Death is as inevitable as snow,
Much like windmills on a still day,
Death is the silence of all things.

Death is too late, like snow,
It is never enough, never in time,
Too many tragedies have happened,
And death is too late.

In the distance, clouds cover the moon,
In the distance, mist still descends on the streets,
In the distance, the image of a thousand dying lights,
In the distance, death is still too late.

Of all the tragedies that have played themselves out,
With no agency of their own, just the intersection
Of a million objects in space, death is still too late,
Death is too little to assuage this grief,
That springs from existence itself.

She is sunlight, passed through a prism,
She moves like the breeze through a door,
A springtime promise that never leaves.

She is the heartbreak of a thousand dreams,
She is my shadow, My soul, my tired eyes
After a long day's work.

She is the morning, she is sunrise over the rooftops,
She is dew on every blade of grass,
A petal on every flower.

An old photograph falls out of a folder,
Like a silent leaf in autumn, so silent,
That I wouldn't have noticed it, save
for the glint of the paper, reflecting,
the only lightbulb in my room.

What does the photograph show?
Is it a window to my soul? Is it
the ghost of my past, a thousand regrets
manifesting themselves like an apparition.

I do not recognize the boy in the photograph,
Memory doesn't serve me well anymore,
Moments like these are a lifetime away,
I have forgotten what it was like,
this past life that doesn't exist anymore.

Where is this place, the whitewashed pillars,
the tin roof, the stone walls, the vast cedar trees.
I remember faintly, voices, thoughts, emotions,
that I have lived in the life gone past,
come back to me.

And yet, all is still unfamiliar.

In the pantheon of the Gods,
Only one is missing, and seated across the horizon,
Time sits in Mortality.

She's my Eden, an endless waterfall ,
Sourced from the sky.

Shes my oasis, a distant lake I escape to,
Where eternal sunsets shine vermillion.

She looks at me with eyes,
That caress my soul and soothe my burning shame.

She's my evensong, my last shining light,
The receding tide, eternal Eventide.

And years from now her eyes,
Shall read these words and she'll turn away
From the bus that would take her far from here.

She will come back to being
Both my shadow and my soul.

I was told once, that memories meant nothing,
They withered into the ether of forgetting,
And yet, I have found that the mind
Is a vast city, the streets little strands of emotion
that join vast boulevards of emotion,
To lead us to buildings that are memories.

Even as I wish to bulldoze this skyscraper,
that is the memory of her,
I find the boulevards that lead to this magnificent ruin,
Will leave me longing for too long.

If this Palace of dreams, woven in the fabric of time,
Is brought down to rubble,
What would the landmark be?
It would be the ruin, and the memory of it being destroyed,
Would bring me to my knees.

A skyline stretches out, much like Mumbai and New York,
Los Angeles and London,
And the towers that stretch outward to the sky,
Are the projections of her and me,
forever stamped till Alzheimers consumes me like a storm,
or Death liberates me.

I'll wait for her calls in between shifts at work,
Or in between chapters of textbooks.

I'll wait for her voice to greet me through the static,
Having traveled five thousand kilometres.

It'll be love, it will be quiet,
and every time I see her on the limited rectangle of my screen,
Distance is an illusion.

In time, I will meet her, a roaring aeroplane will tear across the sky,
Over seas and oceans, mountains and wars,
and upon landing, in a timezone far away,
past the corridors and waiting rooms,
amidst throngs of waiting people,
I'll see her and it will be better than a thousand dreams.

I've lost my lovers in a haze of self loathing,
revulsion and disgust,
I've lost them all, and no odes I write,
Will ever reach them.

I can't remember the last time I laughed without coughing,
I can't remember the last time I sang, without going silent,
As if I remembered something that broke my heart,
I can't remember the last time I watched the world go by,
Without thinking that my time was up.

I can't remember the taste of joy, the mirth that has left my lips,
Is forgotten, gone in a puff of mist,
I can't remember the last time I walked with ease,
I've forgotten what it is like to feel something more than buzzing in my mind,
I don't know if it is the injuries from a lifetime that hurt me,
Or the wounds of the days I chose to not live.

It took me hours so think about the words that could,
Like clouds, discover, what I felt when I sat defeated somewhere,
My fountain of youth is so far far away, and I sit,
knitting words together to form a platitude.

The world is a greyer place than last I saw it clearly,
I walked down the Boulevards of my youth and naivete
Wondering if the men that never returned from the guns of hell,
Would miss this grey, strange land of ideas and people
That are indifferent to what they cannot see.

