Rings of Smoke

Once upon a long lost time

2008-08-11T23:25:00.002+05:30

Angel of Avalon

Upon the wanton wasted land
Where ash and sin interred,
Have burnt the beauty of the world,
You spread the holy word

And blooming up in breathless haste
Upon the cold and empty waste
The seeds of innocence have sprung
The angels of Avalon have sung

My tears have watered all the ways
The bards have sung a thousand lays
And yet I see the beating strains
Of warmth not dead within my veins

A pilgrim in the tombs of lust
Encumbered in a world of rust
Till the frost upon the window pane
Melts away in gentle rain

Take my hand, let gentle grace
Erase the furrows on my face
Walk with me backwards, on and on
Take me back to Avalon

A testimonial for Monidipa

2007-08-11T01:01:00.000+05:30

"Starry
starry night
portraits hung in empty halls
frameless heads on nameless walls
with eyes
that watch the world and can't forget.
Like the stranger that you've met
the ragged men in ragged clothes
the silver thorn of bloddy rose
lie crushed and broken
on the virgin snow.

And now I think I know what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they're not
list'ning still
perhaps they never will."

- Don Mclean - Vincent

Returning from the wintry dark
That dims the world outside
Where in the park the snowflakes dance
And frozen shadows hide

You lean out of the window frame
Chipped and freckled paint
The river flows like time outside
And evening's light grows faint

Shirtless men in dirty clothes
Earthen cups in endless rows
Love upon a tearstained face
On a dusty darkened road

Visions swim before your eyes
Songs living in your head
Ghosts of fingers that have grasped
And tears that you have shed

You whisper in the darkened hall
The ghosts of thought reply
That no-one built of flesh and blood
Can hear the verse you sigh

Breathing couplets in the dark
Though none but you can hear
Soft sestinas in the park
Where snowflakes melt like tears

And if the mermaids sing to you
Though they sing not to the rest
Write down what they say to you
For poet, you are blessed

Poetry like raindrops fall
On rooftops parched and dry
Love songs that ring true and sharp
Are mingling with the sky

Halos under street lights dim
Silence that can scream
Cigarette ends that tell you more
Than men can ever dream

Turn the ashes back to flame
Rainbows back to dreams
All the beauty in the world
Is pouring out in streams

Some of us are made of words
This world is just a book
Love is just a paper cut
That you for more mistook

Words and metre, thought and rhyme
And if perchance to dream
Think not of me as any more
Than a stray sunbeam

That flitters through your temple's roof
And lights the still dark room
Where motes of silver dust arise
And dance with your own gloom

Hmm.

2007-04-25T18:20:00.000+05:30

Hang up the phone, the line is dead
The bitter lyrics yet unsaid
I sit alone inside your head
I breathe and tell myself I'm dead

Wind and wayward madness fell
I sinned, I sinned, take me to hell
But heck, I've tasted all the bliss
That's makes the music feel like this
That makes this pen run so dry
As I bite my cyanide
As stars bloom to blue outside
As darkness turns to bitter light
I stare up into empty space
I miss your bitter bliss, the taste,
Still lingers in my mouth, my head
Spins with all the songs I've read

I brush aside your hair in strands
I kiss away your pain, your hand,
Felt warm in mine, but now I'm bleak
Prufrock taught me not to speak
Upon your crucifix I'm slain
In ecstacy is all my pain
Burning out like a distant star
I'm halfway up to Valhalla

Can we soar on just one wing?
Can I find that silver ring?
Can you bring back just one day?
The raindrops, coffee, Hemmingway?
Metro rides, it's cold inside,
Hold me, hold me, till I'm dry

Mermaid, mermaid, sing to me
Of guitars, love and Vitamin C
Flowers made of iron wire
Wrath the blooms like blood and fire
Joy that rings like chords of life
Treachery cuts me like a knife

Afternoons on messy beds
Songs exploding in my head
Laughter ringing true and false
Silence walking down your halls

Rooftops drizzling with your song
The chords I'm playing sound so wrong
Lightening flickering stark and strong
Your softly parted lips in song

Broken clouds of bitter grey
Light at the end of a rainy day
Drizzling drops on puddles rain
Slowly drying tear-drop-stains

The fickle words of foolish bards
Fate is written on the cards
The Queen of Hearts and curving smiles
Bitter breath of would-be guile
I look straight through warm facades
On shattered glass your beauty marr'd

Staind, grained, the old pictures
Are these thoughts, or lying words?
Can I sing of all that's there?
Can I twirl your pretty hair?
Do I dare to eat a peach?
How deep inside me did you reach?
Can you see the dark inside?
When heaven breaks, where will you hide?

