Vigil

On a white bed, someone is sleeping dear

deep to a dreamland of no return but only

strangers and lovers peering translucent

appearing sad as if they were caged

 

by someone whose scythe has killed

and slit the necks of flowers too eager.

And push them into garland and vases

as if sudden death is a beautiful thing.

 

And  the twin blood-red moon gave birth-

two distant runners racing past each other

galloping silken terrain but their footsteps

leave no traces- only their colorless ordeal.

 

They call them tears.

 

Like lamentations of loss, a dirge, a song

wailed and escaped through cracks

and crevices of consciousness. A proof

that breath is extinguished like candles.

 

Whose spirit wafts the room to shake

and pound the doors with its fists

while the priest can no longer hear

the trite confessions of a sinner.

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Push

Why flipping a page from the book  is necessary

to pass time and you know that the hands of the clock

won’t turn back the hours that have been.

And you sit there on a corner

endlessly stare in silence,

writhing in the cold naked

without a soul breathing-

you shut them out of your world.

 

Why talking within your mind in monologues nags you

with guilt as if your life is a mess and you are helpless

about the future and guessing how it will ever end.

And nobody knows that there is a deep cavern

that you can’t escape. While you live the days

carrying the weight of an imaginary prison-

you wish that death is the only freedom.

 

Why people come and go as soon as the door opens

and later you close them. Never wanting them to stay

nor understand you like you always did before.

You said they deserve to be happy with the ones

who can fulfill their happiness and you are sorry-

that you are not going to be the person

who can be able to give the expectation.

 

Why does sleep won’t come as peacefully

like words that overflowed within you but won’t be heard

and you think that anyone would not be ready

to listen to any of it. Because they will feel the

vastness of the deep ocean and they can get drown

and won’t survive alive. And even they-  will feel

the same death that you have wished for yourself.

 

Why darkness is a fearful thing and yet you thrive in it

as if you allowed atonement for something or for someone

you have failed in the process. And honesty is priceless

but you keep on hiding that sad face within a mask

and wishing that this masquerade won’t last.

You go home alone again in the knowing

that you have not pretended to be accepted

for who you are. That is. Liars will go to hell.

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Monday Blues

It is Sunday (I hope it’s Saturday)

still I dread about the things

that need sorting, or mending

or keeping the weekly life in order.

 

At the routine and the job not started.

Of promises I keep on procrastinating.

When I complain that time is not enough

but I spent most of it thinking how

 

will I ever escape the inner tensions

that keep gnawing my brain, restless

and un-contained, filled with regrets

I ought to pace with speed to numb me.

 

For the plates and cups that need washing.

For the pieces of clothing that need ironing.

For the broken fixtures that need fixing.

For the furnitures that need dusting.

 

And Monday will come. When you wish away

it is weekend when you get the alibi to be lazy

on Friday. Pretending you work hard but counting

four more days and you slam down the paperwork

 

bolting out for freedom. Still it is Sunday.

I hope it is Saturday, better nights on Friday.

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The Gambler

The gambler lost that day on his deck of cards.

He lost to fate by slim chance for survival.

They say, speed and luck are brothers

to a pair of hands knowing the trick. To hide

and conceal a loser’s streak while

 

at the bargaining table. The game goes on

and there’s no other way but win.

He need to come back for another try.

It’s another night playing jack against

the king. He will have to pawn his aces.

 

And he owes the world of the hours

he let passing by without noticing.

Isolated by fixation to win his conquests

by which probability of mathematics

and shrewdness, his potent weapon.

 

Pre-occupation. He tries to recover his losses

by the number of risks and repeats. He stabs

on chances and chases even more. It’ll never stop

until he is squeezed to the bone analyzing

his moves to that glorious escape. Big time.

 

And he believed- eventually he will make or break.

For him, to live is to win the game by the numbers.

The gambler lost that day on his deck of cards.

No bailout. No tolerance. Just lost his control,

when speed and luck became his greatest traitor.

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The Trader

His face is a map of caravan years,

weathering the desert sun and

the seasonal flood by the riverbank

which brings in salt for a modest living.

 

As the sand windblown and collected

in the seams of his linen turban,

anxiety constantly snake through

the mazes of his troubled mind.

 

He needed money.

 

Like how the puff of smokes

from his cigarette escapes

are fragments of his ancestor’s past

excavated from walls of antiquity.

 

He is mulling to leave the landscape

of ancient ruins, the mud-dried bricks

and clayed houses and desert wilderness

for the glowing lights of the city.

 

The mosque signals the call to prayer

and he sat down on his cushion

unfurling a sheaf of parchment,

reading through his mangled glasses

 

the fragile scribbling of faded ink.

On its brittle yellowing pages appears

like gold. This manuscript he wants to sell

to tourists he is waiting to pass by.

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An Everyman’s Tragedy

I have tried everything I was taught

to do. Trying to fit in the world

by becoming someone who,

I am not. An everyman.

What’s going on? How tragic

is this shallow happiness

becoming emptiness, seeking

where is the enlightenment?

 

Punch me hard to bleed.

Hit me more. Be harsh to me

like a nihilist. Obliterate

my every apprehensions.

 

Pull me away from this reality,

sheltered in my comfort zone.

Stripped me off with this fear of pain.

I need another revolution.

 

Break down this prison walls

closing me in. Out of this

sanity’s edge,  I will escape

my disillusions and never return.

 

Wake me up from my deep slumber.

Punch me hard to bleed. Real hard.

If survival means believing 

that I have to die, to gain.  

I will not pursue my defense now.

I will surrender to your every blow.

I will lie here half-dead in bloodbath,

the glory of my sweet liberation.

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Monochrome

Be still. Please focus. Would you wait

until my iris capture you of snapshots? I am here.

Don’t notice. Your portrait on my mind, I dodged

and burned. Don’t worry. I won’t

over-expose the sequences of the memory

fleshed out from my canister, the last strip of film.

 

On my negative- your wavelength of light escapes

through my lenses, I would carefully unfold and record.

Don’t look. Deeper. While single color vanishes

with intensity into highlights and into shadows.

Frame by frame, I would filter the black against

the white. Your reality becomes my abstraction.

 

Would you mind, if I convert the colors of the spectrum,

your seemingly pixilated illusion to just shades of gray?

Tracing back the images in a locomotion, so slow.

My camera obscura. Clear and sharp, as you illuminate

a world forgotten just for once. A neutral silhouette

Don’t notice. Keep focus. Don’t cry. I am here.

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