His hands stretched out as if in the
Shavasana pose, only he was
Wearing his old jeans, chequered shirt
Black laceless converse shoes
His head on the lush green grass
With Hesse’s Siddartha in his left hand
and a magical airbrush in his right hand
He gazed at the cloudless blue sky
Like an artist in front of a canvas
he drew the people he wanted in it,
The boy with the inquisitive big brown eyes
The girl at the bus stop carrying a tote bag
the things he wanted to do,
Climb the highest mountain peak
Do the tango in Buenos Aires
Vagabond across South America
the sunsets and the full moons he wanted to see
the reasons he was willing to suffer for
the smiles he wanted to have.
A masterpiece in the making
the outline took no more than a few minutes
but the finished piece took a lifetime to create.

She was wearing a red blouse
with a black choker around her neck.
Her neck surrounded by invisible kisses
that were indelibly marked by
his thick full lips.
Burning with pain and longing,
She took a swig from the
Bordeaux on the table
and as she held the bottle to her lips
she remembered the feel of his lips.
She gulped down her sorrows,
hugged her new boyfriend
and danced the night away.

The kisses came back to her as
soon as she lay her head on the white
silky pillowcase.

I'm off to work
25 minutes later
I'm on my desk.
It's empty.
The day passes by
so smoothly
Nothing to stir the heart

I'm in my car
it drives so well
Nothing that makes it stop

I'm back home
dinner at 7 pm.
Nothing exciting to tell

It was a good day.
A fab year
and a decade passes like that.  

There's strange odour
emanating from the ether
I look at my hands and feet
now covered in brown-orangey rust
I've turned into oxide.

There were four of us
Me, my best friend, Sam, with the long hair
his annoying friend who constantly nagged and
there was his sweet little sister
No, we won't go biking around the neighbourhood
I say to my mum.
We did.  
The streets are empty
I'm off like there's no tomorrow
wanting to be the first
hungry for adventure
never stopping to rest or
even contemplate the ride.
The nag would nag but follow
the sweet little sister would follow me
everywhere, even when I led her
into trouble.
Stray dogs
trespassing onto private land
navigating gutters
climbing small hills
getting mangoes down from the trees

Sam had his own time, stopping,
savouring and watching
Etching everything in his mind.
Content in what he did
listening to the music that he only heard
ignoring the noise that I released

He Walked through the long corridor
of Green Park tube station.
There was a strong backdraft
that pushed him from behind.  

He entered the train heading westbound
to Russel Square, on the Picadilly line.
It was packed with every kind of person
imaginable--the weird, schoolkids,
the bankers, tourists, parents with babies
and then there was her.  
She had shoulder-length brown hair.
She was slim, pale and had piercing green eyes.
She was wearing khaki chinos
with a white Ralph Lauren Polo shirt.  
A black choker on her neck and holding
a book.
Murakami's 1Q84.

The same book he was reading.
There was a hush in the air
as their look lingered for several seconds.
She looked at him, smiled and lifted
her eyebrows.  

He looked at her and said,
"If you can't understand what just happened now
without explanation,
then you won't understand it
with an explanation."
She smiled and remembered the line in the book.

She wore a long white dress
With a black choker on her neck.
Her hair pulled back and
A silver Columbina mask on her face
That’s how she would visit him in his dreams.
Three times a week
forty days after she died.  
He didn’t cry
She talked to him casually
“What’s the mask for?” he asked
She played with his greying beard
Stroked his face
“Open your heart again,” she said.
He got up, leaned on the bed rest
The blood in him started circulating
His face was red
She placed her head on his chest
They talked
She liked to hear his voice
Telling her about the small things
He had a wonderful butter croissant
He wrote for three hours
How he walked across the
Bridge overlooking The Seine.  
He talked more about
The big things he wanted to do
With the rest of his life.
He wanted to write a novel,
A fictional one based on the
Different faces she wore.

His heart beat faster
His voice louder than ever before
The birds, the trees and even the moon
took notice.
Then she was gone.

