I see rainbows in the road...
Watching the colours mixing,
I must be bored.
I see rainbows in the road...
Thinking as i go walking,
The memories stored.
I see rainbows in the road...
Smelling sweet smiling,
Take of the load.
I see rainbows in the road...
Dancing in the rain-falling,
Keep away the cold.
I see rainbows in the road...
There are vibrating crickets in the tree
Wonder whatever happened to the bees,
And those green green leaves;
Stolen away by loving smiling thieves.
And now the tree is bare nothing left to spare,
But the poison hidden in a pare.
Life isn’t fare that once was a pair
Is now no more...
Ask what ever did seize,
That sweet smelling breeze
What power was it that could freeze?
Could it be me or was it just we?
That left a bare tree,
For all the world to see;
Was our will set free?
Was it ill-fated fate?
Set apart you and me.
Cupid missed his mark;
Let loose an ill fated dart,
Let’s go back to the start.
You were made out to be a friend,
How was I to know that it would come to this end?
A heart broken so,
That no one dare to mend.
So send me a light;
I might follow thru the dark of this night;
Take me past this fright.
Where friend’s a fiend,
Smiling upon the screen.
Words spoken so make me bold,
If I could,
I'd sell my soul;
I would,
For as little, in a begging bowl.
These thought they make me old,
Find now me some sacred fire
Hidden inside a coal,
Lay me on a pyre,
As good as dead,
But not yet cold,
Awaiting a messenger in lead.
Or fold me into the earth,
Let me dissolve.
Absolve me my pain,
Take whatever you have to gain;
Let me thus, lie, dead.
Into that from which wise men said,
We all did come to be.
Plant in me a seed,
Teach it greed,
So it may feed, on what remains.
So once more a tree will grow,
They say what we sow thus shall we reap,
My soul you would never keep.
In dreams yet you still steal away my sleep,
Impossible to forget it seems.
Do not frown for I’m a clown,
Under an ocean of sadness
Away I must drown.
From that deep arises
This madness that,
Rises to fall, taking us all,
Back to the tree.
Under which stood both you and me,
Talking about how far we were from mars,
And what secrets hold the stars.
But now I'm on my knees,
Begging for the keys,
To free me of this disease.
Praying for a lease,
So I'm begging you please;
To let me be me...
Phooey Musing
I was just wondering, or rather thinking about the decision of the state govt to increase the legal age of drinking from 21 to 25, as a 21 year old that does not seem very nice to me. My recent face book status updates may vouch for my love of alcohol and the positive effects attributed to the consumption of the above.
Now my argument is simple alcohol effects both 21year olds and 25year olds, both will enjoy the alcohol in more or less the same way, they both will joyfully sway and frolic and generally have an amazing not well maybe not so silent, but grand moment of elation none the less. The question is whether the 21 year old or the 25 year old will be more responsible, the answered is just as obvious, as the question: they both will be equally ir/responsible, depending on the quantity of alcohol they have consumed. So why 25 they could have increased the age to 50 or 60 or even 111. But for obvious reasons the govt is not going to listen to a tree hugging free thinker such as me.
It is thus my reasoning that I am not being fairly represented by our supposed govt, well to be fair I did not vote for any of them in the last 4 years, and I know some may point a very judgemental finger at me now, but hear me out, none of the candidates were good enough for me, the 1st saffron candidate wanted to throw me out of the state because I did not speak Marathi, the 2nd saffron candidate did not believe i was fit to call myself an Indian as I am not a Hindu, and my holy land does not lie in India, and by those clauses my parents too do not belong to this glorious Hindustan, and then not having parents of “Hindustanian” origin I was not good enough and would be treated as a second class citizen, and then there was the left the liberal the highly educated, the clean shaved boy in white, who raised his palm five fingers firmly held together, well he didn’t do much did he? So in answer your judgemental finger that point to me like the spear of death, I point back one of my own and I think u know which one.
