ANOTHER CONFLICT. ANOTHER PROTAGONIST.

What do I have

But to suck happiness from these books

Pressing upon these leather bound yellow pages

As though its life would assume mine

Or the other way round,

 To implant my life

Into these pages

That so and so loved me,

Hated me, scorned me,

 That I fought for what I thought

Was given to me in birth

If I could convert it all into words

Written in black ink on white paper.

That my futile experiments to love

Threw me into chaos and disharmony

Unsure, Afraid, Uncertain

Worries and torments

I don’t quite know if I did love him

But memories, they don’t fade.

 They stay embedded like ice on the Arctic

Receding during summers

 But back again in winters.

 And then there are other things

 That press upon my soul

 Knocking on my door

 To be let in during a midwinter’s night.

Lovers or murderers, I know not.

I do not wish to know

 So I turn the page.

 Another chapter, another conflict, another protagonist.

THE WORLD IN NOT QUITE RIGHT

You know the world is not quite right

When you wake up in the morning late

And the beams of light fall into your eyes like pins.

And then your mother’s voice

Rattle on, about duties

 You never fulfilled, mentioning

 The darling daughter next door.

 You can’t bear her sly smile

She wouldn’t lift a finger

Even if she sees her friend murdered.

 But you keep your thoughts to yourself.

And there is sugar in the milk,

 You bite into an apple not quite crisp,

 The toast is burnt coal black

 And the butter doesn’t melt.

 You haven’t talked to him in six days.

 And he doesn’t show signs of making the first move

And callous seems the world.

Too much in a hurry to stop by

And inquire into your troubles and sorrows

You pick up your favorite book

You don’t read beyond a word.

You don’t pick up his call.

 You don’t want to go for dinner

With the man, you thought yesterday

Was the love of your life.

You break the wine glass

While wiping them clean.

 You can’t quite find the paintbrushes

For your Audrey Hepburn pop-art.

 And hot tears of resentment

Stream down your face

 Even though not a single sob escapes

From your embittered mouth,

 Lips drawn in a line.

 And you throw yourself on the unmade bed

 And try to sleep it off.

CAGED IN BEAUTY

Ivory skin, red lips,

 Doe eyes, black curls

The world rises to greet you.

 Men flutter around you like bees on violets.

 Women smile at you, with awe and envy.

From your Rolls Royce, you see

Sunny faces in their rusted bicycles.

 You envy them, their freedom.

 You could have been one of them.

 When you utter a word, the world nods.

 Not fully understanding

But eager to please you.

 They agree, they consent,

 They never understood.

You light your cigarette,

 Toast your champagne.

 Another wedding anniversary,

 Another unhappy marriage.

You are marked for  a life

Where all pretty things dwell.

 You don’t want them,

 They don’t hear you.

 Cruel those kind words

 And strained smiling faces seem to you

To cage you in beauty.

 Trapped by high birth.

 Isn’t it as pathetic to see

A child trapped in wealth as it is to see

A child struggling with poverty?

I more You & You more I

Whenever I slip out of your orbit

 You send me a comet to remember you by.

There are times when both of us

 Fall out of love

And your features blurr

And desire crumbles into dust

Replaced by mild bewilderment.

 And the painless loss of the one I loved

Or thought I loved.

We meet in dreams,

 In the early morning dawn

Bathed in fog and drops of dew.

So much hesitation,

 Would this mark our lives?

But when I think I have left you behind

 In the pen on your mahogany office desk.

In the incessant meetings, oblivious to my absence,

Your scent lingers

It wafts into my bedroom window

Seeps into my Marchesa gown

Wears my gloves,

 Picks up my Chanel bag.

 Our road leads to nowhere

But it doesn’t deter us from

Leaving indelible marks

On each other’s features,

 Like permanent tattoos

 Conspicuous, noticeable,

 As though to draw attention.

Whenever I slip out of your orbit

You send me a comet to remember you by.

By now I have become more you

 And you more I.

