tired, at A Function.

I am tired.
Only a shell-
In the corner of
A crowded but empty room
Too brightly lit
Too full of people,
Shells themselves-
Clumsy, overdressed nothing.
It is noisy.
Giggles and chatter and infant wails.
Hearty laughs and
sympathetic exclamations.
It's all here.

I am alone.

In my corner,
My mind is open-
The lock wrenched,
The key lost,
Empty phrases flowing
In and out and in
Meaningless,
Leaving no trace.
Thankfully.

More nothing.
Sounds, like garbage
Floating on a once beautiful lake
Drift about in mire
Going here and there
With every ripple.
And people who come,
Who look for beauty,
Find only this.

halfway time

It's that nice time now. It is nice. Just a little time before darkness falls completely and suddenly like a sheet, covering everything, blocking it all out. But now, it is cool and quiet, and everything in the world is giving the sun its One Minute's Silence. And everything is still at the end of day. Even here, in the city, everything is still.
I suppose you might call it twilight. I don't think that fits, though. It's more dusk-ish. Comfortable, a little blank, and that's not demanding, just beautiful. And everything has a resigned, gloomy air, utterly disapproving, as though, in it's opinion, the sun has no business shirking its duties to go off in a westerly way wherever it pleases. That's not the nature-ish thing to do at all. Stand and fight, gentlemen, stand and fight.
It's deepening now, and the shadows are gone, for everything is shadow, though you can see, so it must be light. nothing is strong enough to cast a shadow, everything is just blurry and very unreal, like this world, this Earth-place, was changing its forming, becoming something else for a night out amongst the stars... who wouldn't be willing to change for that ? Bats let loose, they joyfully fly, the Night, that saucy seductress, whispers words of horrible comfort from the shade of trees and comes slowly, shyly, like any seductress worth her salt, out to unfurl her cloak of darkness which the city so blatantly defies- neon lights here and tubelights there- and bilboards all in a row.
My little bulb holds out valiantly, as she swings on the wire as so many of her interrogation-room predecessors have done in movies of times long gone, and her light battles the silent darkness at the corners of the glow. And suddenly, it seems as though there are a million swords emanating from her in every direction, each a millisecond in light, fighting off the darkness in every direction that threatens to engulf her and put out her light. Permanently.
The time is almost past, it is almost dark now, and princesses who wished to leave their towers in this magical hour when it is bright enough to see and dark enough not to be caught and have not done so, have lost their chance. Leaping out of their highly romanticized single-windowed towers now would result in a number of slender and pale, but broken, necks, I'm afraid. The darkness has come, my bulb fights on, and time has passed the hedge at the end of the garden and moved on.

Angry.

Stop.
This shouting.
These noises, in my head.
Loud, and echoing.
Getting louder, and noisier.
You can't hear this.
These horrible noises.
It doesn't sound like this to you.
To you, the sounds leave,
Getting lost in the black hole of distance and seconds.
In my head,
Little grey sounds,
And big black sounds
And sharp- edged white sounds
Clashing, crashing inside my head.

Stop yelling at me.

Each word, each line growin bigger, heavier,
More ominous in my mind.
It makes me angry.
Frustrated and angry.
And that's bad.

The anger comes like a flash.
It wipes everything out.
Cleans the slate.
Everything cracks, everything breaks.
And then, as suddenly, it all freezes over.
In its angry form and distorted shape,
The world freezes over.
Then I am tired.
So tired that the clean slate stays clean.
And everything is grey and weary.
And I am gone.
In the silence and stillness of the peace in my head
I am gone.

When Versifying...

Take time to make it sound good. The words must roll about in your mouth, becoming bigger and more poignant than they are, becoming greater things in themselves and in the light of each other. Make it as though the world conspired to make those phrases happen, and their coming into being had some real purpose, not a scribble on a whim to be flung to the breeze. Make it such that when you read and re-read it there are hidden and hinted meanings in every word and every line, like an onion coming to pieces under the observation- light of a microscope. Make it so that it means everything you want it to, and some things the reader wants it to, but has a meaning of its own, beyond all the small, personal ones, so that when you hold it up to the moonlight for verification, there is something there, a pearl on paper, and the moonlight laughs at foolish mortals who read and never see, never know, never understand the bigness of the whole thing. A big thing, in a small thing, and a precise, perfect, painstaking production of pain and protest- your poem.
It's quite a bit of pressure, you must admit.

The Dreaded Things : Why I Hate Tourists

I have a morbid fear of being a tourist.
I'd much rather be 'visitor' or 'atithi' or whatever.
Imagine !
The horror !
Sightseeing !
Snapping away at everything in sight !
Talking too loud !
Insulting the sanctity of local shrines !
Being mean to innocent bystanders who refuse to cart your luggage because they've never seen you before ! (and because they don't work for your tour company )
Demanding ridiculous things, like pony rides on times square and dahivada on the Champs Elysees, and then complaining loudly about the lack of facilities when you don't get them !
And saying rude things about 'incompetent' locals loudly in vernacular, and then giving them smiles a self- obsessed teen queen would have seen through !
Taking along loud, bawling brats that decide to wail loudly in the middle of historical talks and infuriate all those within hearing distance !

