Freeing from the shackles of the past
trickling down to a catharsis
at the slender neck of the hourglass,
the golden grains of sand
dribble down
to create my reality.

Unhurriedly they flow,
with me they flow
into the forgottenness of the past  they flow,
to rise like a Phoenix
clothed in the newness
of the present
to create a new me!

A tiny seed once tarried in stoic stillness
treasuring in its womb
an embryo with cosmic imprint on its soul...
and the tiny seed hibernated to a mystical trail!

Frosty squalls, summer torments, marauding insects –
all came in a cavalcade!

It dreamt the mighty tree
slumbering in the core of its being,
arching over the earth,
spreading its majesty for every eye to behold!

It yearned for the calming lullaby of the rain,
for the burning kiss of the raindrops
to fire its soul,
to caress to fullness the dormant life in its gravid womb.

In silence, it gazed heavenward –
and lo, an intense raindrop tugged its heartstrings
to a melodic ecstasy
releasing the music of the seedling
from its womblike soul!

Golden speckles that capture Sun’s graceful face;
autumnal blue, like mist settled on soft silk -
a mystic painter’s mixed colour palette!

Colourful dream floating on the breeze,
dancing as it flits through the flowers,
cosmic rhythm in every flutter,
the Universe in a butterfly.

Is it real, or
is it a delicate dream flowing to me
from a mysterious planet?

You always transcend my sadness
with your hypnotic stillness,
your entrancing symphonies.

My thoughts go back to the banks of Langat*,
where one day a little boy sat alone,
just only five,
bewildered, in a canoe.

From the sea,
from the streams,
from the rain,
you chanted a calming mantra to soothe him,
calling him to dissolve
in your awe-inspiring presence.

Your aquamarine sheen paints
the intricacies of all that I'm.
In the cool blue depth of your stillness,
I long to create the tabernacle of my being.

Never I thought
your melodies could become
the war cry of a devilish psyche!

Today I'm perplexed,
when I hear the anguished human cries
from the twirls of your turbid anger.

I realise
you’ve become an enigma
that pulls me to the depths of a
crazy conundrum.

How many more shades of anger you hide
in the burning red heart of the mantra you chant
to give me a heavenly bliss, Oh Water?

Like a hapless fly
trapped in a spider’s tricky web,
I struggle.

A vicious web,
a thousand hairy hands,
crooked as they are,
they descended on me
to squeeze my sensibilities
in their roguish grip.

A hapless fly
trapped in a spider’s tricky web,
I struggle.

Shooting stars bloom in the womb of infinity,
**** on the wings of the Thunderbirds,
a trail of fairy dust gracing their fiery tracks
as they sear through the gloom of the night skies.
I amble through the folds of the sullen clouds,
collecting the stars
as they wrap me in their cherubic dazzle.
The champagne flourish
of a Pink Diamond Star
flares up in my soul
livening me like the fireflies
that carry me on their blushing wings
as I saunter through the dusky skies
collecting the falling stars
to brighten up my dreary horizon!

In the mystery of its soul
Light holds a soulful secret.

When darkness casts its conceit over the horizon
in monochrome shades of melancholy,
it resurrects as a Firebird
in golden silhouettes of flame,
illuminating the warped convictions of a
perverted darkness.

Light once knocked
at the stony tomb of your conscience
calling out your name.
But you feigned, refused to leave
the comforts of a pretended ignorance!

You didn’t realise you’re my thoughts
incarnated in charming colours of a conundrum!

How long will I call out your name
before you allow the light of my resurrection
to shred the shroud of a deathly pretence?

With its parched dreams,
beneath the zizzing sands,
the river waits for a surging swell
to take it to the labyrinths of a
new consciousness.

You choose your own course
when you crash into the
chasms of meaninglessness.

You hibernate to the still zone
trancing between words
when words fail to contain you.

As you flow through me,
you become the sacrarium
in the labyrinths of my consciousness
for me to diffuse in your soul’s stillness.

Hurricane is insane!
Sailing on a black wave of deception,
it's quagmire of lies
**** me into the vortex of its absurdities,
make a mockery of my sensibilities.

But, in the heart of its insanity
the hurricane nurses a sanctuary of sensibility.

Is it a mirage to lure me deeper into its deceptions, who knows!

A queer breed of Ostriches we're!
Scared of reality,  
we bury our senses
in the barren sands of illusion,
live in an oasis of fantasy!

The glare of daylight scares us!!

Cosy in the arms of our delusions,
inebriated with our fallacies,
romancing idiocies,
we day-dream all the time,
while silver drizzles of the morning sun
paint the dawn gorgeous!

But we blind our senses
to a magnificent reality!

Summer rain,
mesmerising pearls from heaven!
Single drops turning torrential
as it nears the earth;
amorous as it readies to hug it.

Sunbeams slicing the raindrops
bringing out the rainbows hidden inside.
Misty drops dancing to the
music of a hallucinated wind,
bewitched by the grandeur
pouring from the heavens.
A parched earth drunk
with the heavenly nectar,
released a heady aroma
to soothe the dryness around.

Summer rain!
It left a solitary drop on a blissful leaf.
Gleaming and luminous,
it hangs on the green shoot
in a deep embrace,
to bury in its soul
the radiance enlivened by the
spirited dance of rain and sun;
to treasure for eternity
the splendour the first rain has gifted to
the dry earth.

