The surf gladly births

foolhardy Aphrodite, 

to be dressed 

in all the superlatives

of idolatry; yet

the same surf

swiftly buries Aegeus, 

to be forsaken

like a postscript 

within the waves 

that he names;

an elemental nascence

and death's dreaded cadence,

a dichotomy of the sea,

bathing the essence

of myth after myth...

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The comfort of the counterfactual

was sought as a last resort

from reality's ramshackle

tenement, where betterment

seems a star too distant,

extinguished perhaps

already, despondent

that the advent

of the voiceless

never truly came...

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'I am Nobody', says Odysseus

to Polyphemus, and though

the stratagem was meant

to prevent the Cyclops 

from calling for help

against the correct

culprit, sometimes

even a ruse speaks

the truth, for who

really is Odysseus?

The corporeal form of king

is but the fleshly husk

of an amorphous journey, 

the formless essence

yearning to be found

within, a...

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Mellifluous cajoling in a descant, 

a coercion cloaked that revokes

the privilege of that Eighfold Path, 

only to throw one into the cavern 

where the curative ceases to be lucrative, 

the mean no longer shines in gold,

stuck on the continuum of delirium, 

traipsing across an Eden of yore, 

trailing along your freshly leaden core...

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A philosophy of Liberty 

gets caught in

a fisherman's net,

fluoresces, though

on its last legs,

as a gasp escapes

from the gills

of an anglerfish, 

when a mermaid, 

mythical yet hopeful,

flees a wishbone, 

to mend the wreck 

and free that 

reckless Liberty, 

while the lodestar

guides on, graceful

testament to what

unfailingly shines on...

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Adumbrate the sine qua non

that inundates with newness

the contentment of the shore, 

that fosters the fortitude

to acquiesce to the adventure, 

but then gladly follow

the trail of fallen confetti

in reverse, back to solitude,

to recommence the seeker's cycle,

for the finder can only be idle

for so long, before the beacon

of the Quest sprinkles its

breadcrumbs a...

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A head versus heart duel, 

for the hard-headed 

but not the faint of heart;

could this be that pivotal

moment of choosing

between the mooring 

of a leaden logic,

or the timeless chagrin

of a mercurial reverie?

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The universe in its entirety, 

all the living, all the dying, 

in the delicate countenance,

from nascence to withering,

of a single petal of rose, 

or the astral abode

keeping you afloat, 

forging your complacence, 

as you pander to the playground

of earthbound impatience, 

forgetting to be grateful 

for still being a meanigful

droplet in the celestial goblet, 

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Home is where you can hum

a melody outside your head, 

where you sneer at veneers, 

and your dreams roam free, 

so, at last, you may become

all you were supposed to be...

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Beguiled by the sundial, 

The simplicity of a presence

Dependable and worthwhile, 

While certain demigods,

Serpentine and embittered by

Their lesser status, 

Gleefully dispense destinies

Divine or demonic, 

With little warning

To the human chaff

Residing on that

Still lower rung, 

As a species that

Struggles so often

To even locate the sun. 

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The ground, ever

so fertile for doubt, 

breeds the spawn

of Set, to be fed

on the mead

of ill will, so 

as to beget

that stealthier

form of harm:

it won't feast

upon the ruin

of its kin, but

will instead beat

the kettledrum, 

and have the 

hounds of hell

march willingly 

against no other

but its own self...

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A finely calibrated, 

properly consecrated 

distaste for courage, 

in the absence 

of a crown, 

thorned, or of renown, 

for the facility

with which excuses

can be spewed, 

leaves little room

for that uneasy

clarity to bloom, 

the one that illumines

and discerns what

we used to call

the right thing, 

decency, if you will, 

but now, as if

ensnare...

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Don't mar untrodden morrows

with those treasured sorrows

that have gilded the mirror

of dysphoria with motifs

made of scoria, just because

the familiar feigns ease, 

as the sirens sing their need

for more kindling 

in the bonfire of habit, 

the one that lives 

only if it kills 

the exhortations murmured

by a metamorphosis 

begging to begin...

