Grey is bluer than you think

Good morning.

A weeping afternoon.

Not a wisping breath of wind.

The musty smell of tamarind

Trailing airy fingers through

Earth-soiled dew,

Rubber balloons and cigarette ends,

A dime and sixpence,

A few dropped tears,

Listless tingling fears,

Smiles and smirks

Embroidered into a book,

And a pistol in my hand that shook.

It is as simple as buttoning your sleeve.

Even simpler.

Idiot-proof. Sharp. Efficient. And no quivering quavering metallic heart.

One trembling finger

And a six-ounce slug

Explodes the silence in vehement self-conscious defiance

Cuts a straight line through the two inches of air

(A line too straight to be natural

Yet too straight to be man made either-

The lethal has a beauty that is incomprehensibly divine.)

And pounds into soft tissue

Crunching bone

And lodges itself into

Soft electric pulsating

Grey matter.

The body snaps out of synapse.

Acetylcholin.

Resounding echoes in an empty chamber

Of a sound that never registered.

Too quick.

Quicker that hopes and synapse hops.

Hops and barley and beer.

No thought, no regret, no fear.

Red blood. White bone. Grey matter.

The sky is grey.

And old and stale

As moulded out butter toast

With furry rhizophus spreading out black fingers into its very heart.

Black fingers.

Nerves of thought.

The wind is a faint reminder

Of a long forgotten secret.

Of words that made me smile.

Laugh. Cry. Fear. Long. Wish. Love. Yawn.

Feel.

The mould smells of the past.

Thick, sweet and balmy.

Like sweaty palms.

Warms me up.

The moment has passed.

The grey is blue.

Bluer than it seems.

The gun clangs on the floor as frail fingers let go.

Sweaty and warm.

Good evening.

Bad night.

Allegropolis. Episode Four. Upturning the Fishbowl.

The fishbowl of existence. That unabated sense of euphoria substantiated - matter and the immaterial - within the inebriated minds of a million memory-impaired goldfish. The nauseating sense of aloneness. Sobriety in the middle of energy-pumping rave party. Ohh!! the flashing lights... The blacklights and the numbing baseline... Elliptic Epilepsy. My head spins. Counterclockwise. Understanding what lies beyond - the real substantial. They wont listen. Bluddy senseless goldfish. They are caught in the dream. Between the non-existent past and the stillborn future, their world is a stretched out elastic band of a present. the tension tears through my being. [T = mg cos A + mv2/l]. I run for the restroom. Nausea.

The band snaps. The fishbowl topples to a side, water pouring down its side.

Water drips down my face as I step away from the washbasin.

Allegropolis. Episode Two. The Wholly Trinity.

I wait. Stretching myself out on one of the long wood and cast iron park benches. The bench is cold. No one usually sits and waits. Waiting is in the temporal. The past. No pauses for the future any longer. The wooden backrest bites into my back. Cold venomous reality. The electric trains are cold embodiments of ruthless efficiency. Silent as a cocked gun waiting to explode. But all i hear is an implosion of silence. The muted conundrum of bustling voices do not count. I throw my head back, and watch the sunshine pierce in like coloured spears of joy through the stained glass ceiling. City of Joy indeed.

I wonder. Had we all forgotten what joy means? Maybe it meant the same all along. Is joy satisfaction, being content with who or what you are, what you have? Life without the complaint box and the "Articles once bought need not be returned/exchanged" tag. Or does it mean anything further... is it that long forgotten sense of euphoria, that half-drugged break from reality when the stained glass ceiling seems all so brighter and soaked deeper and thicker in colour than it actually is? But then, can the ceiling get any more brighter. Its already washed in the mid-morning sunshine. Can joy actually exist in the City of Joy, where things cant get any better?!

Forgive. Forsake. Forget.

The Wholly Trinity.

The three incinerating truths etched on the scratch-proof grazed steel walls of every alley, penthouse and ghetto in Allegropolis.

Forgive for you wish to be forgotten.

Forsake 'cause thyself is all that is real.

Forget... well... forget 'cause the past never exists, nor existed.

We are all unfettered creatures soaking in the warm sunshine and strained colours of unalleviating joy, caught in a limbo of satisfied imperfection. Here lies the precursor to perfection, taking pride in being what you are. Perfect becomes what you are. And it cant cant get better than this.

The park bench is warm now. I lift myself up. My face is stained in myriad of streaming colours as i smile. Allegropolis, there is something about the city that makes me smile. And i am the last cynic left in the world.