That being said i hope you shall understand my dilemma. The problem is yet unanswered what should I do? Well I could go to the present ruling govt or the opposition and enlighten them about the sorry plight of myself and my fellow alcohol consumers. But in all fairness it is quite possible that both the parties will feel that my plight is negligible and will not give a ear to my problem. Then I should have to go to plan B: I will have to take it a step further and go to court, but then again the courts take aeons of time and by the time my case gets heard, i will have turned 25 or even might not exist on this plane of life, besides I will have to find a good Jewish lawyer, not being racist we all know they are the best, and then the three levels of judiciary just seem too boring. As the famous saying goes or rather should go “Necessity is the mother of all political parties!” I think I will have to launch my own political party and have to give it seemingly innocent name and get really organised and a hell a lot of other things that I do not wish to do. And besides I will have to join politics, which means I can only wear white kurta pyjama, or saffron rags in order to be one with the people, no more linen pants and skinny jeans, and then travel cattle class. No the above three options are too boring/slow/pointless.
Getting back to my point how do I get the legal drinking age reduced back to 21, so I can drink in peace again.
Following the trending “revolutionaries” I thought that it would be benevolent to go on a hunger strike until the govt yields to my demand and if I die this corrupt, black-money defending govt should solely held responsible. But then again I don’t like staying hungry and well what is the big deal if one 21 year old decides to go hungry, there are hundreds of Indians in villages around the nation who are starving to death, including the farmers who feed us. If I die I would be only be one less hungry mouth to feed. Besides if I go hungry, and by chance gather some followers, I fear the police will be called into “lathi-charge” and tear gas me and my followers, that too at 1am, in the dead of the night, no I cannot let what happen at “Jallianwala Bagh” happen again, I cannot let this fascist govt enforce a second emergency and cull our right of rebellion. No what I need is a spectacle that will make “jantar mantar” and “ramlila” seem like child’s play. Anna- Baba hunger tactics are mere “tamashas” mere “nataks”, not fit for the cause I am taking up, no I will have to do more. My strike will be the epic gong that will awaken India to a new tomorrow, a dawn of freedom, freedom from the illusion of democracy and give back the rights to the people, so we may live in peace harmony and unity. I shall hold a gun to my head and give the government no more than 3 hours to change the law and also reduce the price on liquor, and also abolish the tax on alcoholic products, failing to do so, the govt will have forced me to end my life, and they should be solely held responsible for the gruesome murder of a peace loving “satyagrahi”.
---x---
Rumination- Reflection
Well I might not have as many followers as Ramdev Baba or Anna Baba, but I too can be the face of “civil society” after all I am one of the “Aam Aadmi” that the government claims to serve. If the Baba’s demand for anticorruption and anti black money and Anna’s demand for Lokpal are valid and constitutional, my anti-anti-consumption law should also be taken up.
Is this where these so called revolutionaries are taking our country, did we not learn that India is the world’s largest democracy. What happened to it, do we not have a system, did we not elect the representatives who are in power, if they do not serve us then we shall not elect them again, if certain people believe that the nation shall benefit from their rule should they not contest in the elections and form their govt, but why don’t they do so?
Secondly how does one lay claim to be the voice of the people on what grounds do people come to lead civil society, who chose them as our representatives? I do not remember being asked whether i’d like to be represented by a saffron clad god man who believes that condoms are a ploy of the west to make India impotent or views homosexuality is a disease.
Unfortunately the Lokpal bill seemed like a great idea to me and I instantly latched on to it, in retrospect I feel I did not do the right thing, do we need a Lokpal bill yes we do, was going on a hunger strike the right thing to do? no it was not, Anna’s intentions are good, his ends are good, but the means to attain those ends is questionable. The Baba Ramdev fiasco has unearthed this truth apart from providing us with a lot of embarrassment and entertainment.
I started out with an absurd notion one that I have often joked about with friends and family yet it seems possible, tomorrow any lunatic can take to the streets and to put it bluntly screw with the govt.
This has led me take up the old debate on ends and means- Do the ends justify the means? If social activist like Kiran Bedi, for whom I have the utmost respect, support this farce. I wonder then if she would support a full scale attack on Pakistan and decimate it to the ground, and destroy it because a few terrorist have hidden on that side of the border? I think we have a process to address our grievances and taking to the street with hunger protest is not the right way, what if tomorrow a group of people threaten to swallow cyanide until their demands are met, will it be seen as a mass suicide or will they be seen as revolutionaries giving their life for a cause, will we make martyrs of them and glorify their names?. Is this how we should behave? If that be the case then I think Hitler should be applauded as Germanys national hero, if not for America, he would surely have won the 2nd world war, and Germany would be a superpower as he promised, so what if 5,709,329 Jews were exterminated?
