Unexpected…..
So unexpected was the meeting
It was in the dim candle light
of a city restaurant that I saw her
How time had etched its marks on her
The long dark curly hair
has turned all white
The even set of pearly teeth
now discolored with missing gaps.
A weeping willow with gnarled branches!

Did she recognize me?
Her searching eyes registered
a limp awareness
Soon I saw her cataract eyes shining
in unclouded recognition!

My memory like the arm of a crane
lowered to plough up the hard crust of the past
and rose with heaps of broken rubble
I nosedived into the past
to the little village
where, as children we ran round
the long necked shady trees
until our little heads went dizzy

Stealing behind the tall grass
how I would suddenly yell out;
‘The thief is in hide
Come and track me if you can’
forcing on her an arduous search,
all the while giggling at her vain efforts!

How we ran after the ripe mangoes
that fell in ones and twos
when the winds shook the fruit laden boughs
and how we quarreled over the yellow ones
like mongrels over a piece of bone

I remember once when the drizzle
suddenly strengthened into a heavy down pour
with thunder and lightning accompanying,
how we ran dripping and frightened
seeking shelter in the empty cow shed
at the backyard of a house,
clasping tight to each other!
She was then a little girl
with springing feet and dancing steps
naïve and naughty with all mouth and ears

But as time skipped by
she kept a safe distance
No more I saw the former ebullience in her
In its place, a quiet reserve settled in
The chatterbox no more opened her mouth
To my questions, her answers were mono syllables
My efforts to walk by her side
always ended in futility
either she would quicken her gait
or lag behind at snail’s pace
Seeing me somewhere
she would walk away with eyes down cast
But I always noticed a faint smile
lingering on her curved narrow lips

Around it, I built my dream castle
where she reigned as my dazzling queen!
I am not sure how it was with her
One day even without an abrupt goodbye
I had to leave my hometown to an alien soil.

For long, she came, sailing in my dreams!

After a couple of years when I returned
to the land of my childhood
the mute witness to my unuttered passion
I knew from a close friend
that she was forced into a marriage
much to her consternation!
She is reported to have confided to someone
that she hoped the ‘thief who stole her heart
would one day, come out of hiding’

We met again
We heard each other’s cracked voice
and stood unable to recollect all

Much water had flown down
under the bridge
And we floated in the rush of currents!

Thoughts descend
in neon whites of infinity
to hit the keyboard as an avalanche of words
to leave thumb-prints of ingenuity.

Words become cadaverous,
impotent to birth them.
They leave stillborns
with pale yellow shadows!

An eerie pain numbs my senses.
I suffocate.
O, had I become the unuttered word!

The owl
owns silence,
it dawns;
movements
are arrested,
as stillness
comes alive
as owl moments.

The condor,
gravitas,
incarnated,
in relentless search,
circling around
the sky's navel,
in a mystical quest,
a motif that arrests
motions of mind.

An owl sits and sees,
a visible presence
of an invisible absence,
on the cosy notch
hid by foliage
on the  tree of loneliness.

Perking up ears
inner silence,
the faithful watch dog,
listens owl's unuttered words,
ever echoing,
deep within the walls
of mind's corridor.

The owl and the condor,
the eloquence of silence,
has two voices speaking
in unison.In the secret center
they reveal the forbidden,
silence rules, the dawn of wisdom
bright and spectacular, awaken
the fog filled landscape.

-ACT I-

I once was a dreamer and a lover of dedication.
There was nothing in my path I couldn't overcome or revolutionize.
I was the practitioner of self indulgence;
the preeminence of gluttony.

I held myself in the highest regards.

Whatever I desired, I made sure to obtain.
Whoever I desired, I made sure to detain.

I was fascinated by my own passion for existence
It was only natural for me to bear hatred for those
who I condemned wasteful and destructive.

Throughout my years on this planet
I desperately and yearningly needed space.

I wanted to be distant like the stars,
so I decided to disconnect myself
from society altogether.

-ACT II-

In my own world away from the world I was in
I often found myself counting minuscule grains of sand
left in the hour glass that brutally executed my ancestors.

I have counted approximately eighty six thousand
four hundred and fifty six grains of sand before I realized
how insignificant and meaningless it was to persist.

I asked myself, why must I be so flagrant? Why am I so conflicted between my ability to be sane and in my inability to be inane? How was I to know I would become what I hated most?

I have become wasteful and self destructive.

I wasted so much time in counting the time I had left,
I neglected myself from moments that were essential and nutritious for me to experience and treasure.

I realized how timing and planning aren't always most important.

Sometimes it is better to simply take chances and jump without worrying too much about where we land because it is the memories that we cherish most in thee end.

All fears and boundaries come secondary. They are all subject to change. I learnt to think of them as illusioary variables.

-ACT III-

All I ever wanted out of life was to talk and express myself
in a way that will be cogent to everyone.

I wanted to express my deviation in a way that will be supplemental to our everyday life. I urgently felt the need to be ingenuous and indispensable.

