New Medicine in Stores

The new medicine was finally in the stores.

After years of trial and error.

A limited amount for each wrapped in tiny white paper,

My neighbors knocked on my door.

A 36 boldface Arial in the morning newspaper.

They were all going to the med store.

“Come with us”, they said.

“Purchase a miracle you haven’t ever.”

All of us moved in a snakey queue,

If only I could afford some more, I thought.

And packed for a family of four.

Several broadcasts of the creators’ interview.

They sold love in bits of paper,

A few thousand rupees per unit,

The cure for everything.

After years of trial and error.

Via Daily Post: Neighbors

 

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Mad-Method

Polonius said of Hamlet-  Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

A frenzied flurry of pain,

Follow the same old pattern,

Jump from one blood vessel to another-

Bursting each open.

Faces move past in a blur, like streetlights through the window of a speeding car.

It’s the first step I take every time.

Second, I pause at each face.

I am belted on to the driver’s seat, my left foot on the brake.

A maddening reluctance to feel safe, a desire to fall step by step,

Into a dark abyss of repetition. Of methodical heartbreak every time.

Like scientific results of frenzied experiments.

Maddening results repeated every time.

Who evades the fall? I ask.

Those who speed past faces…fall into an unimaginably circular habit,

Of not falling at all.

And some

Keep going back and forth

To new faces and old,

New faces and old.

Because human actions are a methodical folly-

Repeated in circles and circles more.

Wound

No doctor, you can’t fathom the

Depth of this wound which,

Runs through my soul and

The blood smeared ball of muscle with

Cylindrical passages,

Both of which carry deoxygenated blood.

I have little hope from,

You, and the philanthropists who,

Offer to stitch my heart severed into two.

No doctor, I don’t doubt that,

You can’t heal my wound and

Also, a local anaesthesia wouldn’t do.

 

Via Daily Post: Local

I visited the House after several years

I visited the house after several years,

This time, not to spend my holidays-

My grandfather died.

 

Nothing had changed, except,

The porch was covered in moss,

And the stream behind the house was thinner.

Cousins from London and Zurich and Paris laughed endlessly,

Overwhelmed to see each other.

They exchanged usernames as I sat alone on a wet rock by the stream,

Recalling an afternoon from my teenage holidays.

The heat on my cheeks when he held my hand,

Our wrinkled feet dipped in the ice cold water,

A sin enough to forget each other by the following summer.

 

I walked towards my grandfather’s house,

As night fell slowly like curtains dropping after a magic show,

Stopped abruptly at the entrance. Remembering,

At the funeral I had overheard my brothers and father’s brothers-

They said they’d sell the house,

Before it was completely covered in moss,

For that wouldn’t yield them money enough.

 

Dark Folly

I found you in the middle of chaos,

Hidden behind a sparkling veil of gloom,

You stirred my tinted glass soul,

An enigma I’d never before known.

Your gaze,  a melodious requiem,

Coldly cryptic, unlike a Sunday hymn.

I thwarted my butterfly coloured senses,

And sped towards your cindery heart,

Knew all too well that I would lie,

Beneath the worm eaten earth, when you part.

You beckoned me like an evil temptation,

I was too dazed to halt,

Suspended my noisy rationale,

I was morbidly enthralled.

Time stopped in our darkened orb,

Our roses paler than bloodied thorns,

I gave in and called it love,

Adorned with desire your world forlorn-

Or so I felt.

Because the cold, dark night of our certitude,

Lay in the open all along,

Mocking at illusions of delight-

To you, I never belonged. 

You gouged out my spirit and,

Drops of life leaked away…

But delusions never fail me.

So I pledge to find another way-

To you.

Scribble Series #3

The old man was there as usual. They looked at each other briefly as John made his way to the rickety bench at the remotest end of the park, where the old man was seated.

John walked to the park everyday at dusk, to spend a few hours alone before clamming himself up in his one-roomed flat, on his way back from his bakery. His favourite bench in the entire park was the oldest and the dirtiest. Nobody ever used it, save for the other aged man. John was more than happy. He wasn’t socially awkward, but liked to spend most of his time alone, especially this time of the day.

The old man, his neighbour, a retired clerk, looked much older for his years. Life hadn’t been kind to him. He had lost his beloved wife shortly after marriage and was left with an infant daughter. After several years, his daughter grew up to have an admirable intellect and a heart of gold. Betty, apple of her father’s eye, grew up to be a social worker, nursing diseased tribes in the deep forests of Africa. She had left home shortly after earning a diploma and flew away to pursue her dreams. She wrote to her father regularly, who wasn’t well equipped with the complicated Internet. Betty was away for almost five years, and the old man’s heart ached to see his only kin. She had promised to return soon, in her letters she had delightfully announced to have found a charming man for herself, and wanted to marry him in her father’s presence.

John sat quietly with his head down as he recalled his beautiful days with Betty, in Africa. She was the most magnificent person he had ever come across. They were happy together…she had wanted to marry him at her family church…they had made all arrangements…But Fate smirked at their attempts at planning their future- after all it was she who pulled the strings according to her whim. A week before their departure, Betty was diagnosed with a fungal infection that steadily spread in her blood. Vivid images flashed across his mind as John recalled how the doctors were removing the life support after confirming her death. He was completely shattered and couldn’t stay there anymore. He decided to move to Durham, Betty’s birthplace and start afresh. He lived alone, and ran a bakery. Every evening, he visited the park at dusk and spent a few hours in quiet solitude to think about his beloved. He loved the rickety bench because it gave him a perfect view of the sunset. Betty loved sunsets.

The old man had only received a telegram from the organisation she worked for. Carefully counted words told him of her death. The telegram was followed by a monetary compensation. The heartbroken father, helpless, routinely spent a few hours on the bench alone, thinking about his daughter, watching the sun, set. Betty loved sunsets.

Eventually, John got up and turned to face the old man who was preparing to leave. The old man looked at the handsome stranger who looked oddly familiar, for a few seconds. They held their glances once again, a quiet goodbye. They were headed home, and walked away in opposite directions.