Wilson Cycles

The earth folds, and as it does, it speaks to you. What does it say?

Orogenies, when there, love to rend the sky,
It festers above and below, a gaping kiss
An igneous, crumbling, shepherd's pie.

Where I stand, ground roils over abyss
And the horizon shrieks out a unicorn's head
I can hear the soil rasp, a hungered hiss.

And it says, through the black and the red
"Listen, child, to my jagged, dazed pangs
The paeans of a solitary, stratified bed."

Little needles of rock unstitch, like fangs
Biting the faux-apple red of the clay
A ravenous trench wide beneath me hangs.

The mountain speaks like an alleyway
"We are Basquiat in exile, hungers of trees
The world is scarce but what we cast away.

The supernal swing is our grand trapeze
We are Orpheus on methemphetamine
Our tapestry is the almighty's frieze.

We've churned through games of king and queen
And long before the plague of your kind
We made what you now probe and call marine.

And yet there's something curious we find
A human folly that you're meant to last
Weak on this plane are your ties that bind.

Your monuments and spires of distant past
Will be swallowed into my gaping maw
For I, the Earth, am the iconoclast."

To The Athlete With A Broken Leg

To The Athlete With A Broken Leg
(A Quatrain for A E Housman, whose attempt I find altogether too morbid)

Look up; the clouded, mottled stars

Speckle their light on sun-faded plastic

Of the dew-dotted rafters, beyond the bars

From where you run to greet the dawn.

Your routine, your farce, your dance

A race to be faster, to push that limit

Your ideal shoes, the optimal stance

The gun fires, and you are gone.

You know this, and they watch you go

Your morning glory blazes the tracks

The clouds' chorus lights the world aglow

As the sky twitches your puppet-string heart.

The sour coach sneers, never one to impress

And you dance your solitary Sarabande

Now you're hopeless, sleepless, perennially less

A verdant world a hair-sliver apart.

Your face is crisscrossed with despair.

Despondent, discombobulate, pained

With a mangled, neglected salvation prayer,

A cast embracing your weathered foot.

The seed has consumed the sower's soul

A broken, confused face, with sadness painted

Your career feels rattled, all through its whole

The collapsed pedestal where your laurels were put.

The selectors say sorry, with their cold dark eyes

You know they'll never be sorry enough

You know that you will take months to rise

And much more time to regain your speed.

The coach shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head

Another foolish child, broken on the track, so still

A dream deferred to another pair of calves, not dead

Fresh targets to make sweat and cry and bleed.

I would tell you it's okay, that this hard luck will pass

The universe equally hates all of its saplings

But it's really not- you mourn on shattered glass.

Your foot is broken, short-circuiting your spotlight.

You will heal, and perhaps you will not be most fleet,

A silence will permeate your every sprint

But you will run, fulfil your inner athlete

Look up, how the stars shine from the rafters tonight.

Someday, they will shine in the day for you too.

The Ramshackle Bagatelle

The old man smoking outside my trailer park

Has choked on his willpower to live, once more.

Glossy, thick, and persistent, delightfully dark

He keeps it safe with his snuff, his secret store.

I've seen it shining in his eye, like billion missing stars

Blink, and it's staring at you unceasing, from his hand.

There's resilience in people here, like the decaying cars

A sort of crooked perversion of mankind's last stand.

Is this the edifice, our spire, we left upon our land?

A stoned, unkempt puppet of the heavenly cogs?

Our nobility dances its swansong sarabande

To the incessant baying of the sleepless dogs.

He laughs at me atop a can, a worn down petrol drum

Age has licked us all, but to him, irony is clear.

He shakes his head and he massages his gum

Beneath the ashen grey of the stratosphere.

There's no mobile signal here, no memories for keeps

It feels like a farce, a husk of a world, plain

Upwind from the desert, a single strain of thought creeps

Through sludge before being squashed in the drain.

The assassin might find something funny in this wild

An elegy for lands that never ceased to stop being

The thirsty stove sings its song, ever beguiled

By the gilded vision of salvation it's seeing.

I have long stood here, pondering this rot

And why I'm a place in its tableau

Where everything just falls, nothing is got

Every eyebrow is furrowed with woe.

I was born here, in this very shed of rust

When I was a child, it was lush and green

Now everything has been subsumed by the dust

Barring any return to how it had been.

The old man has smoking been here every day

He chuckles and offers me his oozing pipe

Tracing out the heavens and laughing all the way

He says I am but a boy, far too ripe.

Some day, maybe I will be like he-

Mapping out my own version of the truth

Perhaps it doesn't matter, it's a leaf on a tree

But my eyes are tinted by the lenses of youth.

This winter, I decided to leave my decrepit home

And discover the wiles of the myths of outside

But some strange force guides me when I roam

Bringing me to this place where I reside.

There's homeliness found in the notches in our bones

And there's a blessing that will let us persist.

A prayer etched into the tired-out stones

That we will live grasped by decay's wrist.

Perhaps that is the goal we all seek

To find an unconditional home to dwell

Marked by its own trees and its little creek

Will I find one? Only time will tell.

Till then, I will weather the wind and foam

For it is far better to finally fall

While discovering your own place, your home

Than to never have changed at all.

Tears Into A Forgotten Vial Of Memory

A dark one about the environment.

Today, I am hunting all the mermaids my sand-blinded eyes can see.
The blood of the modern Daedalus seeps from the skies
Proclaiming, "Behold, my steampunk soliloquy blesses heaven!"
But all we hear on this canvas are sobbing, stifled cries.

I stop to drink where the riverbed has melted away
Where they clean up the squalid streets with their brooms
I believe the great surrender will sweep away all the dirt
Except the one that pirouettes in our souls' empty rooms

There is an unearthly peace on the land as the ash sets in
To cake everything it sees in dust, the dust of dreams
This was once a dollhouse, this, a copy of Jane Eyre
Eaten away, destroyed, like the storm upon triremes.

The sky is green, the sky is red, the sky is an ugly palette
When you've mixed in far too much black with the bright
The clouds fester and grumble and shake the world
Winter now a distant dream, a feverish vision of unbroken white.

