Category: Poems

I’ve bought myself a zugzwang now
At price of newfound, age-old friend.
No matter how I make a move,
I will be worse off in the end.

Do I resign? Or, do I play
In hopes that some day luck will turn?
For if it doesn’t, I am heading
To a fatal crash-and-burn.

My body’s screaming, “End it now!”
My mind is pleading, “Play it through!”
But when I ask which move to play
It’s clear that I’ve got no clue.

“You love the drama, don’t you, son?”
I hear his flowered portrait sigh.
“I have to be the man I am,”
I whisper as I pass him by.

“The hair is growing back, I see.”
“It’s been two months. It better did.”
“The funeral seems yesterday.”
“We missed you at home. Yesterday. “
“I meant to come. Been busy, so…”
“You asked me here instead. I know.”
“He was my friend, all said and done.”
“All said and done, you did not come.”
“I have been busy. Yeah? Alright?”
“Alright. I’m here. What’s on your mind?”
“I have a job for you, you see.”
“A job? For me? Your courtesy?”
“I heard you haven’t found one yet.”
“And so you found for me instead?”
“The least I can do for my friend.”
“You have been busy, in the end.”
“I asked someone, who asked someone.”
“The same someone who beats for fun?”
“No, no. He acted on his own.”
“Just after picking up your phone.”
“Your mother thinks I sent him there?”
“He did give her your crazy stare.”
“My crazy…my…She’s got it wrong.”
“She waited for you. Two months long.”
“I’ll talk to her. Go, fetch her here.”
“Your anger doesn’t hide your fear.”
“Now, listen, son. Enough of that…”
“Alright. The job? Involves your flat?”
“You know about it? Not surprised.”
“My payment will be biscuit-sized?”
“You’ll get a check. It’s all legit.”
“Until someone explores a bit.”
“You only have to sit and sign.”
“Employee of the dotted line.”
“Your uncle was my right-hand man.”
“My father, though, was not a fan.”
“And yet he’d always take my help.”
“For which he’d always beat himself.”
“Here, take these papers. Read them through.”
“I’ve read them. He made copies too.”
“So, see this as a settlement.”
“Of all the favours you have lent?”
“Of everything he ever owed.”
“And isn’t that a heavy load!”
“Indeed, indeed. Come join me here.”
“Thus opening your cage of fear?”
“What fear is that? Now, look here, son…”
“How much he told me: all or none?”
“He kept his matters close to chest.”
“Your export reaches Bucharest.”
“It seems he told you everything.”
“And Jim Beam makes your henchmen sing.”
“My henchmen? I just grow some crops.”
“That reaches even Cuban shops.”
“You watch too many movies, son.”
“I only had to watch this one.”
“You bast…You better leave this town.”
“You thought I’ll parley when I’m down?”
“My world is not the world you know.”
“And I would like to keep it so.”
“I always meant to keep you out.”
“So make it known beyond a doubt.”
“Your father was a worthy man.”
“I do, dear Uncle, what I can.”
“You’re feeling quite elated now.”
“I’ll leave you with my humblest bow.”
“Police already has that clip.”
“The viral web will twerk and flip.”
“It will not bring your mother back.”
“You’re threatening direct attack?”
“We only had to scribble signs.”
“Instead, we’re drawing battle lines.”
“You showed your cards too early, kid.”
“Who knows? I may have aces hid.”

…

They said the kid had overdosed.
The case was promptly shut and closed.
Reporter Uncle shared the news
To pull me from bereavement blues.
“His father was a teacher too.
Be grateful. This could have been you.”

No reason for sorrow.
Yet, I have sorrow.

No reason for joy.
Yet, I have joy.

No reason to suffer.
Yet, I suffer.

No reason to live.
Yet, I live.

Before I knew it, time was up.
If only I had listened more.
Instead, I talked and talked and talked.

Before I knew it, time was up.
If only I had paused some more.
Instead, I walked and walked and walked.

The turtle in the polythene,
The eel among the plankton green,
Pre-warned me of my stare obscene.
Instead, I gawked and gawked and gawked.

Was that a smile, or was it fake?
Was that a laugh, or was it staged?
I could have screened the words I said.
Instead, I squawked and squawked and squawked.

