Silent Soliloquy

To sing, or not to sing - that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler to perch and abide

The slings and arrows of mankind

Or to sing to the high heavens in dissent

And, by demurring, hope. To be heard, to be understood -

To be given a chance to live; and not disappear in the shadows,

The heartache, and the pain of loss

That the soul is heir to. 'Tis my acquiescence;

And opportunistic is man to glean – selfishly.

I spread my wings - perchance to fly: ay, were that I could soar,

High enough that return was irrelevant

Soar to some other world that shuns mortal abode.

Pause - take a rest; look what you have done -

How much you give, and how much more you take

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?

You take more land, you take the mountains

What gives you notion, that they are yours alone?

The pangs of destroyed homes, are mine,

The insolence of dominance, yours alone

Tell me though, do you suffer occasional pangs

Of disgrace, of remorse,

When you take a battering ram, decimate what was never yours

To supplant it with sand and stone?

'Tis with little grace, that you accept your blessings

And twist them to befit your intemperance - 

What merits your need? Or is it your greed?

When you bleed the rivers?  You are no beaver,

Yet you build walls and wave your wand; 

You become the master, as the river bows and flows.

You make me bear the ills as you laugh in mirth

Heed me though - 'tis not for long,

Be not quick to dismiss this credence - 

The tides will turn and soon

But, mayhap, conscience will addle your cowardice

And the certitude of doom give you pause.     

You imprudent man! – who reigns earth, water and sky,

Let not your sins displace us all!

Written for the challenge 'Kerry Says ~ If Only They Could Talk' @ "Imaginary Garden with Real Toads". The base piece is 'Hamlet's Soliloquy'. The narrator is a wordless bird perched on a tree, a witness to the heedless deeds of man.

Gypsy Heart

A camp chair,

Your words and a guitar;

That smile,

That says you don’t care.

Wild hair,

And your fingers on the strings;

A bonfire,

And the memories it brings...

Your feet,

Tapping with your song;

I’d sigh,

Though I’d know it’s wrong

To lose my wild heart

To the songs you sing,

To look at you

And, knowing what you bring,

Still sing along with you,

Still string along with you;

Once more until you leave,

Cause that’s all you have to give –

Borrowed hours with your gypsy heart.


Written for the challenge - Donna the Buffalo's 'I See How You Are' @ "Imaginary Garden with Real Toads".

The Mark

How I hate that shade of pink!

I tell myself to stop thinking about her sartorial taste as I sit on the edge of the bed and tie my shoelaces.

Stop it. Her sense of dressing should be the least of your worries right now. Besides, you didn't marry her because you admire what she drapes her body in.

So I pull myself up, turn to her, and help her with her zipper. She smells good. It's the Burberry perfume I had picked up for her the last time I went to Dubai. I turn her around to face me. She has beautiful doe eyes. Lined in black and sprinkled with just the right amount of sparkly grey, she looks up at me and smiles. She does have a beautiful smile. It lights up her face. My attention is momentarily diverted by the swipe of her tongue over her lips, reminding me of long, sweaty nights. She smiles again, knowingly this time. 

No, baby, I don't think you can read my mind right now. It's better this way. And easier.

She whispers something suggestive in my ear. I wink and smack her behind in a show of obvious appreciation. That'll hold her until my job is done.

We walk out of our apartment and close the self-locking door behind us. She holds up her keys, raises her eyebrows in question. In the 18 months that we've been together, she has come to know how particular I am about always carrying my own set of keys. I had left them behind, but I nod in affirmation. I won't need those keys after tonight.

The black SUV parked in the basement had cost me a pretty penny. They pay me well for the kind of work I do. Besides, the cost of the car was covered in the expense account. My personal bank account in the Cayman Islands has already been credited with the fees I command...all in advance. They know that when I'm hired, I finish the job.  

I put the gearstick on drive and pull the vehicle out of the parking lot onto the busy road. I had already driven on that route enough times in the past month to know that we'll reach the hotel in 24 minutes or less after starting at 6:50 in the evening. She turns on the stereo and I smile and pretend to enjoy 'Kings of Leon' as she bobs her head to the music. Her earrings, with tiny bells on them, tinkle with every shake of her head. This is so annoying. Personally, I prefer the classics. Give me Mozart or Bach any day. I like how they soothe your nerves and help you think more clearly, plan more clearly.

