A Christmas Present

She sat on the moth-eaten couch.
Rheumatic Legs,
Frozen by the news.
They were to go shopping.
The wreath remained
unpacked- paper, hiding
its purpose.

knock

They brought, a box and a letter,
in their best black
and sombre expressions.
Muttering an apology,
they laid it down,
with a little salute
and left.

tears

Broken spectacles fogged
with memories
of life,
she placed the wreath,
decorated fancy,
with Christmas joy,
upon the flag-clad box-

a coffin paperholder*.

*Graham Greene, The Comedians

Rest in Peace

They mocked
They ignored
They cheated
They shunned,

You,
For being who
You were.

You,
Cut your ears,
Filled your pocket
With memories
To dissolve,
Between the Acts,
Shooting your head
In a field
Of opinions,
And breathed
A room full
Of deception.

Perhaps,
You took
Their world
Too seriously.

Stars, Tides, Sundials

Floating down
A river called Time,
With raindrops
And thunderbolts;
Brooks and volcanoes;
Locks and keys;
Hellos and goodbyes;
Weeds and daffodils;
Realise,
Hearts are many,
Head is one.
Use it.

If You See Kay

If you see Kay,
Your mother would probably
Ground you.

If you see Kay,
In the Dictionary,
You are enlightened
About certain life skills.

If you see Kay,
On the television,
You can only hear him beep.

If you see Kay,
Quite a lot,
You are probably drunk
Or very angry
Or both.

If you see Kay,
Tell him
His name featured
In the newspaper,
In the Obituary Column.

To Sartre

Dream,
For we need
An excuse
To wake up,
Tomorrow.

Inspired by a certain Holden Caulfield.

Smoke

Through the heads
Of an old lady
Raw and wrinkled
And the drunkard
Down the road
A gait so crooked,
That children of
Lost innocence,
With eyes like
Empty goblets of ambrosia,
And second hand soft-toys
From the Memsahib,
Look.
Look at the
Hollow black of activists
(Ray-Ban it reads)
And the dead white
politicians,
(neatly starched) a ray
Of Gray
Appears through the window.
And they called it
Perspective.

Four Submissions and the Air-conditioner

Surreal

Atoms.
Atoms apocalyptic,
Brewing in laboratories
'Dropped' by a bird
And we flew.
Flew in the water,
Water of oblivion
Of shades flourescent
From destitute drains
And fungal delicacies
With rhino melodies.
As fire,
Hungry old fire
Chased us
With a diabolic glint
And angelic purpose.
Eyes digested memories
Images fleeting.
As space ballooned
Time stopped for a swig
And we flew,
A thousand splinters
Of existential consequence
Through realms unbelievable
And colours psychedelic
Through Concordian booms
And eucalyptus noses
Red chili tongues
And skins burnt by
'An Inconvenient Truth'.
And we flew.

I know how the caged bird feels

Inspired by Paul Lawrence Dunbar's Sympathy.

Will(s)

The wood doesn't want to be burnt.
The matchstick strikes
Fire embraces the unwilling wood.
Smoke Smoke Smoke,
The chimney- victim of the wood's ire
Gray skies, polluted lungs.
Cough Cough Cough.
The war continues,
Burn Burn Burn,
The fire eats the defiant wood,
Victorious fire, defeated wood,
Eyes reflect the crackling fire,
Hands comforted by hot 'martyred' wood,
But the wood did not want to burn,
Enter Fire, exit wood,
And there was,
Ash Ash Ash.
The wood did not want to burn.

The refrain is inspired by Modest Mouse.

DCF

The clicking of the mouse,
Giggles behind the screen,
Social network profile views,
Random conversations
That decade old friend
Parties and professors
Stifled yawns open pdfs
Sleep inducing air-conditioner
Chocolate wrappers cream biscuits
Lost pen drives and ideas
Google Talk
.ppts .pdfs
Flooding downloads
Spiders crawling screens
Deadlines Youtube
Cluck-clucking keyboards
Typing blog posts out.