal career and I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about it any soon.

It’s the kind of career of which I don’t have to worry about any flaw. I can even lose weight. I will never again have to worry about my hair, or  blemished skin, my thighs, the heat, or wearing anything on my feet. I don’t have to worry about being too this or being too that or that I’m growing too this and growing too that. All I have to do is -

Swim.

Yes, you've guessed correctly. I want to become a mermaid.

And not just any Ariel!

I want to swim to the depths of the ocean, with sea horses, colourful fish and tame sharks. Swim to the sunrise and sunset with a school of merry dolphins beneath a starry sky. Feel the rain splashing my already soaked hair and dye it too. Have a beautiful sea green tail and wear sea shells in my hair. Scare people away with my long, sharp nails and eerie tales. Steal precious items such as toothpicks from ships (while my tail morphs into twigs). Be surrounded by the colour blue and eat algae until my last peek-a-boo (and water some plants too).

I want to listen to the crushing waves and sing to the silver moon while I spit like a sailor (and swear like one too). I want to brush my hair with a fork and paint my nails through. I want to be surrounded by a rainbow – all colours too.  


Why don’t do such dreams come true?

Away from hills and away from mills,
Comes a child with no two eyes.
With its tiny hands blue and small mouth bled,
"There really can be no hope," they said.

It cries out loud, pulling at its rags
Carrying naught but stones and bones.
Throwing them with vigour (aiming at none!),
With its two eye sockets blind and dull.

But no people are there.

Naught but ghosts from antique towns
Resonating through the echoes of sand and crowns,
Shouting and laughing
Feeling not the stones,
Pretend to fall dead
As they chirp, chant, and dance.

~

As the memories distort,
A presence emanates from dust of broken mauls
Burying the ghosts in golden holes:
On beds of hard, cold, and mouldy bones
Whilst bestowing the child with eyes of ghost desert rose.

Some memories torture us evermore
Through a note which haunts,
And a picture which quivers our soul and renders us to naught.

And as if from a forgotten dream
or another breath
the soul reawakens to such joy,
Let it guide you in no restraint
like a talisman in times of woe.

Where the soul transcends
over stars which glow in depths of dark
in a crescent moon on a Christmas night
Amongst clouds and Artists song.

Let your eyes weep
and let it touch your soul -
for man's purpose of living
is art and art alone.