One day
On the final day
On my final day
Some will hear of it, and maybe say
Ashes to ashes
While others say
No way! Dig a hole in the ground
That’s the right way
Either way, I can’t stay!
They’ll put me away
Somewhere far,
Far, far away
Where I will lay
Where I’ll remain
Or my remains will remain
My remains?
How?
That remains to be seen
Though definitely not remains to be seen!
That would be rather obscene
Imagine the scenes…
Sorry, I digress
Where was I?
I died, yes…
And my remains?
Still nowhere to be seen
Buried or blown away — either way
That’s my last day in the sun done
Until my tea leaf-like existence infuses with the next rainfall
Until the waves dissipate from the last time my name’s called
And that will truly be all
An existence steeped in life, steeped back into the earth
One way or another, I am returned
After that final sip,
It’s time to call it a day
Thank you and goodnight 🫖
Tag: poetry
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Loose leaf
-
Murder mittens
Possessions cost a penny
But emotions are free
Something for nothing
Bursting from inside of me
At least that’s how it was supposed to be
It is and it isn’t
Such a vicious virtue
Purring so gently
Schrödinger’s Catch-22…
Saying hold me—
but don’t tempt me. 🐈⬛
-
Akhiyan (Bekhudi)
Beholden to your gaze
I turn away—into the haze of the afternoon sky
Or was that all still your eyes?…
Losing myself…
Shimmering hues dance and swirl, devilishly,
as my mind—a dervish—whirls
into dreams beyond such naïve conjecture.
…
Akhiyan (Bekhudi) – “Eyes (Ecstasy of Self-loss)” in Urdu; perception dissolving into surrender, or the gaze that unravels the self.
-
The man – second round
There he goes
Pouring his heart out
Only came out for a bevvie
Now he’s dropping the heavy bars again
Ugh, ‘Modern men’…Not me though,
I’m a man’s man
I don’t ask for no help
I go through hell alone and have a story to tell!
Down at the bar with my brothers every blue moon—
Cos I don’t see the need, in seeming to need to see them too soon
They don’t need to see behind the scenes and lose the mystique
Like a couple hours earlier, when I was crying alone in my bedroom
That shit is too bleak
I’d rather hide than seek a shoulder to cry on
I’m meant to be the strong one,
The one they rely on
The joker, the charmer, the rational thinker,
Part-time stoic and full-time drinker
Taking shot after shot, but I don’t tend to the wounds—
I only intend to consume
Letting nothing spill out,
Drowning out the sorrow,
Taking the pain home with interest tomorrow,
To the same room where I sat and I cried
I’ll sit again — and again I’ll ask why:
Why, why do I feel so disconnected?
Why do I feel so empty and rejected?
Why do I feel lonely when I’m rarely alone?
Why do I feel like a stranger when I sit on my own?
The guy from the bar now sat in my home—
He isn’t me
He’s a bunch of pleasantries and open-ended questions
Hoping to blend into the scene without making a scene,
He’s seen by all but completely unseen!
Shocked by it all, like some unforeseen circumstance
Even though every day, it’s the same old song and dance
I’m fine though
Cos I’m a man’s man
I don’t ask for no help
Better to burn alone than be dragged from this hell
Can’t risk the reveal by trusting another,
By sharing how I feel with a man I call brother
Or I guess, by any other name
Imagine if he knew all the darkness and pain
Would he meet my eye again or just think I’m insane?
Just think I’m insane,
He’d think I’m insane—
Man, I better stay in my lane
I’d rather reject myself and play another role
Instead of revealing the whole of me,
Revealing the hole, where my joy is supposed to be,
Revealing my soul where the ghosts reside in me,
Revealing the toll it’s taken inside of me
Instead of bleeding out, silently
I should be pleading,
Pleading—
Help me,
Help me please!
I can’t do this alone!
I can’t even pick up the phone
Cos I don’t want to be a bother—I…
Sorry mate, I was miles away
Bit noisy in here innit
My round yeah?
Same again?
Safe, no worries brother
Back in a minute. 🤜🏽…
Explainer: So I first wrote ‘The Man’ a couple of years ago, but it bothered me knowing I’d pulled punches – hinting at pain without naming it.