I looked at the house of childhood, bag in hand,
There is nothing to return to, I walk onwards
And book myself in a hotel instead.
The inky dark sky reminds me of the trenches.

The evenings are too cold in my civilian clothes,
The fabric is too soft, the water that runs is too cold,
I lie awake on a bed that is soft,
Hours later, I find myself asleep on the hard floor.

There is something in the room that I cannot understand,
It is a painting of the hills, and in an instant I can see
the bloodstains on the meadows and blades of grass.
I can't even appreciate a painting anymore

I've got the evening off, I'm thinking about making a call,
Apologize, you know, pay the landlady the rent,
Apologize again to the woman I thought I loved but didn't,
Look at myself in the mirror, shave, and try not to drink.

I've got the evening off, I'll write a letter, an e-mail,
Tell her that I miss her and want her to come over,
Pay the bills, walk back to the park and breathe,
Look at my reflection in the windows of tall buildings, and try not to shrink.

I've got the evening off, I have the city's company,
I'll call her before I sleep again, I have to, I say
To those who listen, and there aren't many here,
I'll drink to the last drop, but I won't break down.

War has no meaning, I am often told,
By men who haven't fought them.

Those who have fought are the silent ones,
They rarely recount the horrors of violence,
The existential crises, and the exhaustion.

War is not purification, it is a subjugation of the notes of life
That seem to tie humanity together.
I have seen the weight of my burden, the mortar shells haunt me still,
My service pistol lies under my pillow every night, because habits die hard.

There isn't much sympathy, nobody understands the implication of duty in combat,
My medals are just silent pieces of shrapnel that seem to bleed with the souls
Of those men I could not bring back.
Where is the enemy, I wonder, who was he, the shooter the dark,
Or the suicide bomber, the ******? I wonder if he feels the same
As I do, duty comes with a weight that bears down on my spine,
And bends my spirit.

The world ages in a solstice, the dreams of a million eyes,
Lie like blades of grass, while the two of us sit at the edge,
Watching an endless sunset and kissing mortality,
And all that remains is an evening burned away in bliss.

Disease is narrowing the definition of life,
Happiness is so sweet that you can drink it.

I'm not sure about what I want to tell you now that I have you,
I'm not sure if you existed in my head or are a dream come from within.

The sounds of you breathing remind me of my head and I hope,
That all this is real.

I've learned so many things from solitude,
That counting them s like counting the autumn leaves,
And what are autumn leaves save for stars in the daylight?

I've learned that the mind is fertile,
That thoughts bear fruit like Springtime,
I've learned from solitude a lesson in peace,
that being lonely is not always the same
as being alone.

I've learned from solitude the nature of pain from separation,
That there is nothing that can leave my heart
except my blood, and there is nothing that constricts my throat
The way your memories do.

I've learned that compassion is human, it lies curled in a corner
Till Sunlight and warmth raise it from its coma
and determination aid its walk towards the light.

I've learned so many things from solitude,
That all that remains is its blanketing comfort,
and a lifetime of tranquility.

I'm reading old letters, yellowed with age,
The voice that speaks to me as I read is weathered,
Aged, and yet in clear syllables tells me,
All about life 70 years ago, when the world
And her people were at war with themselves.

Through the voices I heard while reading,
I glimpsed the chains that tied
My country's people in their skins, and engulfed
Their minds in suffering and shame.
Curious thing this epidermal tinge that a shade too dark, shackles a man
Down to the dust, robs him of pride
And breaks the spine of unborn children.

My grandfather's letters are old, dying sheets of paper,
His memories are moving clouds of silken mist,
Which swirl and glide as he remembers
The days of his youth, carrying a satchel to school,
Because his dark skin, the condition of his people,
Their status as the Subjects of a King they did not know,
Forbade him from walking in boots and a better school.

The moonlight shines through the window,
70 years have passed, and a shackled spirit now roams free
Broken chains lie in the dust and words exist in history books,
But my grandfather describes freedom best.

Long meanders the line that divided us
While we lived, rugged is the knife that severed
What was a quiet bond between two particles
Of stardust.

From my reserved cloud I can see
The domes on the temples I have never visited,
The ghat that runs by the holy rivulet is solitary,
The mists of human endeavour do not blanket
Those flagstones in warmth or comfort,
All that remains is algae sprawled on the steps
Of the ghat where silence is the spirit
The light and the guide.