I AM THE DAMNED

No, the sun wasn’t out

And her smile failed

To illuminate the gloomy day

Nor can I go on to describe her

In grand and ornate words.

 I am not the literary sort

And the last thing I want to do

Is pretend to be one.

I hated her then.

She, with her flawless ivory skin

And high spirits; the marks

Of a life devoid of humiliation

And then she did something

 Which caught me offguard-

She inquired the cause of my bruises, my scars,

That day, I was stopped by one of them

 In a khaki uniform

 You see hundreds of them

Littered all over the town…..

Brandishing their cold metallic toy

He had told me to lie down…

Flat on the ground

I hadn’t moved, just stared back

Insolently, he must have thought

 And that was when a piercing stab of pain

 Penetrated my skull

A part of me wanted to tell someone

And who better than a fool of a girl?

But would she understand my contempt

 Or would she, like everyone else,

 Chide me for not having had

 The sense to comply?

We stood for a while …

 As I contemplated whether to tell her.

 But I was afraid to change my image of her,

 Lest she spoke what

 I was afraid she might.

 She didn’t press me further

 Though in her heart,

 She might have understood.

                

WHO UNDERSTANDS?

 Searching

 For God knows what,

 Heavy steps on pebble-strewn grounds,

 The weight of ancient books,

 Agitated fingers moving constantly,

 Eyes darting, dream-like, faraway

 Cold, dark, gray,

 Who understands?

Of pop art and Andy Warhol,

 Neon, bright, blood red lips, peroxide blondes

 More agitation, the pent-up feeling of suppressed hopes,

 Trapped by birth, by communist principles,

 Soul shrieking at the subtle betrayal by best friends

 They laughed, and mocked, sniggered,

 Those wounds, still open, unhealed, unbandaged,

 Thinking of faraway lands, of Spanish tongues,

 Thinking, telling herself to think

 Of the jazz age, an escape

 Tired of the superficial embraces

 In the blue and white worlds

Exhausted by the constant monotony

Hands trembling at the sight of translucent dreams,

The photographs she would never click,

 The films she would never make.

 Nailed by convention, by circumstances,

Hurt by words, said and those left unsaid.

 Who understands

 But the people she finds in history books?

And the music that filters in her window

Or so she imagines,

 Beethoven and Mozart and Tchaikovsky,

 They understood.

 Not the people lying fast asleep in her dorm

 In the early Sunday dawn.

 There were no tears left to shed,

 No explanations to make.

 In a crowded city of skyscrapers-

 Ah! No more people, strangers shall prevail.

DRAWN A BLANK

When the moment came


My shield fell,

I no longer cared

No longer was I wrapped

In my parallel; world

Of knights and round tables,

No more of my imagination,

All I wanted was you.

I wait,

Pierced with bows of humiliation,

Struck down by words of envy;

Contempt.

The world never liked me

But I no longer care

To put up my defense.

It had only succeeded

In letting you go.

It’s upto you to decide my fate

I don’t know if it’s love

But I want you.

I have sacrificed myself

To get you.

It’s been years since I saw you last

It has been years

That I have waited,

But you never came.

I am waiting,

For you to come,

It has become simple now,

No more of my idealisms

That came in our way,

Just you and me.

Then why do you shut me out

Like the bubonic Plague?

Are you afraid of me?

That you wouldn’t be able

To tear yourself away?

All my life

I have tried to read your mind

But I have only

Drawn a blank.

WE SAT DOWN AND CHARTERED OUR DREAMS

I don’t know how it started


Was it the sand? Was it the splash of a wave?

Was it a whisper of malice?

Would we later condemn

Each other as devious fools?

Maybe it was the startlingly clear night sky

Or the sudden drop of temperature

And the huddling around the campfire;

What was it that you said?

We have moved around in different circles

And exchanged half-hearted words before

And now, you were estranged from them;

Some disagreement? (I would never know)

In the dark, I learnt to sing

In the shore, I learnt to conquer

My fear of the water and the night

And so we rambled on,

Little realizing how far we had

Deviated from our course.

