Category: Favourites

My selection of poems

Help!

Living my life
Without any strife
Knife in hand only
To mark time on my flesh
I’m sitting
Inside a fridge
Keeping myself fresh
I’m abridged
On a bridge
Leading nowhere
Looking for
A sign pointing somewhere
Anywhere but the freezer
The thermostat
Only makes things colder
And I’m stuck at the back
With a cabbage turned black
And sixpacks of beer
That come and go
Too quickly for me to know

I can push the fridge open
And answer the door bell
But then they might close in
The demons
The reasons
The feelings
The seasons
I might melt
After I’ve felt
That I’ve been dealt
Only a high card eight
And six bullets
For Russian Roulette
Get ready?
I’m not set
I won’t let
Them upset
My mindset
But I can’t forget
Regret
And last sunsets

Move out
You say
And get warm?
Like another drone in the swarm?
No, you say
I don’t have to conform?
This world has no place
For the freaks
52 weeks
A year
Don’t let fear
You say
Keep me near?
Invite someone over
For a beer
You say?
Nay
I don’t parley
I don’t play
I don’t live in the day
I don’t see the light in grey
They come to slay
And I’ve always got to pay
The price
For singing my nursery rhymes
Three blind mice
Past their sell by date
For someone over thirty
Years of age
Don’t hurt me
I can feel the world’s hate
I’ll be put on display
Waylaid
By cheats and liars
Bent out of shape
By their pliers
That were manufactured
And guaranteed
By society
My dignitas
Has a lapsed warranty
And my therapy
Has taught me irony
Only
So, let this freak bleed
In the cold
With only a decayed cabbage
To give him comfort

‘Oh woe is me!
Woe is me!’
I can hear you mocking
‘Just man the fuck up’
I can’t help it
I’m a fuckup
I’m just letting the ink flow
This is only half a show
I know I’m filled with self pity
Caving in to my ego
‘Write something of substance Tanmay
Write something important
Write something heart lifting
Warm and stay constant
And stop cussing’
I can try
To change direction
Blot out the ink
And pretend that I can’t sink
Into a pit of depression
And constant suppression
I can shorten the length
And write about strength
Self confident
Teaching life lessons
But I can’t pretend
To be what I’m not
I am on the mend
And have reconnected
With friends
But I’m not transcendent
I’m still in the fridge
But I won’t quit
Not while
I still have people I love
Outside

Ride the Chaos

There was a time

When I eagerly lapped up
The teachings of
Gurus, preachers
Spiritual masters
Searching for
Truth and grace
Magic and meaning

There was a time

I breathed in their smoke
Until I choked
Seeing visions
Born from asphyxiation
Eagerly making order
Out of false premises
And fake promises

There was a time

When I longed for a sip
Of Ayahuasca
Or transubstantiated wine
Anything
To make meaning
Out of pain and life
To cut my chain with a knife

There was a time

I ceased questioning
And let them dictate
Who and what I am
What I was
What I will be
I found comfort
In authority

There was a time

I began questioning
Everything
And became vulnerable
Chaotic, psychotic
Uncomfortable
Inspired
A creator

There are times

When I sense my body wandering
Wondering where ‘I’ have been
Unrecognizable
For a few seconds
After a great journey
That I’ve almost forgotten
My third eye blurry

Every time

I know that I am
A man with a body, mind and soul
Whole, though I am
At the bottom of a hole
Trapped by temporality
And reason, but not alone
Connected; All life is holy

I make a promise this time

To renew my questioning
To ride the chaotic spiral of Life
To stop being complacent
To stop being impatient
To get my head out of the ground
To open my eyes
To destroy the lies I tell myself

Stuck in the Mud

I graft on
Angel wings
And strange things
While pulling at strings
Of the marionette
Of my inner mind
I try To refine
Dignified lines
Filled with meaning
Exploring me and mine
Exploring you and your
Truth and beauty
Love and duty