I knew it was necessary to be more direct and down to earth,
but my head was too far stuck in the clouds. I was duped into thinking that love was in the air, and all wealth and knowledge were all at the top.

I was naive enough to pilot myself through stromy weather in the high hopes of finding better.

Flying fearlessly reckless I swore I would keep my distance
I swore to reach far beyond the stars, and rock the milky way, but unbeknownst to me I learnt an undisputed truth.
The sky above is truly the limit.

The space I thought I desperately needed ended up being lifeless and unbearable.

-ACT IV-

I went above and beyond just to be unworldly enough to give you the world, but doing so only left me feeling alienated. I was too blinded to see the rocket I flew was built with infatuation.  

I misconceptionally thought love was the highest power,
but in actuality it is the most deepest.

The sound of rain and thunder deafened me from sound advice and good judgment. Reality struck me out of the skies above,
and harshly colluded me against the cold deep blue sea
where I struggled to survive and failed to overcome.

The aphotic pressure below was far too much for me to endure alone.

My strength hasn't quite recovered from the impact of the collision. I tried to recall how I gotten myself into this predicament, but the only thing I could remember was me searching for something. I was too weak to move, too weak to admit defeat. Nothing made much sense to me anymore.

-ACT V-

I was told our lives flash before us just before the moment of our demise, but it wasn't long before my confidence along with my dignity were instantly crushed. My eyes widen when my heart shattered.

My voice sealed shut by the suffocation of silence.

I had no memories to cherish, and had no one to save me. I had no one to breathe life back into me. It was all elusive and reclusive. I had fallen from the skies and crushed deep into the sea where it swallowed me whole.

My mind locked away in a book of endless darkness and pure abyss, but somehow my body managed to remain functional and intact.**

My body was washed ashore on a remote island where it continues to walk in a path of agony and unfulfillment.

They say life's a bliss.
But what if
When you play the words, you stiff.
For a gift of tongue, you're not blessed.

Your opinion, unheard.
Your point, misinterpreted.
Your side, neglected.
Your existence, taken for granted.

Who says it's happiness;
When life itself is the maximum limit?
When you battle for your right?
The right to express what's in - deep.

It's a continuous struggle when you're your own foe.
It's an everyday cry of your unuttered woes.

~~~*

this old man's tiddlywink, land-locked words,
runted, blunted instruments,
needy for release, the balm of salvation,
woods, neither silvered or exacting,
more a spit stain polish for a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon,
smoothed 'cept for the brute brunted bunting
of christ-crossing railroad tie lines,
all across his roughened terrain'd face,
a black and a white Degas
pen and ink etched illustration
of howling agitation.

the concrete moonscape
racked upon his soul and face,
mapped remembrances of variegated Judas kisses
each left in a pockmarked hidey place,
tired principles bent, bent from sacrificing oneself,
a rockstar burnt offering,
to any deity that promises illusions that time,
can be healed, all its cursed residues & sins sealed,
in locked antechambers, fully furnished rooms,
rentable for perpetuity if so desired,
but irony dictums diktat says you've locked yourself in,
in circular spaces where every angle stab-states:

yo, there are no unpainted corners for escape,
no day of atonement on your petite universe's calendar,
nor a host of worthy words that can e're suffice,
so howling makes perfect sense

inventory the wasted errors accumulated, accentuated,
uncovered by the howling of only "I'd known better,"
his accountants all jolly rip roar laugh,
when you beg them to ******~reduce jail time of
ancient leaden bulletpoints from the taxes future payable,
they profess there is no statue of limitation from any authority's press
for dues owed arising from your own imitations,
they mock me by howling in poe-ing unison,
"nevermore, nevermore...forevermore"

the contradiction of those criss#crossed fine lines,
each pointing in no direction, a trap of inaction,
fie, fie, on the double dealing hand you have dealt yourself
in the game of liar's poker, where all the face cards curse with smiles,
pretend portents portrait paintings of only rosy outcomes,
each a one way sign,  each pointing to a different,
magnetic compass course in a world
where all polarity confused, reversed,
so wayward, the only direction home

before Rembrandt's self-portrait @  Met Musée, he worships,
the painter's hipster jaunty hat pouty-pointy stating,
"what me worry,"
but the cracked crevices, whisper even louder,
"nothing left to lose,"
in the gallery, all stare, misunderstanding why,
why you weep profuse in perfect recognition at the
mirroring witness testifying, from whose pixels you cannot be protected,
each agitated paint pore shouts words of 
"j'accuse, j'accuse"
in a dulcet howling harmony

words lip locked, no exit, traffic jammed inside squirrelly cheeks,
scabs form, mortar and pestle a pus paste of
jumbled sounds and tongued blood,
a delicacy of swoosh and swish spit,
ugly kept behind prison bars of yellowed teeth,
a vile concoction of glorious bile of new combinations,
destined to die unuttered,
the howling all internal, becomes silence,
and yet, here,
here lies buried proof positive,
"even silence finds a tongue,"^
even words, unspoken,
yet, mind-reader read quietly,
permits the howling agitation exorcise and surcease,
rein to escape