Was it that little knock to the head
The Serial Corporal punishment for yellowing the bed.
That Shifty diagnosis, vague prognosis
A prescription refill meant for revolving door profit.
A pseudo soulmate that went astray
a diamond that was really a toxic piece of clay
It may have been a single hit of that overpriced Govt. weed
or that innocent-flashy splash of LSD.
It's become obvious that time is indeed on amphetamines.
Maybe it's simply a cumulative thing.
When we're young, we think we can handle anything... until we can't.
Maybe God has given up and left the scene.
I shudder to think that Humanity has lost its collective rudder.
Dennis the Menace vexed Mister Wilson
Once he booked him a room in the Hilton
Wilson thought it tremendous
So he went and played tennis
Forgot his shorts ~ had to put a kilt on
we deludedly imagine we choose ~
know such thoughts to be but our ego’s ruse
When the cold-blooded world looks down on you
with its big cold black-glass eye.
Don't cry- simply offer it your best Cheshire smile.
With your pastel hand, grab that second-hand hammer
Give that cold black glass eye an awakening.
A first-rate smack.
Pick up the pieces of its cross-eyed calamity
Fashion it into a midnight mosaic in a Max Ernst dream.
My Turkish Sufi friend, proud of his faith, invited me to the sacred ritual of the Whirling Dervishes. The musicians wore long black cloaks and high felt hats, representing the grave and the tombstone.
The Dervishes enter, discarding their black cloaks, accompanied by a reed pipe, they start to turn.
As I watched the dancers circle continuously
in costume of white robes and conical hat
arms outstretched towards heaven
whirling round like planets orbiting the sun
becoming closer to God and inner truth
connected by physical meditation
I wondered
if God will hear my prayers
when I only kneel to pray
The Banyan Tree
For years and years
it has stood there,
a vast banyan tree
in the middle of the field.
The slightly leaning banyan tree
and its branches,
the banyan tree and the sky,
the sky and the birds.
The banyan tree and its roots,
the roots and the earth,
the earth and nature.
Beneath the tree,
a man, slightly hunched.
A bidi between his lips,
the man and his spade,
the man and his sweat-soaked body,
the man and his sexuality.
On the road ahead,
a few bicycles,
their bells ringing
as boys and girls
ride off to school.
The Things We Don’t Inherit
We inherited warnings before we understood the danger,
rules whispered from one woman to another.
Hold your keys between your fingers.
Watch your drink. Don’t walk home alone.
We inherited apologies for taking up space,
and the instinct to make ourselves smaller.
We inherited stories told carefully,
as though the truth might break in our mouths.
I wonder how many women before us
wanted to leave something different.
Not the fear.
Not the shame someone else put in their hands.
Maybe what we leave behind can be a door
the next woman does not have to force open.
A boundary already given a name.
A voice that makes hers easier to find.
I cannot choose everything that was left in me.
Some things become scars before we can refuse them.
But I can choose what I leave in you.
And you can choose what you leave in her.
They left us a fight.
I want us to leave each other.
— Sofia Aronovsky
I am the voice on the other end.
The voice without a face, the voice that no one truly knows.
I have heard anger, confusion and relief from voices that are thousands of miles away.
For a few moments, I become part of their story, and the only people that exist are the 2 voices on the call.
I calm storms I did not create, and I carry patience for people running low on their own.
They hear me and I hear them.
For the time that the call last, we are not friends or lovers, we are 2 humans creating a brief connection.
I wonder how many lives I have impacted, how many people I have helped without ever being remembered. How many moments I have created without ever been seen.
I am the voice on the other end.
A voice that most will forget.
I am just a random voice passing through their day, and somehow, I make a difference, and that difference is my voice.
Jesus Christ, the Lord God Almighty
the great Creator, the founder of everything
for He is eternal, with no beginning
and will always be reigning as King
Jesus Christ, the Son of God
one with His Father and the Holy Spirit
full of grace, truth and light
an everlasting glow shining bright
Jesus Christ. the God of miracles
He walked on water, calmed storms
healed leprosy, raised the dead
never a moment He's not in top form
Jesus Christ calls His disciples
from His original 12 who came
even today He's still calling His own
no matter your age, He'll set you on flame
Jesus greatest act of love
to die, shedding His blood on Calvary
this, He willingly did for His own
a mighty saviour indeed is He
There's just no name like Jesus
for He lives to bring His glory
to touch our lives with His presence
abiding close to us, His forever story
Evil exists to confront good
Yet good doesn’t exist to confront evil
It simply is good, the all-good
At the basis of Life.
