The place where the oceans meet the shore
our lips met,
yours dilapidated, ancient;
mine freshly squeezed orange.

We lived,
Avid, weightless for a few days
Giant red, argon balloons floating
Under a velvety, green sky.

Yet when the time came,
You stayed at the Hamptons
I chose a lonely cottage by the bay.
All that remained of our kiss
was broken beer bottles
In sandy beaches turned stony
Angry waves disappearing
the shards everyday.

We forgot to make love last night,
yet again like many other nights
we remained distant islands separated by
Bermuda's of bed sheet and air.
The body wasn't very happy
Those thousands of red cells inside you
divided and redivided in anger
Ached and oozed and broke free
from your restless

When I woke up this morning,
I found you lying in a pool of blood.
You decided to go to work
After all it was a Friday and
the long weekend was a week away.

You take too many iron supplements
I fear, one day your body will be so full of folic acid
that it will cry.

We have the Smokies lined up for October
and the Cayman Islands in Christmas
Thinking of planned vacations makes me go to work
every day
Even though I ****
so bad
that I'd rather open a book store
and read all day
and sell a book or two.

My life is still all about you
After all these years
I still couldn't kiss that woman who
asked me on a coffee date at 10 pm by the lake.
or the one who found me cute on our album by the dressing table
You would say "Go ahead , we are not married yet".
I would laugh when I am alone,
thinking of the all the things you say
these days.

You say all the good things in life needs planning
marriage, kids,
buying house on mortgage
convertible sport coupes
vacations in South Pacific.
I find it ironic that I met you on a book store
when I cancelled a TGIF party and had this sudden urge
to buy Alice Munro's short stories.

We were sweet, back then.
Now you lie,
about being anemic on your weekly routine checkup
hide,
your biopsy report soon afterwards;
lie again,
on the reason of your sudden cancellation of the planned vacations for the year end
saying it's work.

Then you disappear, terrify me
Only to come back strands of hair gone from your head
still say nothing,
yet finally disappear saying nothing before I could buy us
the last vacation together.
I regret how much we could have done
together
if we made love more often
my body healing yours
resting, soothing,
purging all the enemies.

On the day when we supposed to be married
I visit the Caymans
laughing alone in a crowded beach
thinking about all the things you used to say these days
having Alice Munro's short stories for company.

You are my conjecture when the universe ends.
I will create geometry, possessiveness and dystopia
looking through your eyes.

O mystic girl,
this time make the world less enigmatic
settle down in a small hamlet by the bay
cook me fish and rice
and I will stay home, always.

© Nothing Personal. March 23 2012.

I knew I was dying when you called.
I knew I had barely weeks left
when you said you wanted to meet.
Then came the big news
You were supposedly pregnant
and I was the father.
When on earth did that happen?
I thought a millennium had past
since we last dated.
Back then,
Men still used to hunt in woods
and live in caves
savagely eating each other
when time came.

If I told you all this,
your Catholic sentiments will be hurt.
I barely agreed to meet.

The sun did not miss the chance to disappear
Horizontal, bull like clouds bellowed past the golf course
and winds blew like a ****-storm of hail and blood
It all hurled on my face as I rushed to work.

I remembered how some and perhaps all children were born innocent
But they did not choose stay that way.
Some were caught cheating
some were mortally punished.

The omen was bad.
I met my boss at the boss-stop.
That murky bit of time when you know you
are working late to avoid meeting your boss
and yet ,
you would meet him and
he would stare right at you
a terminal stare.

I decided I will drink coffee
The sun came up
and a girl with beautiful hair
asked me out.
I told her
"Time is limited"
If you want grandkids,
tonight is the night"
She said she had ovarian cancer.
We went out.

I know I had cheated on you.
Maybe a couple of times in the past.
But not on rainy Thursdays.
Not when the amore wasn't with life
but with death.
But see ,
I did that too.

God graced me when the rains didn't stop.
And you did not call back.
All the oncologists were on leave
all headed to warm Florida beaches
They have seen enough deaths this year already.

