just another night out

they step out for a smoke and they talk gaily

his knee’s about six inches from hers

there’s tangible tension that the proximity incurs

as they stand leaning against the railing

they laugh a lot and smile too much

and they’re just a tad too polite as such

for people out drinking together and i’d bet

that they’re probably not seeing each other yet

back inside her hand stays on his shoulder too long

he’s staring at her lips, coming on too strong

as she throws her head back at his jokes lame

which she doesn’t care to understand, it’s all the same

to her. it’s just good to feel wanted she thinks

someone to talk to, to share a drink with

someone to hold you at the end of the day

just for the night, who cares then if they go away

when i’m down in the dumps of my mind’s cesspool bog

i too wish i had someone to help me keep together

now i see them leave together, t’night they’ll probably sleep together

while i’m sitting here on the steps petting the dog

you see that orange glow?

now you see how i’m burning

don’t you?

as you see the smoke risin’

far away above the horizon

but don’t, my dear, imagine for even a moment

that you may be the cause for my torment

or that it’s for you that i am yearning

you went about picking ideas and ideals

making them your own like the thief who steals

easily seduced in the dark, overwhelmed, overawed

deceived by pretenses, taken in by fraud

i always did think you should’ve been more discerning

you wanted to learn and grow

you said and so you had to go

and yet you’ve held on to the things

that held you back like puppet strings

so tell me, what is it that you’ve since been learning?

all you did get rid of was me

i warned you that it was but a smokescreen

do you now see the smoke rising far above the trees

do you hear this hollow howl that pours forth in the breeze

but don’t worry, this silent scream too shall end

once my heart is pulp and my throat is rent

and i’ll forget what the pain was concerning

you remember how you wanted

your moments perfect; always a sucker for happy endings

no, i don’t feel vindicated, for it’s not a stand that i am defending

i’m just spewing verse, it’s not a message that i am sending

even volcanoes die, i’m just an erupting mess

for the wheels of time, they’re relentless

and they’re gonna go on and on a-turning

but for now do you see how i’m burning

and yet don’t even for a moment imagine

that it’s for you that i am yearning

a love poem

i’d slip out for quiet walks on the terrace

when you thought i was in bed asleep

and then much later with the dogs

at night i walked the streets 

while you slept for it kept  

bothering me

that that was not where i belonged

and so i longed to be somewhere somewhere else

don’t ask me where for i don’t know yet

you remember the time we argued about careers

your monologue that left me in tears

and i said i’d be happy

breaking stones by the roadside

i was young then and rather naïve

and i think i’ve changed my mind

since. i wouldn’t want anymore to break

them, just balance them in cairns

by the sides of the many roads that i take

and on the mountains, by the passes that i pass

i wish you could see it but alas

we’re very different people

i want you however to know

that i see your point of view

i understand your insecurities

and i don’t hold them against you

but i can’t help but plan my escape

while you think i’m hard at work

to the shadowy world you know nothing of

where crazy dreams and passions lurk

i know you will not understand

why i must do what i do in my turn

and it is beyond me it to describe

so please just sit there and watch be burn

but i want you to know that this isn’t a diatribe

it’s a love poem

the most cynical old man i ever met

so where you come from you must’ve preserved the forest pretty well

said the old man i’d come to see and i couldn’t tell

if he was being sarcastic. must be, no, before you’ve trudged

all the way here to ask us to leave ours untouched

and everyone now turns to me. no, i say, but then we were fools

and i’m afraid he can tell from the ease, the slick dishonesty of a line often used

we didn’t know any better and so we floundered away our wealth

mindlessly. and now surrounded by concrete structures we repent

but the world’s one big home and we need the forests intact

for the generations to come we need this conservation pact

ah, so you made money from your forests and now drive fancy cars

on metalled roads and yet intact you need these forests of ours

our women and children  trudge to town on the mud roads

that flow like streams and i’m a thief if grazing my cow goes

into the forest across this stupid official fence

please explain to me how that makes any sense

and while we must now pay for wood to burn to keep us warm

i’ve heard you make money just making phone calls

forgive me but i’m afraid it is a little hard for us to see

the ecological services of an uncommon tree

how does one explain your urgent need to conserve it

to someone who needs money to pay the doctor’s fee

of course we see the streams going dirty and the soil going bad

and seeing the place you’ve grown up in being destroyed is always sad

it’s hard to see my son go find a job in town and now he’s even

paying for my daughter to go to a polytechnic for women

look at what a lovely place this still is peaceful lush severe

and yet all we ever hope for is to get away from here

so just go home and let us be i’m not asking you to feel guilty

about drinking milk out of plastic packets or all the utilities

that you take for granted and all the waste that you generate

there’s no point pointing fingers who are we to rebate

the world’s full of idiots and yet we have our lives to live

i used to care a lot and it’s not like i don’t anymore give

a damn. i too would like the trees to stand and not be taken away as logs

fine, stop us, but who’ll stop the loggers when the country’s going to the dogs

so my children have opted out. i too wish i could just go

buy meat in the market but i seldom have that kind of dough

i know you wish we weren’t here at all and we often wish the same for you

but your smoke-filled cities are the damned hell we’re all doomed to turn into

and of course we understand that it’s not long before the forests will all be gone

