My Choice Draught

I’m inebriated on life

And all it has to offer

I keep taking big gulps

—Coughing, spluttering, spilling—

Rather than sips and swallows.

There is so much music

Sights, smells, things to try

Tastes to taste

Feelings to feel

Thoughts to think

There are so many books,

Sports, jobs, games, skills, responsibilities

And the people!

The people!

There are so many of them

So many of us

So many stories,

Tales of families, sorrows, joys

Of evil, good and all that’s between,

Friends, acquaintances, lovers, and all who could be...

Why is it that so few will touch my life?

So few... and so many...

I am drunk on presence

And thirsting for presence

I vacillate between extreme loneliness

And a desire for solitude

But the people

I wouldn’t give them up

I wouldn’t go sober

For while they kill me, enrage me,

Love me, challenge me, seduce me,

Question me, inform me, teach me,

Learn from me, touch me, strike me,

Enable me, analyze me, judge me,

Forgive me, kiss me, speak to me,

Destroy me and rebuild me

I know that I would not be me

Without you.

Let us get drunk on our presence

On our very being, and that being

Together.

The Rooster and the Race

The rooster crowed thrice
and I remembered...

I should have run
I should have run the race
I should have run to win
I knew about the race
I knew I was in it
I knew about the prize
But somewhere
Between

Ready...

Set...

And go.

I forgot the finish

I forgot the line
Between racing and ran
Between the race and what's after
I somehow forgot the purpose of it all

And the rooster crowed thrice.

Ne Me Quitte Pas

I was walking through a blasted grove

Of figs and berries burnt to ash

This land once full of green and growth

Now brought that memory down to crash.

And in that land of blackened pillars

That seemed a Hades temple cold

I saw a flash of white above me

Too bright for prematurely old

Eyes that squint against the gleaming

Inside a world that has gone grey

Oft miss a beacon’s guiding

When from the path their feet do stray.

And here despite my squinting wonder

I saw alight upon a tree

A dove as bright as morning’s splendour

And brighter still than memories.

And there I froze awake in awe

To see so near such beauty live.

Why his pause and hesitation

Where life so long had ceased to give

Its hope and splendour at its being

It seems now just a heavy weight

But yet that bird came down alighting

As if defying seems of fate.

And here he stays nearby beside me

Though he seems so out of place

He should for every ’visioned reason

Take flight from this our burning race

Perhaps because he came to meet me

In this unholy blasted waste

He may remain right here beside me

To guide me to a better place.

(Ne me quitte pas)

You’re all the hope that I could find.

(Ne me quitte pas)

Without you I’ll just wander blind.

Shadows Lit and Fled

The shadows lit and fled within the cave-

The hole of past iniquities piled high

And packed closer than stacked Parisian ’combs

Of bones on bones; mixed neighbours friends and foes

Till numbers disappear with all the names.

Yet when the crack of earthquake, pain and trial

Broke through the granite roof of strong facades

And split the cave in two down to the roots

The sunlight shone on bones in milling piles

Where darkness once held uncontested sway.

And in those dry and dusty bones within

That cold Platonic cave new life begins

To spark a fire in marrow stiff and old.

Life from death; a life renewed as phoenix

Wings and lasting beneath the phoenix star.

For now a valley is where once a cave

Held its crowded prisoners beneath dark,

Heavy earth and rock to dry out and wait

For what they did not know. These bones they have

Memories but no knowledge and hoping

Not much for futures, they forgot the hopes

In pasts. Before the end they grew as they

Now appear: cynical and hard and lone.

They saw only I’s and me’s and not we’s

But each a king, each a queen in their own

Reckoning, till parched and lost they became

All indistinguishable pale, dry bones.

The names and titles and wealth and everything

They once were and thought and fought over was

Forgotten; nameless heaps in an arid

Valley. There they should remain, forever,

A hidden mystery of death and woe.

Yet despite everything that lives and seems

And all that had ever lived a whisper,

A voice, a word arose beneath the sun

To light the still burning fire in these bones.

In My Head

A thought that cannot be dislodged by q-tips

Is bouncing around my skull

Causing the playful havoc of my mind

I’m a photo of motion at night time

Like a calm sunrise after a hurricane

Like a typhoon after placid seas

This thought makes no sense

And came without warning

But there it is—

Its very reality belying its nature;

It cannot be and yet it is

So where a head (and heart) once seemed empty

Now a constant chaos reigns

And maybe it’s all in my head

A simple infatuation

A made up yarn or thread

But a story (if that’s what it is)

Is so exciting when you’re on the first page

So give me some advice and make it sage

And season it all over this mental soup I’m in

Cause I’m drowning and I forgot to swim

But the thought... it has not

It still does laps

In my head

Screen Glow

The glow of screens will light our way

To happiness, we’ll seem content

The shine of screens will make our day

As all our times are nearly spent

And as we write our tales in books

We take a retrospective glance

To see the times and he who took

Them all without a second chance

Look! there he laughs so full of spite

A shapeless thing of blue aglow

The one who turns our days to night

And wastes our times to bring us low

All the hours he greed’ly drained

To gulp and swallow down our days

While we, deceived, were safe restrained

Our books contain a single phrase:

“I lived to be just entertained.”

And all that our frail lives contained

Will not be worth a mocking praise.

The Sounds of Fate

A roll of the dice

A flip of the coin

Red plastic cubes bouncing erratically

Across a felt-lined table

A metallic coin spinning end over end

In over oxygenated air

Thump.

Clunk.

They come to a stop

And you find yourself here

Free to flip or roll

Or stay and choose.

Yet perhaps your choice

Is but another’s roll

Across some cosmic table

Or flip

In some darksome void

“Nonsense!

I choose to flip or roll.”

Thump.

Clunk.

The Mark of the Raven

Ah, I see in your smile

A recent visit from the bird

Who marks our faces

Crow’s feet

Or raven’s

Around the eyes

He lands

And leaves his mark

Then flies

"Caw"

Shattering the sound

Of safety

Show your mark

Show your raven-scar

Show where he stood

And printed

Eulogies to come

Show your crow-scar

With a smile

And a wink

Laugh along with

The black-winged joker

His sign was known

Before it marked your face

His sign is hidden

In the soft skin

Of babies

He even lands on the womb

So do not fret

His constant flight

Overhead

His cackling

Caws

His dark aspect

Do not worry

When he comes

To mark your eyes

But laugh

Laugh with the crow

And raven

Laugh that soon this coil

Will unravel

And release

Its tainted captor

To what?

To where?

Perhaps some distant shore

Some sunrise

Or sunset

But never

Nevermore.

How It Feels Sometimes

I cling, white knuckled, to this supersonic freefalling animal. My fingers strain, in tufts of hair, to hold on. When my grip seems strongest I find out it is weakest. I nearly let go but still I hold on. This mad beast, this psychotic animal does not heed my call. I try to guide it, I try to direct it. It changes direction constantly. Its twitching leaps and jolts thrash me about. I do not know where it is taking me. The heavy shadow of an insignificant future weighs upon me dragging me down. Everything before me is dark. Yet the rampaging speed never falters as I cling.

I pass places I want to stop at and linger for too long at places I would rather pass through.  I learn things I should have remained ignorant about and remain ignorant about things I should know. This spastic creature drags me face down in the mud. I see the people, the skies, the buildings, the birds. They make no sense to me. The dirt is in my eyes and the mud is in my mind. I am travelling at breakneck speeds with no control.

I can survive the lack of control.

Not knowing the destination is what gets to me.

(I wrote this last year, the title is all the explanation that is necessary)