Empty streets in the cold of night,
An evening not so much as autumnal as it is of winter.
The roads, lined with little pinpricks of light
that seem to go on for miles, and miles,
without a beginning nor an end.
How does one differentiate a starting and a finishing point?
The laws of physics dictate
that displacement be calculated by the distance one has traveled
from their initial point of motion.
If I have traveled far and wide,
and stepped into the same footprints that I made when I first left,
I'd have come full circle;
my displacement would be nil.
Would it have been better to have been away, exerted all that effort, have gone through all the *****, and glamour,
and excruciating moments of boredom and nothingness
that life had to offer, just to come back to the same spot I started?
Or would it have been better to just stay in place,
mum and silent, with the world passing me by,
like streetlights in the road,
illuminating the way like signposts,
to the end for some, to the beginning for others,
but always -- always -- just a rock in the stream?

I

When we are still combating the problem of evil
With our vicious guns and metals of empathy
An invisible enemy much more clever and stealthy
Has been sneaking behind us
Suffocating us with the suddenly plenty
On this battlefield of seeking

We seem to be caught in between
Two grotesque foes, but are we really?
The gloomy autumn sky is covered with change
Perhaps we judged too early, unclearly-
The red leaves fallen with grace of leisure
Have obscured their countenance, and we see
Only a tattered fool holding a scythe of nothing
And a soldier looming with righteous perfection
Yet, perhaps behind their foliage masks
The fool has his brow raised with love and longing
Cherishing his tool for harvesting
While the soldier with his bullets ever ready
Smirks with an air of violence
Perhaps we have failed to distinguish
The unwanted, cleverly disguised humble friend
From the well dressed yet poisoned with greed, foe

II

Where I come from we used to send
The youth not to the land of plenty and above us
But to help the poor, those who after hard work
On the land, lie beneath a clear sky full of stars
Unwounded by the pale light polluting the cities
With nothing but the vast dome of possibility
The moon and specks lighting up nothing
But a heart full of hopes, love, and dream

Now we climb and climb
Till the new sprouts are already at the peak
Or they are struggling under the shadow
Of the giant trees
Unable to find higher climes
Or
Unable to break free from this lack of oxygen
Of the giant canopy of already achieved greatness

III

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Was not supposed to be experienced by us
In a couple of generations, in a couple of decades

And the speed of the waves of boom and bust
Of our stability and the longevity of great things
Is only getting faster and faster
In this ocean of constant rise and falling
In this new age
We lift up the logs above us so quickly
And then let them drown so rapidly
We are more like volcanic rocks
With so many holes floating, to ask to be filled
And when fulfilled, drown as we fill, purposeless
And empty

IV

Youth in both poverty and idleness craves for unrest
But those on top should never be opposed with
Proud antagonism
With cries of illusive victory the restless rush towards
The king who tied himself to the top rung of
The wheel fortunae
Who is yet unaware where his inertia leads
Till his destined demise as it turns
To lift up the newly rich
And the new enemy
The vicious cycle of wanting to be above all
When the unwanted truth is glad humility

V

The oak trees stable at its roots, undefeated
Sends us in leaves and birds chirping
A warning to heed that we are losing our depth
In our growth and rooting
For we have rarely seen the valley empty
Yet with all the space to fill with everything
And now live and dream on a slopeless plain
Some with it all and unable to hold anything
Some struggling to breathe under the shades
We are all waning, waning
For our fingers had never dug through the earth of life
With the desperation of the fear of being swarmed
By the dark clouds of timely locusts
Yet,
These wizened words are being scoffed
For being too connected to the past

Are we proposing to cut off the rope
Connecting us to the very beginning
Just so we could get faster to the end
To the depth of this pit
Where no traveler would truly return
Without the past guiding
And we will fall again and again
Ever repeating

VI

I was filled with guilt and despair
That while people are still with next to nothing
With no luxury and sometimes not even family
That when others try to bring them necessities
I can sit in cozy idleness writing poetry
Yet filled with nothing but shame and the empty
In a world less and less occupied with reading
Why I must be a poet sole and wholehearted

And when the missionaries
Send the doves through the screen
Asking for awareness and money
To support these bodies with nothing
I was suddenly filled with hopeless shame and pain
For only one thought echoed from the words said to me
"They have very little material things, yet they seem to be really happy"
And that was the way it used to be
That the suffered and now living with peace
Seems to recall with loving longing
With great sorrow and gladness, I ask you
Is it really monstrous to say they are in a better place than we
They have the most important things
Love, hopes, and dreams
And the nothing waiting to and could be
Filled with anything
While our shaded and sheltered youth
While we hold our cups full
Filled with useless glamorous materials of our own
Or
Constantly poured out for others to keep
Wailing for something more
And lasting

Conclusion:

At the core of our ever-hungry souls
We only really needed one thing:
To be filled with something.

