Inside My Mind

I feel split inside

On the outside, pity

There once was an uncorrupted bond

Now, just my distraught mind.

A crippled tie, and beyond

A hope, some fragments to bind.

 

My Conscience, Trapped

It slipped that night

Like marbles do from moist hands.

 

My consciousness enticed by your muffled breaths

A clinching embrace I could not let go.

 

Trapped, for I was tantalized

In short-lived contentment.

 

A slip. Was it?

A choice, although contemplated over.

 

In my momentary weakness

It found a strength.

 

“Just this once.

Follow your pulse.”

 

I know we were one, my tenderness and yours

“Endure it,” it said, “or go undone.”

 

Withered befuddled, my heart has sunk

The perils, or perks of being young?

 

My conscience, it struck that night

It slipped. And I let it.

Retracted Dreams

Is the future new and the past dead

Is it real that this is it?

Did you say you hear it tick?

 

Chained to you in our songs of freedom

Did we forget our wrongs can be rewritten?

Forget that where you belong, I am from too?

One vale, the same dust, me and you.

 

In the dusky pink evening vault

Retracing steps from the unsullied path

I’ve watched you retract granted dreams.

Ever reckoned our vain plight, power supreme?

My Parched Mind (full-less) Dreams

You always get to me

Later, never sooner

Like the illusive waves

Trying to soak the bare sea.

With promises to mollify

My parched mind(less) dreams.

 

You crawl, first away and then to me you slither

Caress every fish in the pond.

Impulse and whims unwithered

My scarce brightness pawned

For a guisard’s fleeting fancies

I give in again, the magician without a wand.

 

Your caprices too, they call out to me

From the cracks in your buttoned-up bosom.

In your unspoken words there is conviction

Of the yearning you think is concealed.

Seldom, only tenderness, no friction

My time frozen, in your magnetic prism.

 

Why then, do I let you close

Choose clemency, where bigotry flows.

You cling, yet still not to me

Undraped I lay, I wish, in my birthday suit

Waiting, for that absolute comity

They always have you first,

This time – will you get to me?

Loss, Reclaimed

 

Many lost to time and turns

Some to death,

And a couple to predestined fate.

 

Stomach churns and pocket burns,

Impetuosity, adjourned.

Yet still, hopeful, of false return.

 

An adamant soul eclipsed,

By the endearment it once bore.

Vim adrift, moments slipped.

 

Look back, out, and away

Let reality lead you astray

One pause. Once unguarded. Then, no sway.

 

Your mortal time, bygone

The gentle husk abandoned

My conflicting chronicle? Never forlorn.

Forever Fractured Happiness

Touches and goes

Rarely, it evenly flows.

In my own laughter I’ve seen its traces

Conquering bodies, enthralling faces.

No evil enchanter, no kiss of death

In abundance, itself it curses.

When the loud becomes shrill,

And the smile lines deepen

It will depart from you, leave you still.

Like the spirit leaving your body

Searching for another soul.

Chasing its next prey,

Nesting in one more tender heart

Momentarily, it makes you feel whole.

 

Rummaging for old notes long ago exchanged

You’ve found it in reading them.

Smelled it in the dewy petrichor of February rain

Snuggled with it often,

Entwined in bed

More than once, it’s taken away your pain.

You embraced it yesterday

You are wishing for it now

And it will probably be yours tomorrow.

Like every other mortal reality

It approaches, mesmerizes, passes and perishes.

Yet, you pine for it, and you hope

You shine, you grow

From your fractured happiness, you elope.

The Magnanimity of You

Millions before me have come and gone

Brooding, whimpering, sullen.

Bawling over lovers lost, kin distraught

Under your glorified watch.

Our little lost lives

Our petty poisoned peeves

Petite, in your charitable world.

 

First, from a distance and now up close

I’ve watched you bloom, since time existed

Not withering, nor dwindling.

On nights like these, you are your most quick-witted

I’ve heard you mock our infinitesimal realities.

Often I’ve had to question this ritual,

This schedule, this mundane experiment so conceptual.

Days and decades spent caressing

The only darlings, the moving family.

 

And then, I stopped looking.

Through the speck of dust I saw a clearer conscience

In the mist-laden dawn lay an untroubled soul.

Uplifted, by the sound of your thin, weighty presence

The one that gushes through my body, end to end

Pronouncing it whole.

Many more are to come and go

In the magnanimity of you

And your bountiful show.

Childhood Conflicts, Adult Rumination

All smiles and glory

Waiting, breathlessly to tell the story

Helplessly smiling,

Humming, goggling, doodling

With all of life’s childhood conflicts

Transforming into adult mockery.

 

Let the thoughts wander, let them surface

For the adoration of the voice

The moonlit breezy eyes

Sink into them, blithe and bouncy

Meanderer, seeking time, affability

You’ll tarry.

 

Scout a spot, make a reservation

Let the moments set in now

For time will chase them away

Like fleeting thoughts,

And the vanishing acts

Your rumination, it will slay.

The Keeper’s Cubbyholes

Little by little it desiccates

Withering love,

The freshness, wilting with every unspoken word.

Unguarded, the visions peer through every crevice in your wooden floor

The disturbingly bright sun settled on your eyes

Questioning you, plunging into the dusky alcoves

Now unhidden, but once concealed by your relinquishment.

Little by little you let loose

Opening up the passages once obscure.

Secluded from the happy boughs

Uprooting, shooting

Meandering into the placid Pensieve

Now at rest.

 

Content with its keeper’s secretly humouring intuitions

No more melancholic,

No more changeful.

The keeper’s empty cubbyholes

Now leased out to the swivelling zephyr.

Unperturbed, and composed this time,

It took another plunge

Cascading into the fathomless meadows she once shied from

Plummetless, a shielding abyss

Where the tenants had lived,

All along – the sunshowers, the fierce drizzles, the nostalgic sprinkles.

Entwined

Exotic.
Like vanilla beans in my coffee mug.

Ferrying me, shouldering me.
Like Daddy and me on his humpback.

Sunbeamy.
Like the early morning breeze Mum loves so much.
And like the doting winter sun.

Dewy, misty, unwilted.
Like the newborns, the youthful us.

Harmonious. Blending.
Like a medley of my dreams.
Like her patchwork of knitted jumpers.
Like the pastiche – from seven long years.

Some fragments, they are withering.
Slipping away.
Like the last drops of rain I used to try and collect for my paperboats to sail longer, farther.

Smithereens.
But assembled. Veiled by beaming, piercing laughter.
Like the infectious chuckles before Sunday evening sunsets.

A melange of my number ones,
My most cherished, my most treasured.
Like the buttered, toasted bread on the breakfast plate.

Recollection, remembrance of that every tiny-big moment.
Charming, and magnetizing, infusing.
Like the convolutions harboring my consciousness.

Memories.
Entwined.