Day Job, Night Life

I had some beers the night before.

She left me with a dark cloud

hang in there, just hang in there-

swing like a pendulum.

Of clocks pulling, pushing

and shoving the minutes

and the hours’ languor

of transient bedsheets

into mundane abeyance.

 

Then, in a morning rush

I’ll slip on my pants

in disbelief dismissing thoughts

of a terrible one night stand.

Zapping my way through

crowded streets with people

who puts on their masks-

their prim and proper quietude.

 

I serenade my way to the desk

letting the dirty fingers

behave and do the 9 to 5 walk

within this cubicle wonderland.

That non-reversible jargon

to earn a living or making a living.

Day job, night life.

 

I need some bucks to spare

doing my rounds again.

Prancing in the moonlight,

kissing strangers of the wild.

Until I find myself waking up

on the wrong side of the world.

Start the day as if nothing happens

last night. I only keep the job.

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10 Hours

I look at the numbers wishing and hoping

the sun will eclipse now, anytime soon

to kill boredom and dread afflicting souls

shoving imaginary hands of tyranny

strangling the life in humans.

 

I see squares in blank paper,

in blank screens contained in a box

with four corners I can’t retreat nor surrender

to the establishment who pays the rent.

Whose only consolation is a shape on the wall-

 

you call window with a view of the outside,

leaves from trees hissing and teasing

about the monotony of the lines.

Too much lines I followed and treaded

on a high wire. In surreal silence

 

like years and ages etched into my face.

It filled the pillow of dreams each night

I imagined that I won’t bow down

to that desk anymore. Slaved to wait

the longest minutes I run until it’s time to go.

 

I dreamt that there’ll be no more squares

but orbs and circles beyond the hours.

No more visions of clocks slowing seconds

and inner screams burning out at its grip.

Only time, a ticking bomb for a meltdown.

 

10 hours

as if they own me.

Dead line.

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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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Whiteness Of Being

It’s like a white plate.

Soiled and you try to wash it afloat

with suds of soap and rinse repeatedly

at the sink.  Letting it dry and wait

until the film of water subsides down

into its gleamy surface. You try to contain

the glister.  The immaculateness of being 

unbroken, unsplintered.  Fragile.

 

It’s like a white paper.

Someone will throw dots and smears.

Smudges  and graphite dusts messed up

into your  page and jag the lines into visual noise.

But then, an eraser is a confident friend,

swiping them all.  Albeit,  the indentation

marks a heavy trace on the heart. Not quite

visible at the distance, I know.

 

You didn’t notice how I try to write the lines.

Ambiguous as it seems, indirect in its approach.

You think flaws are the darkness of the soul, but wait-

it isn’t that way you know, though. For in it you hope.

You dream.  You strive to become the light.

You seek to define the completeness of your whole,

unwavering  and uncompromised to the mold-

the dictates of the common.

 

No matter how broken it may get, the mosaic

of the plate is still a creation on a canvas.

No matter how crumpled the paper was,

someone will see it as a great work of art.

You try to accept the way you live your reality,

where living doesn’t stop there, it’s in how

you would be able to discover something new.

A difference you can call your own.

 

It’s like a white space.

When the horizon of doubt blurs

the line that separate you from immortality.

And all you see is your own lightness

that no shadow would keep you

stalled towards your destiny.

There,  you would know that peace

is the only way to move on.

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News Of The World

A housewife is busy at this hour.

The knife slices and chops vegetables

in a rhythm that synchronizes the clock.

While a farmer is out on the cornfield

riding a tractor, skimming the clods of soil.

It’s just a regular working day. Simple.

 

I sit here shuffling papers from a tray.

Scribbling and rushing deadlines. Punch,

punch, punch the buttons. Scribble some

more. Telephone rings. One time, then twice.

I picked it up. Yes, uhmmm, yes, I’ll be right there.

 

A child is lost, yes she is. Where will I get her story?

Ah, the empty sauce pan is simmering in the heat.

The table cover in disarray and the knife stops slicing

and chopping but the clock is ticking nervously.

 

The dusts were stirred over like a sandstorm.

Someone is running back home and a name

is being called out. This time it grew longer

and louder and larger as if the window panes

will shatter. This is the beginning of the story.

 

And you will hear the sound of footsteps

becoming heavy. And the noise picks up

like the tractor breaking the clods of soil.

Like the knife speeding the rate of chopping.

But it is not about the tractor. Nor the knife.

 

It is something bigger on the papers tomorrow.

Printed out loud. And my byline is on it.

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Oeuvre

These wasteful hours

in the museum hall

exhibiting the exploits,

critics alike

are flocking over,

in desperate attempt

unlocking

digesting

the meaning of a mystery

to which is none.

Blabber-mouthing platitudes

and bloated praises.

The body of work.

 

You will see how

this culture of patronage

drains the penniless,

being subjects

fallen prey-

caged

framed

to a prisoned canvas

of posing nude.

 

In a night enveloped

by a faked light.

Revealing,

showing

some fleshly delight

while acting out

a cheap scene ripped 

from the page

of a slut magazine.

 

An art nouveau.

A magnum opus

on which they praise

the painter,

and not the one

whose eyes

are staring back

from the canvas

like a muted witness-

mocking,

despising

the cultured whims

of the bourgeoisie.

 

They call it art.

And you shudder

at a thought, when

you know it is

a meaningless,

empty accolade.

Worth a few

hundred bucks

reclining,

staring

blankly to a space-

being still

and have nothing

to hide.

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Parachute

Look at me.

A corporate soldier.

Working wounded

in the company of men-

wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Deceiving as snakes.

Cunning as sharks.

 

And here, the desk became

my war machine. Riding

in the engines of my brain.

Words and strategies wielding

like speeding bullets, as weapons.

 

I must learn the art of combat.

 

And it’s going to rain today.

But not of the sky.

But with paper planes

piling up in my incoming tray,

touching down like flies.

 

The cubicle is a battleground.

 

I need a saving grace, ejecting

from this capsuled seat. When

life signals on a high wire-

blinking signs of warning.

Maneuvering survival,

evading a free fall.

Beating the deadline.

 

I’m burned out.

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