Lost to backdrops scrolling past,
She sits knitting
in the carriage of a train.
The vague needles
They scintillate and glimpse
With the cadence of the wheels –
Upbeating ceaselessly.

Strips of tiny loops
And eyelets like dewdrops
Of condensation
Grouped on the superior rim.

Once in a while,
She gives a heave
To loosen more yarn from the skein
Of Filipino-made wool,
brushed worsted weave.
Spun and carded
from the richest fleece,
Deeper in the wicker basket by her feet.

The needles flash,
With ancient rhythms and attack
Of duellists in their chainmail coats.
With little hesitation she can tack
From plain to purl to blackberry.
Count back by rote or slip a stitch
While the fish-eyed gimlets gleam.

All gather profusely in her lap,
As windfall trove, rich-patterned
And warm with peach-fuzz nap,
All crafted from a single line of yarn.
Marvels fall continuously from wise
Spell-binding hands and all is well for now.

(9/11/13 @xirlleelang)

His hand seizes no brush,
What he has is dish alone.
There came a deluge –
A surge of days
With lovely clatter of voices.

Eggs tousled,
There’s a perplexed question within.
Amused by her doll,
That little one.

His weeks-old pant
Now rowing incessant,
Famished for something.

A trance of canvasses stretching,
Where there’re outlines
On ocher-soaked linens,
Earth-dug umber, sienna, yolk yellows,
Wet, oily and waiting to bleed
Thick and gummy from the brush.

In his veins,
The scent in ether enthralls him –
He was lightheaded
leaves me lightheaded,
Daubed and anointed
By the deity he has filched from.

Now the baby cries,
Sodden, smells like a milky cotton
Sopping every minute up,
Those implicated hours.

He’ll spill years
As the earth alters his faces.
Greens of summer,
Tarnishing into autumn..
And in winter, the north light;
Grasping firestorm
In the braids of the medium’s hair.

(9/10/13 @xirlleelang)

Alone with this desk,
And a notebook chock-fulled with paper;
Endless.. he chomp everything away.

Things truly aren’t easy,
The silence makes it harder.
Hey music, fill the air;
For not all truths,
But laughs of frauds may break out.

Just like the old days.
Just like the lady boss,
Just..maybe.

There should be dancing all around,
Where crowds should chip in
And take things in stern.
Errands were not decors –
Trespass! Like mini ciphers,
Digits, letters, they knock the drill out.

Only a couple more days left,
But in ignominy,
This generation may fall;
How pitiable..

With such marks and inkblots,
The source remains unrecognized.
They’re used to seize papers like that,
Although such are committing theft already.

Left were words,
Can’t spell it unerringly;
Yet the hearsays divulged its address,
So now, it’s time to slam this tome;
End the toil that has always been the crook!

Go outside,
For the sun’s rays are there!
Goodbye to this aged chair,
And to this notebook full of nicks,
With new freedom,
We shall embrace..
Everything.. “Ciao” to what’s new,
‘Coz this is the real world!
Oh college days!

(7/25/13 @xirlleelang)