Pale faces and red eyes
approach making no sound
Pale faces and red eyes
emerge from diamond studded cars
Ask the sun why it dares to shine
For her rebelliousness, is it a salute?

My subconscious mind
looks for a yellow bus around
In front of the class, summarize
who you are in words, just few
Ask the sky why it looks so blue
For it feels like the first day of school

Her casket holds the night skies
Frozen flames struggle to dance
to the tunes seen by her eyes
The lilies may wilt if given a chance
It's a Visitation, you're supposed to cry
But frankly, your eulogy is full of lies

You wear grief just like school uniforms;
For a few hours and out of formality
Funeral director, the head of the school
Making money out of a dying galaxy
Her thoughts shall live as immortals
There's more to bury than just the body

A masked old man makes me realize
He bleeds black tears from his eyes
He tells me they performed an autopsy
Out bled nothing but art and poetry
Lo and behold! Another galaxy has died
In whose heart now, will my soul reside?

I met a dead person yesterday
Not a ghost, or some figment of my imagination
I met a dead person yesterday
with no introduction. No hello
or my name is...
Velvet drapery and cellophane-wrapped flowers are no
welcoming committee
I met a dead person yesterday,
with tears in his mothers eyes.

You were my friend.
I was the only one at your funeral,
You didn’t have many friends.

I buried you myself,
In my own backyard.

I loved you so much!
I love you still.
I love you so much I wrote this poem for you.

Taken so soon,
It ***** you don’t live as long as we do.
I hope heaven is kind to you

I will never forget you!
You were there when I needed you!
I was there when you needed me too!
But now you’re gone.

I will join you again one day my friend,
But until then,
You can eat all the carrots that you want,
Hop around in all the fields that you want.
And when I arrive,
We can eat all the carrots that we want,
We can hop around all the fields that we want.

May you rest in peace.

Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Everyday a soul is lost

Souls of love
Souls of lust
Souls on endearment
Souls of trust

Souls full of knowledge
Leave people like us
With questions unanswered
And feelings unmastered

The void of their absence
Still lingers with longing
Tear drops of silence
will forever keep falling.

the shoulders are the dampest,

soaked with exchanged comfort and bittersweet grief.

amidst the mourning there’s always the systematical process of the farewell –

the only way to guide us to the true end.



we do it with fire

to purify, to cleanse, to return to dust.



we kindle affections, relations, intentions,

and nurture a flame that always grows out of control,

leaving loss and lament to burn our hearts.



condolences blur into a soft hum,

nothing unites us in our differences but

sometimes it only takes the pathos of cremation to realize that

ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

when you agonized over bed sheets and bedpans,

the drip of the IV and the trip of your heartbeat,

the messages (or lack thereof) that you received and the faces you had to greet,

the sweet, un-soothing words of sorrow spoken over your head,

what did you believe heaven would be?

did the crusted blood on your stitches burst forward like coral?

and your bruises, did they blossom into crocuses -

the violent violet of careless injections and the yellow-green of chemotherapy nausea?

what about your articulate thoughts, the ones under your sunken skull?

surely they went out the window only to perform sun dance amidst

the snowdrops at the end of your winter.

when you agonized over your will and your will to fight,

the house-turned-mausoleum and the North-less children,

what did you believe heaven would be?

Last night I went to an old friend’s wake
he lay in the coffin now at peace
gone overseas from the land of pain.
Pictures of his active life and loves
lay about on small tables
where persons gathered alone
tearfully remembering him and the stars in his universe
dwelling in moments of solitude with his soul
to reflect on the paths he crossed
entering for a brief era
the valley of their loss.

The room was loud with laughter
and stories like the one I told
of beer and touch football three decades ago
when our bones were young
joints moved easily and swiftly
running and receiving passes
on legs that now move like molasses.

Hugging old friends and catching up
was like drinking a cup
of sadness and joy.

He was a man of peace
and there in that still presence
past grievances and sins
no longer swirled among us
but only volumes of shared lives
meeting our husbands and wives
abiding in a circle of re-membering
as if we were limbs and organs
of the same human flesh
still pulsing with unfinished work.

We were a wake
to our souls and his
and today I meet all those beautiful souls
in place of hope
that these precious moments
of rising from death
will remain with us
for our small sliver of eternity.

I always walk into social settings not knowing the right way to smile.

the last time I was out, it was a funeral

where uncles and fathers waited for the body quietly,

where mothers and aunts divided their time

sizing up every girl who walked in fresh,

evaluating the contents of moroseness on her face.

did her nail paint make her look well-maintained

and yet purposefully unaware of her manicure?

her clothes, were they the right balance of panache and mourning?

and what about her mannerisms? is she polite and demure,

is she the girl next door? is she an acquaintance? is she family?

well, if she is, why isn’t she in the right colours?

how bold of her to wear eyeliner!

her mother ought to have taught her these things.

cue scrutinizing the parent, the birth giver:

at least she’s wearing white clothes. her fingernails are light pink?

eyebrows rise up in the odd combination of judgement, approval , and the tiniest hint of contempt.

the grandmothers come out from the woodwork

because their experience and expertise in death is unparalleled by the young:

they seize responsibility of the rituals,

tutting at the slightest deviations of the routine they’re well-versed in.

what a business they make of death.

the loss isn’t theirs to feel, the life isn’t theirs to grieve.

‘the head faces the north, the toes to the south! don’t spill the grains unevenly! come, let me tilt open the mouth so you can quench the thirst of the dead with holy water.’

they know it all, those devious grown-up so-and-so’s. we’re still too alive for their acquiescence. they’re so assured in their rites, they’d take over from you at their own deathbed.

they’re watching you very closely, don’t you forget.

they’re not here for the deceased, they’re here to inspect.

I stay under the radar with my tight-lipped smile,

they may not live for too long, but I’ll be here for a while.

you drink from your tall glasses, a toast to lives you barely touched.

we do not care for the river of words that rush from your mouth.

we have no use for eulogies underground.

only what you sow you can reap, your nothingness begets nothingness.

we who lay among the roots

do not see the cyanotype sky behind your rouged liquors.

we look below for asphodels to sate a hunger that has no pulse or palate.

Lethe consumes our memories from seeping water.

we talk to shadows without light. we do not bear the stains of summer.

there is no loss when there's nothing to keep.

we who lay among roots

know who we are when separated from you.

your draughts of grenadine are no more than a euphemism

for how we breathe the crimson seeds that keep us under.