We reach in under 22 minutes. The place is already thronging with the who's who of politics and media. Security is very tight. Nothing I didn't expect. Roshan, the head of security, is doing his job well. Right now, he's at the entrance. I hand over my mobile phone and the small bag with my camera equipment. The officer at the entrance picks it up and puts it through the X-ray machine for a thorough check. Smooth sailing. Wait! Not yet. Roshan comes forward and picks up my bag, as if with half a mind to open and check its contents. That is when he sees her, pink suit, tinkling earrings and all, and his face splits into a friendly smile. They had met each other in passing on a few previous gatherings. She explains that I am her plus one. He lets us pass after a few minutes of friendly chatter and a wave of his big hand. 18 months just paid off. 

The huge banquet hall in the hotel is alive with conversation and the clink of wineglasses. Everyone who is here is a public figure. This massive gathering is a conglomeration of some very influential people who have the collective power of making or breaking an entire nation. If not for the plus one, I would have easily needed another six months to get here on my own.

Like a pro, she maneuvers her way through the bevy of waiters carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres and makes a beeline for the group of fellow editors. I follow her and exchange the expected pleasantries with the few people that I know and get introduced to a few that I don't. Time is of essence. And my time is precious. I excuse myself.

According to plan, I take the ornate corridor leading to the staff restrooms on the ground floor. I walk by some security personnel with impassive faces holding some very impressive firearms. Thanks to the tag around my neck with ‘PRESS’ written in huge red letters, I get access without raising any eyebrows. I reach the restroom and push the door open. As expected, there is no one inside. Every member of the staff is busy catering to the crowd outside. I put the camera bag on the counter that holds a line of three white sinks in Italian marble. What a waste! The thought of decimating such fine pieces of art is a shame. My dinner jacket is a bit snug; I don't like working in the confines of restrictive clothing. I take it off. Now the camera bag. I unzip the bag carefully, so as not to disturb any of the multicolored wires attached to the beautiful piece of work inside. Here it is! Straight from the land of the communists. Roshan has done his job well. He was quick enough that no one saw him replace the camera bag with an identical one. With the cumulative four million dollars sitting in his six bank accounts, he can easily disappear into Neverland until the authorities close the file on him. 

What is inside the bag is a brilliant, compact piece of work; no bigger than a camera. Yet, its effect, I know from experience, is a hundredfold. They will not forget this easily. The last time I saw something this beautiful was in Afghanistan seven years ago. 

I put my hands inside gently, as though reaching for a lover's body. Click! There is a small, almost dismissible, sound from the other side of the door. My fingers pause. My ears strain. I quickly take the Glock out from the small compartment in the camera bag and cover the bag with my dinner jacket. I turn around to face the door with my hand on my gun. Too late! A sharp, piercing pain to the left of my chest. My breathing stops. The last thing I see is a flurry of pink and the glitter of gold earrings that make a tinkling sound - like bells.

............................................................................................................

She looks down at the spreading circle of red on his white shirt. Egyptian cotton that almost feels like silk. She had bought that shirt for him and admired how he looked in it this evening. He had always been a looker. She picks up the dinner jacket and the camera bag. There was only one person other than him who had touched that camera bag from the time it left the X-ray machine till he entered the restroom. It won't be difficult to connect Roshan to the crime and seal the security breach. You just have to follow the money trail. 

Someone will clean up the mess in the restroom. She doesn't have to worry about that.

She looks back at him one last time. There's a tiny speck of moisture in the corner of her eye. Damn! She had done this before. He was no different. The rule is to never get attached to the mark. 18 months just paid off. She will miss the long, sweaty nights though.

The speakers in the hall break into a Mozart just as she plasters a smile on her face and walks out.

You

You are my truth
And my illusion
My wings
And the bars on my cage
My lavender fields
And the summer sand under my feet
My first rain
And my fistful of broken dreams
You are every season
You're the hands on my clock
With you I begin
And you are the end of me...

Immortality

There are moments

When I see, mirrored,

In your eyes

A reflection of the recondite emotions

That flow through my veins

But then you brush away my hair from my brow,

And tuck it behind my ear,

Just to reaffirm

That the speck of moisture

In my eye

Was not born of desolation. 

These are moments,

When you show me the meaning 

Of immortality...

