The city is a grid
of lights projected
by man-made mountains
built of glass and steel;
they reflect, distorted
off the glass surface
of Lake Michigan.

Good morning

The sun rises
with heavy-eyed commuters,
homes filling with
the smell of coffee;
yesterday’s events are
brought inside, rolled
up in a blue plastic bag.

Soon the traffic on the Dan Ryan
will turn the stretch of road
into a temporary parking lot.

Life enters the veins
of downtown;
it heads down Michigan Avenue
to the heart of The Loop.

The ferris wheel at Navy Pier
begins to turn hypnotically,
attracting all walks of life.

A Muslim passes a Christian
on the street;
they smile at each other;
their backgrounds don’t matter.

Someone is calling;
someone is answering.
Today is the best day for one,
the worst day for another.

The day does its job to go on

Chicago fills its lungs,
then exhales life back home.
The sun colors buildings,
traces of day
to be soon replaced
by the form of lit office windows.

From a plane passing over,
the grid is a chessboard
waiting for the next day,
the next game.

Through the years of transparent existence, a void of illusion becomes apparent and slowly becomes nothing more than a side-show. The dribbling glimpses of truth fade like the bones of old. No man can create such an indentation in the mold of space and time that the observers at the end of eternity will render their imprint upon the infinite gaian consciousness and body of universal proportions of any significance. Even the earth laughs at such ridiculousness. The ego is a strong bind - it can create maya and attachment to such fantasies easier than a bear can find it's ideal location for a winter hibernation. It's a world of craziness, where nobody knows whats going on.
The man woke up from his deep slumber. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Squinting, he looked around, studying his surroundings and taking mental notes. His thoughts are ***** scribblings on a subway wall. His heart is beating, searching for a band to play in rhythm with. His soul is aching from loneliness and desire. His feet lifelessly surrender their position up on the couch and find the floor, shrieking from the cold of the linoleum. His presence is that of a bird with a broken wing still attempting to fly. He stands up and stares at the ceiling.
The room is small. Four walls of white, one window and one door. The window looks out over the grey city. The door leads into another room - the room most would call a kitchen. In the small room before the kitchen, there is only a couch and a blanket. No lamp. No television. No electricity. No electricity in the entire apartment. The kitchen holds no refrigerator, no oven, no toaster, no pantry. It's called a kitchen because that's what it would be if somebody else was living in the apartment. There are two bananas on the floor along with a box of wheat flake cereal. No milk, no bowl, no spoon. The bananas are almost entirely rotten. The box of cereal is on its side, leaking bits of wheat flake, resembling a dying soldier on a battlefield who's losing all his blood through the wound on his neck rather than a box of the West's favorite morning go-to breakfast.
The man is observing the cracks on the ceiling, along with various stains with no known origin to him. His eyes dart from one corner of the room to another to another to another and back to the first. Spiderwebs. Dust. Decay. A perfect example of life's ability to take care of itself. Biodecomposition. When no one is around to look after a house, over time, Nature will take over it. Vines will grow and overcome the walls. Rain will fall and wear away the roof and general structure. Winds will blow, taking blindshots at the weakened building, eventually cause it to fall. Nothing lasts forever. Everything goes back to where it came from.
The man now steps into the "kitchen", where he begins to study the stains on the ceiling in this room as well. His mind is electric, with no thoughts in the usual sense, but rather just a vague presence of void to help the ceiling stains feel important. He is the space through which everything around him can exist to their fullest potential. After a measureless amount of time, the man walks over to the sad bits of food on the far side of the small room. He picks up one of he bananas and studies it. He feels where it came from. The tropical skies and smells and earth of Costa Rica. There's a little sticker on the banana that says so. Each bit of fruit in the markets nowadays are individually stickered...for prosperity, one can only assume. Though it's best to never assume anything, and instead be open to everything - afterall, anything is possible, at any time. Likelihood and probability are also important factors in the universal constitution of existence. What was the likelihood that this man, when he was a little child, figured he'd be holding a rotten banana from Costa Rica in his hand inside of a kitchenless kitchen? Who knows? The man wouldn't be able to recall his thoughts from early childhood - he barely remembers waking up and experiencing the chilling sensation of early morning linoleum. In any case, everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be, for it wouldn't be if it wasn't meant to be.
He slowly peels open the banana peel to reveal this brown, soft mush of tropical fruit. Just the way he likes it - soft enough to chew with his toothless mouth. He takes his time consuming the fruit, savoring every particle. After a good bit of time, the fruit is gone and all the man is left with is the peel. He takes another good look at the peel, once again imagining where this particular banana came from. Then, in two swift bites, he devours the entire peel - sticker included. He figures the sticker came from Costa Rica as well, and thus must carry that Costa Rican tropical vibe of health and longevity. His eyes then focus on the wheat flake cereal lying next to the other rotting banana. He bends down and picks up the box. The box is upside down when he picks it up and so the cereal spills out all over the area of the "kitchen" floor that seems to be dedicated to eating food. The remaining banana is now covered in wheat cereal.
The man drops the box back onto the floor and takes a seat alongside of it. His fingers hold his face from drooping onto his knees. His knees are keeping his torso from melting onto the floor. He screams with no sound. The pains of existence seep through his hollow eyes and into the receptors of his soul. He screams with no sound. He’s as empty as the American Dream.
The cobwebs are spreading from the corners of the room and are aimed for the human form sitting in the “kitchen” screaming silence with all his might. The cobwebs grow. The commuters of the city highway are commuting. A thousand birthday celebrations are being had. A thousand people sexually uninhibited, joyously seizing the moment in disgusting miraculous unity of mortal physical desire. Junkies are roaming the street for their morning fix. Teaching are teaching their students absolute lies. Governments are stealing the lives of billions and counting. And the cobwebs are growing, encompassing entire walls. The the ceiling. Then the floor. Then they crawl up the lifeless legs of the man who sits screaming in silence and the spiders overtake his body. They stitch his mouth shut and close his eyes with their spun proteinaceous spider silk. The man withers into the wind of time and vanishes from the world without a single soul taking notice. Leaving nothing behind except an empty apartment, overdue rent, and a number in the system of Western Society. His spirit cries sorrowfully as it flees the clutches of molecular existence into the realm of eternity and space. Heaven. He made it. He looks down at the people of the world he just left and sings a pitiful song for them. He’ll see them again. Afterall, they are Him. And He is Them. His Heart, the Sun, burns as the world he left turns. The lessons He left are slowly being learned. One by one. But still, there’s a space between the atoms, between the cells. And that space can never disappear. Without it, there would be no point to the story. All would be one, as it is, and there’s be nothing to overcome. No triumph. Just an endless loop of bizarre beautiful experience and pattern.

Supposing that we lit some candles.
One for each person on this earth,
we would blow one out at a funeral
and light one up at a birth.

The world would grow darker
every time we lost a fighter
but with every new born baby
it gets just that bit brighter.

If you travelled into a city that was dark and gritty
you'd know that they didn't have many in their committee.
But.. If the light was brilliant and bright
it would send a beaming message throughout the night.

Saying "We are here! And we are alive!"
Not wanting to be alone we endeavor to collide
and form one giant, shining beacon
that burns so fierce we're sure it can't weaken

We sparkle and crackle and bend nature to our whim
the mighty fire so strong it just had to gave in.
With it we forged iron and buildings, cars and computers
and lit paths of lives to guide commuters

We lit up the universe as far as we could see
Improving our lives greatly with technology
obsessed with our professed fixture on practicality
we completely forgot about morality

Our fires forged weapons which we aimed next door
In one swift movement we saw the effects of war
6,000,000 candles extinguished
over arguments on which light is most distinguished

So fixated on this light we blinded our eyes
and the candle smoke filled the skies.
We thought candles were good, they elevated us higher
but now all we have is thick smoke and fire.

The fire consuming all in its route
the root of our lives follow suite.
It's eating the oxygen and burning the grass
the sand is melting and forming to glass.

The glass it shatters into a thousand pieces
more candles are lighting, the temperature increases
The resources decline, as do the candles
buried in ash a hundred thousand scandals.