Tourists are awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful, awful. I don't want to be one ever.
They're nothing but exasperating, irritating,vacillating, calculating, agitating, Maddening and infuriating hags. Or, in this case, people.

know what ?

Don't know.
What ?
Lots of things.
What things ?
Don't know.
So I don't know what I don't know, but I know I don't know.
So I know something, and don't know a lot of things.
So ?
Hmmm.
What's knowing, really ?
Is it something you've learnt, or heard, or understood, or just felt ?
Is it a something, or an anything ?
Or do we actually know nothing.
No, no. We definitely know something.
Otherwise we'd know nothing, fool.
If we didn't know anything, we wouldn't know that we didn't know, would we ?
True. But we wouldn't know that we didn't know we didn't know either, would we ?
So what do we know ?
Nothing for sure.
That's for sure.

changing streams of study

The pen lies at an angle on the table. The word angle invokes sharp corners in my mind. I suppose that must have been by association. No longer, though. Angles and peaky- looking squares pondering parallelogramship dash away from me, around corners and into classrooms where they can hide. The subjectivity of the subjects whose aura, like a hauntingly bad smell, hangs around me repells it, propelling it in the opposite direction. Sciences appear to be busy with something every time I peek in a lab. Biology is intently examining a slide or specimen and Chemistry is enveloped in clouds of smoke which I suspect are emergency HCl fumes. And Physics is buried in mountains of sheets and files. None of them will even look me in the eye. They avoid me like the plague. Only Science doesn't avoid the Plague, it cures it. So what would it do to me ? I can't, or don't want to, imagine.
So why is it avoiding me ?
The Betrayal ?
No.
Science is more reasonable than that.
Isn't it ?

Fighting

Flames leapt out at his every word-
Dancing on his tongue, dancing in his eye, all about his head.
A teardrop made its journey.
It dropped off her cheek, catching my eye as it fell.
A drop of heart's blood, encased in a watery shell.
It broke, shattering as it hit the ground,
The water dispersed, the precious blood lost.
Irretrievable.
And then the atmosphere turned menacing grey, as though precipitated by the lost tear.
The glares sliced through it like laser beams.
The lasers sliced through a heart's core.
And she can't cry any more.

Quiz

Head whirls.
I can almost see the words and pictures flying about inside.
Discard them- I don't want them.
They're not the right ones.
Not that.
Not that either.
Where is it.
Murmurs and whispers.
I'm lost in my brain.
Eyes watch me expectantly.
Waiting on a word.
Assessing, wondering, impatient.
Go on.
An urgent tone. A ticking seconds hand.
Eyes all around, counting each tick.
Where is what I need ?

"I'll pass you, then..."

Gone.
Gone and done it.
The eyes are accusing now.
A little despair, a little humour.
Although it isn't funny.
Mind still whirring, too far gone to stop.
I know it's in there somewhere.

"Bang on ! That's the right answer ! Ten points to..."

Grimace.
Damn.
I knew that.
I know I did.

after The Exams

Ha. It's done. I'm out. It's out. The tree isn't naked any more- it donned spring green raiment while I wasn't there to see, and then hoped (I guess) that I wouldn't notice. But it's beautiful. I told it so, but it didn't believe me. Noone ever does. I thought it would, but it didn't either.And I danced. And sang. And lay flat out on my bed. And imagined. Wildly, crazily.And I flew, and travelled across the world. Here and there, across the world, quick as thought. And adventured, in a mysterious sort of way, and laughed because I felt like laughing. That was good.I suppose I must have sounded insane. Happy to inform that I don't care. Other people's minds are dangerous and crazy places to be in, and tricky too. I refuse to be embroiled in the murky depths of such places. I don't know what they think. How can I ? and so, why should I try ? And as for why they think it, they probably don't know themselves. Maybe they haven't thought about it. Idle speculation won't get me far, but it won't get me sunk. So I'll be OK.More than that, now. I'm great. Thanks for asking.

walking

Walking. A cacophony of light and the city's empty noises create an atmosphere of no consequence. Here, I can think. Imagine. Leave, because everything is mechanical, and nothing requires me in it. This walking requires nothing but two feet following each other into the light and shadow of another city street. Pools of lamplight, and then tree-shadows, and people shadows, and nothing substantial or real or mine. My feet follow the pattern in the footpath, as do, unconsciously, everyone else's. Adult hopscotch. A shop with pale mannequins like frozen ghosts. The fair ideal.
I go on walking, and the darkness watches me with a surly expression from the top of a tree, where it has been imprisoned. There is no place for it in the city anymore, not even at night.
On, till a familiar gate in a familiar wall, and then I'm home.