Utopian Breakfast

The moon dissolves, takes the shape of a river across the still sky, the night wraps itself around you like a burkha, restraining your seamless desires, your fears insist on floating on the half empty glass of wine and the cigarette refuses to rescue you. The lamp watches you stealthily from the next room; the couch is your comfort tonight. The music is a reminder of all things that were once close as well as near to you. You watch distant city lights impale through the tree at your window and you want to hurl yourself at the longing that it shines upon you. An irresolute breeze from the east whirls around a lock of your hair, probably soaked in the breath of someone you know. A half read, wholly realized book about wanderlust lies next to you, bookmarked by one of your feelings, alongside the keys to the door that you sometimes wish you never come back to. And alongside a place in your mind from where you wish you never have to come back from.

A place where everything is alright. Like a store that sells securities in exchange of your mean blues and your demonic reds. Holly Golightly’s Tiffany’s, if you will. A place where you can finally buy some furniture without uncertainty. Where you don’t want to throw your dirty clothes on the floor. Where you want to sneak into the bed with your neighbour, not to fuck, just to sleep. A rainbow’s end, obscure, but worth chasing. Where the sea won’t be mundane because although you can see it, you can’t walk to it. And the skies won’t be cheerfully bright everyday.. some days it will be moodily dark (yet rainless). The people will know your face but know you only at arm’s length. The places of worship are those where you can sit for hours busy in inoccupation. The children are playful but not noisy and the cars are seen only at the promenade. People walk with a mission, talk with a matter and eat with a moan. Where the people and the government are like bittersweet lovers. Where the people know that there is such a lot of world out there to see. Where the people know that they can throw their keys away and never come back if they wished to.

image courtesy - smallpanda

Fallen

Remorse either forms you into entirety or shatters you to the point of no repair. Like when you forget about your pet while you are on a vacation; when you lose an entire week of friendship to a silly quarrel; or when you realize that you had loved someone wrongly after they have moved on. When you lament over details of helplessness, when the deed cannot be undone or the soul cannot be redeemed, leaving you with the ashes of regret. When the past follows your present and your sins befall your repentance. It is not easy to open your fist and let go off that sticky air of disappointment you caused. Like a mother who secretly knows she did not do it well, like a doctor who carries the burden of a mistake or a scientist who stole. The universe twists itself around your rue and submerges you into a vast ocean of soul-ache, untreated by the sorrow you feel, unrelieved by the weight you carry. No words (spoken or unspoken) or touch (favoured or commanded) will be consecrating.

The demon manufactured by your misgiving refuses to face down. You are rendered irreproachable for you only have yourself to blame. When you stand 2 inches from the edge and want to take that leap into resurrection; what keeps you is the fear that something anti-gravitational will pull u back upwards and bring you back to the point of guilt. Like an endless purgatory, the pain will be yours, bespoke for you, to fit your conscience permanently. Try as you may to wash the fabric of your tainted soul but the stain remains, reminding you of what you could have done better. Of how you could have made it right, like a string that remains plucked and never stops trembling. You could have loved better, that you could have tried harder. But when you think your compunction has turned into a plague on the ship of your soul, it will help to remember that failure can be validating. That a misstep can be imparting. And it is comforting to know that there is an entire galaxy that lies between an ‘if’ and a ‘then’, studded with the stars of possibilities, some shining, some dwindling. An effort is the mother of a deed and is thus superior to it.

illustrative art – “Remorse”, 2005, acrylic, oil pencil, raw pigment and cold wax on paper

artiste – Matt Pipes

art url - here

The Quietening

I heavenly despise the rains. The cliché about the smell of wet soil invoking childhood memories, unleashing the endorphins within a jaded vein, the wet grass blissfully burdened by drops of stationed rain, the sight of an obscure, bedraggled bird fluttering the rain off its greasy feathers, the occasional rain sneaking in through a half open window, the wet drapes that had surreptitiously broken out through the half open window, the soaked fabric on the perfectly contoured skin of a hurrying stranger on the street, a helpless yet oddly merry critter seeking a temporary shelter, a homeless man looking up towards the sky (not really hopeless though), the miraculously dry patch of ground underneath a full grown tree.. I despise all of it.

Oh how utterly blighting it is to have to wade through murky water with your most darling shoes on. You suffer the refusal to comprehend that there are those little and big greens that thrive on it. That there are droughty villages pining for a perfectly dark cloud, without any silver in it. There is a restive child that becomes composed with the prospect of making paper-boats, providing respite to the vexed mother. There is an ocean that wants herself impregnated again. There is a tin roof that wants to make music with the rain drops. There is a girl who wants to hide her tears in the rain while her lover leaves her. There is a world set afire that awaits being doused and there is a wilting flowering plant longing to be quenched. And there is a heart yearning to take the shape of the rain.

Yes, I despise the rains; as I despise myself for the realization of this glorious dependency it suffuses me with.

art - Rain Shape

artiste - Angus McPherson

image url - here