A Promise Made To Ghosts

Fingers traced the words of,

The blood song etched on the walls.

The grandfather clock’s face was a thousand splinters,

Yet it hushed out a lullaby of “tick-tock”.

A memory –

Strong hands winding the gears.

A man whose back was,

Straighter than the pendulum,

Always bending, never breaking.

The night sand laboriously,

Of broken bones, broken hearts, broken dreams.

Weary eyes leaked out stories,

Into brine-stained pillows, always soaking.

A memory –

“Shut your eyes, child.”

A tender caress, softer than kisses.

Stories of the past, stories of the future,

Never of the present.

Four faces smiled out at me,

Jailed behind a broken glass.

Their ghosts rose up, as if to mock me,

“We’re full of life, how can we die?”

A memory –

One. Two. Three.

The bed rocked gently to the rhythm of the guns.

Pinkie curled around pinkie,

As two little hearts beat as one.

Death left behind souvenirs,

Token of a past life littered,

A doll here, a ball there.

Dust-caked and abandoned.

A memory –

A little boy sat on his father’s lap,

Proud and unafraid.

The woman weaved jasmine into,

Her little girl’s thick hair.

The sky groaned under the weight of,

Prayers it had received,

The rain scribbled consolation on my window,

Too little, too late?

A promise –

The guilt of the survivor,

Shall not wreck me,

Only the hope lives,

Of dreams about to take flight.

Teach Me How To Breathe

Shattered dreams lay strewn across,

My feet leaving bloody kisses in farewell.

The window is a splintered mosaic,

Within and without, everything’s broken.

One hesitant finger kills a glassy tile.

Breaking glass breaks my ears.

Moonlight embraces me within

Her folds of cold, lifeless nights.

I can’t see –

Brine drowns my eyes.

Who – who is that?

You sound like Fear,

Sniffing out his prey.

Teach me how to breathe.

I have tears in my lungs.

Air eludes my desperate gasps.

While they smother me with a pillow.

Shush, they tell me –

They place my fist in my mouth.

I suffocate.

But no one will hear you, they say.

I choke.

Don’t die, they tell me.

The morrow won’t part us yet.

Teach me how to breathe.

Not A Review: The Crossover - Kwame Alexander

There Are Books

that –

thump you,

choke you,

crack you up. 

Books that

you want to

give

to that kid

in your building,

Hey, you like basketball, don’t you?

One Day

he’ll come a-knocking,

And you’ll open,

his face like the last page –

Gratitude in his smile

and,

something more in his eyes.

Maybe,

he’ll score that basket.

The Tempo

will leave you,

puzzled,

shocked,

betrayed.

Don’t worry, love.

You can’t

help

but feel

the RhyThM

in the

WORDS –

What alchemy

can

Paint people,

Compose music,

Change lives?

2. (literary)

A mysterious

power or

magic

that can

change things.

Y’know what’s

short and sweet?

This, GOD, THIS.

Like Velcro

There was a sound,

Final, resolute, irreparable,

Like a kiss broken in half.

But velcro doesn’t make that sound, does it?

How then did I hear it –

In the promises unmade,

In the hanging up of the phone,

In the silences between words?

Do strips of velcro feel pain,

When they’re peeled apart?

Why then do I hurt

When I see –

The empty REPLY box,

The ghost of her old smile,

The scrapbook that made us?

Her velcro patch has collected

Dust, dust, more dust.

(She always was careless though.)

Dust like –

Secrets,

Hurt,

Tears,

Ache.

(She claims they were souvenirs,

In her quest for happiness.)

I pluck the stubborn,

Remainders from her velcro patch.

(Or try to –

Velcro is as stubborn as the dust.)

Maybe the wind won’t,

Steal our laughter again.

Maybe we won’t,

Talk up a long bill.

And maybe we won’t,

Swap colourful bracelets.

But we won’t grow,

Out of our worn sandals yet.

We Once Strangled Words

I remember a boy,

Afraid of shadows,

Tucked in my sari,

Sleeping to my lullabies.

I remember a boy,

Who deemed roti worthy,

To be eaten only if,

Fed by my fingers.

I remember a boy,

Proudly,

Courageously,

Holding the hand of a girl.

I remember a man,

Guiding me across the,

Threshold strewn with,

Flowers that would wilt.