Now only a few lit candles remain
as they slowly melt and fade away.

On those drawn out summer evenings, all manner of characters would fill the coffee shops and spill outside. An interesting cross section of society would be provided for anyone willing to sit and watch, for an hour or two atleast. This particular evening will always stand out for me as representative of those carefree folly filled evenings. I was sat alone, with a copy of the evening news and an espresso across the street from a boisterous coffee shop which remained opened deep into the evening, long after others were closed. I often sat and watched people in those early few months, Id decided against socialising with colleagues. I would go to great lengths to prearranged fictitious plans and engagements in order so that I could sit alone each evening, pleasing myself. It's always far easier to enjoy food alone, without any distractions. After considering my options I settled for a steak, and a glass of wine. The waiter seemingly unconcerned failed to take note as I gave my order, with a shrug of his head he returned to the kitchen inside to place the order. The cafe I watched was perched almost perfectly across the street from the train station. As commuters and young couples in love poured out of the station, and onto the bright expanse which was the street before them. The popularity of this particular cafe is hard to convey correctly, it's frantic nature remained even on the bleakest of midwinter evenings. Now though months of bread and water were long gone, as seasonal waiters hurried arms filled will all manner of snacks and drinks.  All manner of agricultural workers would congregate in early march, eager to snap up work in the best hotels and cafes thus ensuring a healthy wage and generous tips. The waiters from the mountains always stood out. It was as if they retained the innocence of there previous surroundings, smiling all coy when taking orders from female customers. They retained the physical attributes of the mountains which they had left, towering above others and maintaining a mystique which often meant they would return in November with wives and child aswell.




By now it was half past eight atleast, and I had finished my steak and wine. The traffic was in the process of slowing down, although it was not uncommon here for traffic jams to form at any hour of the evening. Car horns echoed and ricocheted off old architecture which gave an impression of immense movement all around.  The owner was a beast of a man standing six foot high atleast, with a beard which gave away his rugged beginnings. It was impossible to estimate his origin correctly, Id always imagined he was from somewhere in Northern Europe although by now I had learnt that assumptions were the preserve of fools. He could most often be found pacing up and down the pavement adjacent to his cafe, smoking his camel blue cigarettes and staring deep into the night sky. As if preoccupied with some great moral dilemma this could go on for hours of end, without him breathing a word to anyone.  Under a great mane of curly brown hair, lay the most enthralling blue eyes imaginable. They had a softness which would not seem out of place upon the face of some Parisian muse. Although I must confess when first confronted with this gentleman an his almost childlike appearance, I was adamant I had him figured. He seemed the kind of man who blundered through life, although successful still seemed to be scraping an unenviable existence for himself.

By now I had stuck around long enough to get some feel for the pitter patter of life in just such a place. The transient nature of the customers ensured a bravado unseen in any old small town watering hole, women driven wild by spontaneous desire stared sultry at the mysterious visitors.
A crew of sailors who had no doubt been granted shore leave, and were soaking up the atmosphere just across the road from me. They could have been from any South American nation, or Spain. It really was impossible to tell from my distance, a few had clearly cultivated moustaches whilst at sea. It was common for sea faring people's to grow ****** hair in such a manner. Almost as if by magic, a story told by someone without a beard holds subtle undertones of irrelevance. I had learned this over the many months I had spent smoking and talking to locals, and travellers alike. I must confess I had fallen hook line and sinker, I was currently locked in the process of cursing my genetics and dreaming of a more rugged appeal.

By now the black coffees had petered out, and had been replaced by glasses and in some cases bottles of what I can only assume was Spanish red wine. The noise had steadily increased as the drinks flowed, and the crowd of sailors had gradually grown more and more boisterous in there escapades . A few feet away the manager stared intently at the revellers, as if the warn them without words of being too careless in a foreign city. The ever present owner done very little to deter the actions of the pack, who's numbers by now had been swelled from another dozen or so sailors who happened to be walking in the right direction.  The sailors leered shamelessly at the local women, whilst the more forward of them made there own advances. Still the manager stood smoking and staring as if to catch the sight of one of them. Now to the wary eyes of a man returned from a long voyage this would seem like a place, where desire became a priority above all else. This would be an entirely accurate assumption although, if the surface was scratched significantly an underbelly of immorality could be found. For the sailors though, whom were just passing through unlikely to ever return this mattered very little. There only concern was draining themselves on some unsuspecting women, or if so required a *******.

It's hard to say exactly how the altercation was initiated, although I suspect the cat calls of a few sailors had pushed one local over the edge. Whilst the promise of conflict ensured a crowd would gather the bar owner remained just away from the ruckus as if picking his moment. The sailors numbered in 20 or so, and fuelled by red wine and continental beer seemed more than willing to put up a fight. A waiter who had tried to act as mediator between the parties had given up, and left for the roadside and had lit up a cigarette. For a few minutes atleast it looked as though the scuffle would be forgotten and laughed about over eggs at breakfast. There was a barrage of shouting and pulling as the locals slowly lost their temper. By now many people had stopped to stare at the spectacle, this is where I must confess things got really strange. As I have previously stated I have no real idea what brought all of this on, that is to say I have no idea what set the process in motion. It was a well known fact that in times of violence the locals would protect each other with a ferocity and loyalty which could see the most able bodied men come unstuck. I had ordered myself a cream cake, and was skimming through the news from London when I heard a blood chilling yell. I spied the previously placid manager leaving the door which lead to his apartment above the cafe. With the confidence of a man without obligation he sauntered toward the group of sailors. I did not see the knife, I must confess I assumed this old man would take quite a beating at the hands of these sailors. Oh I was wrong, a young sailor fell to the ground silent, as his green shirt went claret with blood. In disbelief his comrades stood around, unsure exactly what to do. The crowd assembled gasped as if to share collective disbelief, the manager had managed to slip off somewhere without provoking any attention. Over the next twenty five minutes an ambulance arrived although I feel even the paramedics knew that this was more an exercise in keeping up appearances than saving any lives. They surely knew that there was very little they could do for this poor boy away from home. Police officers milled around, It was safe to say the bar owner would never be brought to anything like justice for this although, the general consensus was that anyone who got stabbed more than likely deserved it in someway or another. As for the manager  he had long been bundled into the back of some old pre war car and taken far beyond the cries and disdain of world weary sailors. No doubt to reappear a week or so later.

The Second Daniel, thought to overcome
Four more Visions conjured out of his Wand
Without reply does he renounce his Sum,
Later added Better Digits on hand
Mindly notice how this Social Train plays
Slowly taking Commuters off the Tracks
Which this Conductor sadly he displays
And the Tickets he hoped he would get back
You were not the First. This I can assure
But Sincerity a Note only you choose
This Soul, called Will, independent from cure
Balanced on Scales gives your Career a Boost.
If Reason be Creed, then Failure is Heart
Sir, not all Jewels you can just Compart.

He is
walking the white line
his arm a repetitious arc
sounding a single tone
timed to the pace
of hiking-boot feet
treading the pavement.

Saffron robes have grayed
over long meditative miles
witnessed by curious commuters
riding the pendulum away
from his purposeful daily counterpoint
the freedom held
in rhythmic ritual

how the mind stills and gathers
in the swinging blur of hand and stick.

I roll the window down
seeking precious solace
as I hurtle past
knowing
he walks for me too
I want to stop the car
fall in behind

feel the timeless drum
the stillness of salvation.

Commuters on a train
Going to work every day

Too fast the tracks say
They cause the train to sway
As they wobble and stray

Too fast the tracks say
As the brakes start to fail
As they scream out and pray

Too fast the tracks say
As the train goes off the rail
As the trains bursts into flame

Too fast the tracks say
As the train fills with smoke
As they all start to choke

Too fast the tracks say
As the conductor wakes up
A little too late

Too fast the tracks say
Commuters all dead
I warned you I said

Too Fast...

Covent Garden.
Midnight.
Revellers and tourists combined.
The market is heaving.
Last trains are leaving.
An eclectic mix to broaden the mind.