We would find our separate way back

And the consciousness of it

Hurt so much more.

We would go back to school,

Go back to our so-called friends.

We would never so much as

Sit together again.

You’d join in the incessant chatter

About boys and gala events,

I would recede into my world of books.

Perhaps when we pass

The split second when our eyes meet

We will remember that by the campfire

We sat down and chartered our dreams,

And leave to speculation

How much more we could be.

YOU ANSWER, AMUSED

You talk of doing good for humanity


I talk of colors, of fairylands,

But we both know

It’s one and the same thing.

Disguised by our outer semblance.

You champion a cause I detest,

I ramble on about issues

You consider trivial and irrelevant

A spoonful of sour envy,

Half a pinch of sugar’d admiration

A sprinkle of bitterness against the age difference.

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder

Will we ever have a common opinion?

I am opinionated, so are you.

Two inflated egos, pins in hand

I wonder what you think,

Do you too?

Merciless teasings, brutal blows,

Is it a shield? A form of defense?

You tell me I am young,

Younger than I sound,

But you are child yourself,

Too eager to correct,

Too curious, too impatient to find out

Too fast to label yourself an underdog.

You offer concoctions,

I brush them aside,

I prefer not to be cured.

We talk of photography,

Of seeing the world,

Of capturing moments.

I fire one question after another

Child that I am, curious to know

How?Why?What?

And you answer, amused.

I WATCH YOU GO

I watch

Your hand on the doorknob,
Envying the metal which felt your touch.
I watch
You light the cigarette,
Swiftly, nonchalantly
And blow the smoke,
Those darts in your eyes
In the dim light.
I watch
The streaks of your reddish blonde hair
Strike up in the morning light
Filtering through the half drawn curtains.
I watch
Your eyelids flicker,
Reluctant to open your eyes,
Sheepish, like a child,
Your amused smile when you see me
Staring intently at you,
You would think me half-crazed
For looking at you like that.
You whisper
Into my ears in your beautiful language
Which I know not
But I do not ask you to translate.
I am just happy watching
Your delicious mouth form words
Even as I try to memorize your voice
So that it would stay with me
Even after these fleeting twelve days.
I now dream of your country, your people
But my heart sinks
When I see your undisguised eagerness
To go back to the place you call home.
You have never loved me, never will.
I can sit here and watch you forever
But your bags are packed,
You have picked up your blazer,
Reached for the door.
I remain rooted to the ground
And watch you go.

TWO GHOSTS IN A DECEMBER MORNING

5 am, a cold, dark December morning
I steeped out into the bus stop
It was deserted save for a suppressed cough
I found the owner,
You had a scar.
The mist lifted,
And cold, dark brown eyes stared back at me
In confusion I took a few steps back
Startled and strangely pleased
By your close proximity.

I wanted to reach out.
Caress your scar,
Ask your name,
But the words never came
And the cruel mist engulfed you again,
You went away,
I felt cold again.

You came in my dream,
You spoke my name
So every morning I came back
But every time you went away,
You never asked my name,
I never asked yours.

Till it became a daily ritual
To learn up every detail of you
Your clothes, your countenance,
The navy blue muffler which wrapped your neck,
Your hair which I dreamt
Of running my fingers over,
Each freckle, each eyelash,
The slight furrow of your brows,
Your carefully suppressed smile
Betrayed by your unfaithful lips.
And you watched me each time
From the corner of your eyes,
An art which you had perfected.

I know this will come to an end
With nothing more than our
Silent glances, our inconspicuous blushes,
Our rushing heartbeats.
We will leave it there,
Afraid of the brutal world
Afraid of the indictment
 That would destroy our lives
So you go your way, I go mine
But I will carry the images of two ghosts
Lost in the mist of a December morn.
PS-This one is based rather loosely on an account by Killjoy who asked me to write from the point of view of a girl who used to watch him every morning!

