97: the artist

The window opens sleepily,
Wind sailing through the curtains like
ghosts of itself, clothed and visible
for those last lazy couple of seconds.

Colours strewn across the floor,
intentional mess by The Artist
whose hands writhe in paralysis
the scribbles drawn with truth.
The colours roll off of hardwood
smoothly trailing a river of marble-mixed
concoctions,
love, drowned in emotion,
don't forget to breathe before you leap
into the currents of painted abyss.
Stepping on it all, leaving imprints, it means nothing,
yet I hear the old applause, and the voiceless chanting.

96: burner of flags

Burner of flags - those colours don't run!
Yet the flames are in love, swallowing it whole.
With greedy, selfish,
manifestations: A call to mind:
they burn with pride.

Stripped of stripes, the red and white
are a blackened, ashy, piece of cloth - Not even - as synthetic fibres
bite the dust,
And the stars fall out of the battlefield skies.

Alone, he stands before the gates that
precede cold, chalk-white, grandiose columns.
Before that white house, a fountain spews wasteful water;
Surrounded by lush greenery, well-maintained.

95: Gentleman

In the mist of dimming theatre lights
and frozen silent atmosphere,
the last few seconds drift away-
The doors are shut
sealed, airtight.

A figure creeps along onstage
with whining strings of violins.
Timpany rolls below our feet;
a tragic symphony. We ought to take
advantage of such moments but
the time strikes on and forward;
Faint chills in the air unnoticed,
the distant sting of old perfume and
Parisian soap imported.

The seat of velvet - red, demure,
The seat of all life's pleasures -
Sits empty tonight amongst the crowd,
One seat of two-thousand and twenty.
No one asks, for it's not in their place,
avoiding things that should be left to
ghostly January winds and the death of February.

There tonight, an old soul sits, unperturbed by heavenly theatre hymns.

94: The Scandal

It whispers once and lonesomely;
this secret on the rocks
has never seemed so evil, uninspired,
another one caught amidst the land of the fire.
Coverage shifts the eye's mind of focus,
never so true as unmarked sand
while the waves of doom crash through and through
and through the raw and pebbled land.

Push him out and parade the streets
with signs of lies, debauchery;
Cronies march alongside, swift,
trucks speeding by,
winds make the rush,
the killer results of the modern technique.

Out here, nobody listens
in the clammy cool of pine-tree nights,
The only ones who stay alive
are those in hiding,
we avert eyes.

The man lies down along the earth,
thick of scent and dampened soil.
Battlecries and demons charge
from yards away... he hears them.
Rifles cocked-
Voices raised-
Eyes inflamed-
Fueled rage-

Burying his face into the ground
as the final sense of escapism,
Lungs filling up with the land's dirt
just like what they deserved of him.

93: A Fair Balance

Focusing on my country's battlecries
as they reconstruct
and deconstruct
an abandoned nation.


One hand reaches
                                   out
                                        to help the
fallen; those "lower lives",
the ones once directed by soulless lies.
Bricks and mortar -- Pass the hammer,
building blocks and infrastructure.

The other holds most vicious attacks
that rival god - the choice of weapon:
Shiny silver pistols enclose shiny silver bullets
The sky is
                   falling -- no, wait it's
                        dropping
                        gifts of death for friend and foe.

It grabs the nation, choking         strangles by the neck
in perfect position.

With one hand floating in the airs of hope
and the other pulling the trigger.

92: alongside trees and picket-fence

Sit around and watch, observing all; the world's a show,sit back and see them talk. So true, so real.
We are almost tricked, until we realize
that we control the volume.

As still as freeze-frame photo-ops
yet honestly denying simple facts of matters
- common sense -
(as if us thieves would break their trust)
Absorbing all, Becoming all,
transparent to the rest.

They could have lived in city-states
and slept in forums, making haste
of conjured thoughts and wisdom.

Words illustrate the spin and form the basis of it all.

91: attack; sublime

A thousand tiny fireworks
scatter beautifully, like little sprouts
of hate and ambiguity.
The dots below stare up above,
at those hovering crafts of time itself
which decides their fate right then and there -
Godless gods of judgment make their play
and fly away; leave bodies for prey.

At home, they sit and reminisce
of fights never fought, games of pretend.
Young eyes glued to screens of combat zones...

Click - click - click.
Here comes the wound.

90: the days

The hours spent
The money spent
The days spent by and by
Another step to climb upon,
another fall to recollect.
Those weeks spent
Those months spent
Those people spent, sit by the curb
awaiting calls that never come as arrogant cars go whizzing by.

The sky greys and darkens with a claustrophobic atmosphere -
Closing in, on us below, us walking on the paved cement
So stable and secure,
How we stroll along so languidly
While the darkness below, ignored and forgotten,
ceases to gain the least of our interest.
We'd rather forget it: the true nature of things,
Of life, of death, of tragedy.

89: All Good Naysayers (An Approach to the New)

Hear the spin of voices here –
Murmured understanding
in the veil of open-mindedness,
attention poorly lacking.
All good leaders learn the language
Blasting lies amongst the truths
As we struggle in our distance,
standing still in statues’ shoes.