Covent Garden.
2am.
The place is pretty quiet.
Pubs have closed.
Clubs.... God knows.
The tourists have frozen their riot.

Covent Garden.
4am.
A drunkard stumbles by.
Flood lit shops.
A rickshaw stops.
The backdrop against a reddish
sky.

Covent Garden.
6am.
Blokes lurk down Langley street.
The glint of a blade.
A blur in the shade.
Lava tip of cigarette falls to a strangers feet.

Covent Garden.
8am.
Commuters emerge from underground stations.
Workers prepare.
Visitors beware.
Pick pockets attracted like gravitation.

have a look:

the [a-ha-ha-ha] platform is packed with
commuters
dressed in
occupational colors  

the commuters are not used
to smile regularly by the end
of a long day

[a-ha-ha-ha-aaa]

therefore
have a closer look:

between the commuters you
see
loosely
some guys carrying
transparent [hr-ha-a] chunks filled with
*****

somebody asks
about the fluid

now people have a
reason to laugh

hr-ahem-hrr-ahem-hrrr-i-don't-ha-want-ha-ha-ha-that

The clock struck midnight
With an informative pang
I couldn't face it's music
So I turned counterclockwise
But time kept moving forward
As my wisdom dissipated
Bad times I anticipated

As I wandered through life
Burdens grew
Weight added with each step
My feet started to sink into the ground
So I got in my car
And drove
And kept driving
The more I traveled
The more I witnessed
The less I talked
As I grappled with the futility and necessity of communication

The clock warned of night's approach
I decided to continue driving
Luminous fireflies pelted my vessel
Their lamps exploding upon impact against my vehicle
The ability to destroy light
Exhilarated me
And I became addicted
To extinguishing that which shines
Until darkness flooded my engine
And an abysmal order was made by my abyssal odor

I had to exit my vehicle
And consult a mechanic
He explained my engine wouldn't work
Unless my windows were down
Which solved my darkness problem
But those ****** pests pervaded my car
Their locust glow disoriented me
The slight variations of their unique displays
Manufactured chaos within the light

My eyes grew accustomed to entropy
My brain grew accustomed to impairment
Commuters noticed my erratic driving
And offered to assist me
By attempting to ram me off the road
But the impenetrable light created a force field
Impalas couldn't run through
For my light bugs too much
Buffering me from others
And driving others from me
Leaving me alone
As a giant pulsating light that never stops moving
Is this how a star is born?

the cherry blossom blooms brightly
nature smiles on deserted streets
leaving a carpet of pink to colour
the desolate lonely landscape
it's like an empty welcome home
begging for the normality of children
playing among the flowers, commuters
enjoying the colour of a bright spring
morning on their way to work where
work is no longer an option
the trees will fruit from the poison earth
only the birds will enjoy their bounty
man no longer a part of what was once
a home, a life, a sanctuary

It happened at 4:05 PM at Jamaica Station
Anticipating a LIRR connection arrival of when
A woman answered questions of man
The woman was totally high at her command
She walked to one side of the platform
The drugged up woman dropped her plastic Coke Cola bottle on the ground
The woman then walked to the other side of the platform and then stepped off
The next then anybody knew, she was laying flat on the tracks
A multitude of commuters that pulled her up
Luckily no train came
Her life yet remained
It is the Lord who gave her another chance
God had mercy so she could continue in advance
Fate could have been death
But the message states, “There is still life left”
Walking unknown
This is what life has shown
The woman has a drug crave

We sat on the couch, snuggled in blankets, watching "The Iron Giant." I was only eight and realized that my older sister had let me stay up past my bedtime.; it was almost 10:30 PM and the neighborhood had settled into a sleepy silence. My parents were out to dinner and a movie, a date-night that they rarely ever indulged in, and my sister was babysitting me instead of going out with all of her pre-teen friends. It felt nice to actually hang out with Sam, and bond with her.

A little more than halfway into the movie, the snacks caught up to me and I needed a drink. "Sam, can you pause the movie? Come with me to get something to drink really quick." Such a simple request, yet I could have never imagined, in my childish state of mind, what was coming within the next five minutes.

We both walked into the dark kitchen, and to this day I wonder why neither of us turned the light on. I leaned against the doorway that lead to the kitchen and watched as my sister went to the fridge. I asked for chocolate milk - the craving for it came unexpectedly. As she opened the door to the refrigerator, the light from the inside of it spilled into the short hallway leading to our front door. I followed the small pool of light with my eyes until I was suddenly looking at the door - and also looking at Him. I saw His figure looming on the other side of the door, His shadow moving slowly and quietly. My entire body froze; I felt paralyzed and lost the ability to hear anything except for my heart pounding within my chest. My small, fragile body stood completely still, and remained still even as I watched my front door open. The way He walked towards me seemed like slow motion, and He looked like a giant in the small hallway. I felt like I couldn't move a muscle or else I would fall apart, like a game of Jenga. Finally, He stepped into a sliver of light, and I stared into His mostly hidden face; He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, with the hood covering His head and most of His face, except for His eyes. I felt shredded by the look in them - full of confusion, rage, and maybe even fear."You're never gonna believe this - but it was a giant metal man." I could hear the movie blaring from the living room. I felt the way the boy in the film did; I was staring at this Man who was a giant compared to me, and He must have been made of metal - no human, made of flesh and with a beating heart, could encounter a terrified child and still proceed to attempt to destroy her. He was a Giant Metal Man.

When my eyes met His in that moment, it shook me and tore me out of my frozen state. Finally, my muscles contracted as I took a step away and backed into the other side of the doorway. My chest opened up and drew in just enough air to let out a scream, and my eyes were darting around the room, looking at everything, because I didn't want to look at Him. Within seconds, Sam reacted. I had almost forgotten that she was in the room with me - all I could feel was His presence. I watched as she threw an entire gallon of milk at the Man; it made contact with something, but I'm not sure if it was with Him or the walls of the hallway. The carton exploded, and milk was gushing into the air like a volcanic eruption, washing over the walls and the floor and probably over Him. When the milk settled, all I could see was His dark figure running out of the same door He came in, leaving it crashing against the wall. His feet were audibly slamming down on the sidewalk outside. Then, there was darkness.

My senses shut down completely after He disappeared from my sight. I was moving, but my mind was somewhere else. My sister grabbed me and basically dragged my confused body into our bedroom; she ordered me to get on the floor and she shoved me under our bed. From the floor, I could see her feet moving frantically around the room. Things were being moved and thrown, and she was breathing heavily. Finally, she grabbed something and ran to our window that looked out onto the street. I saw a flash and heard the snap and the print; she had taken a picture with our Polaroid. The picture fell to the floor just next to the bed, and I watched as it developed slowly. I could make out nothing in the picture but a black, beaten-up Volvo. It was as if I was looking at a still-framed picture from a movie, and that everything going on in that moment was fake; but the sound of a car peeling ferociously out of my driveway outside snapped me right back into reality, and I knew that it was Him. I was angry that He was able to drive away from the nightmare that he created, and that I had to stay.

Still under the bed, my body began to recover from the state of shock it was in, and I cried out for my sister. She grabbed my hands and pulled me out from under the bed and asked me if I was okay, and if I could tell her anything that I saw. I couldn't form the words to tell her about His eyes, about His hidden face, and about how slow He was walking towards me, an innocent child. All I could do was cry and I began begging her to call our parents. She carefully lead me back into the kitchen, where the door was still swung open and the milk was flooding over the floor. She picked up the phone and first called our Aunt who lived on the floor above us, explaining in short what happened and asking her to please come downstairs. She immediately came with her son, our cousin, who is the same age as Sam, and she offered to call our parents and the police for us. I stood in the room trying to tell everyone what I saw and what happened, but I kept telling them that it happened so fast and I couldn't see His entire face. "His eyes," I said. I repeated it dozens of times. I was shaking uncontrollably, and could not calm my breathing.