Fitting, I suppose, since that’s often how these conversations go.
Joke. Deflect. Buy another round.
This new version is an attempt to reveal all that.
It’s based on many convos with close mates that start light and end somewhere real – too often, long after they needed to.
It’s about the silence we keep, the show we put on, and the fear of being unmasked.
God forbid...😅
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The ritual
Selfishness
Then—
Self-care
Self-compassion
Calming the swell
To silence the self
The ideal
Just a spinning wheel
Forgetting to forgo my ego
Stilling the water
The mirror returns—
Polished.
-
Verbossman uncut
Lately I’ve been on some other-level shit
Revelling in rebelling against the devil playing advocate!
Revolution on my mind…
Revolver in my right hand—
Reminding the devil who’s boss!
Playing Russian roulette,
Praying I don’t pay the cost
Firing shots at random,
Double-tap the trigger,
Bullets fly in tandem
Catching strays myself
As I wrestle with accountability—
Counting on my knack for grappling with facts
And turning them into an account ability!
Cursed with the compulsion for writing pretty words
Cursive letters strung together—
It’s a little bit absurd
Abstracted from reality,
Allergic to banality,
Eclipsing every musing with obscurate totality!
I’m howling now…
Maybe a little crazy
Smiling too…
As if these words will save me
On my ones…
Lonely master of verbosity,
Speaking tongues,
If only I mastered the vernacular of veracity
Instead of hiding behind this poetry—
If you can call it that…
Now here comes the “woe is me”
Nah man, let’s claw it back
This propensity for self-pity is not a sexy look
Classic avoidant tendency,
Staring at the void incessantly
With an incandescent rage—
With the ink in my pen,
Filling page after page
With pure, indirect savagery!
Intense is the density of imagery
Of the imaginary,
Of the abstract
Utterly absurd utterings—
Figuratively speaking…
Literally, though—
I’m already stuttering
Nope, I…
I can’t do it
Ah, fuck!
I’m stuck,
I’ve lost the thread
Tied in knots
Dreadlocked
Stranded, with this harebrained rhyming scheme
Seems I’m straining
Clogging the drain,
I’m fading…
Drained of sense,
I’m fading
Slowly does it,
I’m fading
Tryna let it go—
Let it fade…
That’s it
Let me fade away
I’m fading,
I’m fading,
I’ve… faded…
I’ve…
…Explainer: A poem about talking too much. About thinking too fast. About trying to be clever when really just wanting to be heard. Verbossman is turning up the volume up on your inner monologue and then losing the remote. 😬
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Dusk
What is it about this dusk that feels so final?
Another night without answers
In the dark
Feeling cold
Ears burned
Never learned
-
Crescents
There’s something about cupping my hands around yours—
Like two crescents of the same moon,
Holding a world within—
Yet, nothing at all
Just a space,
unchanging—
A moment the cold cannot reach
Let’s hold it a little longer
Leave the world eclipsed
So what if we’re late?
It’s already all in hand.
-
Beholdher
I’ve yet to get a handle on my self
What hope is there of grasping you?
Sitting there,
Greater than the sum of all my senses
A manifestation,
Born of perception
A version of truth?
Or a manifest deception?
A mirage
A visage
Whatever you may be
Just, continue to be
Do my eyes deceive?
Do I just want to believe?
Honestly,
Irrelevant to me
So I beg you please—
Just, continue to be.
-
Out of hand
My heart finally wrenched itself free
It doubts I’ll ever learn to hold it
Played my hand one too many times
Ironic, I didn’t have the heart to fold it
Left retracing the lines in my palm
Seeking absolution?
Seeking alms?
Or simply seeking the line that foretold it?
-
Pallavi (The Refrain)
Come,
Spend another moment with me
Be the chorus to this melody
Be the refrain that drives me insane
Be unabashed and unashamedly you.
The tempest, the temptress, relentless
Leaving me restless and battling with verbosity
Reeling too…
Cos I’m feeling you
As I stutter and stumble,
over the intensity of the chemistry,
within the brevity of that moment
That moment you spent with me
Dazed within your gaze,
I was revelling in you
My..what a rendezvous!
