"Once Upon A Line"

(Yes, it's been a while...)

Flipping through pages on a summer day
Found I, a story most usual. Dare I do now to say.
There once did live a princess young, a princess who did speak.
She talked to one, one who was I and I do now repeat.

She talked through song, a lovely rhyme
Melodious full, to word and line.
Talked she of treats, talked she of sights
More magnificent than could imagine anyone’s mind.

A worldly galore, sparkling oceans
Sparkling stones, shiny shores.
Such a view, painted the dame
Promising carousel in loving fantasy’s name

She talked of exquisite dines
Made only more lovely by crooners' lines
Berlin, burlesque; Madrid, merengue
Each one resounding her lonesome den.

But she forgot to tell tales that needed telling
Perhaps, her own world needed more unveiling.
For she a princess in her lusty mansion couldn’t see
The bricks that had needed laying for her lusty mansion to be.

She looks too oft in the mirror that she adores
And thinks too oft of the oceans in galore.
She forges lies, she always has, as has her world around
In an empty world, the noise can sometimes break the flight of the truth’s sound.

Of loving ecstasy there isn't much to say.
Said she, “Come now my prince if you may.
Caress me now, don't stress your brow
And at once, do kiss and show me how. 

...And the frog said to the princess,
“Another time, my lovely. And another frog.
I fancy my slimy world to your worldly slime.”

Cookie Man

(Don't ask how. Don't ask why.)

Crimson evening. Lonesome street.
A sweet candy of a tooth. And nothing to eat.
Now that the evening's set, the mood is on.
A sunbathed view to a mellow song.

And I see a shadow. Of a crowdless ruck.
Dazed. And I wonder if it's the Cookie Truck.
I've been so high. So high on blue.
Cookie Man, is it really you?

I hear your bell, your striking chime.
A toneless rhythm, but a whineless rhyme.
The street corner's empty, the routine isn't new.
Cookie Man, why don't you come through?

Use sugar brown and spoon burned.
That's something you don't need to learn.
I'll buy you out. Never pass the buck.
When all of the world's leaning on beginner's luck.

Don't make me wait now, Cookie Man.
It's only just a cookie. My cookie. Please understand.
If the jigsaw doesn't place, and the song not rhyme -
Know it's only a more beautiful line.

The beautiful we ever seek. With a dauntless eye.
Yet crouch somehow in worldly pride
But what is now must come to pass.
It works this way. It always has.

Your smirk I see fading fast.
The spoon is burned. The die is cast.
Of shameful trial, of taboo ways, I tell you this -
The motion is set. The wheel's a-spinned.

Watch how the cookie crumbles now.

You can only say as much as you know.
Go speaking on and on, although.
I taste it now. Sweet déjà  vu.
The dream's just started. Words just won't do.

...My view's a-hazed. The world's a-new.
Cookie Man, is it really you?

Plan B

Daddy would leave for work with a briefcase in his hand
Little me then thought one day I'll be in command

Then I watched the birds fly and above them a plane
Bye, bye officeman! On ground I don't want to remain.

And the very next day Charlie's Chocolate Factory had me turned in -
Forget flying when in cholocate you can sink.

And as I grew older, so it came to be
A new day, a new dream, a new melody

At school I learned of heroes in my history text
They'd come and change the world, so it said.

But now the world misses them, misses them all
War, poverty, corruption - the common man's call

So I decided one day I'd change the way it works
The system, the government, the construct truck

Hercules would just be no match for me -
Unlike Achilles I'd have no weak heel.

Splendid and magnificent, I'd do it all
But before I headed off to work the wall -

I'd go to college to get a degree, Plan B
In case I didn't get where I wanted to be

And I passed out. Right after I passed out.
Too hungry to help another, I was in doubt

My plane had crashed, in a whirly style
I thought I'd do it all but only maybe after a while.

So I turned to Plan B
And I got a white collar job for me.

And that's how it's been all along
I laugh when I hear some kid sing that song

When I look back, I wonder how I lost my cape,
How a saviour of the world turned into a domesticated ape.

Because I thought I might fall
I guess I did manage to fall at all.

Seems like growing up is letting go
Of all your dreams, of all your goals

One day, a pilot, another day an angel sent
The next day a judge, a cop or the president.

So many things you start out to be
In the end you're left with just Plan B.

(Plan B... such a misery)

Academia Blues

(For all of the misery we've been put through all of these years...)

When you curse the apple that did fall
Wish Schrodinger's cat had better hit a wall
E doesn't equal M, C squared
Einstein had better only played the violin there

Yes, you're doing the academia blues
It isn’t a joking thing, isn’t easy to get through
We're talking nasty, we're talking academia blues
Beat you each time, like a hammer on the head
There isn't any 3-D path harder to tread

Each time you're put through a chain of Carboxylation
You feel it's bad as asphyxiation
Feel that carbon had better not exist?
Life would have been better, much better than this!

Math stopped being, numbers and signs
Long back, long back when science too was fine -
Simple and easy to comprehend
Minus the uncertainty, minus the Hamiltonian grand

Then bombed we were with fat boy and little man
Statistics, semiconductors, scientific slang
Observe, analyse, record – they ask us to do
And then to mug up formulae without a sound or two

For we're living through them, academia blues
From morning till the day is through.
You should for once try our shoes
It's the oldest and the latest news
The spited and the spiteful - Academia blues!