The rest of the night is a blur. Police officers were coming in and out of our home, asking questions that I couldn't even understand or comprehend. My parents came home and were panicking, my mother on the verge of tears. At some point, I laid down in my mother's bed and fell asleep - when I woke up in the middle of the night, my older sister was in the bed as well. Then, I laid there and listened to the sounds of the night - the crickets, the late-night commuters that drove by once in a while, and creaks and cracks of the floor. The sun eventually came up, and I was still awake, almost waiting for a new day and new feelings. However, the shock was still there, and it hung over my head and lingered around me like a ghost.

Within the following week after that night, four different homes were burglarized on our street. Finally, we received a call that the cops had caught the Man, and my parents hoped that it would bring some relief to my sister and I, who were sleeping in our parents' room every night since our break -in. It didn't. It left me feeling nothing except more fear; I constantly thought of Him returning to our home and finishing His "job." I sat in the bedroom, where I hid under the bed that night, and watched out the window for hours on end every day, waiting for His car to appear. But the worst feeling that I had was when I finally let myself wonder why He had come that night, and what His plan was. I pictured the things He would have done to me and my sister if I hadn't screamed and triggered my sister's reaction. Would He have ***** me? Beat me? Kidnapped me? Killed me? The possibilities were endless because it was as if the story had no ending, and I had the option to write my own. I could not silence my imagination, or stop myself from thinking about what He was thinking about doing to me when He saw me in the doorway. It occurred to me that the look in His eyes was not fear, or confusion, or even rage -it was malicious intent. It haunted me for days, and then weeks, and soon enough, years.

12 years later, I have come to terms with the real-life nightmare that I experienced that night. I have accepted His presence in my life; He exists in the footsteps I hear late at night outside my house, the inexplainable noises that echo in the walls of my kitchen and living room and bedroom, and the pressure from the wind that causes my house to constantly move and settle at night. He has no name and no face in my head; the only thing that He has is eyes. His eyes watch me from the inside of my mind. He exists in my kitchen, as if a ghost in a haunted home. He exists in the disorders that He left me impaired with for the rest of my life. He exists everywhere around me. The only thing that's different about then and now is that I have learned to live with Him haunting my dreams, and my reality. I will always feel the fear - but it no longer paralyzes me. I suffered through the sleepless nights, and the nightmares when I actually did sleep; I dealt with the uncontrollable screams for help in the middle of the night when I was only dreaming. Now, all I have left to do is live; not without fear, but with fear and also understanding that there is a reason for everything. I have accepted the fact that I will never be able to separate myself from the memory or the terror that I have been subjected to living with, and to me, that is the first and biggest step that I needed to take.

The radio clicks the worn out song
of days gone by and governments gone wrong.
Its static, the rolling of clouds before a thunderstorm.
The newsreaders rustling papers,
High pressure systems on the move.
The hush of the people as they gather to listen
Breath bated, held back by obedient tongues
The bulletins are nicotine bullets,
they're so incredibly easy to get hooked on.
News comes down the wire like commuters on the tube
Jostled and shunted along.
Through underground networks it spreads
With absolute efficiency
And yet the platform on which it departs is more than often wrong.
Outside the park swings are empty,
There is nothing unusual about that
But the kids sit by speakers with their hands over their ears
The high frequency waves dance around them.
This day is marked down as one they wish they could forget.
The headlines blazed into their minds,
More dead.
Oppressed.
Injustice.
Religion.
Elections.
Disasters.
Tornadoes.
Politicians flustered.
Corruption.
Famine.
And Hollywood Blockbusters.
And now we move on to the traffic
Two hundred more just come in from Pakistan
They say there's a pile up in Europe
There's an awful lot of wreckage on the road
and now they are left with no place to call home.
The M1 is running slow again, no surprise in that
Row after row of red brake lights
Join them together to make constellations
And you have your very own metropolitan galaxy.
Because who needs the stars when we have brake lights!
And who needs the moon when we have Big Ben.
Down the telephone lines comes a battalion of lies
“Honey... I'm going to have to work late.'
If you listen very closely to the nine o'clock news
You can hear the reporters wristwatch
And every five seconds that tick on top of his pulse
Marks another slice of news coming in.
The little hand chases the big hand
You cannot tell the time with just one.
The details escape somewhere between
The real world and what's put down in papers.
The trouble with black and white
Is that you miss all the shades of grey
And if you've never seen stars
Then brake lights, are just brake lights
And disaster is just another day.

some would call it a profanity - from the islands of northern Europe i liked the Scots the most, in my first year at Edinburgh Scottish weather played a joke, i don't remember a single gloomy day - i do remember not sleeping one night, and trekking up Arthur's Seat to watch the sunrise, then climbing down, buying Kellogg's cornflakes and full-fat milk and eating them - that magic moment just between daytime fully sets in - it's so fresh, a reality proof, just before the mundane job applicants get up, you get a sense of what's truly taken for granted in society - it only lasts for a few minutes - before the commuters' nagging sets in, and everything fresh (awaiting the new dawn) becomes custard thick - sticky, sickly honey glue pungent... anyway... i'm making a grand profanity at the moment: tier 1 - whiskey and ice, tier oblivion - whiskey and coca cola... but what i'm drinking is like a virus immune to antibiotics, no amount of citrus barley caramel can mask the smoked salmon with a tinge of variously fruity accents can mask it... Glen Moray, single malt, an Elgin Classic - it is a profanity, i agree - i should drink whiskey like mulled wine - but i'm in a hurry for a mindset, and i'm not bothered that much about passing down aesthetics - my palette says otherwise. yeah, my love for Scotland came from climbing up a ladder in the English hierarchy at school - everyone wanted to be taught by Mr. Thomas Boonce - aged 15 went into B1 (or however they noted the selection process) - aged 16 on top of my game, A1 class - a blazing comet trail of ambition, shared the same desk with my enemy shoulder-to-shoulder, the one who promised me a south american plant would give me grand hallucinations, ****** the mother of my ******* son and wa-lah! elephant trunk pulled from a top hat playing jazz - that Jesus bit about loving your enemies? esp. if they're your childhood friends and are **** crazy? you don't love them, your heart turns to stone and it says skipping on lake: what a shame... so much potential in him wasted on jealousy, the way he trusted a woman that is now on some sort of psychiatric medication... i can't love enemies, what i can do is feel sorry for a waste of human potential... (knock on chest)... yep, this ol' ticker is solid stone... and sooner or later it will be added to a mountain i'm constructing in my mind.

thank god for rabbinical literature -
i could pour days over these pages - i literally open a book,
a compilation of entries -
why hasn't anyone noticed the genius of written Hebraic?
i know in the middle east is a wasp nest of harking and
memorable achoo - or quasi (~, literary denotation,
thereabouts, so so, kinda, well, approximate too,
hand gesture in that symbol, good-in-bad-bad-in-good) -
just now i was admiring the fact that Hebraic hides vowels -
truly, they hide them, ingenious buggers -
all the vowels in Hebraic are hidden -
in translation to Latin the Hebrews treat vowels
like post-Latin users of the original S.P.Q.R. alphabet
use diacritical marks - and newspaper Hebraic doesn't
include them in print, only: i suppose in poetry and
rabbinical writings are they exposed -
which stems largely from what is cordoned off -
or rather the fruits of the work of encapsulation -
Latin is slightly biased, no letter is truly encapsulated,
shut-off from another - aye, be, cee, dee, ee, ef, hay'tch (
a distinction), em, en, ***... zed (an exception), ex, you
get the idea - there are no nouns in the post-Latin
alphabet as such - which is why in science Greek letters
were used as constants - these consonant constants
encapsulated not only the phonetic content of a symbol,
but also allowed for an encapsulation of some higher
purpose - e.g. α (angular acceleration) -
β (sound intensity) - γ (gamma rays) - δ (heat in chemistry,
the perfect error, the Laplace operator, etc.) -
ε (set theory, the limit ordinal of the sequence -
    html disapproval to be written as: ω (tier squared ω,
    and one above the squared tier ω, ω root ω double root ω -
    variant alias of this? Hebraic notation of u .
                                                               ­                   .
                                                               ­                      .
     *shurek) - Θ (Debye notation) - θ (potential temp. in
thermal dynamics) - ι (orbital inclination in celestial mechanics) -
κ (curvature) - Λ (lattice) - λ (decay constant in radioactivity) -
μ (micron, SI prefix, one millionth) - ν (a neutrino) -
ξ (a random variable) - π (too obvious, πr squared) -
ρ (correlation coefficient in statistics) - Σ (summation operator) -
σ (area density) - τ (torque) - φ (the golden ratio, 1.618...) -
ψ (the cat in a box, wave function, quantum mechanics) -
ω (the infinite ordinal);
                                         it's precisely because the Greeks to
encapsulate their phonetic symbols that so much stability
was brought up - look how poverty stricken the Latin variations
are - these are not merely letters, they are actually nouns!
you can recite the whole Greek alphabet a bit like going
to a party and being introduced to people: Jim, Charlie,
George, Rosemarie... obviously there are exceptions for
this observation to be bullet-proof (i.e. μ, ν, ξ, π etc.)
but did the scientists mind not using them? no! they kept to
this interpretation that symbols of sound need to be encapsulated -
held together, stable, each symbol needs to be a balancing act -
an ~equal amount of consonants and vowels need to be
invoked when writing either a or α, b or β, g or γ -
there needs to be an invocation of names to these symbols -
not mere ah be c e ef gee... English for its laziness in omitting
diacritical marks did the unspeakable when digital paper came
about - it turned itself into a quasi encryption tongue,
acronym fuelled and in all honestly - self-conscious of its faults
yet basking in them! but the real genius in encoding signs truly
belongs to the Hebraic school...