I Hope Not

Born in darkness,
I learnt to laugh 
By the glow of the neon lights
That make my mother look beautiful;
From the time the sun sets,
Till the first light of dawn.
Her laughter tinkles,
Infectious,
With every new face,
Though most of them never return.
Coloured liquid in tiny bottles,
Lined against the mirror,
Catch the light of the sun
While she sleeps...
I put some on my nails sometimes
And I count the tiny lines on her face-
The lines you cannot see
In the dark of the night.
What is left 
Of the string of jasmines in her hair
Fills our room with their scent;
They smell a little
Like the tiny flower shop
Right outside the temple we never visit.
I don't like the white letters on the board,
But I like the sweet candy 
That the nice lady brings on Sundays
For after the Maths classes.
I'd rather be pretty like mother;
With coloured nails,
Flowers in my hair,
And the tinkle of bells around my ankles...
So I don't understand,
I know not why mother weeps,
And says, 
'I hope not'.

Hold Me Tonight...

Hold my hand,

Lead me through forgotten pasts,

Lead me to distant dreams;

I don’t want to sleep tonight, darling...

Touch me,
Just the way you know I need to be touched:

Trail your lips along mine,

Make me close my eyes;

Let me see your face,

Etched in my forever;

Let me feel you,

Under my fingertips.

Whisper sweet nothings

And sing to me,

What the cicada sings to his mate...

Hold me tonight,

Like we don’t have tomorrow;

Hold me tonight,

Like you’ll never let go!

(Composed - 25 June 2014)

Why Do You Sigh?

Why do you stand by the open window

All by yourself,

Staring into the distance,

When the whole house sleeps?

Why do you sigh,

When the wind blows your hair,

Into your melancholy face?

Why do you touch the corner of your eyes

With your knuckles?

Why do your lips quiver when you smile?

Why do your fingers tremble,

As if to touch something,

Just beyond your reach?

What do you look for

Beyond the darkness of the night?

There are no starts to count tonight;

So you won’t find hope,

Not in the sky...

I know,

Because I tried.

(Composed - 16 July 2014)

Did You Learn to Cook?

Half a pack of cards -
The king of spades still has the turned corner
On the left bottom;
From that weekend we spent,
Locked in a cottage
Lost amidst coffee and pepper...
I knew you cheated, you know,
And I let you win anyway.
I still have that book,
Marked with a dried rose
On page 211;
‘Sad poems’, you said, with misty eyes,
So I packed it away in my bag...
I never returned it,
And you never asked.

I don’t have pictures;
When you left, you took them all.
Perhaps you knew,
That I don’t need pictures,
To remember,
How you leaned out of the rear window,
To look back,
When you thought I wasn’t watching;
I don’t need pictures to remember,
How you'd bite your lip
When you smiled sometimes;
How you moved when you danced
In my arms;
How you’d tie up your hair, a little messy,
And hum in the kitchen...
By the way, did you learn to cook?

The little love-notes you left,
Stuck to the bathroom mirror;
The oversized, overworn T-shirt,
That we both fought over;
A pair of grey socks,
That you forgot in the laundry basket -
These are all that are left of you
Behind my closed door...
And yet,
Like the lingering smell of drenched earth
After a rain,
What I have of you
Is so much more.

(Composed - 07th July 2014)

Sometimes...

When the grey sky stretches like evenings in Summer
And melts into the red earth
As I spread my hands to catch a bit of the wind;
When the air smells like wet lilies,
And like the time I tried to hoard
In an old shoebox tied with a red ribbon;
When the ledge outside my kitchen window
Is lined with tiny sparrows
Shaking the rain from their wings;
I think of you:
I think of lemonade laced with mint
And the tangy taste of kisses,
I think of blankets and laughter
And your fingers in my hair,
Of the new umbrella sitting in my bag
While we walked in the rain,
Of the coffee cups we bought
But never filled,
Of promises never made
Yet promises kept.

And I wonder if, perhaps,
You think of me too sometimes.

Drink Beer

I know, I know
You want to punch that guy
God! His nerve!
Too bad he's so big
You might just break your own knuckles
So chill,
Paint your nails yellow
And drink beer!

Bittersweet

We are now
We are good
This moment in time
We are us
And yet I know
What tomorrow holds
I won't think of later
I'll live this now
I'll live my moment
This moment is bittersweet.

Counting

I put on my blue dress
And look in the mirror,
I tell myself I like what I see;
And what I can't see doesn't matter,
Does it?
They won't see the sleepless night in my eyes,
Or hear the little sound
Of something breaking inside.
They won't see my thoughts,
They won't know how I feel.

I slip my feet into my shoes;
They won't know how they hurt,
They won't know 
That I'd rather stay home.
It's time to go,
So I put on my best smile;
I know I'm going to laugh later,
Maybe even say something funny...
And I know they won't see,
Beyond my armour.

You ask me how many times 
A heart can break?
I don't know yet,
But I'm still counting.