If I could be a better man,
I'd have enough insight
To always come up with a plan.
In times of trouble, danger, or distress,
I'd keep my emotions under control,
And never run out of rational sense.
No circumstances would ever drown me,
Or rise above my head,
Because I'd know how to swim the currents,
And land on solid ground instead.


If I could be a better man,
I'd have enough courage to follow through with every noble goal I set.
And every appeal to selflessness
I am tempted to forget.
There'd never be a task
I couldn't undertake,
Even if it meant
My life was at stake.
Money, time and resources
Would never grow on me,
But I'd give of these objects endlessly.
And at the end of the day
I'd still know how
To be completely and utterly free.


If I could be a better man,
I'd never fear the entity of change.
I'd embrace this shrewd reality,
Unhindered by its pace.
I'd keep a face like solid flint
When revolution
Threatened to derange.
At will I'd change my emotions
To better fit each phase;
Each chapter of life
From page to page;
I'd wire my brain to electrically flow
Smoothly and flawlessly,
Everywhere I'd go.


If I could be a better man,
I'd never struggle with uncertainty;
I'd always know what choice to make,
No matter the options that lay before me.
I'd never have to second guess,
Overthink, obsess or stress:
The presented realities and decisions of life;
A special wisdom I'd possess.
A knowing in my gut and heart
Of all that is my destiny,
With the calm assurance of having what it takes
To get to where I want to be.
The truth itself would become my eyes,
And never from my heart escape or flee.


If I could be a better man,
I'd always be a man of my word;
Letting my actions always
Positively confirm the things you heard.
I'd mean every syllable I spoke to you,
With fiery convictions I knew to be true.
I'd always know how to communicate,
And wouldn't let grievous words
Separate
Relationships so vital and true;
The stuff we're made for,
And shouldn't undo.


If I could be a better man,
I'd be a fountain of virtues flowing,
Ever going;
Like a rumbling and roaring
and rushing waterfall,
Dazzlingly Tall:

Wisdom

    Prudence

   Diligence

  Patience

Courage

  And Emotional Intelligence

     Faithfulness

   Rectitude

  Purity

  Relentless tenacity

    Fortitude

      And overall confidence

                                            With surety


If I could be the perfect man,
There'd be one thing I'd always know how to do.
And that is, my friend, in all sincerity:
Faithfully and infallibly
Loving God and You.


But since I know
I am far from perfect,
I will do the best I can.
And though I fail now and then,
I will get back up
And stand.
I will seek forgiveness
Down on my knees;
Ask God for humility,
Grace and Mercy please.
My weaknesses I'll count as blessings,
And thank God I don't have to be:
The Savior of the world -
Superman -
Who for comfort, has no need.

Invariably,
You prefer to come
To me in the dark.
"You're more my temperature then,"
You once said.
I'm not much of a thermometer,
But I am the eurythmy
To each syllable you give
In such settled shadow.
A play of murmurs and fingertips,
You once named this.
Always I see a wreath in your hair,
In colors of Persia,
Textures of night,
And the soft blended lines
Of you I know
Infallibly.

When I was young,
Smooth, young hands soothed me.
They wiped my tears,
Caressed my hair,
And these hands belonged to
Mommy.

Youthful oblivion blinded me
To the effects of time.
I never noticed that as I grew up,
You were growing up too.
You were perfect, infallible--
With all the wisdom of the world
Written in the lines on your palms.

An adult now, I know
The hardships you've faced, the battles you've conquered.
And I notice your hands--
Wrinkled by time's passing,
Lined with experience.
They still wipe my tears.
They still caress my hair.
And these same hands belong to my mother, my friend.

there’s a living reality of
fallibly hopeful distraction—
sheltered squatters—
residing above a room where
everything important is angry,
not easily suffocated.
the warm polyester of a busy mind
is sick with monotonous fear
that the residents below
will expand their decay,
raging in a panic until the walls collapse
and the nails in the floorboards are
upturned and weaponized;
a clever, persistent enemy.
this unbearably,
infallibly hopeless
struggle.
there are paintings on the walls
and books on the shelf,
plants on the windowsill in the late afternoon.
i’m worried these will die too.