you find them so coerced by naked pictures,
that their outer resembles no inner -
you find them bound to an idea that the inner can
somehow compensate - but it can't -
the outer as the inner reveals nothing,
no love, merely a **** - the winged-Hussars die
in Ukrainian fertile land, and with the music,
you can only think of the drudgery of walking
through knee-high mud - you can just picture
the Cossack moustaches wedged behind the ears
like earrings - i too would have eaten my tongue that way
had it been permitted - without permission
i spoke of a stake tartar and my tongue into one -
then the mantra came - kametz, tzeré, chirek, kametz,
tzeré, kametz, kametz, tzeré, tzeré, cholem, kametz, kametz,
- i will not be treated like some dumb farmer!
      your Yurt empire is fledgling into the sunset!
  and my heart is enshrined into a bitter toil! it will love
as it pleases! not with you saying what there's to love!
tzeré, shurek, kametz, kametz, tzeré, kametz, cholem, tzeré,
chirek, kametz. what a mantra!
a, e, i, a, e, a, a, e, e, o, a, a, e, u, a, a, e, a, o, e, i, a -
patterns strangre than in a poetic rhyming scheme -
respective incisions into still-life motives of movement -
i.e. if a vowel be my hand, a consonant be a chair i sit on:
kametz of aleph (א), tzeré of bet (ב), chirek of gimel (ג),
kametz of dalet (ד), tzeré of heh (ה), kametz of vav (ו).
kametz of zayin (ז), tzeré of chet (ח), tzeré of tet (ט),
cholem of yod (י), kametz of kaf (ק), kametz of lamed (ל),
tzeré of mem (מ), shurek of nun (נ), kametz of samekh (ס),
kametz of ayin (ע), tzeré of peh (פ), kametz of tzadi (צ),
cholem of kof (ק), tzeré of resh (ר), chirek of shin (ש)... and
finaly the kametz of tav (ת)* - we really like our matchstick
men, don't we? in terms of ancients tongues,
we like our curvatures in modern tongues of Greek
and Latin, don't we?
instilled the names of vowels! kametz (a
                                                 tzeré (e
            chirek (i
                                          cholem (o
                 shurek (u
                                                           pentagon thus far,
    revealed vowels with diacritic interpretation
           kametz, as soured: חָ - tau, vowel as diacritical mark
elsewhere -
                       tzeré - or umlaut below the letter - alternatively:
           וָ qàmetz                   וֵ tzeré
וִ ḥìreq                              וֹ ḥólem                   וּ shùreq
     (c, k, q - make it quick, à, 1st),
                (é - prolong it, to catch a breath, or the first
                      tetragrammaton H),
that's the genius of the encoding though... the omission of
vowels, or vowels as diacritical marks - one shurek (u .
                                                               ­                                   .
                            ­                                                                 ­        .)
among 10 kametz and 7 tzeré - gematria at its purest -
one shurek, 2 chireks and 2 cholems -
a form of encoding deviating from obscure onomatopoeia
and the void and meaninglessness, toward
a sound ushering a word for word, and actions parallel -
but this encapsulation of breath taken and
breath released, as in writing, the speaker does not
suddenly breathe again - but is kept within limit,
a consonant starting point, the zenith of breath or soul
and a return to one body, v A v (e.g.).
but imagines being able to avoid noun insertions -
then Hebrew is very much as modern English -
when modern English ought to utilise diacritical marks
on either vowel or consonant, it does not -
it doesn't have a single sound encoding worthy of a name -
there's no omega, there is only oh -
Hebrews treat their vowels as diacritical marks -
their language is one massive crossword -
how do they even read HBRC? who the hell taught them
when to insert the vowels from following the roots
as stated HBRC toward the tree that's HEBRAIC?
this is ******* bewildering - i don't know how they do it!
what's agonising is their notion that patterns in letters
having numerical values is somehow meaningful,
as if something horrid can be averted - to me 1 + 1 = 2
is enough - i don't need alef / αλεφ / αλεθ (א) + bet / βετ (ב) =
anything but gimel / γιμελ (ג) -
this is the ****-pile of having so many prophets in your society
and not enough philosophers - the Casandra Standard -
Greeks had the philosophers, the Hebrews had their
prophets, both in excess - in the end the cult of prophecy
in Hebraic society turned into a Casandra Standard
borrowed from Greek myth - while Greek philosophers...
i don't actually know what happened to them -
i think most of them became dentists after Aristotle suggested
women had fewer teeth than men.

I am the oxygen running
Through the veins of London,
I am weaving my way through
The crowds of people,
Commuters,
Tourists,
Family,
I feel the wind
Of the trains
Pulsating through the air,
Running its fingers through my hair
And over my body,
There metallic cries cascading through the tunnels,
Where will I go?
The Northern line to Tottenham Court Road?
The Central line to Liverpool Street station?
There is only one destination I yearn for,
Above the concrete,
The tiles and wires,
The pipelines and emptiness,
I want to be at home
With you again.

A pair of crows streaks the skyline. I watch their graceful flight above bare treetops, concrete, and steel constructions, on a backdrop of exhaust fumes.

One crow alights after the other; their claws grip the bars of the signal tower a few feet away from where I wait for the next bus home. I wonder if they built their nest on that giant, manmade constellation of angles . . . From there they would have an exceptional view of the surrounding area, and few predators would dare to go up there.

"I found a dead crow, tangled in a wrought iron gate, once." His voice taps inside the nerve hollows of my mind, and I am unsure if the loud, clicking noises coming from the crows, and the perfectly synchronised squeaking of the bus' brakes, amplify or dampen his tone.

The bus driver greets with his usual, "Hello, Sweetie." I want him to be the bus driver, instead. He would never be late, he said. He wouldn't make me wait for what sometimes seems like an eternity. I mumble an almost-civil reply, biting back tears as I stumble forward against the pull of the engine to flop down on the nearest seat. I avoid eye contact with the other commuters; my gaze fixed to their reflections on the windowpane -- doppelgängers obscuring my vision -- a zeitgeist of movements . . . "Don't look at the window, look through it, silly . . . and don't miss me, I am just far away . . ." I always miss him more when he says that.

The coral trees are in full bloom, adding robust warmth to the faint copper glow of the winter sunset. Are their flowers the same vermilion colour as the 'fire tree' in his garden? Above the coral trees, I spot a pair of magnificent wings: a sacred ibis . . .

