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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Like wresting a melody

out of debris, the 

attempt to make sense

of all the myths

Morpheus weaves;

pearls in shells

are little trouble, 

but what of demons

and cadavers eager

to meander, to dance

on a blood-drawn map

still dripping, at 

that spellbound hour

of witching?

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To really come to know a place,

 You must first understand its silence. 

During the grey hours. 

A cathedral at dusk, 

 A temple at dawn. 

An ancient hotel before

 The throngs descend. 

A mountain you climb to the top, 

 And then forget to fly off. 

A pier that draws you near. 

What you realize is, 

 The silence isn't real. 

The murmurs ...

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What if there's mercy in the arsenal, 

like hope lurking inside Pandora's box?

What if enemy lines happen to coincide

with traces of veracity in ley lines?

What if foxholes sprout foxgloves, as

the plaguing enigma melts into melisma?

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A dreamer Delacroix

dips a paintbrush

into hope's reservoir, 

and makes a canvas 

manifest his desire 

for a people led

by a unifying affinity

for a goddess-like liberty;

but such would be the antics

of a notorious romantic:

to capture in art that enrapts

what all-too-human history

vitiates, or conveniently shuns. 

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The constriction is covert, 

the strings are made of silk:

it's attrition by stealth. 

The letters from prison, 

penned by unreason

in the syntax of petulance, 

unfurl the frustration

over the failure

of the fabled 

to materialize in 

the realm of the real. 

And the dullness

promised in a hiss

one can play deaf to

no more, gently seeps 

into v...

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To parse sentences strung

together for effect, 

it might be discovered

that the Ideal is described,

even as one is compelled

to expound upon its dearth. 

A way of playing pretend 

at omniscience, with 

a 'voice of God' narration,

though the jig might

well be up when 

there's no one at hand

to give the peroration. 

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The edifice crumbles, 

the artifice emerges, 

the venerable scramble

to conserve a sliver

of sorcery, a morsel

of mockery, to muddy

a salutary catharsis,

lest the tributary

discovered dare lead

to a river of liberty. 

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The stratagems of Time 

swallow the parables

needed to survive, 

so the liminal moments

carrying all the portent,

require learning anew, 

a lion's share 

of both truth and dare

to deploy when caught

between Scylla and Charybdis, 

and sanity seems but 

a stowaway on the ship

of madness; when

ignorance really could

have been bliss, but

to choose it wilful...

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A disregarded clairvoyance, 

discarded in favour 

of the predictability of chaos, 

the furtive footfall 

of a rescue rejected, 

so that the glory reflected

from laurels once golden, 

now rusted and unearned, 

can sustain the need

to mythologize, yet never heed

the cautionary tales,

while cypresses bleed

their mournful tears

but let them freeze, 

stalactite...

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The selvedge unravels. 

The sand in the hourglass sighs. 

The defence is helter-skelter;

who can even speak of shelter?

The soloist cedes the spotlight, 

hounded by a crowd's appetite. 

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A transubstantiation of pain

Into a prophecy of perseverance, 

A tomorrow that can finally

Be met at eye-level, 

With a quiver replenished, 

Ready to face all that's human, 

Both the horror, and the numen. 

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