That being said I do not condone the actions of the current government, it was wrong, to have evicted Baba Ramdev in such a manner, if there is a reason why such a thing has happened, as a citizen I want my government to make it clear. Secondly the Opposition has lost its standing and as Suhel Seth has said they have out sourced their function to Anna and Baba, and if they claim to have taken up these causes before and the ruling party ignored and ridiculed them then they should have taken a stronger more firm stand, failing to do so they have failed to serve the citizens of this nation.
In conclusion I feel ashamed of my government and society as well including myself, because it is we who let this happen, let’s not point fingers, it is our fault this has happened. Black money exist not because the government has not done anything about it, but because we stashed it away, the government is corrupt because we elected corrupt officials, remember not only is the officer who accepts the bribe corrupt but the one who gives it is equally corrupt. Let’s take responsibility for our short comings and start doing something about it.
You wake up somewhere where you did not fall asleep. The night is bright, not hot and not yet cold but on the verge of it, you vaguely recognize where you stand, yet the roads look different, cleaner more beautiful than they used to; bathed in the golden light of a series of imposing halogen lamps, that stretch on for as far as your eyes can see.
You know this place or have known it, it all comeback as a forgotten memory, its where the art museum used to stand or still stands you cannot tell, it should be on the opposite side, but you don’t see it instead a neon sign catches your attention, the letters are English yet you can’t read it, before you even try you see a man, you notice his grey green coat and dark sunglasses, dark sunglasses darker than the night, your eyes follow his cane right down to the bright red tip, you knew he was blind before you even reached the red part yet you had to make sure of it. he smiles a scary smile in the neon lit dark, it shifts colours from green to purple, is he looking at you, he must be there is no one else but you, you don’t know what to do, you look into his dark glasses, you feel an urge to go to him but you are afraid, yet you move towards him, mark you do not walk to him, yet a genteel force pulls forward, you do not resist you keep looking into his pitiless eyes.
You stand under his gaze, he’s still smiling, his teeth are stained yellow. His hand slithers into his coat he pulls out a silver and ivory snuffbox which opens with a will of its own; he pinches some of the brown dust, and sniffs, you hear a rattle somewhere in his throat. His smile is extinguished, you look at him and you think he resembles Ray Charles, but you cannot remember a single song by ray Charles, you crave to hear some blues, yet all you hear is silence, and your thoughts which don’t make any sense. The dark man stretches his arm out to you, sitting squarely in the centre of his palm you see the open snuff box, you notice the delicate floral lattice of silver over the ivory, you notice the initials of B.C.R under the lid of the snuff box, they mean something to you, something dear, you know this, yet you don’t know what it means. You want to take a pinch of the brown powder, you want to lose yourself, or find yourself in it, but you are afraid, afraid that you will reach out, and that lid will close for ever. The lid does close, and his hand slithers back into the coat from whence it came. You look up to where his eyes should have been, and you see yourself looking into your own eyes in his dark as the night sunglasses. You want to ask him something, you know you have come here to ask him, but the question escapes you, you do not know what to do, you stand looking at yourself, look at yourself. His face changes, it’s still the same yet different, you still know him but have forgotten where you last saw him, then he speaks, his lips do not move, only opens the slightest to let out a voice, a voice so familiar, that you cannot place it, you have heard it some time in a past life.
“you have come here, at last...”
You do not know how to react you want to say something but your voice is choked, you feel a strong knot bundle up in your throat. You forget how to speak, you know, you have to ask something very important, but you need to figure how to talk, you think of the question that you want to ask, you thoughts echo in your head, nothing seems to make sense and then he speaks again, in that same smooth voice, smooth as black polish on brand new black shoes, polished smooth enough to see your own dark pupils staring back at you from the dark soul of the shoe.