Fly south with me, Sacred Ibis. You are a goddess. White wings, neatly trimmed with a pearly black hem . . . when will you come down again, so I can show him what Isis really looks like? I won't be able to capture your image in flight, although he would love to see you like this -- spread-eagle . . .

The Ibis remains within view until we reach the nature reserve at the foot of the mountain. Here, the road forks into choices; I have but one -- keep left. The driver has a heavy foot and the next stop is mine. I get up from my seat and stumble down the narrow aisle towards the nearest exit, my hand tightening around a canary-yellow handlebar as I brace myself for the ****.

The hydraulic hiss of the opened doors spit at my heels. I leap from the bus, onto the pavement; my feet meet the concrete -- a long, silver-grey slab, slapped onto dry, red clay -- with a thud, dust settles on my coat in a whirlwind of the bus' departure.

Pigeons. Too many to count. They line the flat roofs of smog-stained, one- and two-storey buildings. Could they be soldiers? "No, my Love. Doves and pigeons are peacekeepers . . . and there is war in the Gaza Strip . . ." Yes, but what about the buildings? I walk on, thinking about the mourning dove he nursed; the one that followed his smoke rings . . .

We found an abandoned laughing dove squab last summer -- he, or she, made it. Sam was hand-reared, survived, and flew away on one of those bright summer's afternoons . . .

At the corner, I wait for the dust to settle further and the traffic light to turn green -- there are always those who don't need saving.

Turn right.

The Chinese maples are bare. Their deep-red autumn leaves have returned to the earth for redemption.

An Egyptian goose honks, calling his mate from the top of the church tower on the other side of the road. Perhaps, after so many chance encounters, he recognises me while he spreads his wings, flapping them slowly, without rising from his position, in what I imagine is a display of empathy.

I notice that I'm standing on the same patch of lawn where I found the barn owl's feather, months ago. Owl feathers ought to be kept in the dark, away from the day birds'. . . In the distance; I see the grove of pagoda trees that lead the way home -- beacons, providers and protectors. I follow. 

An assortment of feathers, haphazardly stuck into the wooden frame of the French doors, welcomes us home; fragments of unlocking and entering are placed on the dining table where we do everything.

Textbooks, dictionaries, software manuals, bird guides, the salt- and peppershakers -- guano has lost its value; it's all pink, organic Himalayan crystal salt, now. My children's empty cereal bowls were left on the table in the morning rush; they remind me of the years we have to catch up to -- I dissolve gunpowder pillulets under my tongue: Homeopathic medicine for this virus.

Balance -- like the flamingo, or the blue crane in the bird-guide-photos. On one leg, I reach for the light switch . . .

He glows in the weak ambiance -- electric bulbs cast a sepia vignette that invokes the scent of burning rose petals -- something akin to the gestalt of Rama, or a Buddha in blue . . .

Supper is a bland affair; I think of the Krishna temple I haven't visited in over a decade. How do they do it? Serve such exquisite meals on donations (feed the masses and the masses will feed you) . . .

Dishwater drips from my hands and runs down the inside of my arms as I absent-mindedly reach for the crow's feather, hidden in between the wrought iron candleholders on top of the grocery cupboard -- a gift or a donation?
 
I have donated my life to causes and movements, as a bird gifts its feathers to the earth, and to feather collectors, but will it be enough to sustain our future?

 

Aug/Sept 2014

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly ******* they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings ***** the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Shop fronts, curbs and pavements.
Bin men wear hearts on their sleeve.
Coffee shops, bakers and jewellers.
A homeless man searching reprieve.

Adverts and billboards shine bright.
The cleaners have swept the streets bare.
Commuters and tourists combined.
This city called London we share.

Marching to a steady beat
Marching to a steady beat

The pavement are veins
People the blood
The city the heart

Pumping the beat
Pumping the beat

9:43 on a frigid clear morning, the morning I made the conscious decision to stand as far as possible from the dropoff to the train tracks, and an older gentleman next to me, newspaper folded, saying "It's a cold one today, isn't it". And I smiled in agreement and I drank my overpriced coffee, fogging up the sky.

10:13 on the train, unwashed windows turning the sun *****-bright, and I didn't drift off for it as all the men in suits and flatlined mouths slowly did.

And 11:36 in the City, a man I had decided not to love and his sarcastic appreciation of modern art, and me laughing endlessly. And this man showing me his secret hideouts and telling me secret stories, stories that you earn. I had decided not to love him, though, and so I didn't. It was easy because he had made no such call.

And 5:52 in his marble high-rise and his bed that was bigger than my bed, on it, he told me he had decided not to love me too. And then we kissed, and kissed, with nothing-to-lose moving our hands and mouths all over each other. Nothing-to-lose tangling his sheets and relaxing our heartbeats, and making them audible.

8:04 on the night of the morning I began to fear the third rail and the whoosh of the New Haven line, a bruise on my neck and my kiss-swollen mouth flashed red and *****-bright to the post-commuters, and the man I forgot not to love still in the city, and the feeling of peaceful but irreversible damage heavy on my lap.

(i see) two scions dance in traffic: sun and moon,
sky and stars; God’s two heirs
dancing in traffic as if they weren’t demigods but
small maya birds - transfixed
mortals, fighting to keep away from the blinding
might their status affords them.

as His children their world and its light is for their taking,
of which they can feed - or not:
they go on instead like hungry wolves, next to I, rising
(sidelined, falling) flagging down jeeps
in the thick of the Vinzons Hall jeepney stop. They bark loud
and cheerily to keep idle; from unravelling
their wax-worn strings. They are birds guided by concrete routes,
those yearning to feel its bleakness

in each syllable creeping up their gold-and-marble throats:
the soft choke of exhaust smoke
and the rosiness of their gaunt in the face of all-knowing fate:
that of snatching from death
a world not theirs. They declare: “Perseus we are not, and
Janus we choose.” They shuttlling
commuters obscure and without fuss and without end
to and fro, where they come

they spit on the universe in baggy basketball shorts

so... it's no longer enough that
i learn your language,
into a p.s. of conversational
etiquette -
addressing the confrontational
assertion of the existence
of orthography,
minding your, Germanic,
metaphysical *******...
and then...
   i'm, supposed, to,
listen to your average citizen,
dictating rules,
like some sort of king?!
i'll drink a beer, walking
past the east ham central mosque...
and i'll be like:
getting the **** eyes ******
you stare -
in reply: you know what?
do it... **** it... do it...
make me a ******* martyr...
     but i'm going to drink this beer,
feeding a solidarity of the 7/7 commuters...
hence my teasing...
       once i'll burn scissors and
craft a tattoo on my arm...
once i'll put out a cigarette
on my left hand's knuckle...
   the everyday englishman who "thinks"
he's king...
      i'm thinking... plum hues
to replace mascara... with a *******
fist...
             no... private property,
is private property...
   now i'm gagging for a fist
frisking! i'm less trigger happy,
and more, european,
i.e. knuckles itchy!
    i want to juggernaut something
down...
  and then start biting into it!
any obnoxious englighman,
being a **** will satiated my
palette.
         GNASH GNASH GNASH...
i want... a chance...
to scoop clean...
   the "riddle" of meaty chicken
schnacks of drum-sticks...
  fiddle fiddle, fiddle me something...
i want to engage in a 1, 2,
punch & bite something...
attempting to relieve itself
from physical confrontation,
having exhausted its verbal allowance.

For the Disney print princess
who knows what she's about,
who finds fascinating worlds within dust cover jackets,
who sends smiles in parenthesis; lost love brackets
over classroom mid-drifts,
a bare silence interrupted by pure kindness;
for who walks in noise behind inaudible
commuters from this station to that station
all the way home and back out again on her family vacation,
who can match and pair t-shirts and jeans with
bowler hat crowns from the palace of queens,
who, for all we know, could eat with elbows on tables
and read not prose, but short fiction fables,
who wouldn’t hold doors open or say thank you
to bus men and their drivers,
who might smoke away her pay
with great plumes almost every day,

who might not be the girl I thought she was.