NO SIGN OF YOU ANYWHERE

I glance at it
Every now and then
Waiting, Wishing, Heart beating,
Afraid that you would hear it from so far away.
It was I who made this choice,
But I still want you to come,
One last time,
I can feel the passing
Of every second distinctly,
I stare out into the darkness,
And I can hear only your voice
Calling me back,
Your undisguised laughter,
And your sharp intake of breath.
Some one brings me coffee,
I forget to thank him,lost in my reverie,
I sip the coffee absentmindedly,
Only to burn my tongue.
A faceless voice announces my departure
I still wait,
Even as the last person in the crowd has crossed the gate
I still wait,
A message perhaps?
I wait for your tormenting taunts.
It would console me now,
But it doesn’t come.
Your cruel laughter haunts me.
I wait for you to come,
One last time,
The wait is agonizing,
The silence consumes me,
The lounge is empty,
You still haven’t come
The faceless voice announces my name,
I look around;
No message,
No sign of you anywhere.

NOTE- It was about midnight when I wrote this.I guess I was waiting for something, some message, maybe a sign but it never came. I just tried to encapsulate the dismay, the sinking feeling that appears at such times! I wonder if anyone has ever felt it too.

COLLECTING STRANDS OF CONVERSATION

How do I collect conversations


To make as museum out of them?

Heart-broken lovers and estranged ones

Collect tangible, inanimate objects

Which remind them

Of the ones they loved and lost.

But I didn’t have such privileges,

All I have are just broken strands of conversations

That we indulged in everyday

That relieved the strain of our unintelligible lives.

We sat down after each weary day

To leave behind the arduous task

Of attending conferences and meetings

That made decisions which determined

Someone else’s life,

To escape the monotony of our lonely lives

With our wives and boyfriends.

I am so afraid all of it will slip away.

How do I get a box to empty it out?

Those conversations concerning

The most trivial part of our mortal lives,

Of books and music, words and conversations.

And the one in which you told me

That you see my ghosts in alien places,

See me in every girl you come across,

That you have begun to hallucinate my images,

I had smiled, knowing little

How much it would cost us in future years.

So how do I preserve them?

Can you tell me a way?

WHAT IF YOU ARE BUT A PLAY OF MY MIND?

Cloaked in our bitter mirth
I raise a toast to my defence-
Books my shield, poetry my armour.
You laugh at my absurdity,
My tragic state or rather,
My tragic attempt at tragedy itself
You mock me contemptuously,
“What a waste!” you say.
I know and you know.
But what you don’t know
Is you mock yourself when you mock me.
You think me vile, heartless and cruel
And sometimes as an innocuous dreamer.
Heck! Isn’t your ambition like any others?
The quest for power-
To wield the despot’s scepter and the crown,
To trigger revolutions and civil wars,
To fiddle with guns and cold metallic machines.
What if the bullets turn against you?
Would you mind? Would you even be surprised?
Do you care what the world says?
Has it ever mattered where we stand?
The sullen glances,
Why can’t we ever say?
Is it self- evident; an axiom?
Have you ever asked what you really are?
Does the bottle tempt you?
Is there an underlying current to the toast?
Like to prose to poetry,
We differ in our ingenuity
But we love busting bubbles,
Contradicting ourselves,
Mocking, deriding and desecrating ourselves.
Is it as quest to kill you or to kill myself?
I have tried to efface you
I swear I have tried
But the reflections demand a greater price
For I fear you are but a play of my mind.