It was the day before Christmas;
we met at a shopping mall.
Nineteen years since we last saw each other.
He was one of my best friends at college.
Mark and I reminisced about our
past escapades. I tried to talk about the now
and the future, but Mark just kept going
back to our memories.
The time when we were smashed,
and he smashed his brother's
car into a lamppost. The time I dared him
to make a move on the girl, and he made
out with her. The time when he ruled
the college campus.
He was voted as the President.
I tried again to find out what he’d been up to,
his dreams.
He told me how Mrs Houseman, our History teacher,
secretly fancied him.
I stopped asking and let him talk.
I figured that his past was much better than what he had now.

As one road ends, another begins.
Let go of the old one,
never getting stuck on it.
Take fond memories,
but walk towards
a new one.
Be excited, bewildered and
mindful.
Remain non-expectant.
Never comparing.
Never competing.
Life works in roads,
some steep upwards,
others steep downwards.
Life is a myriad of roads
that lead to nowhere.  
That’s why it’s all about
the different roads and how we
walk them.

The time is 15 minutes after noon,
It was 13 minutes after noon when I last checked
I am empty.
The shadow of my being
looms much larger than the tiny
translucent light that is lurking inside  
I'm standing inside my office
looking to the
cloudless sky  
the sparrows
that are not on the electrical lines
the seagulls
the Crows
that are missing from
the tops of the highest trees.
The roads are empty of cars like
a huge desert tarred
in black.  
There are no people outside
There are no people inside.
I walk down the staircase to the outside
to confirm what I witnessed from inside.    
The sun is directly over where I stand
I've never seen it as close
as I see it today.
I can feel the skin on my body melt
There is no air to breathe

I climb back the staircase to my office
and get back to my seat.

A small Robin hides on the
ledge of my window from the outside.
I open the window, and it
hobbles in
desperate to perch itself
on my shoulder.

Once a month
You are mine.
The moon is full
Translucent and majestic,
As you.
The Sun lends me a helping hand
The high tides are high
The low tides are low
I reel you in like
An expert fisherman in the
Middle of the ocean.

Once a Month
You are mine
As the wolves howl in the background  
To awaken you
The sky is pitch black
With only the light of
The moon illuminating the
Path to our tryst.

Once a Month
You are mine
I whisper your name and the
Easterly winds batter
Your soft tender ears
with my cries.

The rest of the days
You’re gone.

I'm home, and I'm not.
The road is narrow and every time
I stumble I'm not home.
The breeze strikes my face
reminding me of the white border lines
The trees dance enticing me
with hope to stay on that road.
The birds sing to keep me
from the drudgery of walking, from dying.
The sun nourishes me and then
punishes me.
The moon lightens my path
and enlightens my heart.
It's a long road, a lonely one
as the fake applauders,
the ones who clap only when things are going well,
Soon drift away.

Yet, the more I walk on that road
my road
the closer I feel at home.

I'm lying in bed waiting for the alarm to go off
It does. It's dark. And I'm all dark from the inside.
I roll up the blackout window screens
to allow light to enter, but  
the sun temporarily blinds me.

There is a dark, shadow behind me.
It's far larger than my lightness of being.
I get out of bed and walk towards the
coffee machine. The shadow follows me.  

I drink my coffee, with a fountain pen
in my hand and start to write.  
The shadow watches me.
I look behind; the shadow has receded
but it's still larger than my light.
With all my strength, I ignore it and
continue to write and within a few hours
the shadow has disappeared
and the light has grown.

And you remember, late in the afternoon
when we watched, the sea go all still and
become clear as if enveloped by a thick coat
of oil, reflecting the rays of the sun back onto
the cloudless blue sky.    

And you remember the blue turquoise colour
of the sea. How it looked compared to the tiny
waves that came crashing down.  

And you remember how the sun
turned dark orange and quickly descended
onto the eastern edge of the sea and disappeared
into the horizon without giving us enough time.  

And you remember the crisp Levant wind
coming in from the East,
striking us with a sting that sent
a shudder down our spines.  

And you remember how long
we held each other's hands
waiting for the moon to make its grand appearance.
And when it did arrive, it was full.
A magnificent full moon.
We looked at it together.
We looked at each other.
And Cried
Remember?