My mind’s unruly
And my myopic eye
Can only see gloomy
Ugly, moody, broody
Scenes so ordinary
Lines so uninspired
And lacking technical
Sophistication
An inundation
Of blandness
Sprinkled with sadness
And self pity
Or maybe
I’m being too harsh
But stuck in this marsh
Where my words
Get submerged
Into the mud
Leaving no trace
Of meaning or life
Like a bad film noir
With no play of light
No artistic blends
Of new insight
With a spent script
That only appeals
To the genre masses
Of web novel fantasy
I really can’t see
The significance of me
My life’s futility
Makes me fear
Not death

But instead it

fills me with dread
To live on

Asylum (Chaos)

“Selling prison cells,” she shouted
“One for a sliver of your soul”
“How about an entire sole?”
I asked as I threw my shoe
At the black hearted seller
“How dare you!” I blew my top
My head spinning from her swindling

“Stop your pedaling,”
I said in righteous indignation
As I tried to grab her unicycle
Her dark pitch had filled me with rage
Her cells were past their sell by date
No detached sage was I
Nor parsley…not even rosemary
Then quite contrary to my watch
The Night in shining armour
Chased away old father Sun
In tandem to my own chase
Of the Faustian sales woman
She vanished into the stark
Dark, leaving her mark
A severed fairy tail
Nailed to the wall
Of an asylum
Where within I saw
A lightning sight
ECT!
Would it improve my poetry?
I wondered as I wandered
Past the toads in the atrium
Jumping high on helium
Past the nuts: macadamia
Cashew and Nutella
To the great and powerful Shrink Zero
Who started this epidemic
Of apathetic hourly sessions
And opioid prescriptions
Wined and dined by Big Pharma
–
“Bear chested and grizzly, wearing a hakama”
Was their diagnosis of my condition
And they added in cultural appropriation
For good measure, “With an unhealthy love for solitaire”
They shrunk my head with an Alice pill
Sapping away at my will to deflate the bill
They then placed a millstone around my neck
Showing me my reflection in a trick mirror
One last shiver; and then everything seemed just fine!

Push the Envelope (Fibonacci)

Born
From
Star dust
We’re living
Lives Linearly
Let’s Spiral out like Galaxies
Push the envelope-
The world bends
Reach out
Swing
Out

And
In
Again
Traveling
Much further this time
Explore the newness of each day
Forget the analyses, and forget the logic
Don’t be jailed by geometry
Draw outside the lines
Exploring
New
Views

(The poem doesn’t spiral properly if you view it through the WP Reader apparently)

The Highway

Watching the traffic on the temporal highway
Mass hysteria is how you get high these days
Too baked to hit the brakes
All the drivers- in tempo-
Nodding to the tune of Pavlov’s siren

Relax, take a step back and breathe
Stop being blinded by the headlights
Make a pit stop, take your time to think
Little Twin,  hack society’s programming

The right and the woke
Playing a game of dodgem on the road
Most days, this age feels unreal
2022, wtf!

In some ways,  it is as it always was

Cowboys and Indians riding their steeds
Trying to call down a rain of fire
Like the sons of thunder on the Samaritans
Racism seems eternal,  our moral values antediluvian
Nothing has changed over the centuries

Relax,  take a step back and breathe, she says
Love always finds a way
Stop at the saloon and dance to a rag
Carpe diem baby,  one day at a time

(My poetry still seems a little… unpolished. I’m trying…)

Slipstream Swimming (Chaos)

While swimming through the depths

Past dregs, past wrecks, past paper checks

Butterfly stroking the waves of red

He’s half dead, the mermaids said, but well read

I reached the island of salvation

Or so I thought with much salivation

A fake Grace moved me lower

The poison sower called me over

To garland me with pearls of swine shit

And so I found myself in a bit of a mess

I must confess I thought I wore clean purple

Vanity drove me past the speed limit

Indeed timidity had no part in it

Bravado? ‘Bravo, bravo encore’

I heard the constant roars of applause

I felt I could soar, above or below

Hell or paradise, everywhere I could go

Like a badass nomad; but I’d been had

Moved by a deceptive power that was mad

And so I confined myself

Immersed myself in a never ending story

While muscle turned to fat

And dust accumulated on my hat

Stuck deep within an ocean of words

Drowning, falling, mourning

A Dose of Chaos, Rx

“Drink,” the Lady of the Depths said

“A small dose of chaos is good for your health”