For God knows there is no one there
No one with whom you can share
When sex and cigarettes are dry
When there's no sorrow left to cry
When you've been stabbed and turned to dust
When all those flowers turn to rust
You wingless fall from out the stars
You cut yourself to see the scars
And voices scream inside your head
And all those lyrics that you've read
The dangling conversations, break
And stars like horse hairs loosely shake
Tears are flooding through the door
Your fingers slipping on the chords -

- All saying just ONE frightful thing
You're all alone, and though you sing
Of everlasting love and joy
You are but hedonism's toy

Alone, the woods are dark and deep
Alone, the path is far too steep
Alone, the Listeners laugh at you
Alone, the misty street lamp dew

The leaves of autumn turn to frost
Your picture turns to auburn rust

Hang up the phone, the song is dead
And all the cliche'd lyrics read
I sit alone inside your head
Breathing though in truth I'm dead

A Love Song: Part One

2007-02-18T12:38:00.001+05:30

This tender night, Rose, you and I
We lie upon this grass.
Soft and lush, it echoes green,
And star-shadows pass,

Their light they silver, write in runes,
On the pages of your face,
Like notes of music in the dark,
Our destinies they trace.

Your hair falls tumbling all around,
Your lips on mine are warm,
We shape a place in starlight still,
And sheltered from the storm.

Our arms, twining, pining weave,
Around us, grasping feel,
Your skin glows upon me soft,
Your child-like laughter peals.

Some goddess of my dreams you seem,
You taste of honey-combs,
You smell like raindrops on dry leaves,
On shingle-beach sea foam.

I love you

Like sunlight loves the blossoms white,
Upon whose face it shines.
Like the flowers I love my sun,
Your light in skies of mine.

I love you

Like parched earth loves the rain,
Whose warm tears slowly seep,
Down to the earth's thirsting soul,
That love-lorn dryly weeps.

Then with star-strung symphonies,
Raining cloudy tears that pine,
As your breath's vapours rise and fall,
And mingle into mine,

Crazed images and visions all,
Are running through my head,
And swirling dance like blankets whirl,
Around you on your bed.

The rain-song of my summer love,
Is sprouting from your kiss,
The mystic harmonies we string,
Are fading into bliss.

A maydance. Drunken dizzy bees,
The sleep of a thousand years,
Salty-sweet the pangs of love,
Trickle down my cheeks as tears.

The mad fiddler, noise and cricket song,
In soggy monsson trees,
We danced, we laughed and on the winds,
Sang unsung melodies.

A Love Song: Part Two

2007-02-18T12:36:00.002+05:30

"Can we dance?", I took your hand,
And endlessly we whirled,
Whilst soft the leaves of summer fell,
And broken brown, they twirled.

You left me, you left me here,
Two summers gone, and spring,
Shall ne'er again such soft delight,
In it's warm kisses bring.

A blasted heath stands where you stood,
A desert where you lay,
An empty grave where dusty swirl,
My colours turn to grey.

A leaf in time, you withered, fell,
A leaf, you came and went.
Oh evergreen is my darkness now,
Your feeble candle spent.

But there within that sheltered place,
Where seasons soft we stayed,
Within the fields of timeless love,
Where our feet had strayed,

A single blessed flower, bright,
Upon that field it grows,
You've secret kissed that sacred spot,
Love sprouts anew, my Rose.

Dry

2007-02-18T12:36:00.001+05:30

DRY

' And I have known the eyes already, known them all -
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume? ' - T.S Eliot - 'The Love Song of J.Alfred
Prufrock'

Why do I cry today?
Why are my eyes so red
And yet my pen so dry?
Ostentatious clouds of pain
Run tears now down my sky.

