for the love of the sea

an old man.a fishing net.
a basket full of dead fish
and dying stories.
dogs whine in the distance
petted by strangers,
bribed with glucose biscuits-
the cheapest in the shack
that makes tea with the same tea leaves
all day.flavorful.
when the day's work is done
and the boats have dried out
and it is time for the old man to go home
the shack lit up by a single bulb
burning on stolen power
from wires hung low
feeding those who can afford
television sets and fresh fish
temporary lovers will find a refuge
just like them
having lied at home
about being at tuition
they live out their lies
sprawled on the sand
gazing at the stars
because some movie told them
it was romantic.

the old man will return next morning
and find a paper boat
nestled under his wooden one.
he will float them both
out into the sea
hoping at least one would come back.
the tea stall will keep a stained cup
ready for him.
elsewhere
someone is giving out
last night's leftover fish
to his wife.

rendezvous

i should like to meet you
if only in a mirage
of a hallucination
in a dream,
and then
i would very much
like to let you go
(you would have a say,
if you were to insist,
in the whole matter).

perhaps sanity will be ours then,
yours and mine respectively.

but then again,
it might all end up
in a continuum of reality
warped by illusion.
we might find ourselves lost
in the haze of a desert storm
on the twenty fifth floor
of a greyed skyscraper
where you and i
are indistinct
to time’s sensory perceptions
and meanings drown themselves
in their own chaotic underpinnings.

ash and dust

the things we loved
and lost.
the things we never loved
but lost.
the things we loved only
once we lost.

so many things remain
but a memory of loss
through whose nostalgia
love finds its way.
achingly.

so many things carry
the sticky reminiscence
of what was once love
before loss settled on it.
casually.

and all we remembered
was the haze of a city smog.
and all we felt
was a wheezing allergy.
and all we did
was scrape and scrub
that putrid clamminess
from our hands.
(at least we tried.)

Life. Love. Loss.
Longing.
It is what it is.

wanderlust

solitude contempt
boredom yearning
mourning peace -
the varying shades
of companionship
in the wanderlust
called silence.

measuring up; measuring out

who is to say
what your life is worth.
how will you measure it?
in friends or lovers?
in tears or death?
where shall we go
looking for meaning?
long abandoned
divorced, you had said.
something about
irreconciliable differences.

meanwhile people gasp
and grasp at straws
crawling in desperation.
not for them your cynicism
your ingratitude.
they had aspirations and grief
they had sunrises and star lit skies
and lost them all.for someone else's whim.

elsewhere you continue to sit
in sanitised walled in rooms
blithely watching news
of autumnal shedding
of another kind.
you hear of expected ends
to unconventional stories,
loud proclamations of misfortune,
and unthinkingly go to bed.

but for once as you sleep
you are like them.
with neither dreams nor tomorrow
to look forward to.