A beacon of hope is a thing of the past, no light shines
The black soil, forbidden chocolate, is choked dry
A crescent moon, neglected, sleepless, insane
Bears witness to the slumbering silent sky.

Acrid smoke, thick and foul, rises from a ruined heap
Was this a planet that once harboured life? Could it be?
A hieroglyph is scrawled hastily onto a rock
It appears an epitaph, to a long-dead tree.

I was an astronaut from afar, and my seeds of hope
Are poisoned and are perished by your scythe so sharp
You foolish humans, reaching bony arms for the skies
Knees condemned to never blessed with an angel's harp.

The land is burning and roars, wounded and bleeding
As I sought another world, for what it's worth
A house needs a lot of living to become a home
Why didn't you make one out of our mother Earth?

Onward, To Charybdis!

A bit of a change of tone with this one...
Charybdis was a Greek sea monster depicted as a giant whirlpool.

I am as lonely and lovelorn as a clam
That rests beneath the roiling waves
For her, I be enough just as I am?
Or will I be cast into forgotten caves?

I am the ship and I am the storm
I am the captain's screaming plea
I am the lighthouse, I am every form
I am quicksilver, like the azure sea.

I am as fickle as the shifting tide
Ebbing and pulsing and rising beneath
For the ocean, it is wondrous and wide
And all I am is skin and teeth.

She bursts and smashes below my feet
An austere, alluring dance of death
Onto the time-worn cliffs, a beat
As rhythmic but as erratic as my breath.

A puzzle is written into my eyes
And the embrace of time pulls my cheek
My hair is like the clouds in the skies
And I crack like a rock when I speak.

I have seen it change, its turbulent face
Every day as I wait on this ledge
Now it seems to have collected an empty space
That it tosses around about its edge.

I am as puzzled as the starfish
I am like the turtle, wandering free
Locked into a dream, in a twisted wish
Before its vastness, I am a flea.

Every day, nature's colours fade
And spiral into rotten gray ravines
Yet from what I knew I have not strayed
Through the games of kings and queens.

I tilt myself forward, towards her maw
Her swansong, it sings ballads to my soul
The morning mist and foam, they draw
Their grappling hooks across my whole.

Onward, to Charybdis! And over the cliff
A twisted body tucks and curls
Eaten by the whirlpool, like a skiff
Into its tumultuous swirls.

Towards the rocks, nay, into her heart
I am closed up, an old hero, like Priam
In water we are together as I fall apart
I am as lonely, as lovelorn, as a clam.

Dandruff

Let me tell you the tale of an itchy scalp
Covered in white stuff, much like an alp.
Anti-dandruff shampoo was bought
Will they return now? Hopefully not.

Something I Wrote For A Prior Movement Similar to #MeToo, Circa 2015

From the dark alleyways of the winding cities
From the cruel men whizzing by on bikes
A million malicious molesting stares
Systematic yet unspoken strikes.

A secret culture, a bubbling hate
That rarely rears its ugly head
And remains as whirling fury and loss
Until the poor girl is dead.

Yet this shame, this horrible act
Lies eclipsed within the gloom
Of the small hated room, and within the soul
Of a small child brought into doom.

Staggering strains of a satanic song
Snatched out, spreading, silent screams
A scaring spear of skulking shade
Of stealthy psyche-snaring dreams.

Is this what shoul hold our girls in thrall?
Should hold our people in fear?
A violation of all that is sacred
And all that we hold dear?

Our society's shadows, sneaking up
Is this the impression we wish to cast?
Of a hidden culture of torture, abuse
Is this our remains that shall last?

The Death of A Garden

Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. (Seamus Heaney, Blackberries)

A blessing of a garden, sunken low in the grass
Amongst the bushes that are the aphids' homes
Where the peonies and the zinnias jostle for room
To sink themselves into the chocolaty loam.

Walnut trees grow lazily, skimming the horizon
Shelled fruits littering the grass-choked ground
A small wren flitters about, skirting the shrubs
And picks up small kindling that lies scattered around.

A derelict fountain rises up from the earth
Moss's matted curls are now shattering its form
A limestone angel once bearing a pitcher
Now weathered and broken as if by a storm.

The tamarisks whisper secrets twisted
By winter winds into forgotten tongues
Unpruned dry brambles pierce their way
Into Mother Nature's dessicated lungs.

A rusted fence wends, curls, its way around
Languid and steady along the cobbled way
Sealing in this tumultous green tangle
That within its bounds grows yet astray.

Though the ochre primroses push up their scents
The entire garden smells musty, forgotten
The musky earthly scent and floral waves
Underlies something proliferating, rotten.

Through all these plants and crabby grass
An old oak tree lies twisted, stunted
Stooped over by age, trunk knotty and wrinkled
The sharp grooves of its bark now blunted.

It seems to know the ancient wisdom
Witnessing the coming and going of men
Across aeons long departed, and discarded
As time's wheel spun again and again.

But when the crickets stop their chirping
And garrulous wind is blustering far away
If you listen closely to the creaking branches
You may hear what he has to say-

"
I am the old oak of the garden green
And I have seen much on verdant plains
I have witnessed the rise of ancient suns
And the breach of the torrential rains.

Now I am knock-kneed and knobbly
And my trunk is beaten down by time
Yet I've bathed in the mist of thousand winters
And bore witness to many a crime.

A hollow juts deep inside my trunk
It has a dark pool where weasels hide
Many have sheltered in my boughs and nooks
And explored the breadth of my inside.

During the fall, my leaves break off
Into lacy skeletons adorning the floor
As my stripped branches reach, aspiring
To reach the sky's heights and explore.

In my youth, I was stately and tall
Singing a lullaby beseeching longevity
Now as my leaves fall and stories grow long
I see age should be limited by brevity.

Yet I must trudge on across this time
As this garden slowly fills with deaths
And each season brings fresh collapses
With each of the wind's new breaths.

Once when I was young, tall and bright
All colors hid in my leaves, confided in me
Now I am dulled, strong but stymied
But the rot festers below like a Stygian sea.

Few denizens see that the garden is dying
Like a war that hides itself underground
A sarabande of murky dancing death
That creeps beneath the surface all around.

Soon, this will be gone, and cockroach and rat
Will claim this as a land for their own
A mutual choke into nothingness' void
Time for dark usurpers of nature's throne.