How decadent…
Such a treat, however fleeting it was,
What a meeting it was
Leaving my heart beating through my skin
Breathing heavy with a devilish grin.
Now,
I wanna feel your refrain again
Whisper your name again
Indulgently…
Intentionally
Lay you next to me
Simmering with subtle intensity
Staring… impatiently
Unapologetically
Daring you to be unsubtle with me
Well,
What do you say…Pallavi?
Spend another moment with me?
Bas ek pal? 😛 (Just one moment)
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Old man traffic cone
I wonder when the day will come,
The day when I will be that weathered old man
Standing and staring at the traffic
Almost as if to say,
This is enough for me
I’mma stand here and watch the rest of you mugs run
You’ll all stop eventually
But fresh ones will keep coming
Keep on running
Pretending we have somewhere to be
As though the circles we run will set us free
No thanks youngun, this is far enough for me
Peace and love ✌🏽
-
Unavoidable
If I were to find myself on the day of judgement
I’d tell God to join the back of the queue
There’s many more innocent hearts I’ve broken
And questions left behind,
within a lifetime’s silence
It is their eyes I fear the most
But I accept…
God?
God can have whatever is left.
-
Hopeful
The heat, pulsing through my veins
Cannot be found in my tears
The joy, dancing in my laughter
Pirouetting in-between breaths
Its a spinning top,
Chasing it’s own reflection
Bouncing off the bristling breeze
That cannot be toppled into silence.
-
Summiting
Somehow, words tend to fall short.
Clichés of bleeding pens,
Of pouring hearts onto pages—
Nonsense!
They never crossed the writer’s door.
Ring-fenced within words, the heart is mute.
To believe otherwise is vanity—
It’s foolish
One can write and write, yet the words arrive stale,
Pale and cold in the shadow of mountains
They try and fail to describe
I do not know which medium would suffice,
Just not that of the scribe
How many times, in how many ways,
Have I longed to make you see through my eyes?
Make you believe what I believe—
Yet as soon as the word is written,
It is at the mercy of what you perceive
It’s make-believe
And then somehow,
The mountains I peaked become molehills…
Or maybe..
I’m just blaming my pen.
-
Ice dance
You live in a little snow globe in my heart
I can shake it up and watch as the snow adorns you anew,
Smile and relive that frozen moment—
That fragile, timeless void where we danced,
Where you were mine,
Where it was too warm for snowflakes to touch
I can still tap on the glass,
Hold that little world within,
Where I always kept you,
Quietly adored you
Though now,
I’ll always remain on this side,
Peering through the snow
I can’t join you anymore
My world cannot be held,
At least not by these hands
But no one can take this you from me—
This you, immortalised,
This you, for me alone
For this, I thank you.
I’ll let the snow settle now…
It could never touch you anyway.Imagery inspired by this scene from the film Edward Scissorhands: https://youtu.be/J6xzL0TrsRY
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Open water
Flipped and tumbled by the waves
The swell, relentless
Turning me inside out
In this chaos, calm comes easy
The ocean cannot touch the depth of my stillness here
No
It’s the shore that terrifies me
-
Potpourri
I want to find a forgotten old photo,
on my phone when it says ‘remember the day when…’
Then fall in love all over again
Get those old butterflies to dust their wings
Ask this old heart to skip a beat and sing
Knowing where those blurry smiles would lead
Like a lush gardens very first seed
The sweet fragrance of nostalgia in bloom
Instead of the dried petals that perfume this room…
…how do I disable this memories thing?
-
Walking with Dante
A strange addictive quality—
The draw of yearning and desire
As though I’m playing hide and seek,
Yet deep down, I don’t want to find you
For the pain and pleasure is the pursuit
The resistance, the obstacles—
Each step a stumble toward a home,
Though I fear what I find will never be enough.
Merely an inn, a halfway place,
It will be the spark alone—
An ember fanned by my own breath
Its flicker swelling into a blinding inferno,
Until I can no longer see the way,
See the truth
Only the figures I manifest—
Dancing…in the flames.
Thus I walk
Willfully ignorant in pursuit of elusive bliss,
I shun the end of the road
For limbo isn’t torment,
If the journey becomes the station.
What do you write after ‘the end’ anyway?
I’d rather die half way than ever pen those words.
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