I knew October was coming.
My dreaded October.
I decided to keep dating this girl.
And the skies decided to stay murky.

On a October morning,
when the sun shone
miraculously
you dropped unannounced to my house
and asked me to marry you.
I resigned to my doom.

A war broke in a Middle Eastern country
And somewhere else in North Africa.
China was shook up by a 8.9 earthquake.
Giant tsunami waves rolled up towards
the Eastern face of Europe.
Australia passed a racial law.

I died on 17th October.
They said without much pain.
Few came by to the funeral.
People decided to cremate me
and blow the ashes away.
There were few people who attended.

You gave birth to a lovely child.
My girlfriend found she was misdiagnosed.
They found oil.
Miraculously.
Stephen Spender got the Noble Peace Prize.
I did not see the sun shine that day, of course.

And some slept,
And some dreamt,
And some made their way into the world
Logical, rational, enforced lives
that all added up.
And I never realized when the silver bullet missed me,
my chance for immortality gone
I had thought of some days
I am nowadays glad to just see through days.

I live in full fiction
Where goddesses walk right into your arms
and superlative co-incidences mean something.
Where physical attraction is justifiable and
hormones understand each other
across bodies.

I have loved you,
however immaterial my love maybe to the rest of you
and the circumstances
I will love you
till I find meaning
and thousands of barbarians invade across millions of
homes, unsuspecting
where the disease of one human mind reaches
and surpasses all minds .
Where I finally get mad
and act on it.

There are some stories I haven't heard.
You can tell me a few of those
on my way to the mad-house.
I have a shelf full of unread books
and with every day of disappointment
the shelf keeps piling up.

I at-least hope that in my non fictional existence
One day, you will read my feelings
even though, you won't necessarily act on them.

I have decided now
I will stay alone
in a one bed room apartment
I won't buy any new furniture
except a wooden table
to place my new television set
where I would watch
2 episodes of "The Sopranos"
everyday.

I don't need friends
I knew that long ago
Back when I was a little boy
yet
Boys of my age had forgotten even to bully me
my insipid silence mistaken for my invisibility
girls hardly noticed me
because I pretended to hardly notice them
from my 3 foot by 3 foot wooden bench & chair

Back then, I had my own world
Rather worlds,
worlds where a fictional Mr. Tom Mathews
was a savior of the planet Earth
from numerous planet Earths
floating in the ephemeral universe
all essentially evil
so that Tom had to visit them
& plant nukes within their very cores
as
"the only way out was in"

Now,
I have Megan
or Should I say had.
She lives in this beautiful efficiency
with a giant sized teddy
her idea of someone better than me.
She has a nice flat screen TV
a wonderful bookshelf
a cosy kitchen
and a talking walk in closet
where I could easily live with
her wardrobe , accessories, perfumes.

Her wonderfully brown hair is now tied
in a nice little bun
and she smells of creams and fresh oranges
and she wears formal shirts and coffee colored skirts
when she leaves for work every morning.
I could have lived with Megan
but our worlds never collided
the way they should have
although I distinctly remember
of having brushed in her kitchen
and making chocolate brownies in her oven
or watching her perfect TV
and stealing a book or two from her shelves.

My friend Chris, who will also be my ex roommate
tells me he will move in the same apartment complex
as Megan.
He says he will sign the lease come Monday
and start living in a efficiency just like hers
He says we will keep meeting on Fridays
and come un-announced to each other's apartments
our way of maintaining our beautiful friendship
yet not living under the same roof.
I gather he plans to get married early next year.

As of me,
I am excited to move into this one bedroom apartment
they say I will have a coffee table where I will read all day
and write whenever I want.
I could impoverish as well
because I won't cook food for myself.
I will stay sober
Because I won't buy beer.

I was hoping Megan would visit me
now that I will have a coffee table
so that I can read her my poems
while she sips coffee
and I get inspired by her cream odor
and the teddy bear who looks smiling back at me
with large giant ears
from her t-shirt.