Every year these flowers come and go
Tittering in the sun and discussing every thought
In this rot, each year I hoped they'd keep
They'd keep, yet I knew they'd not.

My body on this earth is bent and folded
Like a fluttering flag in a passing breeze
I tell my tale and hope for the future
A land where the most revered are the trees.

I'm sure questions are dancing on your tongues
Pirouetting to unbind themselves from thought
But now it is my time to leave my wisdom
Do make sure I am never forgot.

Goodbye, sweet garden, I wind to the sun
The kernel of eternal life is abating
And the heart of the wood that beats within
Is now unsteady, failing, pulsating.

I shall now knead gnarly dirt, my leaves will fall
To bless the land in their swansong's dance
While I will bend further, collapsing
In death, my final broken stance.
"

The oak falls silent, the garden breathes
Like a moment of respect to his life
And all the deep wisdom that he had collected
Amongst eras of warfare and strife.

The sky curdles and sours up above
As if it too, is mourning today
The thickets all wail in an elegy
And the flowers all seem to bend away.

The raptured mountains echo their sorrow
As they mark the oak's name into every brook
The word of his demise spreads across nature
Spread across the world by the chinook.

A tired, flat, periwinkle silence
Descends over the garden, now bleak
A stalwart of the olden days has fallen
And the grasp of its roots rendered weak.

You wonder what brought the rot to this land
The one that wipes out all these plants
What the oak tree feared would ruin this patch
And to all instant death grants.

You pick up the shovel and begin to dig
Half a foot deep into the angry grass
And hoping you find the source of the death
So all this strife would someday pass.

After an hour of toiling in the sun
Your shovel hits metal, and you pull it out
A corroded lead safe is leaching into the ground
Spreading its poisonous metal about.

The old oak, now silent in death
Creaks and rustles in the air
And you think you see the faintest bend
In its squat form bent up for prayer.

The hollow seems to widen its mouth
And two small cracks appear on its face
It seems to resemble a smiling mouth
As a blessing for reviving this place.

The wishes of the oak, a garden saved
You pick an acorn off the ground
Making a hole in the earth you put it in
And pour fresh water all around.

Soon the oak's child will bear its wisdom
You think as you walk away
And the tales that it tells in the garden
Will now be expanded day by day.

Odes To A Dead Dragonfly

I wrote a poem about a dead dragonfly I saw on the floor in the school science lab. I took it on myself to write it in the form of an acrostic poem; the first letter of each stanza is the same, and it spells out the name of the poem.

Odes to a Dead Dragonfly

Once you traipsed the sullen lands
On wings that were gossamer thin
Over silent sweeping shiny sands
Onto castles where dynasties begin

Dandelion shadows, your only kin
Dancing in the winds that blow past
Despair was yet to crawl in your skin
Discovering the glories of the vast.

Easing your flight on wings, glassed
Eke out life as lord of the skies, but
Exploring is finally stopped at last
Ebbing away as your lifeline is cut.

Saturated with liquid grace
Sadly sounds your resting place.

The ground, it wished to reach you
Tendrils exempted though they tried
To touch you in your world of blue
Taking winds and insects in stride.

On borders and lines, laws defied
Open lands were calling your name
Of all the beauties the worlds provide
Owning the crown is your fame.

All your life and what it became
Affixed on the floor so cold
And while the race to survive is all the the same
Ashen grey, your cards all fold.

Dreaming now of lands unknown
Darkened body embracing stone.

Eclipsed wings, a network of hopes
Edging the ears of chocolate soil
Eating their way up mountain slopes
Echoes from lost mortal coil.

A shiny body, glinting like foil
As the fierce sun shines above all
Always buzzing, like an annoyed gargoyle
Angry and ferocious though small.

Dreaming of rainshadow and squall
Devouring insects galore
Damaged, now below you fall
Dead and so breakable on the floor.

Dappled sunshine beats down blue
Drained of life is that which flew.

Rolled stone wishes and wet chalk
Refracting stories of your flight
Rooves silently & admirably talk
Rambling about your form so bright

Again the universe displays its spite
And extinguishes a gentle life
Amazing were you when you would alight
Amongst all of nature's strife.

Grim reality slashes its knife
Grey sky curdles and sours above
Grave loss, like a beloved wife
Gently putting to rest your love.

Over the pinions of sunset you've flown
Onto twilight's sepulcher alone.

Narrating of minerals and mysteries
Noisy memories are now interred
New births and ancient histories
Nested deep, now hazy, blurred

Fallen beauty, beyond any word
Fabricator of a life as a vagabond
Flying endless in day like a bird
Fades to dark, leaving silent your pond

Lullabies of night have come and dawned
Larking shadows claim your soul
Learning to leave a world so fond
Leaves scars crisscrossing your whole.

Yes, 'neath the light of pellucid moon
Your universe has imploded far too soon.

Tales from A Forgotten World: Part 1

Tales from a Forgotten World OR The Tale of Arbin OR A Farmer's Ordeal

Part 1: The Stage Is Set

Can you hear the cocks crowing, far away?
Oh, how the soil pulls up its earthy tresses
At the beckon of a thresher that disturbs the land
And brings to light the earthworms' addresses.

I toil by day, and earn my money from crop,
An honest path of well-earned wealth
I care for my fields, and my family
Both my plants' and my children's health.

My name is Arbin, I live on my farm
I sleep in a humble hut in a quiet grove
All in a tiny hamlet, tucked away in the hills
A verdant, serene treasure trove.

Upon my farm, I grow beets and squash
The vegetables are my means of coin
And the deity is salvation and my hope
Every evening in his prayer I join.

I am a man of the land, the ground my home
Just a humble, honest farmer, singing his lay
As the sun sets crimson, languid and slow
Over yet another seedling-sowing day.

Well, the rains fall calm upon the land
A watery drizzle that soothes the thirst
Rushing down into the cracks in the mud
Racing to reach the plant's roots first.

Soon my harvest is all set to reap
And see! The swelled fruits grow low
Suckling the sun's nurturing gaze
Until even their flesh inside is aglow.

The wind caresses waters in the sleepy creek
And the town awakens from winter's grasp
Announces the coming of market day
In a very long-awaited gasp.