Two particles of stardust collide in an instant
In the fluidity of Space time, and all that remains
Is a whisper in history
That once existed two people, separate,
Though begotten of the same dust as the Stars,
Who were united in a flash of light,
And an eternity of peace.

I can hear the nurses over the din
That is my blood in my ears,
Coursing through these veins as if on fire.

I can hear them say "He's struck dumb,
Poor man, gave the boys all he had,
All that's left, of course, is a wordless bag of bones,
And broken heart".

I can hear them frivolously care for the others I cannot see,
Whose names, are to me, little anchors that weigh me
To reality, like a nail in the ground holds a kite down
To keep it from breaking free.

I am silent, struck dumb

Why can't the thoughts that swirl in my mind like mist
Materialize into words and sentences so that a living eye can read them,
So that a living ear can hear them, as they flow from my mouth
In little indeterminate streams,
That can remind me that the world exists beyond what I have seen.

Your hair's all blonde, your eyes bright green,
I have nothing but a dream,
And its in black and white.

Your eyes shine bright, your lips are fine,
I have a song, nothing more,
You are all I see.

Your lips tell me everything, your hair is soft,
All I have now are drops of tears,
You are all I need.

I can be a legend, sir,
A murderer, but not a traitor

I look at all that is left, the pages, the pictures, the dust,
The walls are weak, the heart stops for a minute,
My words come back to me, in shades that cry out towards the sky,
and yet, silence remains, ever watchful, omnipresent.

I feel the words that I said, to assuage the grief that is mine,
My eyes are the windows of my minds, where only suffering enters,
Disease, caresses the willows, it massages the misty forests of Gloom, and in my Melancholia, I am solitary, even though all I hoped for
was whisper, a quiet pat on the shoulder, a single ray of sunshine.

All is ashes now, all is consumed by Time, and all that remains,
is transient in my search for eternity, immortality weighs
on my fatigued brain like a heavy blanket, the gloved hand of Pain,
Takes me on, towards the end, towards Redemption, towards Salvation

I cross the seas of Passion
To the shores of Truth,
I've not looked back since

As we return to the Dust
From whence we came,
My eyes look to the setting sun,
And a lifetime of memory
Comes back to me,
Our paths may have crossed but once,
Yet we were changed forever

Its been a long evening, the helicopters
Are our angels, as they descended from the sky
Lit with flares and fighter jets and the air
Was pierced by the shouts of men dying
Bearing the flags that were theirs, burning
Those that were not.

Our heroes are laid out now, a number
That is unfortunate and a heavy weight
Which clamps around my heart as I
Salute the coffins and the world, the nation
And the public.

Every day has been the same for weeks,
I walk to the fields where living men fought
Wasting away, in anger, fear, violence
But if the Republic is avenged,
And our people are proud of the bloodlust
Here, so be it.

*Meanwhile, the Corporal whispers,
"Goodnight, Sir"

As I walk through the door,
Auden tells me to turn off the lights,
I dismantle the moon, put out the stars
But I wish he hadn't left.

The boys have had a break,
Marvellous weather, glorious sunshine,
We've got orders, commands, letters
From home, letters from friends, pens
Have written odes to our memory.

We have been forsaken for so long
That the enemy now seems like
A friend in the dark, a companion in the mornings,
The artillery shells are like the staccato rings
Of the Alarm clock that I left on the shelf.

Duty is, but a byword now,
When the flags of our fathers weigh too much,
Our backs are burdened by the dead companions
We intend to bring back home.

We may meet once,
but our paths are changed forever.

Dewdrops are the testimony of
Nature, rejuvenating everything, always

Long were the hours then, full of anger,
I sat on my broken throne, a reminder of my defeat,
like a shattered dream, my heart in pieces,
and my mind still in flames.

In my dreams, psychedelic promises of freedom flower,
like battered gardens in a battlefield,
I could have gone anywhere, and escaped,
but I longed for a sign that never came.

I looked at the concrete horizon, in anger,
blinded by my words, deafened by my pain,
I was wounded, bruised, battered, and bleeding,
each drop of blood bore silent testimony.

I longed for freedom, I thrashed at the chains,
that bound me there, I despaired, i looked up to the sky,
I found no stars, an empty darkness,
opened its jaws at my shame.

I broke free one day, I ran,
my legs carried me farther,
than my mind could have ever imagined,
and my wounds no longer hurt,
I was no longer bleeding,
in my dreams, promises were flowering in springtime.