I remember a man,

Who slept with a bottle,

That kidnapped the man,

Who’d once smiled shyly.

I remember a man,

Sneering at the crumpled,

Notes I had hidden,

And the welts I caressed.

I remember them,

The man and the boy,

Trading looks of scorn,

At the shiny TV girls.

I remember them,

The boy and the man,

Shouting at me, shouting at me,

But I’d stopped listening.

I remember them,

Veiling their surprise,

Behind pitiful faces,

On the other side of the car window.

We remember the stories,

Sung by wrinkled lips,

Hidden under whiskers,

That doomed us to cages.

We remember the smiles,

On the faces of the demons,

As they stole our dreams,

And replaced them with screams.

We remember the words,

That we once strangled,

But when they fought back,

We let them breathe.

On The Count Of Ten

Now close your eyes and don't peek,

Close your eyes and listen,

One. Two. Three.

Now open your eyes and look for me.

And here you are, clutching my,

Dress, my hair, my hand,

Four. Five. Six.

It's my turn, and I've seen you,

A girl in expensive age,

Paid for with memories.

Seven. Eight. Nine.

Now we've caught each other,

We'll hide behind the grandmother tree,

Once the sun's kissed you awake.

Ten - you fall asleep.

Eleven - you let go of me.

Twelve - I fall too.

I can count the guns no more,

I close my eyes and listen,

And hear the silence you pulled me into,

Close your eyes and don't peek,

close your eyes and listen,

And I will sing you to sleep.

An Asking In Time

How would you catch time?

Like curling fingers,

Around a sunbeam?

Where can you see time?

In the sand,

In the stars,

In the faded photograph,

In the wrinkle of your skin?

Did you wonder at time?

When the flowers bloomed,

When your baby slept,

In a casket,

(a cradle no more)

When love morphed to hurt

-          - and back?

Were you scared,

To let him go?

When you sensed him,

Robbing you of,

Her laugh,

His smile,

Your beauty,

Their applause,

(come back)

Did you plead him to hurry?

When the broken needed mending,

When the heat threatened to burn,

(oh it hurts)

When the noises got too loud

-          Or the silence?

(no, no, no)

What did you do,

When you found your life,

Wrapped in two lines,

Of words (mere words),

On black marble,

Like the pearls on,

Your beloved’s neck,

-          The memoir of an oyster?

(I sneered at him then)

But you thanked him once,

When you saw the cobwebs,

You didn’t unravel the threads,

Flinched away from them,

(memories were leaking through)

Ah – memories, memories,

Footprints left behind,

By things no more,

On the beaches strewn with,

Broken toys,

Broken mirrors,

Broken dreams,

Choices and hope and will,

Stealing them away,

Continually,

Mercilessly,

(mercifully)

The Boat Stolen By Rain

The twin paper boats sailed past,
leaving laughter in their rippled trails,
while I stood, lost in the rain,
drowning, drowning in the memories.

Nameless faces framed her face,
A smile hidden behind the wet hair,
pushed a paper boat, it rose, then drowned,
but not before it reached me.

The rain witnessed our secrets, our sighs.
It washed our tears, it bathed our joy.
Dreams rose and dreams drowned,
but the paper boats kept floating past.

Then her boat sunk in the cruel rain,
I was marooned, she stolen from me.
Time had run her course, the scheming brook.
Memories and rain alike, drowning me.

What The Thieves Left Behind

The nights still hosted nightmares,
guns and canons punctuating each.
The air hugging me was weighted with tears,
- was that the epilogue of the songs of blood?

The nights wore the mask of silence,
it muffled the cries and strangled screams,
Hades lay in wait beside each bed,
picking lots on his boat's next passenger.

The land wore blood graffiti,
the crimson scared away the shy green,
while the undead sang eulogies,
to the ash, the blood, the ash, the blood.

I walked among that which bore,
no resemblance to that which were Before.
My eyes were no longer awash in brine,
the horrors had stolen even that away.

The unashamed witness, the sun,
scorched away the shadows, the thieves,
when one undisciplined ray struck,
a rogue dew drop sitting on a leaf.

Hope like that which Pandora never felt,
burnt my soul, my heart, the blood within.
My finger caressed that tongue of green,
the dew drop stinging me everywhere.