I don't know a lot of things,
I don't know why leaves should be green and skies should be blue,
I don't know what can drive a person to do some of the things that they do,
I don't get why people can't just talk about how they feel,
And I will probably never learn to determine the difference between what is fake and what's real,
But I think I've learned
One must suffer into the truth because they cannot know true happiness without pain,
Heavenly bread should never be the cost of an earthly gain,
The only person you owe anything to is you,
And you deserve to be happy, no matter sins you've committed and ones you will do,
And the one thing I know to be infallibly true,
Is no matter what I tell myself, what I say, I think I may love you
But you don't feel the same way as me
And that's okay too

While the birds begin to sing their songs
The sun climbs silently into the sky
Fleeting dreams fade away at the breaking of day
The dreamer reprieved, he opens his eyes

He gets ready for work and puts on a tie
Fit for a funeral or fit for a wedding
He sees during the day but its only a lie
Truth to be found only when the dreamer is resting

As the sun creeps quietly down to the West
The dreamer lays his head down to rest
Escaping his reality to something more real
He attempts to lose himself in his dream surreal

Light sets the scene as it infallibly does,
The dreamer alone but feeling no fright
Rosewood, as usual, the door appears
Gold handle glowing bright in the light

Behind the door is an unknown world
A world without convention and without ties
The dreamer caught motionless in a reach for the handle
Indefinitely pondering a world without lies

While the birds begin to sing their song
The dreamer reopens his eyes
He could only think of the rosewood door
And how he did not want to wear a tie.

After seventeen years cicadas emerge and molt from their nymph skin. They sit atop trees for six days as white as milk and trembling in excitement of the coming hunt. It is funny to think that the cicada can know exactly what they want to love in another cicada. They must love like a human has never loved. Their seventeen year anticipation is answered only by a few weeks of life. They must love passionately and infallibly. They cannot afford to take second glances on the street. They do not know what it means to take a break in order to find themselves. Their love is universal. It is built up from seventeen years of thought and dirt and roots and truth. After their skin hardens they begin to sing out in wild choruses, searching for someone who is singing their same song.

This dimension of living is endlessly shrouded in mystery.
We are the midwives to our own platform of living and we have the authority to liquidate it and start upon a new tier at any moment.
I know but only what my eyes have unrobed  to show me.
All around us isolated winsome lives of their own fabric and hemming are kerneled into the crust of our worlds existence.
We are so distinctly separate yet intrinsically connected.
We tend to weave our lives in a way to circumvent the albatross that is free-floating and searching for a host.
It is so simple to sector yourself away from the things that pose fluster to your character.  
But we infallibly need each other, we must uncloak ourselves from the throttling labels.
Once you make peace with the construction of this world you are unfettered and free.
All of these sumptuous luminescent minds quarantined away serve no good.  Live your life with decorum and ease and let this light scintillate to invigorate others. This revolution is not rooted in vociferous speeches and affronts, but by merely emitting your unadulterated authentic self. Excavate yourself of the toxic of society and you will become the voltaic entity.
Make haimish comfort with the idea of uncertainty and live life simplistically.

You aren't anything I want.
Your eyes alight at the chance to prove yourself
superior.
Being older shouldn't be an accomplishment
It's a shame
For you.

Wish I hadn't noticed the strange noise I heard.
Whispers from within,
screaming to reach open air,
itching under my skin,
to be real and true and free.

Gravity shifts quietly, gently
I feel a weight in my arm, unbalanced
tipping towards you
wanting to stretch past the space
the wide space
6 feet exactly,
exactly too close
not far enough.

Pretentious, obnoxious
and yet
I still long
For you.

And then, seeing only part of your face,
the other half obscured by a mask
A physical one
As I wore a different type beneath my own
blue filter
One that didn't show the way my eyes pleaded
to drag over to the right
where I could see you.
To where I could pine
For you.

I know it's impossible,
infallibly fantastical.
But seeing your face,
Again I feel that buzz of attraction
For you.

I still see you when I close my eyes and let my mind wander
I wonder how your face would feel against mine
Wonder how we would feel together.

Always, is forever
Are we true *always?
For it’s not always
We keep our promises
Says the lover,
“I’ll be there for you, always.”
Not always living up to expectations
Does always have an expiry date?
Always means- unfailingly, infallibly, each time & every time
It seems almost always, it’s abused
Are we always, not strong enough?
Or, do we give in to circumstances, always?
For always seems to be the most misinterpreted
I keep pondering over it, always




© Amitav (Radiance)

1 Method:

Witness nothing but the body
    hurtling at best, if not dilapidated.

Cusped in space, never held.
Behead the music,

    if not the conductor.

It will happen when everything has
  expired in the threshing.

Wring me pure, make me delicate,
  chain me in the wrongness.

    Embody this figurine pierce it with stem
  break it gossamer as petals imperiled ad infinitum
       sleek as a metaphor rising from rinsed perfume.

2 Chance Operation:

  Say when she caresses / this mired  setting:
  it is   of  preparation.