I ran all my life, I was existing once but I was running then,
Finally, exhausted, I stop, still walking, there are no shadows,
behind me is my prison, my mind is still frozen on suffering,
Psychedelic promises of Love, lie shattered here,
Love was the sign that never came,
it was a promise of rain, but all was dark in my heart,
All I am left with, is a pocket of loose change,
and a kiss from Time, like a shooting star on a dark sky.

Time comes again with that fatal kiss,
but I am still searching for the shore,
Walking so hard, that fatigue, burns my flesh,
The shadows have gone, but so has the light,
there is nothing to guide me to the Shore.

Still i walked, till I saw the Kite,
the Kite on the Shore, a banner, or freedom,
I walked towards the Kite, there was a string,
that tied it to Earth, as it soared high above,
like the Moon on a clear night,
it was my North Star, my guide,
it was the Key, and the Shore was the gateway,
to my freedom.

I saw the ocean stretch itself till the horizon,
and with Pride, I surveyed the road behind me,
the shadows I left behind,
the trail that I carved was now a blur,
my sufferings were placed like an offering,
on the altar of the eternal freedom
that was the ocean, and the Kite still soared in the dusky sky.

I saw the string that tied it down,
I felt the wind that lifted it up,
I stooped, and broke the string,
and set myself free.

Grief is the beginning of
Realizing that you still exist

The light at the end of the tunnel
Turns out to be a fleck of the halogen glow
Of a streetlight, a guiding beacon for the lost
The ****** and the awake in the hours of repose.

I count myself among the nocturnal demographic,
Cold, shivering, dejected till the first light of Dawn,
Brings me rest and sleep.

I am part of the night shift

With me are  thousands of others,
Walking towards the factories and mines,
Which feed the endeavour of materialistic existence.
A damnation that those who repose now,
Will never understand.

The shift begins in silence and ends in a blast of the siren,
Declaring our freedom, granting us permission,
To be free again, bathed in the first lights of Dawn,
As we ascend from the pits of the Earth,
The boiler rooms, chambers and assembly units,
In mines, factories, manufacturing plants,
To repose and miss the Sun,
Till the cycle begins again.

Sounds of children laughing,
Are like the whispers of Humanity

Neruda would have been at loss for words,
If he saw what I saw today, if he felt what I felt,today,
Travelling as I was on the Subway.

Am I a Socialist? A Democrat? A Bureaucrat?
A Jew, an Atheist, or a forgotten Hindu?
Reborn, because moksha is for saints?

I don't know what my soul is like, is it blue?
Or is it like a raindrop meandering on a windowpane,
Too embroiled in its grief to care about disappearing,
All the while looking like a tear on the cheek of the Sky.

I doubt Neruda could come up with words for the sight
Of blood and torn skin on the subway tracks,
The organic leftover of a poor ******,
Lost to Time.

I have no words, either, my mouth is shut
In the silence of death, because as I stepped over the threshold
And found peace, I found that I had lost my voice.

Two weeks from now,
You will fade into memory,
Like the halo of a candle,
After the lights come back on

Where's the rest of Third Platoon, I asked
The boys who came up to me,
"Dead, Captain", said the Lieutenant, "All gone",
I'd better get back to the letters I've been writing,
I think, wondering what is worse,
Dying, or having to keep a tally of all the boys
Who die, hideously in the helicopters,
On fields and in Humvees.

I need rescuing

Cowardice is tempting, shoot myself in the foot,
Go home to a limp, a wounded leg and a blackened memory,
What is left of honour, except threads of our flag,
Blanketing my men in coffins that reach unannounced,
In civilian lines.

I wish I could say something about the deceased,
The martyred, as the Colonel likes to
call them,
The Heroes are those who come back afraid of noises,
Loud speakers, and lightning,
Because it reminds them of Patrol Duty.

I'm still here, at the front lines,
Wondering if I can call it a day,
My gun is cradled in my arms,
Like a woman, (but I've lost her too).

I may, after leaving you, shed no tears,
Write nothing, dismantle the lights at home,
Take refuge in darkness, in drink, intoxication,
But I will probably miss you dearly.

I may, after a few days, get used to the silence,
Get used to the ghost of our past, lurking
Behind every door, waiting to reveal itself
In a moment of pain and suffering,
But I will not get used to the defeat.