My sons aid me in my loading
Stacking sweet fruit into laden carts
Filled to the brim with delicious fruit
Like the joy this season brings to hearts.

Like the cobbled road has its telltale bumps
Where a caravan leaps and dips its hood
Each season is different, some good, some bad
Nature is unpredictable, as is nature should.

The Lord has made today his blessed,
People jostle about, already here
To sample and purchase the plethora
Of farmer's bounty sold every year.

I set up my shop in a quiet corner
Yet people keep stopping to buy
Tis' a good day, the sun shines bright
The clouds meander, the birds all fly.

By the time the glorious light all fades
And dusk's shroud glides upon the land
My pile of crop is now nothing more
Than some vegetables I carry by hand.

A hearty stew awaits at home, and
Soon I know it is time to close my eyes
Tomorrow brings a new cycle turn
That nature summons with the sunrise.

I tuck my kids in, and likewise for me
Swathed in the wool of our local sheep
I utter my nightly protection prayer
For the Lord our peace to keep.

Yet, slumber struggles to reach my heart
Tossing and turning all around
I try sleeping without any blankets
And then try sleeping on the ground.

My wife and kids are peaceful and serene
Why must I suffer in this sleepless net?
If I pull down the blankets, I am cold
Yet if I pull them up, I sweat.

If  slumber will not knock, I'll bring it in
With a brisk walk in the night air
Against tents of the market flowing in the breeze
Amongst the remains of the village fair.

Oh! The night wind is brisk and cold today
It's clammy and it carries a chill
I walk amongst the fallow fields
Until my heart has had its fill.

I return, and swaddle, in blankets again
A warm familiar room I know so well
Protected from intruders and fearful things
A nice, cozy place where I dwell.

Yet once again, despite my attempts
Sleep remains elusive and far
Like the tiny moth that beats and struggles
To touch a distant burning star.

I once again rise, giving up
On any dreams I'll have tonight
And instead occupy myself with jobs
Until the dawn breaks with golden light.

I go out in to my field, pick up my tools
And think whether to cultivate it now
With toil and hand and plough by night
Instead of harness and cow

But without a prayer to the lord above
How can I start planting once more?
Before the planting process begins again
Mustn't I first worship at heaven's door?

But I realize that the shrines are shut
At this ghastly witching hour of night
For the priest and devotees are sleeping
While I am stuck in this slumberless blight.

I think a moment and then I see
That the Lord must have made this so
Else, why wouldn't I be able to sleep
Unless with his blessing I must plough?

I pick up my axe and the tiller in hand
And walk out into the field
And slowly, digging into porous earth
My farmer's tools I wield.

I must have dug some five or six rows
When my muscles, they start to strain
Finally I feel the need to rest
Before I plant the grain.

All my mud, it's come from a hole
Eight, nay, likely nine feet deep
I must refill it with fresh soil tomorrow
But now I finally yearn for sleep.

I cover the hole with a lattice of leaves
And close it up, all neatly sealed
I take a last, sideward look askance
And depart from the quiet field.

Sleep finally comes to a tired man
In slow waves of slumber deep
Meandering rest, like a river wide,
And peaceful like counting sheep.

The Airport

Full of people, a multitude,
Nice and kind, boorish, rude.
A song of tears and vicissitude,
Of lonely businessmen's solitude.

The thrusting of engines across the sky
A hug, a kiss, a sad goodbye
Bustling groups like random swirls
Paupers, millionaires, little girls.

The metal beast, home of planes,
Swallows up the city lanes.
Within its halls are concealed,
A myriad of memories, carefully sealed.

Lost luggage, security and coffee shops,
Sleepers in halls patrolled by cops,
Clutched suitcases, firmly clamped
In hands of people, tiredness stamped.

Late night travelers, families,
People worrying about their keys.
Vacations, business flights, always more
As white wings in the sky, they roar.

Carnage

CARNAGE

It’s 2 o’clock in the afternoon,

The sun is blazing bright

The grass stalks are waving in the wind

I think “ What a lovely sight!”

The crickets chirp quite loudly

Under the warming sun

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon

But now the peace is done.

We hear some footsteps, very loud

Crossing the garden ground

Opening the garden shed

And then looking around.

We hear the whir of machine blades,

The rolling of some wheels

Our time is quickly running out

Run, before our life it steals!

Our life is on the line now

Our chances looking dim

Heads or tails? We wonder,

Life or death? It’s on the rim!

The blades are coming closer,

Chances looking low

As I run, I’m caught inside,

Into the blades I fin’lly go.

Goodbye, sweet world, I think

SQUISH!

PS These are the last words of a Mr. Grasshopper just before he got sucked into a lawnmower.

Different: An Apocalyptic Magnum Opus

I hear the bustle of people on their way to work
I hear the pitter-patter of squirrels as they lurk.
I hear the rustle of the wind, I hear a bird go 'cheep'
I hear a motorbike rumble, I hear beetle creep.

I go up to my mother and gesture with my hands
I say 'It's time for school', I hope she understands
I guess she did, as she sets some oatmeal on the floor,
"Enjoy your meal," she smiles and says, " Tell me if you want more".

My mother cannot hear me, no matter what I say
She's deaf, absolutely, we speak in the gestures way.
My dad walks down the stairs in his trademark groggy stride
"Good morning!" he gestures and stands by my mother's side.

I change into my school clothes, and "Thumbs up! I'm done!"
I wave goodbye and grab my bag as to the bus I run
I remember that day so well, I had plugged in my phone
Wore my costly headphones, sitting all alone.

Engaged in a rock song, other sounds cancelled out,
Prob'ly why I didn't hear it when it came about.
The army was trying out a defense that was new
A sound to deafen their enemies, but they bit more than they could chew

They tested it prematurely, an uncontrolled blast of sound
Burst out of the army base, around the world it wound.
It deafened people around the globe, nobody could now hear
It travelled fast, you couldn't hide, people lived in fear.

It crossed our town quite early, while that song still played,
The entire town went deaf then, a soundless future made.
Those noise-cancelling earphones saved my ears that day
My life though, had turned for the worse, my world seemed to go grey.