Chat Discourses on PseudoMetaphysics and the Human Ontology.

silence: i can't go on like this

have lost all motivation

me: chchey!!

silence: so want a break

me: whats wrong now?!!

silence: sigh

me: yeah thats the problem with our generation

the general apathy towards life and ambitions

silence: but i am not like this

me: hehehe

so we all say

silence: usually i'm fired to do things

me: you just became postmodern

silence: now i don't feel like reading what i have to anymnore

me: yes yes

welcome to the world

silence: want to read some literature, study for NET and live somewhere else without much worries for sometime

me: hmmm

wokay wokay

do it then

silence: and it is also in my birthcard that from 21-5 of this year to 07-12, i 'll have a time of restlessness and moving away

me: hahhaha!!

then drift along a while

anyway i am off

silence: i should, but towards the better :)

me: hehehe

theres nothing is better and all anyway

its all just pretensions

make-belief

see i ll give and analogy

its just like smelling a flower while walking along a road

it smelt good

but fact is you were just breathing

and it happened to smell nice

silence: see, i was not online

so come again with the analogy

me: and you would have breathed anyway and have to breathe anyway

shit

see the good things in life

are like smelling a flower while walking along a road

it smells nice

but eventually it was just that you were taking a breath

and it happened to smell nice

and whether it smelt nice or not

you woulda taken a breath and moreover couldnta helped but take a breath

thats all

life is all about breathing

in and out

silence: ya, i believe in the cosmic connection which exists between your nose, the flower and the moment u decided/involuntarily took the breath

me: thats all there is to it

nothing of that sort

if the cosmic connection willed that you were not to smell the rose

it wouldnt make any difference at all

you prolly wouldnta even noticed there was a rose worth smelling by the road

silence: exactly

so, that is imp

me: in no way at all

if you were oblivious to the smell of the rose

the rose never existed for you

silence: then there is no rose

me: and you go on in life

silence: and how do we become oblivious?

me: breathing as you go

silence: karma, my son, karma!!

me: hehhee!!

it just depends on why we chose that path

and that might have a little to do with our past

but hardly ever

it has more to do with our future

if you think about it

coz we always choose paths to reach somewhere faster

or take our time and delay the trrp

silence: but our idea of what is fast, and how fast it will be in a life that is at the same time snail paced and blowing away in centuries, that is karmic, my son

me: we always do have the faculty of choice

but that doesnt mean we may get run over by a bus coz we did some incomprehendable mistake in our past

based on a choice

the universe is far more random and chaotic than that

if there exists an order, it is that of chaos

we wont see that in everyday events

but put everything that happens around together

and thats the picture you get

and hence no better or worse

silence: but who controls our choice? where in the oceans shall w unravel the real mystery of agency? who decides for us? the well perceiving faculty, oh, aren't they just five in an unknown zillins? or is it the time that decides for us? the time that comes to us like a srtorm or as a child's cry, as a hushed up moan oin bed, or as the silent naughty half look of a girl by the way?

me: hehehe

silence: can i copy this chat?

me: hehehe

yeah yeah

hahhaa!!

now you ve thrown me off track

yeah lemme get back to it

aah

so time...

and how we perceive and react

well when we are placed in certain social and ethical circumstances

some choices are made for us already

the choice of the system

the system that tries to find order in the whole entity of existence

hehehe

yeah

its a futile human attempt

and if time seems to decide what we want in life

that is because the systme wants us to believe that is what we want at that particular moment in time

and so the next question naturally would be

why should we look for order

silence: no no

me: then??

silence: what i said is not that we decide to suit the ytime, but the time decides for us

me: as in time brings forth events that determine our life??

silence: also

me: hmmm

that again is a futile human attempt to find order

cause time in itself is arbitrary

silence: exactly

me: and we create time in order to dispell our fear

silence: so, being a karmic, as our conversation proves, is a way of being pomo :)

me: how come?!

hehhee

silence: bcoz, both tend to be taking away metanarratives from human effort

in fact, even slightly hinting at the randomness of time

me: karma hints at anything but the randomness of time

silence: that's true

me: the only randomness of time advocated by kramonc theory is that

silence: but we wil tweak it a bit for concensus :)

me: i ll strike you but you dunno when

hehehe

wokay wokay let that be then

anyway lemme wind up

saying

we exist coz we do

we live just coz we have already breathed the next breath

silence: against ourt own fears, i'l add

me: philosophical pseudometaphorical discourses make me very hungry

metaphysical that is

i really have to go off now

lunch awaits

bye now

see you later

silence: don't call it pseudo!!!

me: hehehe!!

okay okay

will be redundant then i see!!

hhahaa!!

silence: :)

me: bye now!!

silence: bbye

Going back to rhyme

As i hold back my voice,

And lose what is mine;

Wish for a choice,

And end up resigned,

Wish i could turn back the time,

And go back to rhyme.

When clock shows its thirteen,

And my twelve hours bespent,

The world with its spleen

And its seething resent,

Makes me bitter as a lime.

'O, if i could go back to rhyme.

My feet feel the weight

As my boots drag me down.

I bite back the hate,

And iron out my frown.

I wait for the chime,

When i can go back to rhyme.

Hope and persuasion

Eats up your dreams.

I wish for fascination

But end up in screams.

To flip off the dime

I have to go back to rhyme.

When the air gets too thick

To fill up my lung.

The dust has to lick

The taste off your tongue.

To wipe off the slime,

I go back to rhyme.

As the thoughts that were snow,

Fall down as chalk.

I search high and low

For a key and a lock.

Can't lose what i'm

Must now go back to rhyme.