To you the periodic table was never nice
Neither the DNA, all of which you wished to splice
Couldn’t care less if copper salt was blue
Wondered Murphy’s Law couldn’t be more true!

When you're going roughage – oh, I meant bananas
Doing crazy vectors, or studying the wild Savanna
When you're going insane, going Academia nuts!
When the light at the tunnel end has clearly shut
You may give it a rest. Might want to cut loose
You can wait till they haunt you - come Monday, Academia blues!

Hid-den-seek

What do you see when you look at me
Colour, face, chin or kin
Do you think to bother, bother to think
To go beyond my many skins
What do you hear when I speak
The tone, the pitch or the way in which
I have been taught to speak

As a picture hides the wall cracks, that just couldn't find their way in it
A story forgets to tell stories. Of many. They say,
A picture tells a beautiful lie, not so much an ugly truth
And that does go the other way
As you've been sold, as you've been told
As the adverts tell you to go - So you know
We live on things made to ‘struct
The power we crave, I'm sure we must

We've lost a certain significant right side
In a noisy dead end street
While our heart's been reduced to a mere
Pump that keeps us longer lest we stop to breathe
We seek comfort, we choose convenience
To write a critique than save the cause

And the pictures that our mind makes
We've trained it to hurry, to fasten its pace
Our one-tracked lives, they just can't wait
To hear a different song, to escape our fate
God, oh God, what did you end up to make
Tell me but anything, if not a rat race

A picture hides the wall cracks, that just couldn't find their way in it
As a story forgets to tell stories. Of many. They say,
A picture tells a beautiful lie, not so much an ugly truth
And that does go the other way
As you've been sold, as you've been told
As the adverts tell you to go - so you know
We need no more than listening to ourselves
While on screechy whistles the world around us, blows

Paradox

(The more I see the less I know for sure... John Lennon)

I try so hard not to objectify

But each time I do, I try

Covering it all up, one by one

Saying everyone's been objectifying everyone

And I realise

I just did.

I look at you and your innocent flight

Your simple and one-minded sight

And I see how and I see why

I'm left down here to see you up there, so high

It's easy, it's plain

Why here I remain

So black bird, winged one

Do you see birds the way I see a human?

Dear black bird

Do you realise I just called you black?

Really, Mr. Freedom

Do you see my slack?

When not busy making depressed chatter

Or took up by some wise clatter

While my thoughts are plain as my space

While my thoughts don't prick this haze

This haze that does surround

This haze that never fails to come around

For black or white or dark or gray

We lost a lot, we pride ourselves - child's play!

But they say you don't gain if you don't lose

Seems I gave up my answers for questions, for turbulence, truce.

Still I hope when I look at them there

I feel some feel, I feel some care

(And wait, I do)

So black bird, winged one

Do you see birds the way I see a human?

Dear black bird

Do you realise I just called you black?

Really, Mr. Freedom

Do you see my track?

So black bird, winged one

Do you see birds the way I see a human?

Dear black bird

Do you realise I just called you black?

Now, Mr. Freedom

Do you see my slack?

Too Good For This Life

(Not cynicism. Just expression. Read without prejudice..)


Came back from a walk

With a friend and his mellow talk

He'll talk friendly, he'll talk nice

When I turn around I see it's lies

I feel too good for this life

Cry-monging, havoc rife

I feel too good for this life

To take it all at the point of a knife

Quit a job and my office room

And their funny circus costume

Felt tired working days

In a rat race, it's a hopeless case

I got a girl, no I had her once

She's gone, she's gone since months

She couldn't, no she couldn't know

That love's just an empty show

I feel too good for this life

To take it all at the point of a knife

But you're born and you pay the price

You're too old when you get wise

I see them fight, I see them hate

Over colour, religion and other bait

These fools, no they don't see

What was before this came to be?

I feel too good to just complain

So I'll go out soak the rain

I feel too good to hear you swear

Throw off that pride you wear

I feel too good for this life

To take it all at the point of a knife

And I'll leave for a different place

When memories, dreams can replace

And on the beach, the summer glows

In the heat of the chilly snow

I could really use getting lost

Taking easy, listening soft

I'm too good for your lies

I'm too big for my size

I'm too young to survive

The hate dropping off your eyes

And I feel too good for this life

I feel too good for this life

How Small Are We

(One of the very few things I wrote years back that still are with me. One of my first attempts at what few would dare to call poetry. Expression is all I'll tag it with and happily at that..)

They talk about money, of making a name
Finding a way into history, of glorious fame
And I hear them

They talk about love and lust, forever and more
Of diamonds and pearls, oceans and shores
And I hear them

Then I look at the stars above
And I see the lights high up
And I see, how small are we

I walk the streets, I watch them all
The rich and the poor
Some flash useless gold; for some
Tomorrow's not so sure
And I see them

Some have a lot to waste
And still you see deaths of disease
With all we've been given
We've been no fair it seems
And I wonder, wonder why

Then I look at the stars above
And I see the lights high up
And I see, how small are we