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The scrawl across the stars, 

confusion writ large, 

illegible as the illimitable, 

like graffiti that adorns

the grand wall of emptiness, 

or dazed watercolours

on the canvas of vastness;

and though the universe

breathes within each

grain of sand that

graces every hourglass,

such the solipsism of man, 

that the need for centrality

blinds to ultimate reality....

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A repeat paralysis nonpareil, 

out of which one fails

to make heads nor tails; 

and each time the tide

claims another fragment, 

what is it, really, that remains?

For, though it is true, 

the Ship of Theseus

has yet to capsize, 

each time the healing

swoops in anew, 

to anaesthetize the wound, 

the timber may be fresh,

but does the backbone

begin to b...

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The clocks melt

and merge into 

the fantasy they

always were, 

ever loyal troops

in the regiment

of the ultimate ruse,

the construct concocted

to render order

so that man 

feels enough before

the chaos and the luck, 

in a cosmos

that cares not 

for our fragile, fervidly

adhered-to plans,

but allows us 

to tame our confusion

with the illusion

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The primal 'why' persists, 

Only to be half-answered

By the preternatural 'because', 

While the nightingale resists,

Gifting the meaninglessness

With its nightly plangent song...

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When it takes dreaded

introspection to extract

the kaleidoscope within, 

it's far easier to opt

for the cardboard cutouts

trotted out to please, 

encouraged by the epoch

of caricatures reigning

supreme, esteemed

far more highly than 

complex flesh and blood

that won't always conform

to the prescribed response,

the one inscribed

in the annals

of the con...

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Nyx may show you the moon, 

Its glimmer as a boon, 

Or use a lullaby's lilt

To trick you into dreams,

And a little midnight stroll

By your bespoke...Styx.

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Proliferating all the fictions 

of 'I', housed inside

a funhouse mirror

that seems to foretell

the chaos to follow

the quiescence of passivity,

the faux acquiescence

to the sibylline utterance

that ought to have been met

with a genuine remonstrance,

resonant enough to smash

the unendingly distorting glass. 

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When moorings are lost

yet not really mourned, 

a faux fatalism

may set in, concede

limits to free will, 

and explain away

the now desolate, 

the ice newly thinned. 

But it won't be long 

before such comfort

proves too tremulous

for real renaissance, 

or genuine healing, 

which will arise

from one's ownership

of generating 

all states of feeling...

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Animate the mind, 

Awaken to the infinitesimal

Gradations of experience, 

Heed the clarion call of life

To take the stage of existence,

To upstage the fear

And sneer at the doubt,

So that the once risible

Is all of a sudden feasible,

And the focus that was narrow,

Effervesces to welcome

The essence in the flight

Of every sparrow...

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To domesticate happenings

Into some narrative arc,

Is to abdicate acceptance

Of the vagaries of chance, 

To skip entire chapters

On the learning curve

Of love, which demands

A pace of leisure, till

The conditions fall away,

The chips where they must. 

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A goodwill rutted

by the tread of time, 

losing its grace

at a menacing pace, 

as hate hibernates, 

waiting its turn 

to wreak the havoc

it has dreamed

on unsuspecting peace, 

wreck its wreath

of olive branch, 

sussurate discord

into ears, and 

lace it into hearts, 

till no fellow-feeling

is enough to merge

the hymn sheets, 

or stand as staysail

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Nonplussed in lieu of nonchalant, 

the choice grudgingly gets made 

down the slippery slope to traipse, 

to swap credence for creed, 

so that one has far less

about which to think, and 

may finally find themselves

ashore, to bask in that

littoral comfort, a balm

to the visceral discomofort

of complexity's disjunction,

soothed now by a pulpit

determining the orbi...

