Thoughts
splash echoing
like pebbles into a well.

Confusion.
Woven like a web all over.

Returning at the same spot,
beaten, broken into
a hundred parts.

Echoing.
Returning.

Plumes of obfuscation.
Rising, spreading everywhere.

Frustration.

This spiraling music in the head.
What is the way forward?

The rickshaw slices the expanse
speeding away from my grasp.

A query rises into the wilderness
of a hundred distractions.

The bell. The bell. Distant, sonant.
Door. Phone. Beep. Beep.

The firmament is camouflaged.

Am looking for a direction;

Confusion. Obfuscation. Frustration.

I followed the line of smoke at dawn:
Smoke from ebbing fires that
burned all night, leading to
some unknown end
past the horizon: eagles
circled above and crows
sliced the hum of the wind,
as I walked on,
shadows
of a buried life emerged:
Laughter, cries of joy, who is that
running after severed kites?
Colours splashed in merry
summers; that corner refuge
hiding during scary fights -
Memories like a river
roaring out of the gorge,
ruins
of a buried life,
emerged out of the horizon
beyond the line of smoke,
figures that retreated into shadows
and corners beyond approach,
memories of buried, forgotten times...

You lie curled up this way by my side
budding rose waiting
to bloom, light plays with
shades on your face like in a Monet
piece: your lips in bloom,
touched up bright and curled hair,
waving in the breeze.
You suddenly proclaim in half-sleep,
'get ready, we've got an invite.'
You even cite
a phone number. As random
as it is, it brings a smile; and
when you ask for the time, I'm happy
you are awake, but then you ask,
'what shall I wear? After all, we
mustn't look plain at the do.'

Shadow keepers and whisper-mongers
dressed up in hallowed head gears:
An eternal flame weeps
that leads to the heart of the republic.

Fly-by air drills and tableau thrills,
mighty state on display,
don't delight anymore;
Who's the guest of honour
taking the salute this year?
Who cares - this is
a republic in distress.

Dusty statues of heroes past
that gave their blood for a vision
that freed, spruced up today
weep in their silhouette.

One stands accused
of subverting law for partisan ends
Another owes everything
to a last name and what else since?
What choice - this is
a republic in despair;
Crisis everywhere.

But sadly, no one seems to care.
Happy republic day.
There's a new pub down the road.
Exciting malls on the way.
Drink, brother, to wits' end.
The republic don't care.
The republic in decline.

Midnight thrall:
middle of the road, fingers
tucked in long full-sleeves
but for floodlights
emerging off mists:

An event. A memory. A bell.
No end in sight.

Silent night. Mad owls prowl.
Confused crows some still awake.

Milk clogs the kitchen drain.
Hour of the shadows.
Nothing ever lasts,
nothing ever lasts.

Distant clock. Pitter-patter tap.

Stupid evolution.

The gene pool flows on
to utter unknown ends.

Meanwhile we dream up
heaven-like unions and revolutions
and coronations.

Stupid night. Confused crickets.

Spider and insects. Enter
the lizard. Half a telephone ringing.
Man at the summit.

See-saw, swing. Dying distance.

Secret inspirations on wonder nights
that come on the wings of wet winds,
moments that tiptoe across the gulf
of the worlds, I keep them deposited,
safe in your soul; When you smile,
you bring hundred hidden meanings
to life; You are my journal: in you I
hold my fondest fjords and rarest
gorges zealously concealed from the
prying eyes of life and time; Empty
flower vase that brings a silent corner
alive in shades of azul, dream-song
of the lone twig romancing the moon
in waving waters of the silent lake,
distant star that lights smiling eyes,
invisible companion on sacred quests,
hope of the cactus in barren deserts,
Señora, without you, I am a poet
orphaned in the loss of his journal.

These birds of war that encircle the sky
painted dark by smoke from fires engulfing
events here: every one of them spawns
an illusion, spreading in all directions, until
no twig is untouched: everywhere only
the Mistletoe. Fragrances of the deep night
by the ford under the moon, silken hair
soft for touch under first rays of the golden
morn, images, return broken like imprints
on the ramparts; where now, those oaks
of love that sustained our passion for war?
Years sunk into the quicksands of greed,
After nine winters, now only the Mistletoe.