I could hear, but nobody else, I had learned to speak
In gestures, but I was known as an oddball freak.
While everyone else spoke with hands, I alone could hear
Every word and every sound be it happiness or fear

Anyway, I digress, I climbed aboard the bus
I heard whispered voices and an insult, "You're a wuss!"
I slumped into the back seat, surrounded by jeers
Spitballs, and paper planes, and sneaky meany leers.

How can you blend in, when you were meant to stand out
When nobody can hear you, even when you shout?
When your life becomes as bleak and barren as winter skies
When only you can hear nature and the buzzing of the flies

Ostracized by society, turned into a freak
Swore at, beaten up all the time, am I really that weak?
The teachers all speak in gestures, I'm an outcaste in the clan
I really try to blend in, Trust me, I do all I can

Am I really that different? I'm honestly just like you
Don't kick me out and make my life full of a greyish hue
The teacher writes, I look at her, the students look at me
As a weirdo in the school, Deaf I wish to be

No matter what I try to bear, a part of me just cries
To be deaf like the rest of them, free from disparaging eyes.
I live through school in this way, every single day
Please let them accept me, every day I pray

In his Almighty's magnificent frieze
I fervently beg, please give me peace!
While my role in the cosmos is little but a speck
This insignificant life is reminiscent of heck.

I was actually normal, I prob'ly still am
Then why to you treat me like washed-up flotsam?
At home, I sit alone, feeling depressed
I always feel like crying but my tears are suppressed

Avoided like the plague, writhing in languish
In the darkness of my soul, I see nothing but anguish
My life of implication, insinuation and ill will
Seeped in sorrow and woe, till I cannot lie still

Blanketed in swathes of hatred and animosity
"But wait!" I think, "Must I wallow in self-pity?"
What if I accepted my role in the world
As an anomaly, my plan unfurled

I would fight against critics, play dice with cruel fate
make a name for myself, put an end to this hate
Different I was, and different I'd stay
I'd turn a new leaf, dawn of a new day.

I went to school the next day, with a spring in my shoes
I would never give up, no matter what I lose
They may be deaf, while I can hear
But it's time to accept that, and stop living in fear

Their leers and glances didn't penetrate
My conscience, and I hoped they'd abate.
Slowly but steadily, talking by hand
I'd made some friends, a dedicated band.

All are different, in all that they do
But the bonds between us are stronger than glue
And then I realized a lesson I'd found
That there are differences all around.

You need to rise, your barriers to break
To resolve your issues and a future you'll make
Don't look at differences, always be kind
Then you might discover a similar mind.

Trust me, as a guy who's unique
A positive mind is what you seek
If you just be normal and just be you
Your life will be filled with a vibrant hue.

Just hang in there, and if you end up like me,
Your life will always have ecstasy.

A Poem of a Poem

If a poem knew it was a poem, then
Would it cease to exist anymore?
And would its meaning scrawled in pen
Crash and burn in a heap on the floor?

Or would this shattered poem now rise
And begin to wander about, now free
Under the scattered starlit skies
Trying to find what it could be

It could walk over the hills and vales
And through every grassy blade
Traversing knolls and verdant trails
Through swampy fen and glade

Searching for its inner essence
It walks the lands and ponders
Beneath the heavens' luminescence
The lonely poem wanders.

Finally in a mountain grotto dim
The poem rests, to pause and think
About what's the true meaning for him
How he and the universe link.

And in that moment he realises his goal
And the meaning he held within
He suddenly felt complete and whole
In the universe he had entered in.

His true purpose was to hold the words
Of tragedy and joy and of fear
To capture the song of a 1000 birds
And to hold a single fallen tear.

To store into words all memories and songs
All feelings and thoughts and prayers
To treasure all rights and terrible wrongs
All of our hopes and cares

And in that moment that poem it seems
Saw the unspoken truth of verse
As a reliquary for human dreams
And the feelings of the universe.

This self aware poem then thought of its state
As illumined lines to ponder
And for the world to use it as an empty slate
It disappeared to lands down yonder.

The Little Black Spider

Little miss muffet
Sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and whey
When a little black spider
Sat down beside her
And frightened miss muffet away.

She came back in some time
"I must retrieve what is mine!"
But she was greeted by surprise
In the noonday heat
The spider began to eat
Before her very eyes!

"O Alas! This beast
Has made himself a feast
Oh, cruel fate's mean play!
Thy venom surges
And my conscience urges
Me to throw this away!

Thief of my meal
You know not what I feel
With the loss of my lunch so sweet
Before I fall dead
I've seen in your head
Your toxic wish for defeat."

But miss muffet wouldn't die
That spider couldn't harm a fly
Eating whey since he was starved
But thoughts of toxins eating bone
Like a text on sacred stone
Into her mind was carved.

The harmless spider scurried
As miss muffet hurried
To throw away her 'poisoned' curds
Under her breath she was muttering
Flabbergasted, spluttering
"it's too toxic even for the birds!"

"Curse you, oh beast so foul!"
Bringing down the empty bowl
To imprison the poor spider inside
In the darkness within
Separated from his kin
the little black spider cried.

He felt some motion when
He was shifted from his den
Into a giant box with wheels
Though spider kept on entreating
Miss muffet was unretreating
And shot down his fervent appeals.

Eating nothing for days
He needed some ways
To assuage his hunger pang
eating porridge in desperation
But now he was in consternation
The injustice of it stang.

Now desolate in the dark
Far away from the homely park
Going away, to frontiers unknown
The harmless arachnid
Yet ashamed for what he did
Began to cry and moan.

Locked up like a beast wild
His hopes of freedom all defiled
Stacked up against him: the odds
Depressed, desolate
Devastated, sedate
Whisp'ring silent prayers to gods.

Muffet brought the car to rest
Picked up the eight-legged 'pest'
And stormed into the city court
Amidst the roiling stormy sea
The spider's screaming rescue plea
Went unseen by the port

Finally he saw the light
Shining through a window bright
Into a room with wooden floors
As a spectacled judge sat, thinking
The spider's hope began sinking
the jury walked in through the doors

"O noble judge, hear my case!
Off of planet earth's face
I was almost wiped away
By this little arachnid black
And his underhanded little attack
As he tried to poison my whey."

