*Author's Note- It is not the zenith of civilisation, nor gunfire over Kashmir, neither chancery's boisterous storm, but fleeting dreams that beg for reprieve- they depart with a breath, a choke or a claim. There are lilies grieving fresh dug graves and epitaphs lamenting mired mounds(some the proportion of an infant child's) it breaks your heart to watch.
What we do is shed a tear and write some words from worlds and woes apart in a hamlet by the sea.
Credo has it that interminable pride sees to the uprising of men. They would please their gods, exact hate, rain a torrid hail of steel and then justify their sort it breaks my heart to watch.
It was for those who had not loved, those who did not know love(being different; being indifferent) and those who stood alone that sedated our faith in fate so after an interval of a mere score of years- not very long given one's altered perspective on the passage of time- I was struck by the stubborn inkling should beatitude be calibrated, it would be measured upon a leaf of grass; not something too wry for valentine nor some austere slaves to the detail.
Should there be anything tantamount to love at the blink of an eye, it would be the subdued unlikelihood of its prospects- that prodigal shore of touch me nots. You catch me on a rainy day when no word or guile will suffice and I can only watch you cry.
Then there is a boy with so much love in his heart but none to give or hide.
Earlier there was no sunlight piercing through the blinds, just that winter morning chill- the sort which frightens you, makes you cringe, then quietly consumes you.
Then there is a girl who would not come around and tells me "cry, my prince, cry for anyone in mind."
Elsewhere there were daytime dreamers wasted on wine and weary from woe- insisting we lead paper puppet lives so days and months and years go by each with little to see or show; but here I am tracing footsteps peering into sandwich delis and other things to thank for. There is smoke brewing from chimney tops and there are people making for home. There is clatter gracing boulevards and boardwalks sequined by fir. Then there are things we hang on dearly to- you would know it is a beautiful life.
What is this ochre aged practice of words on slate but a painture of sorts to vivify a thought, satirize a doctine and to romanticise a fault? So we are subjected to writerdom's nuance- ephemeral flaws and straitjacket scars; even more so drawn to her stark frailty and amicable style. Through letters and transcipt, quite likely, we celebrate the passing of time.
" Please believe that we are falling apart- Paris was made for love, not simply art; Please also take your makeshift heart- its pearlescent touch would wake the lark; Please remember our kindred grudge should you feel indignant or mildly adrupt; Please know that I would otherwise be in lacklustre shards, " seastreet requested an impeccable grant.
Another palpable postcard with edges wrinkly with tears and tea not entirely your own. If you sniff really hard with your eyes squint shut you can smell a little normalcy and a whiff of somewhere else. Then you are entitled to catch the rainfall and secret giggles in the heart of your palm.
"There followed an illusionist day when hours are stagnant as stagnant is forever and walking is birthed for barefeet glee- soled only by strange bright light and queer blue skies- past sand strewn streets and dragonflies by the sea but when pilgrim sees the sun caught within a puddle's trap ( the sort immortalised on paperback and felt tip pens) pilgrim cannot help but tiptoe alongside passing vapour trails with regards to the perfect circle and we were pilgrims knowing we owed death each a life and life in return owed us a lifetime. When we came upon the revolving door she took my hand to pull me into the gap between inside and out but forward motion saw it that we were to inhabit
a seperate space and for the longest instant time was the transparent glasspiece that pressed us apart. That was the end of that," seastreet realises all sentences end with a full stop.
The new world frightened me with her glitch of threadbare decadence like the corrupt concept of hope some ravine of a discontinued pipe dream. Words still flow from lips as silk but they are tardy and lacking a biscotti crisp; the harbour preserves her driftwood fragrance but there is something rueful about the riverside. This is the romance of the twenty first: one would marvel at its slow diving lark, envy her technicolour descent and mourn her placid passing; air is poignant full of expectation which would turn to despair that would bloom into a field of ready sprout willows- the human condition is akin to changing winds on a perforated sheet. So it is established come the turn of the century we take upon a culture of crying sideways- that seering moment in which the pit of your stomach flares up as you taste your rock salty tears.
When my laces came undone on the fuming asphalt sea I was quick to note each end of the gaunt string come alive in a swashbuckling foray but fear of falling saw it that I bend over and do my shoes.
On a toastier note, time has the luscious inkling of sneaking up on a scarlet whim and teaching it to live endearingly forever like something smooth on the underside of your tongue.
On a hazy daisy day like this the trick is to watch your footing and reach the other side within ten seconds of a blinking green eyed boy after which whoever plops a puddle loses the game of life; tarot draws me a Jester and Destiny- I conclude I will never lose sight of her tail feather.
Winter's coinage in the lion city are subtle raindrops- three mornings more I would have taken that what killed my cares and grief of heart was sleep's fleeting murder. Then when light falls short a bouquet of my youth, joys and all-I-have constructs me again.
Coming to terms with November was not meant for the dark room; it is a polaroid binge and a happy pill ever after. So in a lachrymose discourse I am reprimanded by melancholic eyes and a london love- nothing prior had left me so breathless so much as to believe in chance and strife; or affirmed her affable capacity to disarm me of wit and guile. In event of this emotional touchdown the moon was taking on a light chiffon pie and the tin roof thrush was peering in through tired drapes and everything was in its place and everything was so real- a grown up told me so.
*** The last of the starflower soliloquy attempts to describe a feeling that part of you has died. The dilemma is in telling apart what was and what is a marvelous figment of one's zealous heart or the tender, voracious hunger towards feeling. The french call it "la petite mort" and it is wintry in seastreet no longer, only now it's pouring.
** The truth of the matter is that I mime to playback singers in severed mother tongues; "belonging", "motherland" and "home" are cathedral words- beautiful from the outside through painted glass, a hollow faith carapace from within. Like deathprose.
* Sometimes I ask why the knight moves in perpendicular squares, or why cherry blossoms bloom only in spring; and how the world is sometimes a lilac charade or how chivalry came to this- but I always end up chasing rainbows anyways.
