Night has well and truly fallen
And laying in bed
The sounds
Of crickets and cicadas
Sizzles in from the windows.
Though my eyes grow heavy,
I try to write a poemmmmm........¡zzzzz 0

When a rain-storm surprised the city
Passers-by looked down with pity
At a large group of nutters
Inspecting the gutters
An unfortunate planning committee.

They decided today was good timing
Below-streets they soon were climbing
Where the gutters connect
To the sewers they checked
And all got a very good sliming.

The day leaves me somewhat melancholy
Due to a story I heard recounted.
It's about a life, a love, a death observed
By a stranger across a garden.

From afar she saw the pieces played
Unfolding as the months went by.
From happiness and living pleasant lives
To weakness, despair and loss.

I, just a random listener with a radio
The story makes me pause.
I identified with the tragic soul
Not the observer from afar.

Do I stop and reconsider now
The path on which I live?
Do I think ahead and enjoy this
Comfort and security while it lasts?

We're curious things, we humans
When confronted with mortality.
Loath to break free of our routines
And so to face possibilities so dire.

Everyone lauds the sunny day
They lavish them with praise.
It's such an easy proposition
In warmth and golden haze.

But it is, I'd say, a refinéd taste,
When the day dawns bleak and grey,
To find the joy of heavy clouds
That bubble-wrap your day.

And oh, the ones with pouring rain?
Many call them vile
The drum of raindrops on one's roof
Brings to me a smile.

A wailing wintry driving blizzard?
You declare it all so rotten.
Yet my heart gets a pleasant lift
From a landscape wrapped in cotton.

Now slush-and-sleet-filled days in March
Are a horrible kind of weather
I fear it seems to void my thesis
And bring to no one pleasure.

It erodes the denizens' state-of-mind
Optimism quite diminished
Everyone with tempers short
All wishing it were finished.

Oh, for a bright day in July
With no one getting huffy,
A golden sun that rules the sky
And clouds so big and fluffy.

"Lost love spell caster voodoo spells"
The spammy text-posts read
Let's write them off, as so much bunk
That nobody would heed.

"Love marriage specialist
in Ahmedabad" said another
Finally you could be betrothed
And satisfy your mother!

Voodoo spells and marriage vows
For only a few rupees,
The challenges of life, all quickly solved,
With very modest fees.

A thin tendril of wispy stuff
Threads in-between and around the heavy planks
Binding them together
As they float directionless off-shore.
All aboard lounge about
As listless as their path,
Floating this way,
Then that.
Surrounded by steam-belching tugs
That **** and jostle the drifting raft
Go that way,
Now go this.

Ultimately low on coal,
And with a weaker head of steam.
Soon they move away disinterested
Leaving the lounging raft-bound hoard
Never having found the controls
Nor recognizing the cardinal points on the compass
They hold over their heads as a talisman.

A handful of truth and answers
Sprinkled over the upward-turned faces
Eyes closed, mouths agape
Desperate for puzzle pieces
So long assured of what they would look like
They bounced off foreheads
And shoulders
And fell down around their feet
And were left trampled and unrecognized
Still blowing about in little skiffs
Around the edges of the field
After all had gone.