A Lost Friend's Letter

A poem I wrote for my best friend for Friendship Day. Doesn't mean I care much about such occassions though, but our relationship was just going through a rift and it felt somewhat ironic that an occassion called 'Friendship Day' would be around the corner...
It was published in Young Metro, The Telegraph on Friday, August 5.

---

Perhaps some street-side poet
had written you a song
of fallen stars
and twilight half-dreams
long before the centuries came...
Through the nights of sublime pearls,
deep, dark, insane nights,
have you heard the phantoms weep
at your doorstep?

And as your fingers touch the notes
of the lonely piano,
a shadow still lingers on your wall
...waiting for a lost friend's letter.

The Last Performance

Perhaps the curtains will rise
for the last time tonight,
and the void of your drowsy dawn
will be me.
I will don the myriad shades
of a scripted life,
and on the jovial stage,
in the arclight haze,
I will flash plastic smiles
to tunes that were never my own.

When the empty proscenium
reeks of phantom songs,
I have walked the deserted aisles in white satin,
looking for the poet who died,
in a freak accident,
maybe in another space or time.
I found his diary last night...

But tonight (for the hundredth night)
I'll dance my candyfloss steps,
light ballerina feet will defeat
my purpose to live or die.
To want to fly.
Perhaps they sheared off the wings
I had, in another incarnation.

Don't paint me another facade,
write me another role.
I'll take my poison
in small doses,
licking around my lips.
I'll grow spurious leaves
from the pupils of my eyes,
the million eyes
that sprawl on my skin.
And maybe for the last time,
I'll die.

Perhaps the curtains will rise
for the last time tonight,
and the void of your drowsy dawn
will be me.
Silent dreamer, would you then
play me a song
of yellow and green,
of green and red,
red and violet,
with your magic breath?
And maybe,
as the thundering applause fades,
we will find a new sky.

Nights

There's this person up there with whom I share a very intense love-hate relationship. I refuse to believe in It's existence (don't know if It's a He or She), and It responds by making a joke out of everything I say or do. And when the thing gets over I return to my belief of "What It-wit crap? Coincidences happen."
Anyway, so only tonight I was writing about not being able to complete a poem. And only tonight, a bit later, my muse got so worked up that I conceived and completed an entire poem in less than half an hour. Of course the poem, at its best, looks like a child practising metaphors. But that's generally what my poems are like. Without any concrete meaning. Surrealistic. They probably have some meaning at the Freudian level of the subconscious self, but trust me, reading one's own subconscious is the toughest job - so I won't really be able to tell you accurately. Some deep pain, some deep loss, some deep isolation somewhere down there maybe... otherwise just a simple poem. Just playing with words. Just a few abstract sketches.

---

Last night,
I lost the violin man
at the bend of a purple street
under the cracked lamp.

Haven't I trailed the shadows,
seen them crisscross
in a midnight maze?
I have fixed my gaze
at the bluish monitored screen
and clicked erase.

If the rooftops will
sing your lost tune tonight,
I'll buy
half a star
and let it twinkle twinkle
on my cheek...

And I will step in the stream
and sniff the home-bound wind
for your music
...for yet another night.

Written on June 8, 2005.