Hopefully more permanently,
But nothing of materialism, or even rationalism
Last more than
A mirage of permanency
Even the century tree of sunset dunes
Eventually sets as whispering dust into the sand
And even the wisest man fades away
Into the senile body whose soul
Has already bid farewell
To this temporary land

I sought and sought
And only found that  
The Word is true
Only Love transcends time and space
The embrace between two condensed hearts
Of pure longing could exert
The gravity
And gravitational time dilation
Of such self-forgetful density
That would wrap entire fabrics of reality
Around us, immersing us, with brief
Merciful revelations and trials
Of the unfathomable
Eternity.

I want to be an enigma
I want the words to fall out of my head
And into your hand
Or maybe into nothingness,
That would be better
I’m begging to feel nothing
And I’m dying to feel something
Just let me disappear, God
Let me fade away
For Forever
~

Ode to The Epiphaner:

Verse:

So all the silence and emptiness
Is just so I can grow endlessly and free
Unobscured by the foliage’s density
All the oxygen won’t be stolen from me

If the soul and mind can’t hide
In the darkness of the night
How can I ever collect
The fruits of the dreams I strive

Let me
Climb upon barren rocks of greater heights
With the abandoned groves in sight
Every yield is mine
Sometimes a no man’s land
Can be the most beautiful place under the sky  

Chorus:

Those that despair, still care
While the silent continues to sing
The Epiphaner will always be here
For me, a long long road remains
But we will all take flight, we will all fly
Our wings will bid farewell to earth
But, there is still time
There is still time
One day, even time will die
Even time will die
Time will die
It will die

Bridge:

If only leaves and lone stars reside
In the ultramarine midsummer sky
How short and trivial will be my sight
I want to be the century-old desert tree
The Watcher of the waning moonlight
Without the ceaseless River of Praise
I still won’t go “gentle into that good night”


Verse:

Why only distance and unreachable gaze
Could testify the true believer’s faith
Like watcher of the lost, the pale moonlight
I have to shine bright in the starless nights

I have to lead the way
For the broken and dazed
For them to escape
This bleak and hopeless place

Upon the
Land of nothingness and desolation
The road is calm with a sure destination
I will be on time
One day I will be there
Perhaps still the only one
The Lone Soul basking on the other side


Chorus:

Those that despair, still care
While the silent continues to sing
The Epiphaner will always be here
For me, a long long road remains
But we will all take flight, we will all fly
Our wings will bid farewell to earth
But, there is still time
There is still time
One day, even time will die
Even time will die
Time will die
It will die

CODA:

If there are more vessels than waves
In the tides and curvature of time
How tedious would the voyage be
I want to be the eternity shadow
Ever unrequited, loving the sunlight
When all matters in the universe die
The abyss would still be my paradise

I

Men must slumber in the darkness
In order to be truly awaken
Men must be desperately lost
In order to look up at the endless stars

The young love to sing about death
While the old worship life like the sun
The young are hopeless on earth, dreaming of flight
The old fear to be parted from the land without a raging fight

II

Who wants to be from War and Peace
The Fly against the loft sky
But we are all just flies
Traceless, each life in a dream it lies
Always to be awakened, bringing nothing and taking nothing
Why must we seek truth in a dream?
If we will forget them when we finally open our eyes
With joy, with sorrow
We witness death
Just so we would strive to stay alive
But why are we alive?
To prepare us for what?

III


Is it just for that half asleep, half awake
Shadowy, faint, and veiled memory?
Is it possible that when we truly open our eyes one day
We would still feel all that we’ve felt in the dreams?
Yes, in my brief nightly drowsiness, I have felt
Despair and happiness
And existed so profoundly!

Slumber or Awake, Illusion or Truth
Reality or Dream
There never was any true death or an end
I was always
Alive Alive Alive

I

Life is the only route
Between nothingness and the endless
Our birth on earth, and our perishing to dirt
Are both equal ends for the existing

And fools will simply rejoice in the illusive brevity
While sages prepare for the everlasting dance
And fools will take comfort in the darkness obscuring his sins
While sages prepare for the brilliance of the yonder light  
By already shining and basking in this life

II

I want to be from War and Peace
The Bee of such trivial and insignificant life
For we are all just bees
Unnoticed, but must exist
Why were we ever born to fly,
When true height is beyond this life?
Just for the pollen and nectar, taken and given?
Till bees return to the impermanent or the forever?
We will regret their absence then, bitterly and barrenly
Witnessing loss, just to learn to cherish
The existing.
But we exist, for what?

III

Is it just for that half asleep, half awake
Shadowy, faint, and veiled memory?
Is it possible that when we truly open our eyes one day
We would still feel all that we’ve felt in the dreams?
Yes, in my brief nightly drowsiness, I have felt
Despair and happiness
And existed so profoundly!