© Nothing Personal. April 21, 2012.

That familiar feeling of depression,
led me on,
drooling
with my mouth open, nostrils wide
taking air in from hot, open windows;
driving at 20 mph in a 15 zone
carefully avoiding the road bumps.

The rear view mirror shows me,
a familiar stranger in dark, Ray-ban shades
She follows me,
a life of condescension
yet we love it
as long as we maintain the pool
built with utmost care.
Her hidden eyes give me comfort
I wish she was my wife
and the comfort in her hidden eyes
was comfort
in my cramped up car and my cramped up loft
from this cramped up life.
(There's a weird thing about unfamiliarity)

There are other things
like Ana's bookshelf in an upscale house in Buenos Aires,
those yellow tees specially designed to remember old pals,
or getting high in the Sierra Nevadas
with someone paid to be like you.

There's too much **** down that road,
the one I never took,
women became girls waiting in puffy waterproofs
coffee gets old
there's the cost of oil change every 300 miles
I don't drive that much anymore.

We have widows, young widows
sometimes with young babies, barely born
in fact, we were all young sometime
you, I, brides, the war on terror
that boy from Ethiopia,
things were simpler without automobiles
and rear view mirrors.

Why don't I meet those students?
I can be a teacher
I am a teacher
not teaching English in a community college
or NYC for that matter
yet a teacher
and I have Freudian asymmetries
I mean I am hung up on women
on old world literature
on promiscuity , racial mixing
tense ****** moments.
I am also quite frank
to myself, to my sensibilities
my self centered world.

I do have students
who seem to be interested in
chitchats outside class
those evening walks grabbing coffee somewhere
learning a thing or two
about life, men.
I mean, their chief complain
they have dated boys
missing pseudo-intellectuals
& everyday enactment of 'Oedipus Complex' in reverse.

I see compelling eyes,
provocative bodies,
keen to learn, waste and start from scratch
yet I don't meet those girls
who would rip apart my three year old marriage
keep me pseudo-happy for the time
have *** in claustrophobic venues in unknown hours of the day
make me quit jobs, sanity and pragmatism
marginalize me to despair and defacement
to
inevitably break up with me
so that I can write a book or two about it
Random House may be interested
and I would have to turn forty,
without a single care in this whole, wide world

We were born writers,
insane already when our mothers were aching
to sent us out in the world
relieve their personal catharsis.
Little did they knew
that this was the beginning of their pain.

Their suffering, starts from childbirth
and lasts till the moment they die.
Our girlfriends will make the same mistake
as our mothers;
falling in love
believing in the ***
in the future entwined
around us
and
some,
at least one will make
the statutory mistake of bearing our child
the trojan horse for the end.

We, are like parasites
we **** food, water, shelter
we nourish in beauty, warmth and care
and yet when we find open exposed skins
floating on blue, timid waters
we have nothing better to do.

words are our weapons,
our friends, our nemesis
our route to fame and
the very real lack of it.

We smash everything around us,
people ****** into day jobs around us
suffer
forget the daily bliss of life
if they share a conversation
forget more
if they dare share a kiss
a personal intimation.

Besides, we are depressed souls.
Repressed
sexually charged
impotent
and
ugly, repugnant
narcissists.

We sit in coffee shops
with our personal diaries
and create and destroy the future
of the tomorrow
that reads,
believes in us.

Every inch of caffeine
makes us **** out hate
and
spill out so much guts
that people who read us
squirm like acid burns.

We create hypes,
fool around with Nietzscheian ideas,
existential crap
but all we are doing
is creating a device
for shameful procrastination.

The world was not built around us
No world will
Whatever we think
we scoop up earthly dust
our jobs are but the
position of glorified
janitors.

We were still so young
Oh boy, we were young
*******, we are still young
Who has told us to sing & settle,
Drive and decide,
Come & relax,
Drink slow.