WHY I NEVER SAY GOODBYE

What if we talk the whole night,
Do we have to say Goodbye?
Our paths meander,
We meet and move yonder;
But have we ever said it before?
Then why should we now?
It is not an ending,
Not a final stamp of finity.
We are not estranged lovers
Bidding each other a teary-eyed farewell
Nor are we friends
Parting after Graduation Day.
If we can still pick up
The strands of conversation
Notwithstanding days or months or years,
Then must we say goodbye?
Do we have to say a “hi”?
What are we? Do we know?
Do we even care?
Even if we knew,
Would we ever admit it to ourselves?
Or are we destined to spend our lives
Finding a tangible expression
For the things we never said?
If Goodbyes direct us to places on no return,
Would we find our way back?
Are we doubtful of the way back?
We are proud, we won’t return
If a Goodbye is said.
And even if we part ways,
I doubt Goodbye would be the word we say.

The Indian Arthur

He smiles his dimpled smile as he zealously follows the book his great grandfather had written. He takes the man expected to inhabit 10, Downing Street in years to come on a tour of the ‘Real India’. The settle down for dinner in a Dalit home as the media hounds them. His ‘Lancelot’ recently ascended the throne of the valley. Would he, too, be handed over his rightful throne by the ‘Lady of the Lake’ ?
****************************************************
The Prince is too young, they say. So must the reigning ‘Cambridge-d’ king continue? As knowledge flows from his blue turbaned head, his followers chant, ‘Singh still must be King!’ ****************************************************
Four scores he has lived, with an autobiography dedicated to his country. His rivals have learnt to trace Parliament’s nightmare to his furrowed forehead. He groans and sweats under the age’s yoke; putting his years to shame. Though quick in opposition, would he be strong enough to lift Excalibur?
****************************************************
She holds the rein of the northern lands. But like a self indulgent child, she erects statues of herself and has her birthday celebrated more lavishly than Independence Day. ‘The Kingmaker’, they whisper in unison as she passes.
****************************************************
His dolls have earned a huge fan following even as he digests the country’s fodder and simultaneously earns unimaginable profits in the in the railway sector. They say he gave a tip or two to Harvard Business students too. ****************************************************
‘He will come to save us
From the falling sensex,
From the drizzling bullets
And the thundering bombs,
From religious fanatics,
From the evil unknown.
For the Indian Arthur we wait,’

written in februaury,2009 before the elections took place

THE MOB’S MARCH THROUGH THE CENTURIES

I was born from taboo’d whispers
Made by suffering peasants,
Yoked to the surmounting debts,
Groaning under the landlord’s tyranny.
Until one day I swarmed the city streets
Like the dreaded locusts that consumed the farms
Overnight, I consumed the people’s hearts
And marched to the palace gates .
Deposing the King ,beheading his kin
And crying,”Liberty,Equality and Fraternity”;
I was unprepared for the responsibilities that followed
Yet satisfied that the French Revolution was born.
I despised those in horse drawn carriages
Going to balls in their silk-laced gowns and feather’d hats
So I destroyed them all, crushed them when encountered
Consumed by my hatred, my other faculties numbed.
Trained armies were dispatched as grave diggers
Yet I broke my grave and emerged again
Raising a much more hideous countenance
Crying “havoc” and creating civil strife.
I have given countries freedom
As well as the miseries of Partition
I still proclaim the three sacred words.
Which serve as a mask for my hidden intention.
Reasons pass me by like the idle wind
I’m easily angered ,easily swept away by passion
Like the Roman mob of old
Seduced by Antony to strike against the conspirators.
No, I have not grown; just changed my form
I’m still the child I used to be
Uncouth,Uncared for,Unloved, Unruly
Yet still proclaiming,”Liberty,Equality and Fraternity!”

REWIND

We sit and pen our letters
Even as they type their mails.
They whisper of nuclear destruction
Even as we scream for lost causes.
They sit inside their glass structures
In their posh chairs and tables
Even as we sit on the grass,
Soaking the winder sun,
An archaic book in hand,
Gently turning the yellowed pages
Lest they crumble in our hold.
Of chauffeured cars and neon lights
Of prison cells and vaulted chambers
Of mujahideen and millionaires
We read in the newspapers;
Of a world we have turned alien to.
We- the horror poets ,time travellors,
Music makers, people haters,
Watch the world march past
Even as we rewind the CLOCK.