I may, after leaving, spend months lying to myself,
Think that all is going well, even pick up the phone,
Without the fear of hearing your voice,
Even if it is the only thing I crave.
I will not, however, read your letters,
See your profile, read our messages, and accept
That once we existed.

I may, after a year, regain my voice in my soliloquy,
Look for someone else, watching for signs of failure,
Go blind to the ghosts that pull back the curtains of memory,
To remind me again of all that I lost.

I will not, however, look back.

In blood and suffering I find myself most inspired,
In the cries of pain that pierce the air, I breathe in,
In suffering, my body perfects itself, calls to action
My most gifted talents, my urge to caress your wounds
Is my only consolation, my antidote in my gloom.

Peace is a balmy state of carefree insomnia,
My greatest indifference is to myself,
Because I love my heart too much,
So that when it is broken, I find solace,
In Suffering, as she takes me by the hand,
through the corridors of Pain, and damnation.

Our thoughts are wisps of  cigarette smoke
Which rise to the sky, in rings,
reaching out in supplication, from within
to without.

Do we accept the wounds we think we deserve? Is there a choice
in the pain we inflict upon ourselves, in choosing how much we bleed,
For our flags, our heroes, our lovers and our ideas?

Is there consolation in knowing that Justice is served by our own hands?
Pain is dealt in our silence, in our choice for quiet
When the multitudes of broken hearts and starving Stomachs
need a voice.

All is not lost in the  trust that we place on Humanity, hoping,
that we can defeat the waves of bigotry which crash,
upon the shores of our homes, to break the spirit that we
foster through times of peace.

Hate is the fuel for carnage, the bitterness of people,
lost, without a voice, lost, in the blanket of silence,
that we tuck them in.

It is a privilege to hear you grieve
in my company, showing
that you trust me, with your tears

After all, what  greater comfort than grief
In the Company of someone who comes and goes,
Like the seasons?

It breaks my heart to see your sorrow,
Laid out, like heirlooms, in a cold, dark evening*

This is an evening of my discontent with the sunlight,
My only refuge in tides of my Life,
I wish to breathe again.

We exist, like kisses of
mist on a window pane

Did it take us long to walk over to the broken people,
Letting our compassion change us for a while,
I have not become a saint with an act of kindness,
I am still looking for my oasis in this wasteland,
Everything else is a passing breeze.

The sorrow that filled them in those dark hours
Was my elixir, as I walked forward,
writing my testimonies in the lives I meet on my way.

I have felt grains of sand with my fingertips, my blood
is fatigued, in its course through my flesh,
My veins are distended, toughened, and yet,
They do not tear, and this limbo between
Pain and liberation is Peace within a calamity.

My soliloquy is a bare rasping breath of wind,
Coursing through the streets which led home once,
But are now the lanes of memory, stale in their impotence,
Stinging in their truth, that my existence left behind marks
in the water I bathed in, in the bed I slept in,
in the books I read, which I held,
in the bandages I bled, over the wounds I tried to heal.
On the flag I tried to save, I have wept, Longing
for this journey to end, so I may rest a while.

The diseased have suffered their sickness with stoicism.

I have tried to heal them, succeeded,
failed with a few,
and wondered in the power of Mortality.

My oasis lies in the peaks of the wasteland, I can see it now,
A haze, a sliver of sunlight in this dark wasteland,
Past this murky slush of relationships,
Beyond the cliffs of defeat, and past the rivers
Of Self-loathing criticism.

Goodnight, shadow, now that the light has gone out, so can you.

Goodnight, shapeless impression of my existence,
the only proof of my waking life.

Goodnight, you silent spectator, companion, solace,
If I die, you will exist, because you are part of the very dark
that I sought out in my despair.

Goodnight, my partner in grief, my lover in the dark,
I have left nothing behind, except a few words,
I will have touched nothing from beyond the crematorium,
I only reach out to you, now, in my last hours of waking,
In  my dreams I have no light, to cast you on the wall,
No darkness to draw you from, into the heat of my vision.

I repose now, hoping that you bear witness, again,
while I sleep, that I existed once during the day!

In the evenings, the mist descends,
Casting us all in a blanket of comfort,
Silence is my companion in winter's solitude.
I wished for peace, but found quiet instead,
The bulb in my living room is my sun,
My guiding light, my source of warmth.

I have not loved.

Perhaps my solitude is deserved,
a worthy punishment for the cries of help
that I ignored in my helpless longing for fame.
Ambition is my downfall, the virus that consumes
my waking hours, my dreams, my heart