and we too see the rains going sparse and the summers getting hotter

so go back now, and fantasize about the world being one big home

as you masturbate and flush it away with a day’s worth of water

because life is so perfect

there are these moments too

perfect to be true

like they’re straight out of a movie, something

actors in a well thought out shot would do

leaning over me, a knee

on the soft bed

your hair a cascade

you wake me with a kiss to say goodbye

you’re off to work and will be back by five

your pants are creased and the white shirt’s crisp

a thin belt with a flat matt buckle sits low on your hips

your cheeks are smooth and your finger tips

cold as stone

you smell so good in a heavenly mix

of the shampoo the moisturizer

and the expensive cologne

chin high and a smile on your lips

you pick up your bag and head for the door

your heels clicking on the wooden floorboards

and before you’re gone from view

i’m drifting back to sleep

curled up in the sheets

that still smell of you

i wake up later and the room’s full of light

the day’s well on its way and i hear the bright

muted late-morning sounds from the street outside

and i wonder how long i can take it

for even the coffee and the cigarette

aren’t enough to root the moment

in reality

but then i open the dustbin to throw the used ear buds

and i’m overwhelmed by the nauseatingly mingled smells

of used sanitary napkins and cigarette butts

and i breathe a sigh of relief

for i know poetry

will happen. the cloying spell insipid

is broken. there are these times like frozen frames

when you get all idle and complacent

and anything goes. but for the periods of transit

you’d be dead. life is rarely perfect, and luckily

when it gets close, living ruins it

give it a proper death

half-hearted heys and unsaid goodbyes

is that how love eventually dies?

oh come, we must give it a better demise

just turn around and walk away

and never look into my eyes

again

they gave us their insecurities

a village or a town i know not

but a middle class house i think

on a narrow-walled blind street

its red bricks with age gone pink

bricks steeped in outdated ideals

that they actually think are older

thick walls to keep the heat out

all they do is make the hearts go colder

living that way till it makes no sense

but there they must live and hence

this inadvertent inheritance

their morbid defence of dense thick walls

creates this immense miasmic void

that nurtures their insecurities

until they talk of pride and purity

and the dangers of impurities

work for money work hard and never beyond venture

and raise a family that is similarly indentured

shackled and burdened you must fit the cast the muffling mask

but she refused to blend in to give in to this farce

where love is scarce and happiness doesn’t last

where joy is but dried polished muck

smiles that come from how you measure up

smiles that are there just because you smile

back. you must treat them like

the insolent child who’ll use language foul

just to see a reaction see if the grownups scowl

she just told them, no, it’s not funny

and i’m not amused

happiness weighed down by gold

easily sold out to the carpet that we’re all woven into

the intricate web of your social groups and their traditions of old

the cross-hatching weave of relatives who haven’t got a clue

about what it is that one must do, but she knew

so she sat still, biding her time, rusting, until

being rubbed the wrong way sharpened her

and then she cut her way through

you served your time

so why should she?

why should she be held prisoner by your insecurities?

life just happens to be bigger and you happen not to see it, you see?

with your petty ideas and hard-cast lines which you expect to be

followed and walked upon to eternity

these lines that you read that you believe should be tread

that you think are eternal are not as old as you think

you assumed they’re set in stone because you were born into it

that’s your tragedy

not hers

she’ll get by if she’s any good at what she does

that’s the confidence you were supposed to instill in her

but instead you tried to bind her in your own fears

about stability and money and assured careers

anxieties of the future and all the other silly mess

that’s fermenting in your suffocating head

wrapped up tight in your own warped morality

her beauty crushed by the obscene cruelty

of your hard-headed narrow-mindedness

the red bricks pink are but from yesterday

and life is so much longer so why do you lay

so much emphasis on the security of your walls

these gilded cages these imprisoning halls

that you think  have lasted ages but are recent constructs

that have already outlived their petty utility

and it’s a pity that you don’t see it

do you see?

that there need not be an inventory

of things to achieve and things to do

what you perceive is not really true

flowering trees in the blistering heat

do all you can, try and beat

her now

she’s suddenly invincible in this moment somehow

coz the threads held taut got too tight

and she cut her way through and is now free

the sun still beats down

but she sits in the shade of flowering trees

and whiles away her time writing poetry

about a middle class home in a village or a town

or a long-forgotten cobbled city street