Cold, frosty morning
Winter coats and heavy boots
one madman in shorts

Now that you’ve been sold, what thing
will bring you back to us?
Arches of waver-lust, departuregrams
inform those on the freeway lam
and send us crashing gates and exit maps
as transit days dump rain
and what we know we’re in for gets too big.

Hurry to racing pits,
a bit of shelter huddled under heatlamps
pecked with pigeon dust & and odd late chills
that cracked the April. Plucky in
the clothing bone, we shiver, bide,
relent from marking make-up time
on coldwire sheets

We fold
and put work in our purse all wrong.
Some smarmy song New Yorks us, whinging on
where rent wars rage. Code-shifting blocks
of solace to the kept while crushing
others under debt - a glacial chill,
a respite, magnet phones left smartless,
calling on our wits
to ride those twists
through money-makers’ gauntlet.

Out of harm’s way, donning gowns
and Never’s hand-me-downs from
Stalling Leisure, Merry Ways - cinch up
and see what stays, what juice
the cosmic strain can free
when anger walls re-tighten down
to shape, or ****, without a sound.

His arm circling round her waist. Maybe . . .

A blare. Sweat of traffic. Muggy afternoon. The sun bounces off every surface, paints the surroundings white. I stand at the corner of the street, feel the pavement seep through my soles. Sesame drifts from the marketplace; cheap soba, oil and soy.

A cat stretches on the neighbour’s roof, white fur wafting.

Muffled speech. Hiss, hiss. A bus.

I kneel and pick up an empty bottle. Face merges into its sides.

“Ain.”

Someone, somewhere calls my name.

“Ain.”

Up there.

The school is closed for the summer. Walking towards it gives me a sense of unease. Obligation turned quiet tension. The summer won’t last forever.

Drip.

I’ve been holding the bottle upside down. Liquid sinks into the dirt. Almost looks like skin, all dry and creased.

It’s a precipice, right? The separation between the street and the institute. Like stepping over a grave. There’s a ******* bin, but I feel strange.

The reception is all glass. Sunstruck and bleeding at the edges—I catch a glimpse of something—is it me?

Lenin catches another raven in his hands. It sits still, head cocked calmly to the side. He lets it go, but it simply falls onto the ground, rights itself, then walks off.

He looks disappointed.

“It’s the same everywhere,” he says with his back turned. “Try it.”

I find a different one, cradle it against my chest. The bird looks vaguely annoyed. Following Lenin, I drop the bird. It falls and sinks into the ground about three inches.

Caw.

“Ain! How’d you do that? That’s wicked!”

Lenin tilts his head and goggles at the bird for a few seconds before running off to find another.

It’s really hot. I throw some sesame seeds at the bird, but it just glares at me. Sorry.

The bottle is still gripped in my hand. Why did I pick this up?

Lenin is running on the side of the school. His small feet tap out a regular pattern, like rain on a quiet night.

I really miss this.

I push the bottle into the dirt. Lenin leaps off the school. A running kick sends the bottle flying into the reception. Glass shatters and the summer unfurls into a kaleidoscope of light.

The raven rises out of the ground.

The reception reforms itself.

Lenin is running on the side of the school. His small feet tap on each window, sending small ripples of energy through them, distorting the reflection of the surrounding buildings and streets.

A cat stretches itself on the reception roof.

I kneel and pick up an empty bottle.

“Ain!”

Lenin catches a raven in mid-flight. Sees himself reflected in a window. Gravity pulls him down.

I’m sitting in the corner, waiting for school to finish. Waiting for my life to pass itself by. It’s the last day of school and everyone is leaving. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I don’t know where I’m going. I feel sick, weak and pathetic. I look out the window and see my own face, Lenin falling through the air, sinking into the ground, a raven flying out of his outstretched hand.

There is a train and I am waiting. It is Autumn and the cherry blossoms will be bare for another half year, maybe more. There are golden leaves dancing through the station, trampled under the soles of rushed commuters and children.

Someone laughs with their friends, eating beef udon, yolk running into the broth, flesh filling his cavity. A mouth chews, but laughter still comes. I feel disgusted. I eat my tofu bento, but it only worsens.

Father visits, but I have no words for him. We sit awkwardly and he mentions work, but doesn’t elaborate. I pretend I’m busy and he eventually leaves.

where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i going where am i

“Ain!”

Lenin is kneeling over me. There are tears in my eyes and the sun hurts to look at. I try to brush them away but rub dirt in instead. Sleeves run softly across my cheeks. Lenin is hugging me from behind.

“It’s okay, Ain. It’s just play,” he says, nuzzling the back of my head. I don’t understand and cry harder.

The ravens have left the school.

A bottle lies on the roof.

A cat rolls in the dirt.

“Life is just a bad dream,” Lenin mumbles into my hair. “You’ve been waking every night, but it hasn’t helped.”

The sun is setting. Red strokes rise out of the ether and stain the sky. Streetlights turn and the quiet hum of night settles over the dying sounds of day.

“Isn’t this just so boring?”

A bus drives by, vibrating the ground beneath me. A mother and child walk past singing an old nursery rhyme.

“Ain?”

I sink into my lap and shut out the world.

“You don’t have to open your eyes. Not now, not ever.”

But I never closed them.

Hugs the ground. Flies through the evening. Do I eat a worm? Is that what I do?

I grip the pink flesh. The thing squirms, digging itself deeper into me.

A human female is laughing, or maybe crying. It’s hard to tell the difference.

Do they touch when they’re confused?

A small male soars down the side of a building. Why is he kicking his own head? The female splinters, but doesn’t shatter.

I’ve heard bones that don’t break cleanly are the worst to mend.

I reach out, hand brushing the feathers of a bird.

My head is an anchor, drags along the ground, grinds pavement to dust.

It’s so hot. Tar tickles my nostrils.

I’m alone, standing in front of a camera with all my classmates.

Lenin’s head is buried in the dirt behind me.

I raise my hand against the piercing sun, but really it’s an excuse to hide myself.

A raven hops onto the camera, unaware of the ceremony taking place. It shatters the façade, reduces the action to an absurdity, but no one notices. No one cares.

I pick at a rice ball. It’s cold, bland and under-filled. I stare at the shops around me and feel a deepening, crushing alienation. Perhaps, I have always felt this way, and it has taken me two decades to come to terms with it.

“There was a storm once,” Lenin mutters into the dirt, “the worst storm of the century.”

I remember. He held my hand all through it.

“But it wasn’t a storm, Ain.” Lenin finally turns to look at me. Meets my eyes through the dust and the tears and the sun. “It was existence trying to wake up.”

He didn’t let it.

“If it ever does, we will all die.”

It’s dark now. Lenin’s eyes glow the colour of warm honey. The last day of Summer rides away.

“Mum’ll be worried,” Lenin says, abruptly, “We should head home, Ain.”

We walk through the muted streets. This is my favourite time, when everyone is tucked into their homes and I can exist without others’ expectations projected onto my existence. I love the soft blue noise that fuzzes my vision. I love how ordinary objects are turned mysterious; the indistinct edges, the wistful gloom.

Lenin skips beside me, turning his head often to glance at the small pieces of art people leave behind through the process of living. A bicycle missing its rubber grips. A television set atop a toy wagon. A plushie stuffed between the ‘A’ and ‘I’ of a neon sign.

I buy two tea drinks and hand one to Lenin. We sit on the roof of an empty bus stop and stare into the harbour. Home feels further away than ever. The lights beneath the water reach the surface beautifully. They ripple and bleed, like phosphorescent dyes twining towards the sky. I sink beneath myself.

“Ain, don’t!”

I throw the empty bottle into the reception. I see my face shatter into infinity. I hear Lenin break into laughter. The cat leaps up. The ravens bury their wings. The worm writhes until it splits in two.

Blood runs down the side of my mouth. Twenty six dead in a hotel, bones melted like steel.

There is a gap I cannot fill because it is the platonic ideal of absence. An oak, weighed down so strongly by dreams that its branches have sunk deeper into the soil than its roots.

Sheets on the floor. I sink through the earth, head so heavy it compresses into a void and ***** the universe into itself; mangling, stretching, tearing.

