Finale

 

Still my mind and teach me to hear

the absence of a stream

the sparkle of air, crystal clear

the outline of a dream

still my mind and teach me to read

the red lines behind the gauge  

give me the skillsets that I need

to deink and strip this page

open me up to the noughts hidden

in the maze of days and nights

the trees and music, tinsel, ribbons

the spectra of festive lights

teach me to grow through colours and shapes

of silence, absence and voidscapes.

So...that's the final word. It's been a relentlessly hard year, glad to see the back of it. Thank you for your support and your time, here and on the other platforms of engagement. Wishing you a joyful, peaceful and healthful New Year 2021. 

Not a Pie

 

The heart’s not a pie, but how convenient

that it’s sliced into four, that it can hold

different concentrations of oxygen

simultaneously. Degrees untold

of love and thankfulness and resentment

together and apart, correctly controlled,

disparate, immiscible, vast oceans.

 

How fortunate that it can celebrate

and grieve at the same time. It can contain

brimming tears, and itself. Yet cascade

joy, radiate peace, friendship. Entertain

opposable thumbs of thoughts with innate

ease. It can loathe clouds but still love the rain,

petrichor, bedewed grass, the shade of shade.

Write... Edit... Publish... December 2020 : Unmasked

 

For this month, Write... Edit... Publish... is  taking a much needed break and getting its collective breath back. No winners, no comment counts, no prize badges this month - no pressure. This posting is for the spirit of community only - which is what has kept me going through this annus horribilis. The online and offline support of my various communities. A huge thanks to the WEP members for all that you did.      

Mind. Mandate. Missteps.

Sometimes it’s not the people who change, it’s the mask that falls off. ~ Haruki Murakami.

 

This year has forced nearly all of us to wear masks, like it or not. Masks are often associated with extreme attributes - positive and/or professional (health workers/firemen/anonymous benefactors) or massively negative (robbers). The pandemic has shown how uneasy we are when we cannot access facial cues to communicate, for all that eyes are said to be the windows to the soul. A mask is really a trade off - between power, protection and concealment, and we're not always outwardly comfortable with the balance struck. 

Cleaning the case

 

The sunset’s like a chromatograph

the pinks travel faster than blues.

I’m clearing the clutter from my bags

decades of paper residues -

foldable maps that fit in wallets

from trips in far places, now collapsed

loose currencies in zippered pockets,

coupons of the vanished and lapsed.

Clean darkness wipes out the mess of clouds,

my cases too are stripped of stubs,

the pocket corners duly turned out

the labels off, the metal rubbed.

Yet there’s a faint patch - that stubborn glue

just won’t come off whatever I do.