“it’s not answers, you are looking for... you know them already, you know them because i know them, what you so desperately seek are the questions, you seek the doubt, yet you are afraid of finding it, because you know the answer to that question, thus rendering the both pointless, absolutely pointless, meaningless, and the chaos of it all seems so symmetrical, so organised, like the contents of the kaleidoscope, you played with as a child, and that’s the truth that you already know but refuse to accept, except you already know that in not asking the question that so ingeniously has escaped your mind; like water in a clenched fist, you have accepted the truth....”
Your mind is not clam everything seems so simple so plain, you believe that its all resolved that you can return, but return where, you do not know, you start hearing your voice again, the question echo, they do not make sense, and then finally, like the spark of flint in the dark night one question ignite a fire, how did he know, you wanted to ask a question but did not know what to ask him, how did he know you came to meet him, suddenly you realize that you cannot speak, did the blind man then read your thoughts, you want to ask him, but you do not know how to.
He smiles you see his yellow teeth, you want to stop him from smiling but you cannot feel your arms, you can feel your fingers, but the rest of your arm is dead. You hear him laugh, its a low troubled husky laugh, a laugh of a dead person, from beyond the grave. He turns away from you and you hear him say,
“If i said i couldn’t, would you believe me?...”
You stand rooted, he begins to walk away, you notice he does not have any shoes on, his cane tapping against the grey cobbles in a rhythm that sounds similar, it must be morse code, but you do not know morse code, you watch him walk down the street, you cannot see him but you can still hear the morse code tapping of his cane you know that it is important to remember the code. He is gone now but you can still hear the tapping of his cane, you are not sure whether it stuck in your head or he is still sending you a message from the other side.
You look at the ground before you, then the stone wall against which the dark blind man was leaning against, you notice the large door frame, set in stone, like the ones they used to make a long time before. Its large door and it has a smaller door set in it. You know it’s open even before you touch it. You know you must go through it, it opens smoothly, without uttering a single complain. The passage is dark, as black as can be, black enough to absorb all the light and still nor reveal any of its secrets. You know it is the only path that you can take, you know there can be no escape from fate, unwillingly you feel your legs move, and involuntarily you step into the darkness, you feel yourself cut off from the rest of the world.
You look behind but cannot see the street, it’s all gone dark, black is all you can see. You cannot make out whether your eyes are open or closed, you want to run but your legs don’t exist in the dark, you just hang there suspended in the black mist of darkness, until your body fades away and you become one with the dark free to glide within it, aimlessly seeking release. You know there is none, you know that you are shackled to nothing in the abyss, it’s freedom is your prison, and then you fall.
Through the darkness, you keep falling, and then you make contact with something hard yet not hard enough, you feel your body as an afterthought, it’s not so dark now, your head shoots out from your pillow, your head throbs, you must be having a hangover, that must have been a dream but you are not sure, you look into the mirror of your dark room, you see yourself you move closer to your reflection, and look into its dark pupils, in that darkness you can still see a darkness, a part of you that remains no matter how hard you try to forget, and you must wonder then if it is really you....
In the grey of the morning, when the sky is saturated with thick clouds stained with carbon, when the sun’s rays labor to penetrate the dense cover of pollution, and the sky glows grey gold, when one looks to the east for hope, for respite, yet the gods above cease to exist. On such a morning devoid of hope; in a room little larger than a prison cell, sat one forsaken by the world. He did not exist to them, (them that is the world utopia and those that live in it ignoring the oddities shunned by society) an invisible enigma was he; his path never crossed with theirs, and all was good. He draws a deep strained breath, a thought passes his mind, like sparks of a cigarette lighter -“We both owe death a life.”
The ceiling was low, it was damp and the ever widening cracks crisscrossed each other like the tiny, seemingly unimportant paths of ants; a palmist would have had a field day unlocking the coded future of the ceiling, telling us of the inevitable and obvious cave-in.
This room had a rich history to it, yet so few knew- it was built during the raj. Was intended to be a storage area for the building, which in turn was meant to store Indian mill workers, but as fate would have it, in those days it was used to store stolen cotton, but ever so often it sheltered nubile couples exploring the pleasures of skin in the guise of clandestine romance. All that remained of those days was a mattress made of the stolen cotton.