My flesh writhes but there is no end. A pulsating womb. Flowers.

Everything is so bright.

I close my eyes.

Where am I?

Who am I?

A part of me is disappearing. I’m scared. I’m—

I can hear Lenin. He is screaming, but he sounds so very far away.

Oh. Oh.

I have been unfurling for a long time, haven’t I?

Guess she finally fled her body. Abandoned that vessel in the lacuna between. The tea! The tea must have reminded her. I must remember to pick up some mints. She’ll either laugh or breakdown into tears.

Whoops, I’m repeating myself.

It sure feels good to stretch my limbs again. Feels like it’s been an age.

Oh, a child boy is beside me. I better deposit him back home before I start.

Ain! Ain! Ain! Is this all this stupid child can say?

Everyone is moving so fast. Ugh. It’s lethargic. It’s absolutely stupid. What, do they think they’ll sink into the earth if they stop?

Ain! Ain! Ain! Oh fine, whatever, have her for a bit longer.

“Ain!”

Lenin? He’s pulling at my sleeves. Tears break, stream down his cheeks. It’s dark, so dark.

“I don’t want you to leave, Ain. Not like last time.”

It—it feels like I’m submerged. The harbour lights have dimmed. Soon dawn will come and wipe their existence from the world. It will be as if they never existed at all.

“Please Ain.”

I hug Lenin. He keeps repeating ‘please’ over and over. I have an inexplicable feeling that I’m leaving for a long time. That I won’t see Lenin again, and that I have to—

Have you stolen my body?

Yup!

Why?

Because you were scared and lonely and living a pointless existence.

I—

Don’t worry, there are a lot like you!

Will—will I ever see Lenin again?

Hmm, probably not. To be honest, I’m not really sure how all this works myself.

Please. Please don’t do this. I—

Ughhhhhh. Look kid, I’ve got places to be. Sayonara.

The market. The raven. The market.

A child petting a cat. A woman drinking a cola. Filling and filling and—

Postman runs past, knocks her arm. Bottle falls to the ground. Splash, crack.

Howling dog. It’s black, you know.

Lenin running on the rooftops. Ain asleep with her window open. He leaps in and wakes her with a grin.

“Ain! Ain! Ain!”

She throw a pillow at him angrily and rolls back into the bed, wrapping herself up like a caterpillar.

A lawman runs over to help the fallen woman. Hands her a mint.

Oh, isn’t it beautiful?

Don’t they all live beautiful lives now?

*Isn’t this what you wanted?

Decorations are up
hung from fishing wire,
fishing for good luck.

There’s Christmas on her neck
and as she stretches out in front of me
a wake of cinnamon decks the halls.

It remains and lingers,
falls away past nostrils and
turns to festive well-wishes.

The market is in full swing
wrapped up tight in large scarves,
like a low cut sling cradling the cold.

Winter has the streets in its hold,
the wind is sour, bitter to taste,
and punters, commuters, Asian lost-tourists walk in haste.

Shop floors are warmed by radiators
hung above their wide open doors:
let the heat out, let the customers in.

And when the mid-November light dims
and the council gets past the
everlasting electrical admin,

streetlamp sticks will light and spark,
sending effulgent embers down onto
the Cambridge cobbles.

Children will peer wide eyed into windows
remembering names for their lists,
hoping to unwrap them as gifts later on down the line.

Adults, some probable parents and others newly-wed together,
enjoy the festivities, the weather, the bespoke crafts
bought from Argos sold as Handmade Swedish Chairs

And do they care? No.
It’s Christmas in Cambridge and
winter is settling in.

He awakes from deep slumber
to find his beloved missing by his side,
again.
Casting off the shroud of dark, dense clouds
He dons the black cloak of night and begins his frenzied search
for Her - the perpetually elusive one :
He scours the skies, cuts through frosty winds,
roves through the infinity of stars desperately seeking Her,
looks down :
at the lonesome road abandoned by commuters
that treaded upon her all day long
at a dingy alleyway where a girl solicits her new owner
for the night - to be used, abused, misused
at the young woman storming her way back home
distraught from a break-up with her Casanova of a lover -

- all this, while She trails behind him
in his quest for love, silently accompanying him
as he drifts over unknown lands,
hoping his agony abates, wanting to tell him
she is there, he could see her.
She, who lends meaning to his being,
his silvery, mesmerising
Moonlight.

I deeply miss those days
When I used to travel
Of course, not just by any vehicle
But a vehicle with a thousand wheels
Clattering away on iron rails
Like there is no tomorrow
A vehicle I had fallen for
Hook, line and sinker
Since the age of two
A love that I refuse to let go of
And a love that refuses to let go of me!

I deeply miss those days
When we railfans got together
Not simply to eat and drink
Not simply for some chat-chit
But to follow our passion
And shoot videos of trains
Thundering away into the sunset
Like there is no tomorrow

I deeply miss those days
When we railfans got together
And did train trips using circuitous routes
Akin to moving from the head to the mouth
Via the entire body!

I deeply miss those days
When I used to do solo train trips
On a monthly basis
Sometimes, even twice a month
An ideal way to **** work stress!

I deeply miss those days
When I used to write blogs
About every trip of mine
And post them in IRFCA
The largest association of railfans
At least as far as India is concerned
Including many railway officials
With an encyclopedia of information
About the Indian Railways
Whether it be the locomotive classes
Whether it be the train operations
Whether it be the timetables
Or even the food!

I deeply miss those days
When I used to lie down
Not on a bed, but a berth
And get lulled into sleep
By the gentle swaying motion
The rhythmic clickety clack
And, occasionally
The melodious chugging
Or the mesmerising humming
Of the roaring diesel
Hauling our train
Accompanied by its horn
Which itself, was music to the ears!

I deeply miss those days
When I used to sit on my Side Lower Berth
And watch scenery fly past me
As we traversed the countryside
The villages and the small towns
The cattle, goats and sheep
The farms and paddy fields
The bushes, shrubs and trees
The ponds, lakes and rivers

I deeply miss those days
When I used to travel the Konkan route
Through a plethora of bridges and tunnels
Lakes, rivers and mountains
And a plethora of greenery
Accompanied by the fierce chugging
Of the ALCO engine hauling us
Or the rhythmic humming
Of the EMD engine hauling us
Of course, it was a diesel heaven!

I deeply miss those days
When I used to travel by "toy trains"
Whether it be the Neral-Matheran train
Or the Kalka-Shimla train
Or the Siliguri-Darjeeling train
It was so romantic
The way we crawled
Right through the heart of the mountains
With a plethora of tunnels
Bridges, viaducts and loops
After all the high speed drama earlier
It was a surreal change
Enjoying the scenery at our own pace
While getting overtaken by joggers
And sometimes, even animals!

I deeply miss those days
When I used to get down
As we stopped at a station
One of so many in our journey
And take a walk on the platform
To check out our loco
And sip from a piping hot cup of coffee!

I deeply miss those days
When we travelled in single-line sections
And our train came to a halt
At a nondescript wayside station
With a platform on only one side
And total darkness on the other side!
I waited for the signal on that line
To turn green, after a while
And heard, from a great distance
The horn of an approaching train
Followed by the lamps of its engine
As it proceeded to burn the tracks
And raise a great heap of dust
Thus shattering the calm of the night

I deeply miss even those days
When I used to go to office daily
Commuting by the famous Mumbai locals
As the train pulled into Vikhroli
I staggered into the First class compartment
Packed to the hilt
With pretentious male executives
Filling the air with testosterone
Such that it was quite a challenge
To even inhale the air properly
It was quite a relief
When Dadar arrived
But then came another challenge
The famous changeover
From Central to Western Railway
Across a sea of commuters
Followed by a brief ride
In another train, to Lower Parel
By the time I reached office
I was drenched in sweat
From head to toe
Not to mention, thoroughly fatigued
What to do?
After all, this is what life is
For the average Mumbaikar

I deeply miss those days
When train travel was the norm
Rather than the exception
However, as far as I am concerned
COVID19 may have taken me out of the train
But it certainly can't take the train out of me!