How bold the headlines
read themselves
in self-effacing glory;
bound by others,
these pages smell of
ink and fake integrity.
They spill onto my fingers
in a charcoal-covered sin.

There’s the dream – catch it!
Then drown it in a winding river of
endorsement-allied figures;
Ebbs and flows around the circuit streams of choice
and all good naysayers.

Tired are we of our legendary
Epic golden status:
Fool’s Gold is what
we mine from minds and
seek further detachment.

Here the fear’s latched on to them,
Burning pedestals of men
who’ve wrapped their words behind their lips
and kept us captive in normality.

Glass eyes and false limbs,
Bliss is written on our eyelids.

88: Houndstooth

Her painted carriage enveloped in black is very much like
her mind and wardrobe. Each second
is paid for, time's cash register
glows steadily, quietly,
red digits on the dashboard.
The Great Divide keeps her still inside
as they fly through the city -
hypnotizing herself with his gracious words,
and her own sharp fabric patterns.

87: In Honour Of

That was the spark and the celebration,
dutifully waited for and received
with cheers of pride and nationalism
and anthemic processions so strongly ignored.

Divided we stand and divided we fall
to the unison of gunfire that crosses the world.
While we sit here comfortably in our tension and fear
that seeps over our borders
and keeps us warm.

Those sparkling mushroom clouds ignite
to the delight of us bridled spectators;
intertwining with spheres of colours and
dynamic dynamite exploding
now and then later.

(Without such views
they were merely gunshots
heard in the middle of nights
and hushed-down evenings.)

86: thinking they could get away

The prospect of loss hardly gripped their mind.Delicately planned with a gripping alibi
and that rush of suspicion grabbed our thoughts with doubt.

This act - committed by the neighborhood girls
and the mother to blame for
with their faults and their words,

adds up to the conclusion that the law has its gates:
their crimes they are guilty for;
their punishment awaits.

85: The Legend of The Most Important Irony:

We've got it all fixed, now.The substitution of battlefield wars
and the scorch'd earth policies,
and the chemical blasts,
and the statistical casualties
and the Most Imperial Struggles --

Substituted with healthy competition
and the roaring life.
The energy pump scores through the millions
of children, of saints,
of churches and cults,
only to give us what we need.
That extravagant rush of healthy hate.

Drown'd with irony, all this is,
as I perceive it from the clouds and curtains of veils.
The world comes together to inevitably segregate.
Fighting for their lives, these gun-less fiends
run for themselves and for the other.
For the nation, one for all.
For society, all for one.

Battalion One versus Battalion Two
with their flags and their supporters,
and the frontline fighters take the stage
above all other nations.
To toss around in surroundings of raw humanity - they cheer.
They cheer, and drown in drink and irony,
and I bid farewell to these revisionist days.

Where history loses to the buried facts and civilizations
(buried ash and bones)

And we play above them and underneath the skies,
those stadium cheers still diminishing in the distance.

84: Avenue

City silhouettes and the downtown shadows
lurk amongst themselves in private delight.

With the highlighting lights
shining accents on sidewalks
in temporary dimming of the after-hours,
while citizens and criminals
are just passers-by - all equal, all strangers,
striding beside themselves,
drawing suspicions,
walking in the night.

We're all suspects, now - follow the sirens
and the red-blue colours painting the streets of the dark.
Here's the news team running as their hearts are alarming
with The Breaking News Story on the edge of the mark.
Their faces are covered with shame and, or, guilt
though the apathy seeps through and leaks through the pages
of tomorrow's morning paper and the 6 o'clock news,
and the Evening Report; healing our blues.

83: the embellishment of egos

Make the stomach turn and turn,
Observe the life that keeps us; What has happened here, this confused mess
surrounding superstition.

Dirt and dust and remnants that you'd rather shake right off--
I'd rather stay behind to gain perspective of the time.

82: Land

Even the pacific admits its shores are polluted,
yet desolate of souls and the weight of hearts.

AS IT RACES to buildings and civilization,
the waves cover up the blemishes.
Exhaustion from sun and the drying of minds
from the drought of the morals and the thirst for a sign
that will justify them,
needle-and-stitch,
Perfumed oil on the palms of the rich.

A surprising mirage, it's been discovered to be,
one discovered by deserters.
One of I has been called up to the plate
and I will have to follow the others.
There is not need to protest or proliferate
fear that arises from mediactivity;
instead there is but yourself to fend for
to fetch for, to fight for
the lives of your brothers.

81: We Should Crawl

The weariness slows down your sense of feeling,
the reaches of fleeing,
instead we're remote.

Pushing down anchors of guilt and compassion,
and the stubborn reaction
to this killing of hope.

Standing aside from the untouchable crew,
I want to grab their hands, but
we are mere spectators watching in the dark of the blue.

80: Honey

Hate of all hates, devoid of compulsion,
standing upright, meaning - less than your self.
The taste in our mouth subsides; your eyes jaded,
and the choking suspicion overcome.
Dear, the film stays buried as my heart.
Missing trails to the norm, left to wander within.
And it's fine, after all,
I can pick up the pieces.