1965

The plane was unstable
But that's what test pilots do
Work out the kinks out
It was called the Lockheed starfighter
the updated version.
The landing gear was stuck
I had started for  the airport six times but my fuel was in vapour.
No choice it landed belly up .
I saved 29 million of the country's money.
I got out of the plane they  
rushed me to hospital
That's where I got two crash landings in one day.
She was a nurse but so beautiful.
She said I got to do your vitals honey.
My vitals were already standing to attention.
She noticed but said nothing.
Just smiled.
I asked if I was due a bed bath
Still smiling she said I looked like I needed a cold shower.
She would look into it
We married six months late
I don't think in my long life I was ever happier.
My buddy was a some kind of weird science guy working on secret government projects.
I don't know why we clicked but we did.
He said your gonna **** yourself in one of those flying coffins
And I am working to bring you back.
He was right that ******* widowmaker blasted into the trees on landing
The took me to the ghospital he said he's dead.
They put me in one of he frozen contraptions a cryogenic vault way below the base.
And froze me.
Then he got killed in a lab explosion and time went by

2016
¡the building was being demolished
But I was a popsicle in the cryogenic tube
A young construction guy found the forgoten vault.
He unfastened the tubes and gas exploded in room
The top opened
And he saw me below.
He ran screaming out to report the incident
By then the ice was melting I was awaken in a new reality
fifty years later
I got up sirens were blasting everywhere
I was naked but looked like I was when I was frozen.
I found some clothes in the lab and put them on.
When I got outside I was blinded by the California sun
Then cars were streaming by
A helicopter flying over head
Flashing neon signed everywhere it was bedlam.
I ran and ran
Then found a newspaper in the garbage
It said August 12  2016
It hit me
I was a ******* time traveler.
I was in a state of confusion
But this was a residential area.
A nice ranch bungalow was in front
I saw a big tree house for the kids
Running up the ladder I stopped and wept
Where was Jenny my house ?
I added twenty to fifty one *** ***
I still looked Twenty four.
I fell asleep
The noise awoke me it was dark.
A guy was trying to put heavy moves on the pretty lady in the kitchen she was screaming
I ran down into the house and the guy told to get lost.
I asked him to leave quietly the lady does not seem interested he went for me
But I kicked his ******* ***.
And threw him out. He had just had his *** kicked by a 74 year old geezer.
Her little boy was watching
The ******* television was the size of the movie screen
She told me she had dated this guy  months earlier but he was an *******
Sixties girls did not swear much this one had a dose of sailors mouth.
It looked like I had missed out on some smoking burning
bras ****
She let me stay couchsurfing
The kid was nice I liked him
I told him where I was from
looked at me and said you're a ****** but you helped mom.
The kid looked into some kind of spiders web on a small walkman thing no wires how did it work.h e called it an eye phone.
Then he found my buddy's address.
We phoned it was his daughter he's dead she said before I was born his lab blew up.
We went over the next day.
She said you are Jimmy right.
I said yes
I told her I lost my wife jenny the love of my life.
I lost her by sort of dying myself.
She smiled No she's alive.
She gave me a book it had my buddy's neat handwriting in it.
If for any reason I get disabled and Jimmy shows give him this.
It told me of his secret experiments in cryonics.
Then it dropped the bombshell.
Ageing cannot be reversed.
You will get to the age you should be in  days after reanimation.
I looked at my hands they were getting ******* liver spots.
My hair was turning grey.
I could carry groceries in the bags forming under my eyes.
I did not have time to waste.
I had a four hundred miles trip ahead.
I caught the bus to Seattle then took a car to the ocean
Her house was on a hill
It was windy I was out of breath just getting to it from the road
I felt weak and old I think I am going to die before I get there.
Then I was at the front door just a few more steps
And I would see her once more.
The bell of course ..I rang the bell
No answer the house was silent.
I fell to my knees weeping like a child.
I was too late
But then a beautiful older lady appeared behind me.
I recognised her eyes and that smile.
She dropped a basket of cut flowers onto the floor
Oh my god she gasped ...Jimmy?
Yes Jenny it's me
She held me close and we embraced.
Oh I have dreamt of your return she said.
We kissed again
Some passions defy age and time.