Primordial chants
YAH VEH
YAH VEH
YAH VEH
meditating in the soul of the black onyx beads.

Frozen drops of bliss nestling in the sinews,
soaking me in its sublime stillness,
leading me to its philharmonic depth,
yoking me to its cosmic vibes.

I sublimate
to become the chants
that pulsate in the soul
of the black onyx beads...

A peg was once sad, for
it was square, and
found itself in a round hole.

A misfit, it thought - a square peg in a round hole, so to speak.

Its search for a square hole went on till
one day the Master said:
“Many pegs are that way – square.
They find themselves placed in round holes
and hammer themselves in, only to break.

Success lies in reshaping your edges
to the shape of the hole
for a perfect fit”.

You woo me deep
into the ecstasy of your pristine chasteness...

where dry leaves of Aspen and Beech and Birch
sussurate to the music of a lazy breeze,

where Hummingbirds
**** in frenzy
nectar from the orange glees
of the flame-of-the-forest trees,

where Hawthorns
lure the breeze
to weave its vibrance
in their domes of green glory,

where shrunken streams
bask in their white pebbly flourish.

Like an enchantress,
you lure me to the depth of your
rapturous bliss!

To say farewell, my heart pains.
I leave a beat of my heart
to ramble with the roving breeze
perennially in your alluring meadows!

Lightning
with fiery shades of wrath
woven into its shards
ripped the horizon,
dived into the ocean
to its depths of sedimented pretensions,
baptised it with drops of sulphurous fire,
to a cleansed conscience.

The ocean rose up in a high tide of exuberance,
escorted me to its depths
for the drop of sulphurous fire to baptise me,
to give my yearnings the shape of a flame
that puts my soul on fire.

Raindrops have long returned to their nests of ethereal clouds.
Few stayed here,
diamond drops scattered on
the white pearly glow of my bougainvillaeas,
immortalising the beauty of a mystic's smiles.

I watched the coal-black smoke
of the ancient chimney
as it chased a messianic dream
swirling up the smoggy expanse
to the freedom of the blue sky
for a lungful of sanity.

I watched the gloom
of the soot-smeared boy
in tattered khaki
as he longed for the dark wings of smoke
to take him on its pilgrimage to freedom.

Withered by the corrupting fumes of the chimney
he lay there.

With no hands to hold to the smoke
as it spiralled up,
with no breath to feel
the freedom of the azure sky,
he lay there.

Like a faint twig
feeding the wrath of a funeral pyre
he lay there!

Dark mysterious clouds
climbed sky’s majestic vault
to create a lustrous charcoal painting.
Black monochrome,
myriad shades of black,
varied ashen hues,
subtle shades only an ingenious artist can create.

A stroke here,
a stroke there,
magic spread across the sky.

Fluffy clouds in flux,
exotic forms,
grandeur unfolding in the sky.

Like strobe lights,
sun’s golden rays peek through the dark clouds -
a psychedelic light show of a grand scale!

The silhouetted tree watched
this splendid spectacle
in awe and in wonder!

Dry grass smouldering,
smoke spiralling up the sky,
nostalgia solidifying in the heart
like rocks of scoria from boiling lava.

An eerie feeling oozing through the pores
forming drops of cool soothing light
holding me in its albino hands.

The colour of light –
is it phantom white, or
a potpourri of sensations?

I remember,
in my tender days
all colours were red.
An effervescent cherry-red radiance
coloured the passions of my heart.

Seven Seas confluencing in the soul,
water throbbing in the expanse of the sea,
sky emptying its azure desires in the sea,
stillness at the heart of the sea –
a placid cauldron of pure life!

That day I met myself -
the mystic in red radiance!

Fleeing from the shackles of yesterday,
trickling down to a catharsis
at the slender neck of the hourglass,
the golden grains dribble down
to create my present.

My days out-flowing
the forgottenness of the past
creating a newness
that explodes in every cell!

Words have a strange way of ignoring me
when I need them most.
They fade into the folds of blankness
blaspheming the truth of my reality.

Sheepishly I stare at the laptop screen,
hoping it would crack open
to gift me the word
that decodes the dilemma of my existence.

When you glaze
this wooded trails
with your gossamer spell,
paint frosted-glass abstracts
in green undertones...

when you caress
the blooming buds of Morning Glory
to purple nymphs,
snug in your silky, satin blanket...

when you perch on this valley,
permeate its soul,
wrap it in your frosty artistry...

when heaven’s ingenuity
weaves splendour
through your sylphlike fingers,
O morning mist,
wrap me up in your silver haze,
seep into my soul,
infuse in me
the mysterious awe
of your ethereal magic.

Like a doting mother,
Sun tries to calm her beloved’s painful screams.
East to west,
in endless caress,
she showers on her,
her varied hues of love.

But the sea screams evermore,
lashes the shores
like a distraught damsel
frothing out her soul’s mysterious grief.

But on that breezy dusk,
the doting mother
mixed on her love’s palette colours new,
to cheer her flustered daughter.

I stood there,
a dark pain gripping my melancholic soul.
Why this misery,
why this pain,
why this never-ending cry of the sea
that explodes at the horizon?