one minute friend.

say
goodbye to the friend that you made yesterday.
both of you have glut up
enough of each others' world.
either that or you both catalysed
some irreversible change
in yourselves,
and you can't stand you.


go slow.
for when something
(or someone)
triggers a reaction,
we'll never know.
all we have is the moment of
self-proclaimed understanding
which others, too righteous,
in (hind)sight, call us hypocrites pretending.


stretch that moment,
into at least a week...
be merry,
be nice.
have an opinion,
but don't speak.
say naught things -
albeit the truth -
that people despise to hear.
for criticisings,
pay a price even storm-wrought-weather friends
find too dear.


say naught to
your one-minute friend
that he is wallowing in sadness
selfly achieved.
say naught to
your one-minute friend
that his madness
will cost him you.
for first, one-minute a friend, you are cheap.
and second, he is a raving lunatic, your advice,
though sincere,
he is in no mood to heed.


say naught to him
that he is loserish.
try naught either
to pull him together.
and yet when he fails,
nor do you tell him he is
of cesspit calibre.
for a one-minute friend
is not worth the bother.


stay
away
from him, however.
until your one-minute friend
is ready to embark once more on mirth and merry making.
yet i do believe,
you will not want him
after you have seen him weakly made.


run along.
there will always be fair-weather friends
enough to fill a few lifetimes' charades.


but pray you,
guide each other,
you and your friends of storm-wrought weather.
be they your peer, kith, kin,
father, mother, sister or brother,
swear to them your love
and smooth in caution
against the flaw of their character.

bubble

A bubble is blown,
tricks light
and traps a rainbow
in the air.

Fascinated child
Watches in awe.
Fearful that the magic moment
Might be broken.

She unclenches her hand, reach out
To hold the fragile sphere.
Only to break the thin membrane -
The rainbow's only shield.

The bubble bursts;
dreamy now is then.
Into this pigment-world,
The rainbow spills.

On the floor
The psychedelic colours mixed
A pool of
Murky brown.

And on sight
realising it has been ruined,
We cry like broken children...
We cry like broken children, inside.

jars of pickled humanity

i will not stuff my sentiments into little glass jars
only to hide them on the shelves
of a dank and dark closet,
under lock and key and away from scrutiny

as if they were - specimens of bluish unborn babies
and amber-eyed lizards and snakes
floating in ghoulish green liquid -
too horrific for your eyes.

there is nothing to hide.

look at the glass.
these bottles were meant to magnify,
knot your stomach
and hold your gaze.

and we were meant to
fall an easy victim to their hypnotic-fadedness,
spill more sickness all over the floor
and still study them with morbid fascination.

i do not always like the thoughts i keep.
i don't expect you to accept them either.
but at least i don't bury
the love, the hate and the in-between

and go to church
and pray fervently for absolution
and live in guilt
and hope that no one digs them up.

welcome anyway.

welcome to my exhibition,
my little museum of thoughts deformed
and thoughts sinister and slithery.
welcome to the collection of humanity preserved.

her stars

you cannot see
her.
her skin is as deep the blue
of our benighted sky.
you will not see
her eyes.
she has shut her eyelids over
her brilliant silver irises.
you will never see
the outline of her goddess-frame.
the clouds have gathered to guard
an eternal secret.

every once in a while,
she weeps -
i fathom it is
perhaps for those
who are lost
and will never come home -

and those tears,
knowing their reason,
evolve into sentient beings;
knowing their worth,
guise themselves as burning stars;
knowing their place,
glow in the velvet sky.

the stars do not know,
where who she cries for lies.
the light they radiate reminds
her lost ones to return.

the stars travel through time
and space
searching for the lost
ones that have forgotten
till they can move no more.

and so the stars, they plunge
themselves into incandescent death,
pointing the way home,
only hoping the lost finally remembers...

when they finally exhaust themselves,
they fall from their majestic lofts..
down
fast
trail blazing across the sky,
crashing to a watery death.
silvery waves rise violently
before caving in,
folding back into
a calm sea as deep the blue
of her benighted sky -
an ocean tomb seals the valiant dim-glow.

the stars sink,
sway to and fro,
downwards to the oceanbed
which is now their cradlebed.
pretty ocean nymphs,
knowing the chill of their abode,
knowing the honour worthy of the stars,
dive up to the surface,
to rip a piece of the warm velvet sky
and wrap snugly around
the fallen stars.
and the stars now cared for, are
lulled by the
rhythm of rocking waves...
contented to be dreaming of her
long lost smile.

online argument

your stream of texts flash across the screen,
my sharp reply crashes right into them.
more disagreeing words,
that throw themselves against mine.
i struggle to the surface of this stormy argument
and i shout against the thunderous boom
of the silence of your deliberated reply.


in an instant, i decide that i don't want this.
i sink down under the piling waves of your logic..
and i tell you that i don't want this -
the quiet aftermath of the storm
is a gnawing emptiness.

cradlegrave

[3/23/2002 12:57:48 AM | schades of gray]
the soul is dying,
but the heart beats on...
stop that reverberating heartbeat,
the will to live is long long gone.


behold the miracle
of a crying corpse:
remains convulsed, scalded by tears,
of one put to premature death by brute force...


as i lay herein,
my cradle-grave of dreams -
of continuous nightmares -
endless without seams.
dark gray fogs
into deep blue mists flow;
fears solidified and sounds amplified
here, only dark malignant ulcers grow.


somewhere above, they are heaping upon me
shovels full of worthless praise.
somewhere above, they are holding my wake.
somewhere above, they are sighing over my short-lived days.


my neighbour wraiths scratched,
against their coffin-wood decay;
they are the restless dead, wretched
souls left to shred and fray.
they are damned to eternal unrest
by their acts of ugly sin,
so they wail and protest, in hope of
a psychic saviour who perceives their din.


but the crowds above will never hear
these plangents pleas of grieving souls.
to them, the howls that split my relentless ear
are nothing more than the eerie silence of watchful ghouls.


somewhere above someone blows me a parting kiss.
it sinks down the dirt floor,
resting momentarily on my receiving lips
before plummeting furhter to the molten core.
"here lies hell's ultimate sinner."
somewhere above, someone spits on my grave.
somewhere above, my father blames my mother.


since there is nothing good left
that a broken vessel can hold,
it is time to turn away
and leave treacherous man the quest for gold.


and nowhere above does anyone weep.
blood tears stream down as i shut my senses to sleep.