This building in the oldest part of town, was so old and dilapidated that it was forgotten by all but drug addicts, alcoholics, cheapest of cheap and most randy prostitutes and the rest of the refuse of society.
Anyway back to the ceiling it was no more than six feet high and was adorned by a single fan and light bulb. The only window the room possessed was above the door it was a sad sorry excuse for a window, yet a window it was. Its glass was frosted and one might deduct that it was tinted green, yet it was hard to tell after the years of dust painted it black, the once white wood panel, was alive with dark mould, and in the best of light resembled velvet. Obviously this was not a room designed for human habitation yet it adapted to its use, it too bent to
The three bladed fan which hung along with the bulb from a rusted ceiling hook, was once pure white but had aged to a dark color of creamy custard yellow, its blades were rimmed with rust and lavishly coated with slime which fused to the rust creating a greasy armor on the dorsal side of the blades; against the cold hearted person bellow, who really didn’t care for the monotonous rotations- churning out a plea for death. If it had a mind of its own it would wonder how to ends its life, it was already hanging, but not strangled tight enough to die. It was a slow painful death like a smoker’s last nicotine laced moments upon the earth. Imagine (if you can) the last nicotine filled breath of a smoker, squeezing through a clogged pipe blocked with a dark black gooey tar like mucus, it finally enters his lungs, but the effort has drained him of his strength, his lungs spasm, he gets into a coughing fit; its the body’s last effort to fight but it’s a loosing battle, it was long lost, this is but- the rape of its towns. His lungs collapse, like a deflated hot air balloon, he tries to gulp in air, his lungs refuse to labor on, he is not yet dead, but knows death is inevitable, he realizes that he has passed the point of no return, he remembers hearing that as one passes into the after life, ones’ entire life flashes before their eyes like a old flicker film from the 1950’s.
He waits for the feature presentation to start, but in his last moments of agony his pupils contract, the black gets darker and the lights begin to fade, finally his world is painted black and he is no more. The last few moments of the fan stretched for over years, and it was yet not over. Hours went by at the speed of weeks, and weeks took months. It was an eternity of suffering the transcendence from life to death. It, however was not alone in its suffering.
The essentials of human habitation and necessity consist of a sliver of light (no not the spiritual kind) in this world god has truly forsaken us. We educated fools live under a moral and spiritual darkness. The giver of light in this abode happened to be a 60 watt bulb once as bright as the sun, but some how the darkness seemed to have even crept into the light its self. But what use of such an artificial light on one so morally dark? For one trapped in his own dark thoughts, has little need for a 60 watt bulb hanging orb-like over his head.. But none the less it burned from day into night. No night after night, sunlight never made it pass the dark moldy curtains blessed with maroon specks, thus day never dawned in this here gloomy room.
Back to the bulb any way, I wonder, why I tend to drift to the theological so much must be the bliss of intoxication is weaning, maybe I need an other, maybe I don’t; who cares but I?.....where were we again? Yes the bulb! It too had aged in this desolate room, the silver lettering in bold gothic which stated it was an approved and tested 60 watt bulb had corroded into brown. It gave as much light as would a match stick being struck, to light a cigarette in the dark of a moonless night.
The tungsten filament tired of the constant hell of electric fury pulsing through its being, longed for a quick death, a lightning bolt of electricity which would blast all its bonds to this world. Yet it burns its self to illuminate the dark paths upon which my conscious threads.
The fan and bulb were obviously not a marriage made in heaven; their fates were joined by an unwitting electrician. The fan hung to the ceiling on a rusty ceiling hook, which seemed to be the epicenter of the cracks around it. The bulb’s wire too was tied to that suicidal hook, they were (happily or unhappily who can say) shackled to their wedding by the rusty ring of fate. But like in most human marriages they were not only married on paper, but their spirits too were linked, in the true christian way till death do them apart; they shared the same power source, their positive and negative wires were twisted together like a knot tied over the sacred fire, thus truly were they soul mates made by default by an arranged marriage.
