War Dust: A Loss Foretold

Dust is but a reality. There are more truths ​w​ithin your reach when it floats, ​tickles your nostrils, ​and makes you sneeze.  You conjure up a silly game with the sunbeam. ​A shadowy game of will and desire.

No one gets hurt in it, nobody wins either...

​Oh, is it? What if those opaque particles were dead conscience, the dust specs mortal remains of what used to be dreams. The wails hardly prick, the fireworks lack empathy, all lost in dust. If it is a war, then why are you at peace?

Hmmm... We all get hurt in it,  and, nobody wins either... 

​As the dust settles, on aspirations, ​on the books and the music box, a nightmare begins. No light to play under, a huge shadow looms, eclipsing all memories of a ​happy child at j​est.

​-- Leslie 

Worth My Weight in Dust

 

Hey, you, the respectable Dust. 

You are on an errand,

tonight.

The morrow, you shall trudge

for the rays of sunlight.

And day after,

you shall reach 

a place of absolution.

If and only if,

when and only when,

you deserve peace. But no, 

yes you don't.

The if and when

of life

magnifies the truth,

a reality, mine and yours.

The inevitability of

a tanking worth.

— Leslie

Birthday: A Self Portrait

Is it not on a birthday,
a lucid evening,
the struggle bore meaning?
A will to embrace life,
the urge to breathe,
and wail — a tad hard;
the first sigh of many,
we all breathe, don't we?
And there I was,
ready to win,
having only tasted life.
Today, I tasted more...

Now, as I stir
the cauldron 27 times,
anticlockwise, as time flies;
clockwise, to urge time to fly,
at traffic signals,
at modern post offices,
at the bank, facing blank stars,
at unscripted wrestling bouts
and scripted poetry jousts.
27 times it is,
the number, the date,
an obsessive compulsion
— it presents life,
represents living,
and in more ways than known,
reminds me of mortality.

Yet, I seek immortality,
to vindicate
the struggle we are born in,
to substantiate
the ire we live in.
The portrait ends here.
Abrupt.
The final stroke strives
to find completeness
in the incomprehensible.
A painting? No…
A Birthday.

– Leslie

Zooming in on Fireflies

A few minutes past six,

​as light dims on

the Monday chores,

they appear,

on my right,

beyond a pale green

pre-summer canopy.

Six lamps. Or is it more?

Oh, the inadequacy of vision!

They, the fireflies,

hang in the air, a straight string;

dot on the line of sight my

seat provides,

through random banters

and toward specifics in history,

for the politics of posterity.

-- Leslie
​ 

The Dilated Song

Wish I could slow down

the song I play,

buying dilated time.

Its tempo reigned in,

but it's timbre intact,

for I dare not change the tune.

Will it help the dreams 

linger on in a trance,

a tad longer,

a minute or two,

a second or an hour,

a day or eternity.

The song heralds eternity,

and it plays in a loop.

Alas, time, its vagaries,

is linear, is a knife.

It rips open the winter jacket,

but it cuts cakes too...

-- Leslie

Love, A Reflection

In a world without mirrors,

sans judgement,

and harsh glares,

I would spend

the vanity left in me

to cry, then reflect...

I become my mirror.

And, in the images

flashing by,

droplets of cold sweat

provide gloss

as well as the shivers.

Then, three hours past midnight

I touch her,

she kisses me,

and we see

our reflections merge,

within hand-held Amoled frames.

... In a world without mirrors,

three hours past midnight!

-- Leslie 

Winter Longing

Lost for words, are we?

No. It's just that 

no brew could drown longing,

the one in winter...

​It is but a whiff of winter, sure,

yet the longing grows for

the warm rays of a sun

as seasoned as the coffee 

made by the first Italian barista,

or as potent as the sun

outside the smoking room

of an Indian cafe.

But it rained outside too,

and when it did once,

and when the leaves turned

greener with envy,

it indeed was a reminder

winters don't last,

but its longing does,

and it freezes it below nought.

-- Leslie