SUMMER’S GLORY AND MINE

Just twenty days since Summer passed
Yet all memories have assumed
A sepia tinged frame. No, not
Faded but grown distant as though
Summer had last come years ago,
Remember, in the heat of Summer
When you and I had explored the Alps,
Carved our love’s name in every lone rock,
Wrestled with poison ivy and listened
With rapt attention to the stories of the night
And Lev was truly ours?
Didn’t we cry and laugh
For silly, trivial things- a lost match,
In bitter defeat and sometimes,
In misguided friendship?
We would walk our walks with
Straightened backs, our young hearts
Overflowing with hopes and aspirations
As we build our skyscraper
With steel ideas and cement skills.
We saw our skyscraper bombed
Infront of our eyes
And we were taken prisoners,
Made guilty of the crime.
We were no match for the rest of humanity
Who decided equal love for one and all.
And they took it all-everything we loved
And made us sore.
But I must go back to Summer’s glory
Where I enjoyed my own.
And I must remind her to hold her mind
Even though she is long gone.

Note-Written sometime in March,2009.Summer, I hope you like this.

YOU WILL SING THE SONG I SING TODAY

I was barely more than a child,
And you were on the brink of adulthood
When you lifted your flawless fingers
And pressed the ivory keys;
Little knowing, hardly caring
That it marked the end of a childhood.
And my thoughts could not help but race-
Would you play it for me but once?
Take me to places I have never been before?
Reserve you smile just for me?
Those silent eyes search for me when your fingers play?
All these I wanted and so much more.
Six years passed and I longer dreamt.
You moved on, and I went with other men
Until today, as I sit again in your room,
I sing a song;
Hesitant and acutely self-conscious.
You motion for me to pick up the chorus,
I gather courage and let loose my voice.
It is hard, even more so
When memories are churned up,
Memories of what could have been
What we could be now.
I had played my part well.
I had yawned, I had rolled my eyes
When you said the things that matter;
Pride prevented me from showing that I care,
That all those things matter to me too.
I argued with you for causes
I laughed at your ideals, scorned them even,
Determined never to let you know,
And you never knew.
Tomorrow I will cross the gates,
You will linger on,
The memory of a young girl will fade into obscurity
But you will sing the song I sing today.

april,2010

WHY?

Why do smiles and rhetoric elegance
Turn prose into poetry?
And the glint of mischief
Mistaken for a sparkle of hope?

Why is the sadistic pleasure derived
From seeing his scar burn?
And the ones with innocent countenances
The first to bring the rampage?

Why is God never remembered
Until Pandora’sBox is opened?
And why must He be never seen
To retain the mystic hold of the unknown?

Why is the underdog made the hero
And the real hero martyred
Sacrificed at the altar
Of the God of mediocrity?

Why is the unintended able to wreck lives,
When love, hate and the fine line in between
Is blurred by the clarity of vengeance?
And the blame game never ends.

Why to every good intention
There is always a dark side?
Like black to white, dreams to nightmares
Why the scales forever sway?

Why does it grow on our existence
And transform us into beasts?
Why is every sigh and cursing
A tribute to the glorious past?

Gone are the days of childhood idleness
But the pressing thoughts remain
With the rain, the April blossoms
The falling snow and the soothing summer breeze.

TRACING SUMMER

I can trace the summer back to his sudden smile,
A Greek God like creature,
Unfolded Dreams of a divine nature,
Mortal love-Passionate but ephemeral,
Fleeting like the tragic autumn,
A Tithonus-Eos like love
But roles reversed,
He-the radiance in the eastern sky,
And I-cursed with a definite end,
Our love prophesized as doomed from the start,
No mortal dare desire a god,
But in our youth, we laughed it off.