Is it because-
The dead child rots on the street,
The sacrificial lamb in panic bleats,
That i pontificate like Keats?
Or because-
The cancer-ridden lady,
Is screaming at all the Gods,
To end her tortured soul?

Why are these words so hard,
To find, to grind and to spit out?
Is not the disease-plagued child,
Crying out aloud?
Is that not muse enough for me?
Ain't it sad enough for poetry?
Aren't the lovers all star-crossed,
Aren't the graves still grey?
Isn't darkness still colder,
Than the feeble light of day?

It is because-
I AM DRY.
Why do I try,
To weep the tears of others,
For whom I care a damn?
Whose existence matters not,
To who or what I am.
But still, I try, I try,
To speak the pain of all,
To take the lonely fall,
To bite the cyanide of those,
Whose pain finds no verse or prose,
But runs silent down their cheeks,
In crystal tears of pain.
(Aha! Was that not poetic of me!,
Is not my genius clear to see!)

My hands are shaking.
It is not because-
I swoon in vicarious dreams,
Lit not by candle-light,
But by Darkness' black beams.
I know why my hands are shaking.
My hands are shaking beacuse they know.
The truth.
They know that I am hollow.
They know that I am false.
Know that I write these here words,
Only to pin them up on walls.

I speak stolen words,
Whispered in those halls,
Where dead poets crawl,
Over broken graves of poets dead.
Listen, can you hear them?
Poets repeating poets,
Repeating poems of old.
Same words, same tales,
In 'New Verse' told.
These words, these letters I spit out,
I regurgitate their lies.
The blessed God of Poetry,
In a hidden corner cries.

And you, reader, cut my words.
Soak them, wash them,
Hang them out to dry.
'Rythmn', 'Metre', 'Ryhme' and 'Style'
Are all polluting my clear skies.
You hear, you read, and then you say,
"Hey man! Your not too bad!",
Or,
"Your not so great,
You should have used those ryhming couplets,
Without any rebate..."

Shut up.
And listen. Listen to me now.
Shut your stupid, dumb, repeating mouth.
Repeating words, repeated since,
Repeating time began.
Listen. Just hear what I say, hear what I say.
But what do I say?
What do I say?
What do I say?

What could I say,
That's never been spat on this dust before,
Or like a donkey brayed?

The Hospital Waiting Room

2007-02-18T12:32:00.000+05:30

A waiting room, a hospital,
2am, with blurry eyes,
I drowsy, peer, as soft sleep curls,
And like a blanket lies.

A print machine hums lonely,
Tunes in an half-lit room,
Sings soft sestinas in the dark,
To shadows in the gloom.

Outside the hospital I see,
A flashing neon sign,
The girl in the Advert stares at me,
Says, "Buy this fancy wine"..

Upstairs, my Grandma's life's road wends,
80 years, a kidney stone,
For Death is chewing on the ends,
Of her life and of her bones.

Ma's eyes seem dark, seem dark and gaunt,
Her childhood memories die,
And tears of age have stained the joy,
In Grandma's lullabies.

My ostentatious Aunt now weeps,
And howling has a fit,
I wonder if she hurts down deep,
Or stops to think a bit.

My Uncle, cold, says not a word,
Estranged from her he was,
And now he thinks it quite absurd
At death for life to pause.

But there in that cold darkened hall,
Where tears of pain streamed down,
No whispered words did I let fall,
Nor howled, the pain to drown.

Yet here I am with pen in hand,
Regurgitating tears,
But down inside i'm dry as sand,
Forgive me Grandma dear.

Oh Grandma please do forgive me,
I love you still, it's true,
But now i've become a poet, you see,
And this is what I do.

The print machine, so quiet it is,
But when you press on it,
It's inner poetry shall whiz,
And noisy squeaks shall spit.

Those Ads upon the car-blocked roads,
Those Ads that flash up high,
Showing pretty things in tiny clothes,
Selling coloured lies.

Like the machine and like those Ads,
I flash, I stir, I squeak.
Though Grandma taught me how it's bad,
Such filthy lies to speak.

Upstairs, my Grandma's writhing, curled,
As if on fire burned,
The printers and the Ads of the world,
Serenely unconcerned.

We live in little bubble worlds,
ME, I, MY, it's true,
Grandma look at this poem unfurled
Ostensibly for you