The dim light which the bulb cast upon this here desolate room was filtered through by the chopping wings of the fan, rendering a scene out of a 1950’s
Half a mirror hung above a non functioning cardamom green sink, the taps were missing, a few of the shards of mirror clogged the basin’s drain slicing and shredding any refuse that was let in to it as it slid down to its watery grave. Dried blood had stained a few of the glass shards, which shone like rubies in a drain, the others reflected the yellow light of the bulb flickering up on the ceiling, rarely did those shards reflect the rage gored face of the one sitting in the darkness of his thoughts. But when they did he could see in those shards memories of a life bygone each terminating at the sharp edge of glass, in rubies he saw crystallized memories of a lost love.
The above life is structured upon a pale floor impregnated by chips of granite and marble, and another green stone; thought by now his darkness has over taken it too, over the years the off white stone turned a pale yellow of sour milk, the white marble was no more pure, the black remained unchanged. Though certain tiles seemed to have been dyed maroon, others turned into little farms of light green algae.
Most of his sober hours he spent staring at the floor and watched the stones shift shapes to form faces, and sinister scenes of death. He thus came to call them the Rorschach tiles. And upon that filthy Rorschach tilled floor, lay a misshapen mattress resembling a mutilated corpse, it was the last remnant of the raj, stuffed with the same stolen cotton which was once stored here memory its self forgot who it was that once gathered the leftovers’ of numerous grey market sales and stuffed them in to a mattress made out of a large patch work quilt.
Though now it was stained by sweat and other bodily fluids, he could not tell between the varying patterns on the cloth nor did he want to; he was content with the shifting scenes in the floor. The cotton had lost all of its comforting softness and was baked in to a hard coarse bug infested raised platform. And now the protagonist, and narrator sit on that very mutilated sorry excuse of a bed which bore the brunt of our shared rage.
I must confess we are one and the same two identities of the same person, living a symbiotic incomplete life, and now when we feel our time is up I decide to leave this memoir to who ever chances upon it. Thought I do not believe in ghost I would like to linger on as a sprit, haunting this world to avenge the sin wrought upon me, yet I know I shall fade but more than this memoir, a more lasting bit of immortality I leave in this humble abode.
I have grown upon it, it has become one with me, and I shall live on in its depths, for it too is just another identity of me. A final smile dawns upon my face as I remember a fraction of a phrase ‘homes often start to look like their inhabitants’
I look at the wall, upon it encrypted a tale of rage, of revenge of rape and murder, of corruption, arrows pointing to one man, one sorry excuse of a human being, no he is not human he is parasite, living upon the blood of the poor, the one who bled the one I loved. I did what honor demanded the code so set in my mind the monster unleashed and as was sown thus was reaped, he got what he deserved so did the rest of them, five years it has been and the poison tree have grown, its fruit I must eat, its taste- sweet, sweet as sin, yet it satisfies me not that I let his blood run down into the drain, death was a blessing to him, he deserved it not. Here I fester trapped in limbo neither dead nor alive, a corpse in waiting, with no stairway to heaven or valley of death. There your honor I confess I did it! And would do it again, and repeat it over and over, for it is I who lost that which can’t be found. My confession is on the wall, and dare you call me unsound, it is I who destroyed him, and 5 years later I sit here praying to be caught. My time up now, I am done waiting for your judgment, my doom has fallen and I walk the path to death door.
Wednesday 24 March 24, 2011, 12-23am
Stepped out into the night its cool, pleasantly cool out under the scanty stars, so I began this pilgrimage into the night looking for a change in scenery, walking without a reason with no fixed destination in mind. I walked over the bridge, in the shadows of the school buses I spied a group of what seemed like girls but I knew better, I walked pass studying the
growth and fall of my shadow under the halogen lamps.