Throughout the couple hour tour,
We stood divided by a door.
I could have answered who is there.
Instead, I knocked and knocked and knocked.

Before I knew it, time was up.

“Today may be my final day.”
A year ago, I chose to say
These words while getting out of bed.
Then, every day these words were said.

Except, today it slipped my mind
For I was woken from behind
By tiny knees upon my neck –
The tiny niece I picked and pecked.

I held her like an aeroplane
And zoomed her past the windowpanes,
In which I caught a glimpse of death:
A pigeon drawing final breaths.

“Today may be my final day.
And though it kills me now to say,
It may be yours; your parents’ too.”
She only laughs and gurgles, “True.”

Moon is the mellow mother
Our father Sun leaves behind
To remind us he is still out there.

When Sun returns home angry-faced,
He quickly “outshines” faithful Moon.
“The woman knows her bloody place.”

When Moon is through her periods,
She’s even less than herself then.
Some nights she’s gone. But not for good.

We’re grown up now. His tyranny
No longer scares. We have our own:
Our light. Our heat. Our coolness too.

She’s calling me to dinner now,
And lowering her husky voice,
Says breakfast is included too.
If that is what I’d like to do.

I want to say, I’ll bring the tea –
The chamomile she likes so much –
Instead, I say, he’s still a friend.
Let’s wait until its legal end.

We loved without a care for law,
And now that we are in the gray,
You’re choosing to be on his side?
There’s no more need for us to hide.

Her huskiness was haughtiness.
Impatience! That’s what plagues her so.
He has been nothing if not nice.
I tell her straight – I’m still his wife.

He fumbled with his pocketbook –
The one he stitched his pockets for
A finger wider than was vogue –
To open to the pages “S”.

He slapped his other pockets too
But couldn’t find the thing he sought.
He shrugged and shook his absent mind
And moved the book – now near, now far –
And screwed his cataracted eyes
To follow down the yellowed page
Along a yellowed fingernail
To where he found my father’s name.

He slapped his pockets yet again,
And yet again he couldn’t find
The thing he thought that he had brought,
And scribbled at me in the air.
I passed the pen my father used.
He weighed it, nodding, in his palm,
And, shaking lightly, struck a line
Through S, through u, throughout the name.

He called me to his shoulderside
And, flipping to a sticking page,
He nodded at the stricken names
That filled his notebook page by page.
“My Scrabble friends, my Rummy mates,
My Carrom club – all gone, all ‘Late’.
I always had the best of luck.
I always held the winning streaks.
And look at how I’m winning now:
Just three of thirty-seven live.”

I had no mind to come, but you
Inspired me with health and heart
And prospects of a change of scenes,
Forgetting that the true obscene
Awakes and sleeps within my skin.
You poke me here and pinch me there
And jump aback to watch me squirm,
To see me rage, disgrace myself
Against the leash you thought you still
So snugly had around my will.

I warned you as you sobered down
And knelt before me in my suite
That guilt will sting and suffocate
Upon your waking in my bed.
You laughed and dug into my thighs
And chipped what you had manicured
An hour before the hour you swore
You’re done with men and wedding vows
That meant so little to those men.

I warned you in the morning too
As you assured me with your throat
That you can take it all and choke,
And yet enjoy it even more.
I warned you as you made it known
Around the breakfast buffet spread
That you had spread before me too
The rumours of rekindled flames.

I warned you I felt not a thing
The way you teased me that I did.
I warned you that you felt the thing
The way you eyed me through your hair.
You say I’m not the man I was?
You say I’ve lost my moral sense?
It’s me who warned, and you who laughed:
Remember when you text again.

Your poetry now smacks of prose
In rows of tetrameter verse.
Your language doesn’t shimmer now.
Imagery is dimmer now.
No theme reveals like Palantir.
No metaphors lift Mjolnir.
No similes provoke like wives.
Enjambments slice like mercy knives
Beheading harakiri lines.
Your rhyming’s timing undermines
The climbing tension’s priming signs.
By choosing conversative styles,
You’ve blunted other crafting tools,
Forgotten how to mend the rules
To rend the screen of mundane thought.
Arise! Don’t let your poems rot.