Health makes wealth or so they say

I’d gambled all of mine away

In The Gravy Train Casino

Leaving me in colourless rags

“Rambling on is real freedom man,”

My new friends said to me

While we slept in empty houses

Made friends with the Mouse

Declared war against the Louse

But I had to eventually leave

Strain my spirit with a sieve

Do something right and noble

Just and good, heroic even

And that’s when she came to me

Offering mithridate, incense and a cure

I drank the chaos in her vial

It tasted something vile

With a hint of a wicked smile

And the aftertaste of mint

I barfed up some lint

And discovered to my surprise

That I had been teleported away

To a deserted place

Green grass, swarming bees

Bonsai trees and brain freeze

“What is this?” I clutched my head in pain

“Am I alive or have I been slain?”

My life’s ending like wiping clean a stain

It felt good to go out that way

But then that refrain of pain

Made me realize I still held breath

This was not to be my death

I looked at my reflection in a pool

Five mes looked back, I swear it’s true

Each wore a different face

Different clothes, different styles

Different mannerisms, one looked sly

They pulled me under

I resisted their grasp

But with the force of five mes

I soon collapsed

“Behold Carthage,” they declared

A prosperous cityscape

Began to take shape

Within the pool

Where I drowned

“Destroyed from within,”

My reflections said

As black tendrils swirled

“Then destroyed from without,”

Legions marched and buildings crashed

I looked at the soldiers and wondered

I wondered

If their hairy throats were parched

I wondered

If the centurion’s helmet feathers were starched

I wondered

What would happen if I hid some bird seed in there

I wondered

Would his uniform still fit if he was bitten by a wolfy were?

“What frivolous thoughts,” the sly one roared

“Why think of such things when you soar?

Your soul is empty and we bring you feed

But you’d rather think of starchy plumes and seed?

This city is YOU! We show you your doom

Behold your iron barred room”

Well, as long as the wallpaper wasn’t yellow

I remember thinking

My reflections glared, all five of them

“You’ll never amount to anything!

Inner destruction precedes the outer

You’d best be prepared for the slaughter

Your spirit is weak

Your flesh weaker still

Go back now and regain your will”

The pool of reflections

Rejected my body

Was my mind too shoddy?

I was shot out in a spout

Where a fisherman catching trout

Carried me to safety

He started quoting John

And then asked me what was wrong

I didn’t know where to begin

I didn’t even know my sin

He nodded in understanding

Though I told him nothing

I then boarded a swan

And returned to my yellow room

Counting Days (Chaos)

“Sit back and relax” they said

While a maniac with a rusty knife

Shaved the top of my head

His wife singing of strife

“A life for a life”, is what she sang

His knife rusted from tear drops

He trimmed away my wyrd

He cut apart my self

Stowed it in the kitchen shelf

Marinated and kept

For the harvest festival

“Behold!” he declared

“Your new and bold look”

Free now from the madman

Head light with mayhem

I ran away tout de suite

With a craving for meat

While the screens screeched

To the view of a snowstorm

Hyperesthesia they call it

I’d gone and forgotten it

The ringing in my ears

I’d have none of it

But it persisted

Despite my best efforts

To shut my hears

And sing a lullaby

At the top of my voice

Voices clear and distant

From half the world away

Forcing me to sway

To the tune

Of a million burning effigies

Hanging upside down

Singing of salvation

Three dollars a gallon

Two fifty if you buy it from the tantric

Who’s into a lot of kinky shit

“Thou shalt bear no frown”

The court declared

When I asked for a refund

I settled for an antique blunderbuss

I had no other choice

It was either that or a porpoise

I left the judge with a grimace

For which he held me in contempt

“Paste a smile

Taste the sweet goodness

Of a life fully brewed

Fifteen years or your life’s savings”

Imprisoned again

My cellmate a hen

Who lay golden eggs

That sparkled when scrambled

An omelette that crackled

I counted the days

Of my incarceration

With tally marks

On the moldy walls

And scratches

On the prison bars

Counting the days

Desperate for rays

While my cellmate

Greeted every hour as morning

I counted the days

And counted again