Oh let it hurt,
Oh god let it hurt,
Burn,
Scream even a tad
It won't make us
It won't even break us
It will just be bits and pieces
Of what we already are or will be anyhow

Oh so, why this haste?
Oh why the rush to accomplish
We have all heard of Nietzsche
Haven't we?

Oh let us waste,
Oh boy let us waste
Merry away,
Stay nonsense , inane
Live in strong, bipolar worlds
Feel,
Feel unsafe , insecure , hungry.

Oh, we still have time
Let us break a little now
Seek
Madness in the streets,
Magic in the dusty road less traveled
Let us search and then find
Many of what we already know
Just experience that is but knowledge now
Let us subsist on green
and all that can be stored in air filled bottles of glass.

For,
We are
Oh so young
We are still so young
******* , we are young
That one day
God will take a walk
Few steps
Downstairs.

Because it's a strange feeling waking up to a stranger every-time
a xenophobic aroma
unfamiliar nakedness
complicated traces of an unknown brand of hair shampoo
lying on the pillow.

Either pretending to be asleep
when she dresses up to go
or making a fake offer to make warm, lemon tea
only to have one last dated access to an otherwise sacred body.

Then the dull thud
the absence of the unknown
creating nauseating feelings of melancholia
that you will be forever alone
and will have to live for Friday nights
3 digit figures of conquests notwithstanding.

Often times, lying all day naked
staring outside for the point, reason of it all.
By the evening, paranoia is almost gone
creative surges phoenixizing the Henry Miller in me
For the Anais Nin's and Tania's of the night
once again.

© Nothing Personal. March 03 2012.

They said curiosity was the urge of the generation
I for myself, can hardly beg to differ
It was Friday
Austin was moist
there were raindrops all over my tyres
I drove on in an enchanting madness
I was alone there when I got there.
There were some of you
whom I thought I knew
but I actually didn't.

I felt amongst friends
Then the familiarity of some emotions
struck me
those emotions, that once and for all,
is beyond race, ethnicity and national origin.
You were mesmerized, but
people from your country are supposedly known
for nonchalance and indifference.
He had something for you
But niether did you know
nor did I
what would be true
if I were him.

Could we go back to the shades of the past
Could we disappear in black and in white
so that you would look beautiful
and I your gaunt lover.

I came back after pausing a moment to wonder.
You and him, tap danced away.
It was exhilirating for me
to watch all the excitement
and yet surprisingly not being a part of it
always forgotten
always uninvited.

But then I was invited somewhere
I became the face of the crowd
But then you called.

The rain didn't stop .
It poured and poured.
We chatted, briefly.
You became silent on the other end of the phone.
I waited on this end.

The rain kept pouring and pouring.
A thunder rolled.
I kept waiting for Saturday morning.
I watched the rain from pools,
streams, rivers of connected waters
washing away everything
from the window of my room
a window that I seldom open.

Saturday came unknowingly.
The rain had stopped.
It had left its scent.
I watched the branches of moss laden trees
and wondered.
A cold wind blew towards me.

© Nothing Personal. Feb 18 2012.

There are far better worlds out there
Hazy, unclear , certainly not vivid
in a journey of tangible emotions
where God indeed can sit down
for a game of chess
the result determining
who will hold
the key to the world of unlimited possibilities and endless travel
in time so infinite and uncountable
that the clock hardly ticks.

I would like to think that my every move
on the white and black checkered board
controls the torque in the tug of war
between six people-
death, the priest, the eternal mistress,
the aging child, the faceless warrior and
the pied piper of course.

I would play,
I would watch their dance
go in a trance like state
dream and wake up
wake up and dream
in a night that is always a night
yet there is evening lights outside
rampant wind
and triumphant music.

As my white queen approaches the demolition
of God's black king
I notice all the squares in the board
reversing sides
and either I will lose when I should I have won
or the game will go on forever.
Dreams are a gentle reminder
how absurd reality is.

© Nothing Personal. March 29 2012.