At this hour for some reason time slowed down, for some unconscious reason I find myself outside McDonalds, I walked inside got a cappuccino asked for the extra sugar and stepped out, a buss roared by a blur of red in the darkness. At the corner I spotted the cigarette vendor rummaged thru my change and fished out a shimmering gold 5 rupee, so in my own solitude , my own piece of mind coffee in hand and glowing cigarette I walk, a distinct footstep alerts my ear, cheap leather shoes and hard wooden baton clap against the asphalt, quite suddenly a vernacular voice commands me to stop, so I do, turn around and face this disturber of the peace armed with my coffee and cigarette, I try to look into his eyes, he demands to know what dealing I had walking down the street, in a dry voice I answered in the best vernacular I could manage that I was just out for a walk, Mumbai’s finest clad in faded khaki thick brown leather belt adorned by the square brass buckle, did not believe me, asked me for id, I replied I didn’t have any, he asked me to turn out my pockets so I did, a key chain, mobile, and wallet I held out to him he took the wallet, browsed thru it, I smiled, he handed it back , and turned to walk away, I asked him why his reply was simple it was his duty, I asked him about the transvestites on the bridge and the two other men drinking on the street, in the best English he could muster he replied not my ” jewrestdicktion”, obviously he had learnt well from his superiors.
As I walked back over the bridge a car came to a halt near what appeared to be girls, two of them stepped in, at about the same time a police car passed me by, I thought to myself not their jewrestdicktion either. Out of the shadows of a bus a boy not above the age of 14 called out to me if I wanted any “maal” he boasted he had the best quality and best price. I just walked by thinking not my jewrestdicktion. He followed me for a while badgering me but finally gave up. My coffee got over and cigarette burnt out. I walked into the entrance of my lane a cat darted passed me, not one of mine. Like a shadow I crept into my house as nothing ever happened.
It’s a beautiful world we live in really, we just fail to see the beauty of it.
I like these nights they are plain and simple devoid of emotion or passion, just dark inky black nights, dry as the grey gravel under my feet. The sky is still; looking up at it, is like staring in to oblivion. I walk my way to my personal dealer of death he has got accustomed to my nocturnal walks and readily fishes out the slender crisp chalk white solider of demise.
So it is I walk into deserted streets, my eyes darting from lamppost to lamppost as my shadow ebbs and flows at my feet. I find myself on the bridge over a creek. Let me make myself clear this once maybe was a creek now it’s a gutter chocked with sludge, tonight however it’s beautiful, in a sad way. I know not by whose will, it has swelled up with black liquid, creating a near perfect mirror, of my near imperfect world. I see myself looking back at me from the depth below, for a moment or two I slip out of my body and wonder which of the two is really me, just for a moment or two. I look beyond myself in the dark mirror, somehow that filth has unlocked some beauty of this world the more I search its depths the more I see and the reflection is better, the colours are fuller and the contrast sharper. I spy with my little eye a bright gold rectangle switch on in the mire, I see her and it seems like I know her, yet her name escapes my mind, like the friend you had in 2nd grade the one who drew smiley faces on your eraser and thru the years you lost all contact and her name got swallowed up by the clutter in your brain, yet you remember those smiley faces. She’s standing there, alone; a whisper of wind ruffles her hair, i ponder over the irony of such beauty captured by the filth. I wonder if she has seen me, I wonder how I might appear to her curious eyes, a lone dark stranger who strangely looks familiar, bent at the barricade of the bridge blowing swirls of smoke into the night…I watch her the waters add the slightest bit of mystery to her from, it has a strange allure and half my mind is convinced that I should leap off to be with her. I wonder what she might be thinking, is she curious about me, does she want to know me, maybe talk, share a smile, stare into my soul, ask me questions to which I have no answer…
It’s strange how fate plays its cards, the lady in the water turns, I know she is going to walk away, I know already I will not see her again, I look up at her window, her long dark hair is caught in the breeze, how I wish I could whisper in those deep dark swirls…the light goes off and I’m still standing at the bridge looking into the filth below. But is that me looking back up or did a part of me disappear forever with her?
Sleeping pills upon the window sill,
Drowsy eyes, sleeping child,
Caramel eyes, closed lids, summers chill,
Butterscotch candy, sweet, yet mild.
Banana pancake, strawberry pie,
Sunshine within mist of broken grey sky,
Why does mother not cry,
Lilly nectar, gold pearls, honey dew, good bye.
Be a good boy, pat on the head,
Daddy don't go, bye-bye,
The working class hero,
Family value a bit less than zero.
Dusty roads, iron bars, rust dust, orange
The crunch of a bus,
Black polished shoes, spotted the dust.
I know that work you must.