Slumber or Awake, Illusion or Truth
Reality or Dream
There never was any true death or an end
I was always
Alive Alive Alive

Conclusion:

Being alive
Is not just so we can die
That is completely meaningless
Being alive,
Is the only route
From nothingness to endlessness

Only having been once alive
Can you be resurrected
Only when you walk this road to the end
Will you find and continue the pave to the
Neverending Land

"Who am I deep down?"
I 'm thinking to myself.
And age old question
that echoes through my mind

Am I just my body
or am I merely just my thoughts?
Or am I maybe the conscience
that's runs throughout my brain?

I 'm asking without end
yet the answer can't be found
and in the silence I can hear
somebody whisper in my ear:

"I hope someday you find this out
the answer as to who you really are
may the mystery just shrivel
and only then you"ll find your peace."

The world is withering like the fallen leaves
I can never tell where upon the terrace field
Of life, exploration. existence and will-
Are we nearing the end of our summit
Or merely crossing the drop of a hill
Ever far from the clouds, fringe of the pit
Are we at the very first rung of the fate wheel
Or are we edging rapidly towards the dip
Are we about to crush are we about to kneel
Are we losing our desperate clawing grips
Am I hearing welcoming drums or is this our knell
Is the thief of time silently vouching to steal
Our last supper our very last earthly meal
Or are we just crouching to brace The Greater Leap

Faded as that 90’s graffiti on the train station walls,
Old locomotives, their engines cease to spin and sputter.
Little mice, too famished in their task, caress cogs and messages,
From places, too dark to read, the notes pile up.
Some, I think, may be blank.
Some, I could not read, as I scribbled those promises too fast.
A great mound of empty words made from a tree now dead.
The cogs move no more, I doubt they were ever connected before…


In line for a one-way ticket out of this grave land,
My baggage gripped tight with both hands- makes it difficult to keep in check,
I try to hide it with a smile, no one offers to help.
Surprisingly sullen, my every movement seems to echo from bold, cold walls,
The insignia behind the ticket master’s house is sprayed in red and it reads:
‘This was always a one-way trip’
I bite my lip, try to understand how to turn menace into sand,
This station is run by ghosts. I can feel them watching from holes in the wall.


I was asked by a stranger, “why did you come here”,
My staggered recoil from justice and reason must have been enough,
When I looked back, my persecutor was lost to an empty hall,
And the bones of this room can be seen when it breathes,
So clear, not seen the sun shine in a long time,
Startled like a bird falling into a pool, I wonder why I came here at all.


I talk to the ticket officer, this hat worn low, talking from a dark place,
I want to know, “the time of the next train please”,
But the man only holds my gaze, from beneath his low cap
Motionless, the spindly man holds all the cards, then blows away into the wind.
Left his own station in search of tracks. Somewhere remote
The sun is shining, and life is dead upon this new day.


Perhaps it is too early, I sit and wait for someone to talk to,
“You know that bag must be awfully heavy, please let me carry it for you”,
I shake my head and grip what is mine a little tighter,
“Don’t be afraid to let me in, I only want to help you free your light”,
But I don’t care for skin or bones, I set down my bag and watch,
The man of bones, with dreams larger than his stake,
Perhaps, if you were not so far away, you would have the strength to exist,
I look up to see the man who tried so frugally,
Met by dead air, perfectly comfortable- without a friend in the world.


I take a stroll down the decrepit tracks, cold air grasps at skin and sense,
Just to see the colour of the rust, and what the reaction was,
The trains and tracks are turning bitter-brown and discoloured purple,
Holes are manifesting themselves into the carriage, much less comfortable than I ever knew.
I step on the dead cartridge, much less comfortable than I ever-
Reliving a time when the carriage was bright, and laughter echoed the halls,
Far down the musky, dark-grey scope, I can hear the faint sobs of a child,
Inevitably, I find the kid, small and frail, sobbing into his hands from under his hat.


“Dear Michael, this carcass is the last place that I expected to find you”,
I kneel down beside the boy and tell him what comes from inside”
“You didn’t spend much time here when we were alive, I am leaving you Michael, your world is cold and dead”.
The boy trembles before sobbing turns to cold laughter,
He lifts his head and I peer into two dark and empty sockets,
Pristine, white bones contrast the encroaching darkness,
Michael tells me: “There is no leaving this place”.


The skeleton child’s words are empty.


A little while down the track, darkness pours from every crack,
Each train looks as dead as the one that was mine,
I follow a trail of disfunction to the end of the line,
Where I find a train, most unlike the rest, its silky black skin has been kept intact,
Monstrous, foreboding and intimidating, the conductor keeps the fire stoked,
Red mist puffs from the window, horror stagnant beauty feels and flows.


The walls of the carriage are meticulously decorated,
Framed pictures resting on crimson silk, a life frozen in time,
I am not welcome here,
Presently, a feral scream from far away- the engine room,
A mad man armed with fire eyed fury,
Jackal Rushes through moment and memory in fear and panic,
The first thing in this nightmare clad in skin,
The man stands still, full height, coloured in… I look into his eyes:


I fall back through twisted carriages.
Light.
Butterflies protecting fire from rain.
I sleep safe knowing that no one thinks of me.