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The cadence conceals

the reticence of Pericles,

as he prepares for

his century of bliss, 

to be corrugated nonetheless

by the occult, and

the interplay between

the spur to prosperity, 

with an eye to posterity, 

and some foul play

on a sacrificial tripod,

meant to appease 

the nimbus that

brightens Olympus...

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They choke on stock phrases

Their tongue never even tasted

Prior to spitting them out. 

Who has a mind for nuance

When it's time for that faux

Assurance to trickle out?

It behooves the domineering

To conceal their sneering

Within the verbal driftwood

They regurgitate but never

Can polish up as new;

And why would they have to,

When their spirit of

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A nomad disavows 

the calendar leaves, 

a passenger of destiny, 

wearing wings that drip

wax, follower of

the seasons and the sun, 

just like the swallow

that perches long enough

to make its presence felt, 

yet waves its pennant

of farewell before

clouds of candyfloss

can part, and let

an albatross demand

pride of place 

round its neck, and

penance f...

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Phaëthon pleads with Helios, 

his father and god of the Sun, 

to let him play his part

for just one day:

to be given the reins

of his horses to ride

round the globe, and

though the idea seems

rash to his progenitor, 

the boy's persistence 

does end up victorious. 

But the bloom of youth, 

too sure of itself, 

fails to entertain 

the doom witnessed 

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The dogma of the temporal nomad

is an acceptance of the evanescence

of all, from the lacklustre to the astral, 

for even what purports to alter one's course

on a visceral level, has but an ephemeral tether, 

and is soon to be rejected by a newborn Present,

able solely to be resurrected by a Memory

so rudimentary as to sculpt faulty forms

using mud procured from the riverban...

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A beatitude that's true

walks around barefoot;

it needs no halo, 

for the citadel within

ensures the glow;

so the manhunt

for destiny may

cease before the feet

of one who does not

prophesy, but knows

instead to reconcile

light with shade,

and holy dove with 

crow left unclaimed. 

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Perhaps it would be 

simple enough, in

some conjured dreamland, 

to dismantle the certitude

that binds within

the confines of separateness,

embracing thus the interlude

which allows a lullaby,

beholden to no borders, 

to soothe, and set 

the chaos in order, 

as might befit 

our common birthright

to that shared daylight...

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Wanderer of wonderlands, 

always ready to gallivant 

around in utopias, where freedom

and euphoria are mandatory, 

where the reverie is sacrosanct;

tilting at windmills, pretending 

this is movement, and not a mere

standstill, eluding a reckoning

with reality, and with such alacrity

fostering the never-ending idyll...

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Trying to blaze a trail 

through the caustic travails,

blatantly or slyly unveiled 

by whomever owns the throne

in the theme park of theodicy 

on high, without so much

as a clue as to whether

decency will be rewarded, 

or dignity enough afforded

for you to dress the wounds

which are fresh, before

samsara, that knows

no languor, begins afresh...

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If the past really is 

prologue to perseverance

and that stubborn adherence

to the more resisted paths, 

right through the straits

of an incisive discernment

between effigies and Paraclete, 

between perjury and honesty, 

might there be hope still

for us, sinners, to see

those blossoms of entelechy?

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Out of the vastness

of silence, emanates

the restlessness of sound, 

to life duty-bound, 

conferring upon it

an affirmation of existence,

and a smiling potential 

that with a little persistence, 

those vagabond reverberations

may just be tamed

into a dulcet serenade...

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Spectate the spasmodic

gasps for life 

of an episodic

unreality, the kind

that offers elixirs

in exchange for 

souls on the precipice, 

without an oar, 

ready to surrender

their mores, so long as

Horus agrees to bless

a sliver more 

of their voyage, 

while they stay blind

to his eye that glints 

the truth: that the boon

is merely pro tempore, 

pro...

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Tears of trepidation along

the tracks of expectation, 

because a presentiment said

it can't possibly work, this

attempt at a paradigm shift

out of moroseness into the dream

of hope's wiles, for the future

treasures your trials, and 

plans to set them free just when

you've told despondency to flee!