MAN IN THE MIRROR

Friends come and go
Loves have highs and lows
Zenith’s passion quickly subsides
Even as the foliage trembles
Like the lips of a Grecian maid
Is that why you stand all alone?
Why you stare back with hollow eyes-
Devoid of life, or is it death?
What is then being fermented
Deep inside your soul?
Is the beasts ripping you apart
For a single flaw of yours?
You say it is life that you seek
Then why have you destroyed yourself-
Razed every buttress to the ground,
Desecrated your towers?
The fire of ignominy
Demands more sacrifices-
Will you fuel it still?
Then why do you remain
Devoted to your love for her?
She, who is a league above your kind,
She, who is being courted by many others.
You forgive Life’s follies,
The favours she showers
On her servile worshippers.
Yet you remain obstinate,
Unable to forgive Me-
The Man in the Mirror.

MIDWINTER’S NIGHT

On a midwinter’s night,
When the moon is out and bats abound,
A child is seen by the wave-washed shore.
She howls with the wolves,
Her mouths deliciously rouge;
Her smile the smile of an angel.
By the moonlight she sits,Concocting her spells and potions.
A glint the hint of her fang;
She looks beautiful still.
Her mother lies in a disturbed sleep,
A metallic laughter hangs in the air,
She churns out the dream;
The world is but a game to her
Humans her toys; their dreams her whims.
With every spell, the dream grows darker,
More grueling, more heart wrenching
Till it is no more a dream
But a torturous nightmare.
The night is frosty, the light is dim,
Flakes of snow highlight her being;
Lucifer grants her silent wish.
A mist descends on earth
But not a shiver escapes from her
Nor a single clatter of teeth
When a little boy ventures into the night
The sea roars, the girl sighs
And the boy is put to sleep.
The night bird hoots in fright,the mother wakes up with a start
Her glance falls on her sleeping child
She is satisfied but not Lucifer’s child.

FORBIDDEN LOVE

Saw you by the reflection on the ice,
Your cold, brutal eyes unlocked in me….
The desire to see those eyes fiery with passion,
To scorn you and be the object of your fury,
For did not the great poet say,
“Hell hath not see any fury
Than a woman scorned?”
And those ruddy lips
As though painted by sacrificial blood,
Be tamed to obey mine.
Her insolent gaze-
Unafraid, too much so,
Of never been denied a whim;
The reflection on the ice.
Shadows creep up,
They take me away.
Yet I know I have
Thawed your icy heart
Or why else would your gaze falter so?
The shadows drain the life out of me-
Slowly,painfully,deliberately.
And you watch silently,
Apathetic to my unprotested torture.You laugh an innocent laughter,
Guiltless in spite of the lives you have drained;
Relish felt at the capture of yet another prey;
But do you?
For your eyes tell a different story-
I observe the lifting of the icy veil,
So characteristic of the winter’s Potentate,
Even as I struggle to breathe.
You wonder why you feel
A slight uneasiness,
Why you feel a part of you dying
And you find no answer
But a broken smile from my dying self,
And still you wondered and never knew
That you had fallen irrevocably
In love with your prey.

AS SHE SKIPPED ALONG THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

DATED:sometime in september 2009.

She skipped along , palette in hand,
Armed with a paintbrush and visionsof Oz.
Swept by a whirlwind
To the Yellow Brick Road
She knew not where it led;
Was there even an end?
Should the good witch of the North
Be clothed in a sparkling gown?
And the Wicked Witch of the West
In black robes and a pointed hat?
What if it is done the other way round?
Would appearances not be deceiving
In the Yellow Brick Road?
Is the cowardly lion to join her
In his quest for courage?
Or is the lion a manifestation of her own self?
Would the Tinman desire a heart?
A heart that could be pierced with joy,
Find ecstasy in the depths of pain?
Would she want to paint that too?
Did she ever ask the Scarecrow
Why he wanted a brain for his strawhead?
To learn to construct aluminum bridges,
Built skyscrapers and lay down rails?
Did she know when they skipped along
Of the blinding emerald lights of Oz?
Yet she constructed, brick by brick,
The Yellow Brick Road to Oz.