Long Greyed Poems
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Tough
Your back is brittle, like time-greyed oak,
Curved like a bow,
The string constantly tight and ready.
The glare from your eyes:
Like cold steel.
The things that you do,
Always securely perfect and correct.
Your voice strained
Like a muted trumpet
Except, for when you get irritated,
Then, jarring for my ears
And thorns in my gut.
Your criticism is like sharp scissors
That cuts through silk,
But you never learned to sew.
And “join” “patch up” “repair” “sorry” “kindness” and “response-ability”
Are long gone from your life-dictionary.
You walk like a string puppet soldier,
Held, controlled and moved
By the invisible wire
Of your rigid up-bringing,
Conditioning and beliefs.
But sometimes, even the best machines:
Break down
And then you spend days in bed,
Sick with poisonous coughs,
Or thundering,
Heavy and oppressive headaches,
Or mysterious pain in your legs.
You view these “lapses” with impatience,
As indications of weakness
That need to be scrubbed out
Like an annoying stain
On a spotless white tablecloth.
You don’t see the blinking stars,
Or hear the constant, but faint whispers
Gently attempting to coax you back
To the road you abandoned,
Which still longs for the unique print
Of your feet.
Sometimes I glance at you and wonder:
Was the laughter and naturalness
Beaten out of you?
Or, all the warmth and juice
You must have had,
Freezed and squeezed away,
Like a once succulent plum
Is now an unrecognisable prune.
Or so shamed,
That the mask and costume
You took on to survive,
Grew roots into you,
And became like ivy that smothers a tree,
Making it almost unknowable.
You think you are strong?
Yes you are tough,
Scarred and shaped by the battlegrounds
Of the life that encircled you.
But strong Men know how to weep,
Bleed,
Give,
Shake with panic and fear.
Yes you’ve learned a lot,
Your intellect and knowledge
Could fill a bookshelf.
But your fertile, green valley
Of gentleness and vulnerability,
Has been ignored, over-looked
And forgotten for so long now…
That it is choked with weeds and thorns
And beyond recognition,
How sad.
Sangeet Portals October 2022
She was born a little different,
In fact “she” came to understand that “she” was “she” much later,
Some usual description of physical changes came to make her a full “she”,
As an adult she clamored for attention,
Run by inner chemicals and mental maturity,
Attention she sought changed forms over time,
First she asked for her outer shell to be admired,
After getting that she wanted to pact a mental understanding,
Of stability and blissful peace with a few out of all admiring her shell,
Over the time she narrowed down from several admirers,
The one she wanted to hinge upon for long,
With this one she wanted to anchor till marital storms...or death,
Slowly and steadily she used her “she” to get about recreation,
She ,yes ,she gave life to a new toddler,
Now it was he who she wanted to attend to,
Her own sense of getting attention was lost in preoccupations,
And only when she was “free” she now expected attention,
Over time she entered another cycle of recreation,
Her basket was blessed with another fruit,
Now her preoccupation grew even more intense,
She rarely found times when she had the time to seek and get attention,
Time flowed as it did for everyone around,
Her toddlers grew into robust adults,
With each day they had done so,
She had greyed about one strand of her pate,
By now she was almost grey..and yes,
Had an outer shell that spoke of years’ depreciation,
Time flowed still faster,
And her toddlers gave and got attention ,
And perhaps got into the same mode as she had,
Soon her toddlers had toddlers too,
She was preoccupied yet again,
Everybody of her well strewn brood,
Wanted just about a slice of her time,
The day she fell sick,
And fell sick real bad,
It was for sure she thought,
That it would be last time that anybody,
Would be bestowing “ attention” on her,
And that was exactly so after that “she” was just a memory.
The sky is a Luciferian estuary
rolling and roaring in crimson flames,
a twisted design of detonated debris,
like splitting sighs
from internal implosions,
raining fragments of the past:
matchbox memories
piercing through suffocating silence
as time tortures the mind
with flashbacks of floating fragility…
O invisible moonlight,
pour me a purple potion
to erase the pain behind
perplexed pupils.