Once, in those days of innocence of yore, i used to write exclusively in rhyme. And now, i have probably, to put it conveniently, grown out of it. The truer fact is, rhyme is too beautiful a thing to capture the cruel ruggedness of life or whatever jazz. Rhyme is too innocent. Rhyme is perfection. Rhyme is that spotless framed sepia picture of childhood, that smiles at you, capturing the thoughtless joy of the moment and pretending it will last for all time to come. Rhyme is capricious. A piece of nostalgia. And now, you can just look back and smile at it.

This poem is a vain attempt to go back to rhyme. I need not be sorry, or feel pathetic about it. I can just laugh at my vanity to turn back time... Hehehe...

Dust

I am asthmatic. At least on paper. I never really get a bout of wheezing unless i get caught in a dusty environment. They say i am allergic to dust. I am fascinated by dust. Dusty hard-bound red books in tall library shelves. Dusty windowpanes where you can behind streaks of light when you run your fingers over them. Dusty fans which look like pinwheels as they spin above you as you stare aimlessly. Those shiny particles of dust that look like floating honeydew in blocks of sunlight that stream through the leaves.

Dust. I hate dust too. It is so static. I denotes stagnancy. Oblivion is difficult, but dust pisses me off. 'Cause you remain as a relic begging to be remembered, not yet lost, refusing to get lost in time. I hate blowing the dust off every time. Though i like seeing the dust play in light again.

And at times, the dust gets to me. I suffocate. The air grows thicker and my lungs go so small it can hardly go smaller to push the air out. The air stagnates within my body. Sediments dust. I cough, but it is an exertion. I try to breathe, but why is the air so fucking heavy?!!

I am stifled. Straitjacketed. The room is big. The windows open. Words float around like those shimmering particles of dust. Golden specks of happiness. I am disgusted. The air suffocates me. Why are they stealing the air i breathe? Or is it that the air is too thick with words when i dont want to speak any? The windows are open. I suffocate.

I hold a kerchief to my nose. To keep away the dust. And the stench. I walk out graciously.

Ctrl. Alt. Shift. Escape. Delete.

Gall bladder

Listen to my voice.

Yeah the vicious screech you hear at the back of your head.

Noise.

Static in the radio station.

Hear it.

Try to listen to it, rather than tuning into another channel.

Can you hear the words?

I cant hear them myself.

I spat them out in such spite.

Such anger and frustration.

No one tunes into noise anyway.

And no one can tell channels apart if there was

No noise in between.

I am not philanthropic.

I do not claim to be a bluddy Messiah.

I am so selfish i keep my words to myself,

While i tune into FM stations.

And when i do speak,

It comes out

Unpractised

Garbled words.

They forsake me.

Cheats.

And i scream out

'Cause i cannot cry.

The screech.

Its drilling through my ears.

Its too sharp

Sharp as cut glass

And clear

In spite of all the disturbance.

Pain.

Tune it.
Tune out.

Switch off.

My channel doesnt have any audience rating.

Feeling my way through clouds

I am apprehensive. Scared of taking the next step. Scared of even moving. Not because i can't see. Not 'cause of what lies ahead of me. Rather 'cause of all i had left behind. They stare behind my back. Stare right to that dark uneasy corner of my mind that we all call the conscience. I wish it was like an appendix... disposable.

The sunshine is dampended. Soaked and suffocated. Apprehensive.

The thoughts pop up once in a while. They silently whisper. So low that only i can hear. More memories. Contemplations of memories. Wonder why i let things go. Wonder why they seem so far. Another life apart. Did i live through them? Or am i just watching a dull video taken in grainy grayscale?

Fragmented moments in time. Faded photographs. Pictures stained an antique sepia from all the coffee spilt on them. Coffee that kept me awake through all the nights when all i wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. Tell the rest of the world to go to hell and be damned. I staeyed awake then. Groping my way down the stairway railings.

That ephemeral illusion of love. Muted converations between friends. The uneasy silence which creeps in and shouts so hard, your ears go numb.

There are clouds at my feet. Clouds all around me. I am afraid to turn back and look. I might make phantoms appear from the clouds, when there are none.

I am not guilty. I do not regret. Apprehension.

I might dissolve and disappear someday like a wisp of smoke from a dying candle.

I ask for forgiveness. The supernova has to happen.

The EverGreen Pain Machine

The river darkens to a mouldy stain,
Spreading through the dreamless, thoughtless, hill-less plain;
Spreading pain,
Bedding disdain.

The branching veins drank off the mills,
Choking trees which have no gills.
No frills,
It only kills.

No shadows ripped the streets at night,
Shadows live on the light.
No left, no right,
No blurred foresight.

Dreams are lost in a speechless mist,
Smiles torn down no longer resist.
Pain persists.
Clenched in fists.

Words spoken are never heard,
Become whispered mumbles in a herd.
Undeciphered.
Un-recovered.

Words chewed down, words spat out
Tears frozen in a moment of doubt.
Tears don't shout.
Wings don't sprout.

In the endless plain where pain descends,
Time is caught in an electric fence.
No enemies, no friends.
Good riddance.