everydayness

a plastic moon
hangs outside the balcony.
i look at it through nets
that used to have strings
of light on it once.
in the distance
an ambulance rushes.
it won't make it in time.

the fragrance of molten plastic
will have lost its sting
by morning.
water will drip
in patient droplets
from the overhead balcony
like any other day.
and dead cigarettes
will be swept away.
this will be another story
forgotten
in the traffic of everyday life
and the day's work
will go on
as it must.

the dark

what do you see in this blackness?
why did you call it beautiful that day -
does the story make it so?
was it what they called
the "generosity of your spirit"
or was it your own obsessive fascination
for things darker than your soul?

the gaze spirals outward
in a centrifugal perpetuity
and you and i stand.tall for other eyes.
waving.smiling. appeasing those eyes.
and when they are gone
come back to customary stillnesses
and evocative silences.
and find each other
night after night
in the dark loveless chasm
of centripetal drowning
unto infinity.
 
the depth of emptiness
can be measured after all.

the ritual

in a little corner
of an unknown room
where flickering lights
filter in through broken windows
and bring with them
the smoke
of someone else's memories
and faint remnants
of forgotten festivities
you lie wrapped
in a blanket
waiting
for a reluctant young dawn
that wants to sleep in.
it protests and holds on tightly
to the twinkling cloak of night
that must recede.
cold feet shuffle,
rub against each other for warmth
and find themselves in a losing battle.
it will end the way it always has.
dawn and you shall greet each other
with the strained comfort
of resignation.
and seek solace
in the inglorious bastard
of your unholy union.Work
shall carry you to evening
where this marriage of convenience
can once more find rest and refuge
in little corners of unknown rooms
wrapped in blankets.

keeping time

days stare at you
from the calendar.
you look at your watch
and it gazes back
time wants to know your plans.
wait for it, you say.
through sunrises, sunsets,
out of season rains, ephemeral time
gives you eternal moments.
which in time you will forget.
it shrivels up like a prune
in the winter of your heart.
calendars pile up. And wind up
with a grateful scrap dealer.
one by one the clocks grow weary
of you, your indifference,
of not being etched
saved recorded remembered
cherished loved hated feared
hoped for, against -
and end their struggle.
timelessness could be
as much a prison
chimes the last one.
tick good
tock luck
silence.

homing birds

the house has fallen silent.
don't flatter yourself.
it does not miss you.
its a house after all.
brick and mortar.no heart.
the fan creaks as it did before
darkness dances, peacocks cry,
mosquitoes buzz
and leave little love notes
on bare arms and dust laden feet.
cars pass by, the fridge is stocked
and everything is
as it was.as it has been.

the guitar in the corner
has given way to autumn dust.
stuffed to its brim.
clingy. with a sky full
of clouds of spider webs
the cluttered dining table
is reduced to its glass bearings.
not a trace of the comfortable mess
that had become its identity.
the balcony's famed monument
- pillars of emptied cigarette packets -
rests in the trash.or did, till yesterday.
the trash can is empty now.
the clock has once again
started telling time.
but now it goes backwards
retracing in perfect asymmetry
the days we spent together.
the feature wall has turned
a deeper shade of blue
if you would believe that.

the inconspicuous whisperings
of the walls are louder now.
but the house has fallen silent.
perhaps that is the way to go.

songless

it starts with a song
whose unforgettable lyrics
that you hummed two days ago
evade your eager lips tonight
that in desperation mouth
words that do not belong.
you start again .
and again.
okay, one.more time
you tell yourself.
but memory's winding roads
divert you to other unrelated
endlessly straight ones
and the song must rest
incomplete.uncompleted.
on the verge of forever's cliffs.

and you wonder
if it went the way
of all of those other loves -
friendships, coffee places, novels,
triumphs, laughter, autumn evenings
- you have given up on.

you search an empty horizon
for those lost stars
nowhere to be seen
on this moonless night.
and you pick yourself up
in a benign resignation
(how light the body feels now)
back into the house
whose walls and shelves
have come undone
without the hooks of memory.
as they fold up in their uncertainty
you walk to the innermost room
and fall onto a mattress, into a sleep
whose depth can never match
the emptiness around.

tomorrow the house will have
resurrected itself in morning glory
the windows will be opened
for new loves to waltz in
perhaps with a once known song
and the night's reverie will be
but a pale blue dot at the centre
of everything you see.