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The sigh of a skyscraper, 

born of the loneliness

of altitude, descends 

as a winter's breath 

upon the faces 

of finitude, mirrored

in every failed attempt

to conceal contempt

for impermanence; and 

the more forcible

the effort and impressive 

the result, the more 

fragility and aversion

are revealed in mortar

and in glass: our distaste 

for an inevita...

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The moon shone resplendent, 

made a neon sign 

of their youth, yet

their eyes were sightless,

their tries fightless;

they thought the moon 

was slovenly, and

as for doom, a

taste wouldn't do:

they'd have to indulge, 

for in their blood

races gluttony.

Perhaps they were born

an oxymoron, diffident

daffodils, question marks

to the world, their kin,

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Gifts do tend to come in dyads;

one need only ask Midas. 

The gods bestow in seeming goodwill, 

like the falcon feigns its fellowship. 

And so, Cassandra is stuck

in a conundrum of luck,

blessed with sight by others unseen, 

yet cursed to never be believed. 

Indeed, one might end up as fodder

for a divine mortar and pestle, 

and what purports to be deli...

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Buried amidst the brambles

Of a perennial preamble,

But as the deficit in drama

Begins to creep in, 

You attempt to emerge

From the ether of the era,

And bestill the heart 

As you stare at

The crevasse of eternity,

Standing there mirthless;

A gleaming specimen

Of modernity:

Detached.

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The morrow after genesis, 

marrow infused with

mysticism imbibed at Eleusis,

Demeter's blessing granting

a novel softness of tread, 

antidote to dread, yet

sharpness of spirit 

that might look upon

every sunrise as analgesic, 

and will no longer delimit

in accordance with cowardice, 

nor the convention of artifice, 

but will allow the sheer 

cheer of being to...

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Stately History marching, 

but missing a heartbeat, 

stealing last sighs

with its austere eyes, 

brandishing swords

and quills, trying 

to quench a need, 

a human greed for

happenings, the kind

that might spill

some blood, and 

then some ink. 

When ends are nigh, 

History just smiles, 

ready to still Time, 

on scrolls to shine;

in its back pocke...

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In the circus of sentience, 

stumbling towards the provenance

of the primordial pain, 

a haunting in search of an origin, 

as a lunar manoeuvre 

marks the deck, so we can

play pretend, as we 

bevel and splice, that 

the trickster won't tinker 

with the dice, but will

shapeshift instead into 

a makeshift saviour, armed

with all the ancillary 

answers we'll sim...

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Faded moon in a 

daytime sky, lingers

there to remind

of the upturn 

of the night, 

the dark that spurns

plans left unclaimed 

by the blaze of day,

but still grants

that last resort

of wishing upon

a starlit scape. 

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Chased by a force majeure,

trying to outrun

at breakneck speed, 

a meticulous taxonomy

of secrets and sins,

deserted, eyes averted,

playing hide-and-seek

with angels and djinns,

their effort concerted

to extract a conversion

of the Damascene ilk, 

while Delphic daffodils

bloom around a noose--

--but what even was

the prophecy? From 

a god's mouth t...

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The cymbals crash;

They strike the hour,

In a musical syntax

That only makes sense

If an era is near

Its ignominious end. 

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The margins of the mariner differ:

while people of the land wither, 

he makes friends with the waves

peopled by gods, trusting his

compass in cahoots with the North, 

hoping the Old Man of the Sea

stays sufficiently appeased 

to send his Nereids in aid,

should the voyage be in peril.

The scorecard of the sailor differs:

all it has to check

is how oft he conver...

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The corpus of folklore

can cauterize wounds

that to the sufferer seem

so especially unique, 

as if they concealed 

a predicament tailored

to their very own soul;

in truth, the tales of yore

make the realization dawn

that there's comforting

commonality by the score

in most of the burdens 

by humanity borne...

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