I no longer desire to be
cast in the clamorous clusters,
convicted as the captive ~
a ghost of games
playing on the bones of brokenness,
this cave of shame,
this cell of hellfire,
this emotional shrapnel,
reflecting self-loathing nightmares.
Perhaps I crowned myself
the commander,
leading the devil’s disciples
into a war assembled from fear…
And this heart ~ a metallic maelstrom
mourning in the turmoil of melancholy ~
breaks from the inability
to step beyond wrathful walls
to a landscape of holiness,
to seek the footsteps of pilgrimage.
For I am caught in
the whirling whispers of
spectral regrets,
replicating rectangular ruins,
electrifying the empyrean
with greyed grief
and yellowed yearning.
Pondering ~ am I the blasphemer
in the cross-eyed faces of monsters?
Am I the breath
that trembled ~ disrupting the peace?
Am I the empty spaces
filling the crystalline cracks
between haunting hours,
while darkness devours
treacherous tales
climbing from the
archives of devious agony…
But can love gift this skeletal sorrow
a twilight-kissed cloak of hope?
Will heaven be a witness
to these bleeding carvings
within the tall pillars
of my splintered spirit,
while the dying lamp of life
slowly fades and waves farewell
in faint colors ~ depicting misery
like demons decaying,
shaping a sadistic sanctuary
of malignant madness~
a familiar insanity inked
as a heinous home…
Granules of recollection rub like salt
Flailing in the fog of seven years ago
Deafened by incessant frog cries
Vines dangling began attaching to each other
Drying river stagnated, slime slippery with algae
Vigorous tree growth stooped in defeat
Muddy river banks fixed my feet, prisoners
Quick sand sapped my energy, ate my memories
Spears of bygone javelin my lungs, make gasp
Emerging from the mist of six years ago
Mountain side incredibly steep left me breathless
Static crinkle hissed between my eardrums
Channels flip changed without my inference
Hard luck hollowing trunks of high altitude
Offered to swallow my past, kindly include present
Flattened cushions of childhood fights , bring distance
Spinning cartwheels into oblivion of five years ago
Faintly flickering home movies startle between grins
Marbled images depict how we were, junctions punctured
Paths deviated, split decisions, moments distilled
Bottles broken, options poured, down the sink
Faltering swell glimmers foaming overdrawn fantasies
Slices rewound reflect fleeting of four years ago
Head barely above, awash in nonsense, victim of tides
Pushed under and pulled above, or is it more apt
the other way 'round, heavy, ocean surrounds drowns
Pencil case zipper obediently conceals, shoved down
Fragmented fragrant shavings of three years ago
Greyed erasers took too much, left the wrong stuff
Coloured stubs refuse to function, shrink upon prompting
Mirror tells me glamour remains against toughest test
High eyebrows, pristine lip lustre of two years ago
Marilyn wink in the blink of camera, busy filtering truth
Tree hugging Boho took over, appealed to populus ideal
Cocaine sand between toasted toes, garland encircling forehead
Currently I'm languishing in roses
bestowed by crown of thorns
* * * * * * * *
You lay in the wooden cot,
a broken sparrow,
Crushed. Bony. Frail.
Hair once plumed gold,
greyed to clumped feathers
like ragged trampled wings,
strawed out on the dank pillow.
Face once blushed pink plump,
Jolly kind of soft with life,
Sucked to bone. Nose to Beak.
Echoes of the mask it will soon become.
I stroked this woman
now bent back to foetus pose.
Once sworled to shell,
wrapped inside myself,
Safe.
Now boned to carcass stick.
I wanted to hold one more time,
my child,
frightened the last air would puff to nought from its hollowed breast.
But my sparrow turned and smiled,
a grimace to crack open any gates of envisaged hell.