The spider, mute, weeped
Steadily closer the wounds seeped
Into him, inevitably entangling
His fate with death
And with bated breath
The judge left his life dangling

Judge decided he'd heard enough
And brought on a tiny handcuff
And tied his legs together
In the distance lightning crashed
Hopes of freedom now smashed
Mental rain was sullen weather.

His life flashed before his eyes
This harmless eater of flies
Was placed inside a box
Air holes poked, tape for sealing
The narrow walls concealing
His existence in these prison locks

Flies dropped in twice a day
To the 'criminal' locked away
"None from the law are exempt!
I sentence this creep
To 7 years of sleep
For his botched murder attempt!"

The harsh words of the judge
Unwilling to budge
On his sentence so condemning
the words ran marathons in his mind
In the cell box he was assigned
Reminiscing, remembering.

Call it evil circumstance
Or even fate's cosmic dance
It had conspired to be cruel
Locked away forever, chained
His heart rent and pained
Eating stale flies and gruel

The poor black arachnid
In the darkness hid
depression engulfing his whole
Condemned in this grime
Till the end of his time
Regret criss-crossing his soul.

The Dream Bazaar

There's a corner in this quiet city
Enshrined in soft pallid light
Where lamps shine down in silence
Radiant through the night.

When two roads end another begins
Like a ghostly mirage, near yet far
If the day is right and your soul is pure
You can visit the dream bazaar.

When the trees whisper the route
To hitch a ride on a falling star
Follow the tracks of white mice on dust
To reach the dream bazaar.

A wondrous place of marvels and dreams
The sunlight refracting from a telescope
They say, meets at infinity but you'll see
It converges here and mingles with hope.

Sonorous strings of honeyed words
Dance their way through crowded lanes
All manner of things are for sale here
Selling on till none remains.

Bustling streets and hawking men
Brandish tales forgotten from lore
Selling dreams for 10 pence apiece
A variety of tales to explore.

Stories lost to the sands of time
Whirl around like fiery tongues
And the fresh air of sweet dreams
Is awash across your lungs

Like clockwork these dreams
Coming from unthought lands afar
All congeal into beautiful thoughts
Within the dream bazaar.

The perfumes of the stars and sky
Drink them all in like one at a bar
All these wonderful things and more
Within the dream bazaar.

Haiku (me age 7)

Peace
Cold air blows gently
Through the quiet midnight sky
People are sleeping

Mountainous Achievement

MOUNTAINOUS ACHIEVEMENT

Mightier than any man,

Stronger than anything.

Years in millions have passed

And barely a crack on its

Unforgivingly barren face.

In California, in Yosemite

It stands unconquered, undefeated

For over 200 years

On its Dawn Wall.

Rock climbers have tried,

Their gear protecting them

From the anger of the

Sheer plain face of rock

El Capitan. All have failed

Giving up, unable to

Balance their fingers and

Toes on ledges of rock

Thinner than a pencil,

Their calloused hands

Burning from gripping anything

They can, struggling to go on.

Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell,

Climbers of remarkable

Perseverance and skill

Set out on this task

Of David conquering Goliath

Despite the task

Being fraught with peril.

They packed meals for

Days, getting ready for

What was ahead of them

Huge bags, with tents

And gear, roped up

By massive pulleys

As they hunted for a place

To spend the night.

It remained that way

For 18 days, climbing

Up with what footholds

They found, risking everything…

Finally, on the 18^th day,

That sacred number, the number

Of days of the Mahabharata,

There was a joyful hallali

O’er Goliath’s corpse

Lying on the ground,

Vanquished at last.

The men, who with determination

So unending had done it

Performed a dance of

Ecstasy as they stood

On the summit of El Capitan

And enjoyed the rosy

Hues of the sun

Rising from behind the

Mountains, illuminating

Their world and the

Valley for them to feast

Their eyes upon.

The Tired Physicist

1:
F is ma, tan, cos, sin
Candela tells you 'bout the shine.
I'm tired of collisions, g and e,
Hadrons and muons mean nothing to me.

String Theory and Newton's Law
Meaningless conclusions I fin'lly draw
Torque, electrons, Faraday
Gimme a breakthrough, I constantly pray...

Chorus:
For every reaction there's an equal opposite one
Helium from H by the corona of the sun.
Physics research now seems like a chore
Momentum, resistance is now a bore

I'm a tired physicist, I'm a tired, tired physicist...

2:
Singularity, Quarks and Universe Strings
Bernoulli's Principle in airplane wings.
Ohm's Law, De Broglie, Cathode Rays,
I see Venus through my telescope's gaze

Oort Cloud, Kuiper Belt, Galvani,
Cornea, Retina, Lets Us See
Myopia, Joule, Volt and Watt,
By Higgs Boson, Mass is brought

(chorus)

3:
Thermodynamics, Microwaves
Meteorites? Friction Saves.
Kepler, Brahe, Asteroids,
Exoplanets, Planetoids

Relativity, Static, Motion,
Archimedes, Electrocution,
Angular Momentum, Pressure Applied,
But my Physics interest has finally died

(chorus)

Dragon's Lament

I opine with sunlight glinting off my scales 
What would I do if my race fails? 
What if those greedy Knights grew so brave 
That they would slay us in our slumber inside our cave? 
What if we were slain, until extinction 
While those Knights got all distinction 
While we were wiped out,  our heads cut off
Our body paraded,  beer mead quaffed 
Would there be survivors to restart our age? 
Who to our destruction provide a gauge? 
We always hear the Knight,'s stunning story. 
While he celebrates drunken in glory
Sure,  there are fools who we burn to a fritter 
But they think we're some weakling critter. 
Why can't you fools recognize 
The implications if our race dies? 
Must you charge so gallantly in
Your armour and chainmail creating a din? 
And raise your swords of tempered steel
Heroically and full of zeal
And cut us off as we snore 
Is there  need for all this gore? 
So,  humans,  I beg to thee
Stop killing us and so will we
No more rampage full of fury 
No more burning old McDrury. 
We are noble creatures,  just and strong
Stop killing us and doing us wrong. 
Our scales our treasured by your kind
But a million more treasures there are to find 
Our heads,  snarling vapidly on your walls
As a decoration and a Swansong now adorning your halls
We engage in philosophy,  we think what for? 
But you foolish humans engage in war
Why must you slay us with feelings of vain?, 
Cannot you feel our thornlike pain? 
Mankind,  I ask to thee
Stop this nonsense and leave us be.

