Choice Things to Say

Choice things to say

I spoke to a random stranger
And I tried but failed to find
A single nice thing to say;
I was in such a bind.


Silence was an option
I could not attempt.
Out of Kindness and the other,
Easier was Contempt.


So I had to settle and I did
For choice things to say.
I snubbed and got snubbed,
Quibbling took our day.


It isn't that I really care
Or that I like to fight ,
Or spreading aimless grief
Causes me any delight. 


Rather, I got no love to share,
Yet I want to be a Christian -
All I got is bitterness - 
I only spread my little fortune. 


[Related poem: Nice things to say]

The Great Con

The Great Con

They took the winter sky
And effortlessly laid
A Sun on its edges;
So, the Cold was unmade.

They breathed a few flowers,
Pardoned innocent errors; 
They bribed the fog away,
And answered easy prayers.

In such brilliant fashion
Gods conned clueless Men
(For the sake of their game)
Into Hoping Again.

Afterthought

Afterthought


Such curious choices
This day had brought -
To love was to hurt,
To not was to not;
I chose to grieve
As an afterthought.

My heaven's share

My heaven's share

I rehearsed my words,
I drilled my flair,
I worked my courage -
I did prepare.
I did not leave
No pain to spare -
In order to earn
My heaven's share.


Lo and behold!
She was there!
I held my breath,
And said a prayer.
I wanted so -
I did not stare.
I walked as far
As I could dare;


But then she smiled - 
It was so unfair !!
How can she spend
Without a care!
What is to me
My heaven's share!
And if she must, can't she give
In sizes that I can bear?

[Related piece: Heaven's Display]

Life and Death

Life and Death

However loyally I incline
Towards relying on a sign -
Heart, blood, pulse, breath;
I know I am waiting for Death. 

DruNk (Eldorado X)

DruNk (Eldorado X)


All the gold in the world
Grains of dust - so few!
Eldorado, my love
There is no one like you.


The only Sun, the many stars,
The season spring, the color blue -
Eldorado, my love
There is no one like you.


I just need to close my eyes
To verify it is true.
Eldorado, my love
There is no one like you.

The Child

The Child

A child asked me today
"Why aren't you gay?,
Why aren't you smiling?"
Such prying, I say.

I told him about my pain,
And told him of it again,
While he kept asking why,
Well after I made it plain.

I told him I hurt bad,
I even said, "BAD, BAD"
But he kept asking why,
"Yes. But, why are you sad?"

I lied - that I am ill -
He kept pestering me still;
I thought I'll scare him -
He wouldn't leave until!

So, I spun him a ghost story -
Grotesque and very gory;
It ended and he asked, "Mister,
It is just a tale, why be sorry?"

I thought to run or hide behind -
Far from such a prying mind.
Then he said, "I hope I ain't prying",
And just like that, I resigned.

He was a child, I aligned my tale -
Nothing but truth, but, no detail.
He still persisted with his "Why?" -
I hid so much to no avail.

So, I was forced to confess
Adult details of my distress -
Love, loss, heartbreak, grief -
Yet all of it without success.

Even though it was now plain,
And I had said enough to explain,
The innocent child with a smile
Kept inquiring again and again.

Finally, I decided to stay mum,
To refuse such questions dumb.
But how long could I not relent,
Or not recognize my tantrum.

I had to laugh at this comedy -
I was a child, wise was he.
Hadn't I heard? "We're players in a play" -
Why be sad, it is just a story?

And so, let it be known to be true
That I tried but could not rescue -
What a child all alone and armed
With one prying question could do.

A Visit to the Hospital

A Visit to the Hospital

People ask
What happened at the Hospital 
And then complain that my answers are too banal. 

They expect
As I am poet I would have seen more,
Or at the minimum I would articulate better therefore.


They are right
Though not in the way they expect;
I did see more but I am not sure if I got it all correct.


One hall,
One corridor, seventeen patients,
Ten lights, four AC ducts, a hundred and four ailments. 

One stool, 
Three water coolers, twenty two chairs,
Five joys, half a hope, one fear, sixty nine despairs.

One cough, 
Two infant wails, twelve silent shrieks, 
Seventeen counts of grief, seventeen bearing techniques.

One poet,
Couple of dreams - just residual fragments,
Six kinds of pain, and fifteen thousand lonely moments.


This expectation
Of interesting words from this visit is quite unfair;
It isn't as if something profound could have been found  there. 

Hope

Hope

I believe we've erred
In our usual hurry
And theorized
Wrongly again -
All things considered
Hope needs to be 
Re-categorized
As a bane;

Though some people are favored
And them I envy,
Rest of us are best advised
To abstain;
We are meant to be injured
While trying to get free -
Each time chastised
For trying in vain. 

Rest of us have been cursed
To try and fail plenty;
Failure comes disguised
As hope inane;
Each time maneuvered 
To try once finally,
Each time surprised
Into new pain.


Defeated, but forever humored
Forever caged choicely;
Ever known ever revised -
Such is Hope's bane.
Forever maneuvered 
Never finally,
Forever surprised
Forever in pain.

Glass is Sand

This poem uses a small inspiration from Henry Livingston's Without Distinction.


Glass is Sand

Every month, on twenty fourth,
I visit the town's lower corner,
The jailer there is from up north
He lets me meet a random prisoner;

The inmates welcome a nice surprise.
I'm a women, some of them gawk;
They do not mind my puffy eyes,
Nor the fact that I don't talk.

I pay no heed in any case -
I need only the visiting room.
I just need them in that place
In their gray prison costume.

"Visitors only in visiting hours,
No one else will see these gates,
Only Prisoners and Prison Guards."
This is what regulation states.

I set up to meet a prisoner thus -
We are two people on two planets,
With a phone cable that joins us,
And a wall of glass that separates.

I come to touch that glass wall.
(The jailor's a friend, he understands)
That little thing, I won't recall -
I come to relive through my hands.

I never knew that glass is sand.
Had I known it before this time,
It may have helped my innocent man
Who was hanged for another's crime.

I might have tried to slip it through
My old fingers, or blow it away.
I might have brought his rescue,
Might have caused a little delay.

But I never knew that glass is sand,
And nothing else was there to do.
Except watch them take my man,
And smile for him a last adieu.

This was the place I last met him
While a robed priest spoke of sins.
A hug or touch - they wouldn't let him,
But the wall of glass linked our skins.

On twenty fourth, I still come back.
There's a hope in me - half sublime;
If sand in glass could make a crack,
Perhaps I can go back in time.

If I can't save him, I'll make him glad
For one more day before his fall,
And while I dream, let me add
I would touch him without the wall.

The wall of glass is still no less,
It hasn't broken yet, but it may.
But when it does, will it confess,
Why it did not break that day.

It joined us so. It held us lone.
As water sheer, as diamond stone.
The thunder in me could have blown,
If glass is sand, I just had known.

From the visitor's lounge, sign a pass,
Take the second door on the right -
And you'd find my wall of glass
Made of sand but still upright.