A year later

She made me remarry her to renew my vows
You might have forgotten your old ones she reasoned.
The person that gave her away to me
Was a beautiful lady about 49 years old
She kissed us both
Wishing us a life of joy.
I love you mom
And you too daddy
It was Alice my beautiful daughter.
Who introduced me to my granddaughter Jane.
And my great granddaughter.
Of nine months old Abby.
Who capped of the whole event
With her first half word
Gan Gan.

Do you remember
The fairy tales we spun
On those blazing summer noons
When the road tar was melting
And we bunked classes
To be under the forest flame
Shadowed from the world outside
When we thought time would be immortal
As you wiped the sweats from my forehead
And with every thread of yarn
I would grip you harder
In an effort to prevent gravity
From letting those moments fall
Into the abyss of memories.

Do your eyes still see the Prince
That never took you away
When you tell your grandkids
The fairy tales?

So far the story goes
Miss Place keeps everyone on their toes.

For her finding things is not an easy thing
Most of her possessions invariably go missing
Nowhere to be found are objects of her use
And the ones she blames find some excuse
That she is unmindful and blatantly unfair
Her missing comb is there only in her hair
To her desperate hunt for an important file
She's told she's sitting on it all the while
When she lost an earring and was sulking morose
It so happened they said she wore it on her nose
She wonders why her family should at all blame her
If her car keys are found in the dickey of her car
and why on earth should the blame be all hers
when her money is in a book and not in her purse.

Miss Place thinks she knows the reason for such mess
others' gross negligence in putting things in place.

When over the rail bridge
on the sky autumn blue
clouds floated in cotton pieces

I longed for home.

The port light tower
and the masts of anchored ships
made me keen to reach home
like a sailor long on the sea
disembarking with dreamy eyes
thinking if at all is one home
a tender lip awaiting his sunburned cheek
or if he would retrace to the waves
and someone waiting was only in his head.

I was at Remount Road an old station
with home not really that far
and disproportionately small to my yearning.

I was making a brisk walk
and when at the door
fell into a reverie of
rail bridge
anchored ships on the port
white on the autumn blue
and the small station
Remount Road.

Our maths teacher wasn’t amused.

He solved hard problems for us
taught sincerely in the class
but the moment he held the pen
sweats would flood his palm
like a nagging rain
that his army of handkerchief
couldn’t bring any relief
with the dripping moisture
like a school of sharks
devoured our paper’s ink marks
and from the workouts already done
steps were wiped out one by one.

At those times he wouldn’t speak
only looked at us apologetic
burdened as if with guilt’s weight
for the treachery of his ceaseless sweat
that forced him to desist from anymore writing
close his pen and start dictating.

Then one day we saw him bring out a cream
his agony had reached such an extreme
with that he rubbed his palms with glee
looked he had solved a great mystery
said now this would lock all the doors
stop sweat’s pour through skin’s pores.

I'm reading poetry at the cremation ghat
amid chanting of God's name
while ferrying and burning the dead.

The noise unsettles me a bit
as sets me thinking of my own death
that by all means seems closer than farther.

Yet I get the relieving feel
reading poems would heal
all the agonies of my flesh
and take me to that spiritual level
where I would take death as
passing into another dimension.

I'm not much of a religious person
but have always felt devoted to my kindred
seeking transcendence through them.

The best thing I'm hoping right now
is when I burn
someone would amid chanting of God's name
read poetry at the burning ghat.

Just when you think
the road leads to nowhere
crops up the moss veiled house

its crumbling bricks make greyer
the sky with the hush of twilight
and you rue with melancholy
the night under its roof assigned for you

but the old man like a seasoned spider
lets you forget you're trapped for the night
to his web spun from timeworn earth
as you stare engrossed upon his face
outlined by glowworm sparks

he recounts it was all marshland
he grew into bowl of harvest
and how he was blessed with
the most beautiful woman on earth
then reaching the crescendo
his words thin into whispers
when he tells you his two poor eyes
were not enough to hold her beauty
so she putting a stone on her heart
spread wings on a night like this

the cornfield wilted
he wizened into an endless wait
with gracious death saving his bones
to lighten his heart to a stranger
who comes alone.

You are not my muse, no
But
You
Are so much more...