Axl Chuck Rodent

Story:
One morning, my dad called us to the yard, and showed us a tiny pink thing, wriggling and squirming on the ground. It seemed unlike a rat, yet it was undoubtedly a rodent. We eventually decided it was a squirrel. It was only a few days old, it's eyes were still firmly shut. We stayed up, constantly feeding it milk, water and cleaning it with cotton. It seemed as if it could possibly survive. One day, as per recommendations of the internet, we fed it lactogen. It was too much for its weak body to handle this new food and he peacefully passed away.

Poem (The Actual Tribute):

1)Wriggling, squirming in the sun
Have your threads of life been spun?
Pink and naked, eyes wide shut
Your fallen body still uncut.

The squirrel's nest, up on high
From there to our world, you did fly.
Our exclamations at your arrival
Our hesitations of your survival.

A shoe box, padded in cotton
The air holes, not forgotten
Furry, scratching at the air
Hoping to see if your mother's there.

Chorus:
Hush, little Axl, it'll be allright
Keep your spirits up, we'll continue to fight
Hang in there, little buddy, we'll pull you through
Keep you alive, give you life anew.

Do you have a chance, will you amaze?
Will you survive through the coming days?
Axl Chuck Rodent, fur caramel brown,
Don't go to heaven and let us down.

2) Milk being fed, a true achievement
But will your saga end in bereavement?
Can you survive, Axl, through this test?
Or will you ascend on your celestial quest?

1:30 in the morning, the light flips on,
Time to feed you, else you'll be gone.
Little lips, smacking to and fro
Your movements pained, your wriggling slow.

Are you deteriorating, Axl Chuck?
In in death's mire, now permanently stuck?
The cotton cleaning, gently rubbed
The milk off your tiny body scrubbed.

3) The next day was Monday, feeling blue
Thankfully Axl had pulled through
School we went, mom was taking care
As Axl waved his hands throughout the air.

Lactogen was the new food fed
Too much to take, you ended up dead.
We buried you amongst the leaves littered
Our hearts heavy and embittered.

When you run around the great tree in the sky
And witness all the angels fly
Axl, remember us, who tried our best
To save you, but ultimately put you to rest.

Apocalypse

Do you remember jet skies with glittering stars
Now the sky lies embittered and lacerated with scars.
The prophets have fallen, yet their words ring true
Harbingers of doom, if only we knew.
The world is destroyed, nature's beauty we smash
Now all that lies as remnants is smoky ash.
Burning skies, proliferating drugs and bars
Greed and addictions, polluting cars.

CHORUS
The human race has scarred our world
Ravaged as it as in space it swirled.
If aliens would visit us in posterity
All they'd see is our sheer barbarity.

People are falling, Mother Earth destroyed
Her people are sick and unemployed.
Our future is blemished, a veritable smear
Can we say that we're sincere?

The human race is failing, our hearts are turning leaden
By this approaching Armageddon.
Enriched we are, yet we cannot show care
Of our path of destruction, we are not aware.

Apocalypse...

2. Are we on a path of no return?
Are we gone like the forests that we burn?
Cannot we open our eyes and see
That we have twisted nature's harmony?
Our fantasies of endless greed
To what finale do they lead?
Are Tikal's predictions to be believed
With our ties with nature severely cleaved?

[Chorus]

3. Forests are now a thing of myth
One or two, much like the Sith.
We have machinery, bulldozers and cranes
For destroying our trees and scarring our plains.
All the communities have together warred
In a land where honesty is abhorred.
We act like beasts, all uncouth
Our societies are all going south...

[Chorus]
(Apocalypse)x3

Allergic to Magic

An incantation whizzes through the sky
A spell is uttered to make brooms fly

Magi mumble magic, miracles manifest
Giant balls of  magic energy are coalesced.

A pixie flutters to and fro, magic spells abounding
I stand in the midst of this magical surrounding.

The students have grown into wizards and witches
Capable from calling lightning to healing stitches.

As professor of this college, I have secrets to hold
And one can't be revealed for all the gold

The university's crest, the magic skills
Seeing it sometimes scares but thrills

My secret is dark, it's so tragic
It's that I have an allergy to magic

What can be done when magic makes you sneeze
And makes you fall down on your knees?

And writhe in pain, and make headaches arise
And get red patches in your eyes

I don't know how I became professor here
When magic makes me shed a tear

It goes on, here, life is hell
When you can't even handle a spell

A spell whizzes past me, I shed a tear
What the heck am I doing here?!

I scream "I'm going!" and run to the gate
My temperature feels like 108.

My stomach aches, the gatekeepers stand
Staring at my lachrymal gland.

" I quit!" I scream, and with raging ire
My headaches burn like a blazing fire

Writhing on the ground, I see a face
And feel the school nurse's calming embrace

Now taken the pills, I teach spells to a kid
My allergies to magic permanently rid.

(And nobody knows except for the gatekeepers, a few students and the nurse!)

Summer

Sunlight hitting the dusty road
In a land where lies the Sun's abode
The blazing sun parches the land
Trees like silent watchers stand
Waving in the gentle breeze.

The children are told not to go out
In the sun, not to walk about
They wear their cottons and under the fan
Make their grandiose evening plan
As they wait for the clock to tick.

The water bottles lie in the fridge
As the sun lights the golden ridge
Of distant houses, baked in the heat
Their owners having flip-flopped feet
And basking in the shade.

The distant sound of hawking
Some local ice-cream, people flocking
Far away their bells toll away
All hoping for a cooling spray
In the form of a summer shower.

The fruits are ripening on the trees
The Koel's call is carried by the breeze
The juicy mangoes are cherished by all
Golden yellow in the season of Sol
Waiting for devouring.

At last, the gentle winds caress you soft
And the warm smells of petrichor around you waft
The drizzle cools the thirstly land
And splashes upon your outstretched hand
To bring joy and water to all.