Macabre teeth, once glowing love and laughter to the skies,
Now pecked to ochre stalks.
The pitiful bird pained to move.
Mucous mouth clacked open wide
To receive some lasting morsel of life.
Only its beady blue gaze
flashed a soul of its former self,
eyes to haunt the sea.
I swallowed back my tide of tears,
waves of memory flooding sands of life we’d shared,
from fledgling dawn cry to this,
the final nesting box.
I wanted to stuff this cot with down
of a million eider.
To cosset and hold soft this scrawn, gnawed through.
Pluck teal, goose, swan.
‘Who would have thought it would come to this?’ it croaked a laugh.
I matched smile with smile.
I held the tiny claw.
Desperate not to cling too much to pain,
too much to past.
I wanted to wrap up this dying bird
Limp, in my hanky.
White folded white, fold on fold.
Run through the streets
shouting at the world, at some unseen power.
NO.
She’s mine. She’s safe. Take me.
What cruelty did I do?
What evil must be stuffed in this maternal breast
To hold this daughter dust in my arms?
The Middle Time is now upon me,
The tune to which I dance grows somewhat thin;
A ghost remembrance of that cacophonous din
To which my steps were measured in my youth.
I know there lies now less before
Than all those days that lay within
The sepulcher of careless memory passed,
I apprehend the sometime bitter truth
That evil days approach my door
When much of what I've come to love will bid its leave
As I be forced to gaze aghast
At sights my eyes would fain not see,
When I to faithful hope must cleave.
Yet, what better time than this, the high point of the feast?
That Jester, Youth, has left the table
Leaving us the better able
To speak of things which more befit the greyed brow,
Matters weighty and sublime
Which better suit our natures now, though perhaps in tone more sable
Than such issues as delight the Fool,
Content the simpleminded sow -
Let us worthily pass the time
To Banquet's End, in company merry and refined,
Reviewing all we gained in Life's long school -
Establish what we value most and least,
Then say we fed our souls while yet we dined.
O grieve not that thy step be not so quick nor light
As t'was it's wont to be in bygone days,
Nor pine for carefree, childish ways -
They had their time, and sweet they were,
But now thou hast a surer, measured step
Nobler thoughts - the ones which stay,
Youth for all its joyful folly
Is not a state forever to prefer
To mind and manner better kept
From fancies and seductions strange;
Who but a Fool would be forever jolly
To deny his Midlife's further sight,
It's deeper view, it's wider range?
Form:
The Tale of the Smoke Crow
His wings were made from those he'd burned.
A crow of smoke, without true form.
A thief of sorts, who sought to hide
the carbon stone that was his heart.
I smelled him first on Eight Mile Way.
A puff of wind, first nothing there.
Then hints of sizzled skin and hair
and middle notes of fresh decay.
He must delight in maidens fair,
he circled wide to scout his prey.
His feathers fluffed, they hid the truth
that nothingness lay underneath.
He tried to play the broken bird.
Lay down on rocks, I heard him caw,
'I'm helpless, lost, bruised by storms', but
his stories morphed and made no sense.
So he flew through trees, cast snows of ashes,
till I was blind with dusty lashes.
My hair was greyed, the sky grew darkened
and the edges of his flint eyes sparkled.
He rustled up a faint warm fliicker,
stolen heat from his last victim.
While she lay charred upon the grassland,
he’d struck again, this time was faster.
He pecked a hole into my navel,
Poked in his spark and hooked my innards,
Fed by day, was gone at night
lest someone note he owned no light.
And there I burned like ne'er before.
He'd singe my heart, return for more,
confuse me with his changing clothes
that sought to dress his hollow soul.
There was nothing there but nothingness.
Nothing more and nothing less.
A feeding force that simply lived
to use your pain to lessen his.
To those that claim there’s only good
I press upon you...learn the truth.