  Seize this mean when preparatory.

 Turn you as inside-out cleared from veiling.
  In a vitrine you wish to be freed from,
  examined, never granted meaning;

  Mundane the discovery.
  A throb of fever gone from tepid bath
  walking into space, abled.        

  Acute blunder is study, wash me with theory.
  Sullen is the word for it, entitled to acute error.

  Say when    it  ceases,
   tranquilized. Never waking up, fastens to

3 Dreamwork:

  Always still is the heart.
  I envy the water midstream. Fingers partition
 
   when infiltration is sure of. A conscious removal
   merits the continual of lobotomies.

  Augur this dim presence, make it raw again
      infallibly, make it my body. Forge my skin out of
   and  listen to  it. Feel the drone   of  this machine

   making space less tolerable. This begins
      an end, but of what pursuit is this here

   always  a  vision Blinded  by   definition
         away    from   here?

I’m unraveling
In a grave gravelly
Light speed traveling
From the judge gaveling

They’re trying to persecute me
Like it’s their divine duty
Like desperate pigs rooting
For their rejuvenating truffles
In my dying screams muffled
By the executioner’s muscle

I’m paranoid
And it’s not the ****
I stare into the void
That makes me bleed
Only to see
Humanity
Staring back at me
With ****** teeth

I maintain my vitality
By matching their morality
Conforming infallibly
To society around me

They try to peek through my window
Every time the wind blows
So I keep the lights dimmed low
To cover my sin’s glow
And quietly tiptoe
Through the big show

They see through my disguise
And start to despise
They ask me to die
And I ask them why
Have I hurt a fly?
If they hate me so much
Why don’t they **** me?
Instead of avoiding my touch
With abandonment chilling

I can smell death in the air
When they say life isn’t fair
Before they try to not care
And attack me on a dare
After many hateful stares
From their disdainful lair

God uses pain to teach
So they use pain to preach
Giving me grief
Over the life I seek
So my eyes will leak
As the sky turns bleak
From lies to the meek

My sins I confess
As an SOS
To bless my mess
Despite its pests
Of demonic tests

God doesn’t answer
He has forsaken me
Giving me cancer
He has mistaken me
For someone who gives a ****
My wrists He’ll slit
If He feels it fits
So why match wits
With almighty spit?

(After Elytis)

                 1.

The sea lies leagues away.
I look leeward and see
No sandy beach, only this
Sandy soil in which our plants
And flowers struggle to grow.
There is no sign of salty air,
Of seagulls, or dolphins,
Or seashells. No Neptune and
His entourage to capture
My weakening sight
With his flashing trident.

                 2.

How easy the Greeks had it:
The sea,
Wine-dark, vast, the press
Of tides calling the long
Boats toward Troy.
Black mountains rise up
In a morning splayed with
Iridescence.
Thunder and echo sound
In the warmth’s embrace.
Glory gilds the waves.

                 3.

Today, the sea refracts
An aquamarine blue, lapping
Lazily against island shores,
Which cradle the waves,
Then ****** them back,
Vivifying, in their
Rhythms, the words of
Infinity, singing
the endless song of the sun.
The spume
Baptizes island souls
As the source of all life.
That is a lie, of course,
Or shall we say, a myth.
Human life began on
The African savannah,
Leagues away from the sea.

                 4.

Yet we need our myths,
To fortify our dreams,
An irresistible radiance
Clinging to the waves.
A heroic hymn
Of exaltation. Bells
Strike in the distance.
Yes, myths,
Classical, traditional,
Stretching toward the center
Of things.
Crusading sails in
The current, carrying
Our yearnings
For the eternal, rosy-
Fingered dawn.

                 5.

Yes, we need the sea,
And its ******-up cones
Of stone on the horizon.
Freedom blows from all
Directions, uncovering
Great tales of destiny,
Penitence, tragedy,
Self-mastery, lament.
The sailor exults
In his salt-sprayed aims.
We need the sea,
Wine-dark or blue, vast,
Rough or tame.
Without it, civilization,
In all its majesty, infallibly
Collapses.


                 6.

The sea lies leagues away.
I look leeward and see
Only sandy soil.

more than anything
i want to study
the gentle intonation of your voice
the soft shapes
of your skin
the scents
and feeling of your hair
infallibly
i want to know you

i'm not your philanthropy project
you can't put me on your college application
under community service
patronizing is a waste of your wit

feelings are a pain to have
but they are my life raft
the value of words i speak if haste
cannot be calculated, they are not half-baked

i am an emotional wreck
who will be there when the machines break
you roll your eyes, slowly explain
the are infallibly great