Is this too hard to understand?
How about death exists only
As the termination of life
While life exists not in opposition to death
But simply a good in itself
At the basis of Life.
Light and dark exist in opposition.
But darkness is merely the absence of light
While light is not the absence of dark;
One is a something (photons)
The other a nothing (lack of photons).
So light and dark and good and evil exist
With the negative in opposition to the positive.
But in each case one is creative and primary
And the other reflective and reactionary.
In other words, one will remain
When the other has faded
But then again when there is one
There will be the other…
(10/8/26)
The past was regret.
The future, a promise never seen.
Between them stood a tunnel,
tempting those who wished to rewrite what time had already written.
It offered forgotten smiles,
lost voices,
and dreams buried beneath sorrow.
Yet every step within its silence
asked for a piece of the life still waiting outside.
Time was never its victim…
you were.
Each heartbeat traded
for another chance at yesterday.
Pain may shape us.
Guilt may follow us.
Regret may whisper our names.
But the past is a place to remember,
not a home to return to.
For no tunnel can heal
what acceptance alone must mend.
It can only ask
how much of tomorrow
you are willing to surrender
for a yesterday that will never truly be yours again.
The tunnel was never a gate.
It was a choice.
To lose yourself chasing echoes,
or to carry your scars
and walk toward the light waiting ahead.
Neither is time the creator,
Nor is silence the destroyer,
Distance wasn't the cause,
Words hold the weight,
Even the scale refuses to measure,
Yet they tear apart what was meant to stay.
The ones who chased
Each other,
Were broken,
Not by time,
But the words that still echo remain unheard.
The black box is so useless,
Its worth was shown
Only when disaster knocks at the door.
The only way to find the cause
was to recover it.
Voices may hold different words,
But they still hold the truth.
That time refuses to remember,
Once a flight takes off,
No one dares to stop it,
Unless the flight itself has other plans.
Time never chose the ending;
it only watched it unfold.
Voices echoed where no words were spoken,
Faces passed by, yet remained unseen.
Smiles wore the shape of living,
While souls wandered somewhere in between.
Anger struck like a storm in silence,
Leaving guilt where thunder used to be.
And every step away from others
Built another wall around the sea.
The world still turned, the sun still rose,
Yet colors faded from the sky.
For isolation is a quiet prison,
Where a heart can scream and none ask why.
But even shattered glass reflects the light,
Even the deepest scars can heal.
For one hand reaching through the darkness
Can remind a lonely soul to feel.
So here stand the voiceless and the broken,
The lost, the guilty, and the afraid;
Learning that being heard is not in speaking,
But in the bonds that silence never erased.
Early man raised fire against the stygian wilderness
It was used for protection, illumination, and social glue
Its dancing, enchanting, vermilion tones
Cavorting, consorting with deep copper hues
Embellishing, meshing with saffron incandescence
But it could not prevent the darkness inside of us,
For every day we summon darkness into the presence of light
We feed that darkness within
Whilst feeding the light without
Just as fire cooked the food that nourished us
Pride is the fire that covets us as fuel
Anger is what stokes that fire,
Burning hotter until there is no oxygen left
Hatred is that very flame which gives no warmth or safety
And once consumed we are colder and weaker than before
Violence allows that fire to consume others
Burning away their skin,
Leaving nothing but ash in our wake
And all that is left is the darkness
We have summoned for ourselves
Engines roaring through the darkness
Hunting for some unknown prey
'Whoops' and 'hollers' growing less
They've found their prime catch of the day
Engines now returning southward
Rumbling low under night sky
Looking through my window outward
I see they've caught a teenage guy
This poor dear boy, his eyes are shining
Terrified that he's been caught
I hear him now, he's softly whining
Before the group where he's been brought
Look around at all these white men
Sneering faces malevolent
How are they the ruling mob when
Their lives so wicked and misspent
I see no evil, I see no sin
Of which they charge this young man with
I recognise him, he's looks so thin
It's Thomas Avery, my kin and kith
I scream to let young Thomas go
Attempting to dispel the throng
The response I get is just a bellow
Telling me to move along
Jostled, nudged and pushed aside
I do not know the reason why
I stay there with my mouth held wide
As they hoist his body high
The sickness fills my every sense
The tears fall quickly down my face
I will not keep up their pretence
How could this be the human race?
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