NOW PLAYING Dance and The Swarosky Butterfly

NOW PLAYING: GYPSY LADY AFTER STOCHINALYA

Fifty feisty crumbling stars fall apart and we all rush in to take a little bit of the million tiny pieces…

The surrealism of dreams sometimes seeps into your waking hours; the fogged glass veils that hold you safe in their realm. You sink in and wake and sink again. A refuge.

Happiness.

A ride on that rusty swing that yo-yoed you for ten very short and erased years is now falling apart, so you went and kissed it good-bye. It didn’t feel bad-it felt great- the delicate, crumbling feel against your lips. And all the sorrow cramped in and vanished as the little hands touched yours- in curiosity, in comfort. The smiles are still so true on their tiny faces. Polished with the ease of the indifferent. The pigtails float all around you in rhythm with the squeaky sneakers. They make you think of the vacuum that so many years of dislike has left. Denied a frown, all you are left with is a quiet emptiness.

Peace.

Now Playing: Have A Cigar by Pink Floyd

The lights flicker and develop as the Saturday night passes by with its mute poverty and feeble showers. The aging skin of the deceiving emperor runs lovingly over his little son-the toothless prince born of a never-ending dream. The beard lightens and darkens under the sagging eyes as the sultana of skin-deep beauty snores at the back of a luxury car. The adoration is devastating and bound to be pain.

Maybe that is how love is supposed to be. Saved up pain.

With every welt the leather belt (His Majesty’s of course) leaves on The Other (son), the love inches in deeper for the little prince born of a never-ending dream. Like their positions in the sultans kingdom one is as dark as the sun-beaten downtrodden and the other, yellow like the bloodless immortal. My eyes are fixated on the reflection of the picture emanating from The Other-The twitching jaw, the gnashing teeth...

All I really see is a shadow squatting on the Sultans lap. Of a playful child that clambers around and reaches deep into His crevices and His affection with an audacity only love would tolerate. He caresses the sleeping child and smiles a lovelorn smile. He would make it last forever-this Saturday night would stretch over a million light years, piercing right through the ashes of the impermanent.

The Sultana snores, her mouth wide open.

Playing At The Window Pane

The lights flash twinkle, twinkle as my drunk, far-sighted eyes move blink, blink, blink. This time it was something really burning everything inside. A lot of water but I’m still blinking at two in the night.

All my life I wanted someone to tell me I was missed.

Terribly missed.

And when it did happen I had other, stronger designs playing in my head. Of ‘tyag’. I rub my hands on my naked spine till the hem of the chequered sarong and back again. Sweet, music-less rhythm. The unrest creases my smiles these days, some sort of waning. Sometimes you have to strong, sometimes a liar, sometimes very, very smart.
What about the resigning, fragile ones?
They die in wars with the Taliban and economy.

I left them a week ago, on a cool terrace built amidst a sun dried forest, but the voices move around and so do the eyes. Cool black. And orange stained white fur. You may change but the sadness flows gently choking you, thudding in your ears before it pours out. In tears and ink stains. In secret scissor marks and delicate knife scars.

I find vacuums comforting, then. Silent ones that sit and stare back at you.