Not all with wings are chaste and whole
and often light attracts the crows.
Striving for silver linings in the ebony of the equinox
I chased my dreams of idealism to stop the endless maroon anguish shadows
Yet your words failed to sing a symphony of mosaic joy
You made me a passenger aboard your sinking submarine, submerging me in dusky waters
Still, I sought citrine rays from your striped sentiments
But your tokens of pronounced love were coated with artificial sweetener
With you, there wasn't a glint of Tuscan hope
You evolved into a half-crescent dimmed ray, unable to provide an orchestra of ruby adoration
You kept flicking pale stardust particles of desire upon my crooked eyes
Like Venus strives to expropriate its fervour to the planets, I extended my components to the cobalt sky
Pleading to the palls to summon your gaze in a summer resurgence of buoyant daffodils
Yet your irises became polluted with onyx hostility in an everlasting winter of icy-white discontent
I sought solace in fluid-intoxicated spirits and
with futile alleys
Until I realised that my answers lay within my perspective
I looked past the earth to the dulled lit glimmers
I'd so often dismissed their transmissions idolizing their sterling pilot
Until one day, I thought to invite the stars of clarity to enlighten my sanity
As I was always an outcast overlooked for the lustrous lights
They advised me to seek an interior inauguration of self-love light
My soul opened its greyed logic to their illuminated intellectual insight.
truth imbibed
awaits assimilation
we feel it in our bones
in time dissolved meditation~ Unseeking Seeker
When the sun sleeps and the stars rise, close your eyes,
for there, within the sailing flickers of time,
you’ll feel the electric warmth of cosmic sighs,
caressing the soul chakra with bliss sublime.
We are silken fragments of engraved moonlight,
manifesting miracles from the truth traced,
while flames of dreams reignite colors so bright,
tuned in sync with the magnetic beams embraced.
And here, in the halcyon arms of silence,
I thread faith with thoughts of love, erasing fears,
releasing dimmed sparks from rays of resilience,
as truth breathes sweet elixirs from lotus tears.
In the hushed state of roseate reveries,
I hear songs of solace from the seventh sphere,
quenching greyed petals wilting in miseries,
for I am my zen, cloaked in crystals so clear.
Let faith dissolve blurred lines carved within jinxed art,
follow the softened storms laced with forgiveness,
trust in the sage stillness of the mindful heart,
incensed with peace, veiled in redefined kindness.
O glorious glow of the Almighty’s light,
allow my spirit to bask in the restful
quietude composed in diamond-glazed delight,
embodying luminous lamps, so zestful.
By 11, I thought I'd have it down by 15,
But by 16 and a sour sunday morn,
And daisy chains foiled into the moor,
And hands that tighten but ne'er lighten,
Hands that strangle, stitch, and liven.
Of ties that wrangle, withhold, hang o'er the handle,
And toe-tipp'd kisses of kids with scissors,
Incisions of misses by razors and flesh fissions.
And slaps of fathers that formed tender swine,
borne a brat, t'tender the bar o'wine,
And quaint affections that form'd none conscience. Greyed,
spurned eyes grown affray, blotting boils and sores, and
Loaned love t'be lost along the way.
And all ails of child, trebled the gall of blackened bile, tendrils of
Denial t'caress the carcass, and withdraw.
E'er unsupervised in sullied superstition, bled to th'core of frailing admonition,
And hitched a hind of loops and bunnies,
Ne'er t'tie and stead, but t'tumble into the rabbit.
O curs'd the cocoon in biblical serpentine,
O'riddles and remedies, and stewards in cemeteries,
Led to call and sit and stew,
Waiting, waiting, and awaiting
Sunday grace anew.
And sixteen drawls in th'stench of wine,
And sixteen sings the sickly hymm and diagnostic chime,
Of the flatline.
And sixteen awaits the mellow Monday morn.
And sixteen waits 'till there is none left t'mourn.
30//4//2025