Razing Raw Rage

When the bloodlust fades away from your burning eyes
And the soul cools down after mighty flare
When the festering clouds clear from angry red skies
When your conscience mends the small internal tear

You see the world again, through views refreshed
No more cages, no more trappings and bond
Within the golden light enmeshed
A chance to wake up to calling voices and respond

In hazy dust of bustling crowd
In twisting, weaving fractals of men
The high that leads one to spear the clouds
Fill the mind's verdant glen.

A pallid remnant of angry burst
Is all that remains, now only calm
The red rage is now dispersed
The body's very own healing balm.

Important Matters

Aristotle made an observation profound,
That matter surrounded us - all around!
Scientists studied matter of kinds,
And they made some interesting finds.

In the 1600s you had Leeuwenhoek,
Who changed the world with his microscope.
He saw little creatures with only one cell,
Observing water that was taken from a well.

How profound! they all abound
In the water and on the ground.

"what made matter?" scientists thought
"what could it be - oh truly what?"
Two different ideas prevailed back then
One said 'particulate!', the other said "Men,
Isn't matter like a block of tin?
It can be hot or cold or thick or thin."

But that just didn't seem to be quite right,
Sparking off another fight.

Finally, a bloke named JJ Thomson came,
By solving this question, he'd earn his fame.

He discovered that atoms made it up
But Thomson wasn't done,  his time not up
He opined, and thought that "Hey!
How did atoms make weighty things weigh?"

He concluded at last, they have a mass;
they're made up of protons (now that's just class)
Thomson drew his model of an atom- O Fie!
It ended up looking like an apple pie!

Rutherford, who hailed from N-zee,
Discovered the core of positivity
He took some gold (wife's jewelry kit?)
And slammed it with alphas,  oh how they hit!
Most passed through, but he saw something strange,
Some of the particles bounced straight out their range
And so, the idea of a nucleus was born,
Kinda like the centre in an ear of corn.

Let's wind time back about 200 years,
When the winds of change began turning the gears
Joseph Priestley, scientist beyond compare
Discovered something called, 'dephlogisticated air'
It was renamed Oxygen by Lavoisier of France,
A vital element in the cosmic dance.

Hennig Brand - I'd better not miss,
He tried to make gold out of piss!
He let it ferment for many a moon,
And ground it and smashed it by using a spoon.
He heated it and 'woah'ed,
Whatever he had found, it glowed!
Phosphorus abbreviated to P,
Symbol describes it's discovery

Much later in Zurich in a patent office there
Sat a clerk with some crazy hair
He was working on Physics about space - time
Close to breakthrough covered in grime
When he released his findings nobody cared
To see his equation e=Mc squared
Albert Einstein he was indeed
He's the greatest, all agreed.


A German guy by name Max Planck,
Found something that many would thank.
Quantum Physics is what was its name,
It gained Max Planck considerable fame.
Electrons could do impossible things,
As if they were magical wizards with wings.
Time travel, being in 2 places at once,
These properties made scientists feel like a dunce.
How is this possible? How is it done?!
(Still working on it: Won't jump the gun)

Let's now look at a fellow named Bohr,

He was looking into atoms (we'll see what for...)

He found that atoms got energy in a packet,

Quanta, he called them, it made quite a racket!

He later wrote, in a news article,

That he had found a new particle!

Hantaro Nagoka, a Japanese guy,

Let the science world let out a sigh.
When he drew the atom's new shape,
A centred nucleus, with electrons like a cape.

Turn your sights to Murray Gell-Mann,
A Caltech scientist, for Nobel Prize ran,
With his discovery of something called 'Quark',
Proving to the world that he was no dork.
They made up atoms, the vital part,
Gave many new sciences life to start.

In 1953, in an English lab,
Some people made a discovery- very fab!
They had discovered DNA,
Nobel for them? Yes! Hooray!
DNA's structure: a double helix,
By Watson and Crick (not Felix)
In the past, a while ago,
The science of genetics began to grow.

William Morgan, a brilliant dude,
Was in a decidedly tedious mood.
He started a job that took years to end,
Years of careful work- fruit flies to tend!
He bred fruit flies to check for some traits,
Red eyes? White wings? He checked all mates.
Heredity was what his work helped out,
We understood genes that we didn't know about.

If you can be like these men; smart and clever,
Then your name just might be immortalized forever.

THE END

The Monster-2

The light cast shadows on the darkened wall,

They beckoned to me, they seemed to call.

Amongst the dancing shadows, something huge I saw,

With glowing eyes and wicked teeth and a deadly killer’s claw.

The monster had returned; it had come back to haunt me so.

To steal away my future years, my valued years to grow.

I ran out the room, with an air of hysteria,

I ran to my sister’s room, with walls a deep wisteria.

I shook her wide awake, warning of the threat,

That had us trapped within the house like fish trapped in a net.

The monster had now sensed where we were,

It ran towards us, now a blur.

It grabbed us both in one hand each,

Its grip didn’t allow us even to screech.

The monster, stealthily he did stride,

With two children held tightly at its side.

The monster walked on, through all terrain,

We seemed hard of hope again.

The monster took us into his lairs,

What would become of us-the monster-slayers?

Pitch black caves the monster covered,

Between life and death, we felt we hovered.

There was a rancid smell of must and mold,

In the shadows lurked something old.

Could the monster have a master?
He was now treading ahead faster

The temperatures went soaring,

The monster began roaring.

Was it a call to his primeval lord?

Or signs for a sacrifice to a bloodthirsty god?

It took a step closer, onto a platform,

Below us was darkness, lacking shape or form.

It placed us down on the ground.

But we were far from safe and sound.

Opening its drooling mouth it madly shrieked.

Of blood and flesh and human bones, it reeked

It looked around; I sprang to my feet,

I was sweating profusely in this sweltering heat.

I rammed into the monster with all my power,

Did I see the monster cower?

The monster tottered on the edge of the abyss,
And down he went with a punch from my sis.

The creature collapsed into the void.
It was defeated; we were overjoyed.

Powerful winds blew around me,
Whipping around us like a banshee.

They transported us through the darkness of the cave,
To endure this, we had to be brave.

I found myself, back in my room,

With no signs of any approaching doom

Now we're back in our beds, safe and sound,

No bloodthirsty monsters anywhere around.