Wasted Weekends

To be wasted
Is not the same
As to waste.

Wasted weekends
Are just two days
Not put to use.
Not rolled in a joint
And smoked to a haze.
Just Allowed to float
Into purposelessness.

A book finished,
Lazily,
Slumped in bed.
Another started.
Breakfast
All bunged together
In an old, sorry, pot.
Teamed with tea.
Warm, withering,
Well-steeped.
Cigarettes,
Burning holes
In mattresses,
Bed sheets,
Comforters.
Lazily laying ash deposits
In undulating creases.
Movies,
Old and new.
Magazines,
Sunday specials.
Telly reruns,
Predictably reassuring.

All striving
To stave off
Stimulant starvation.
Singularly,
Spectacularly
Simple.

To waste
Is sometimes
Symptomatic
Of
Wisdom
Wistfully won
In wordless swipes
Between
Stasis and storms.

Cuckoo-ed

There's a koel
outside my window,
And she's cuckoo.

She's merciless,
the Diva.
A veritable Castafiore,
she pitches her song
deep into the night,
Shattering my dreams.
Like her eponymous clock,
every quarter hour
past two.

She might be another insomniac,
lonelier at night.
A nightbird.
An aberration,
Who sings
of love lost
or a heart halved.

But if you ask me,
I'm kind of certain
she's a sadist.
A cuckoo;
Part of the cosmic conspiracy
to never let me sleep.
To drive me cuckoo,
Too.

In the Deep

Desire
is a roadmap.
The shortest route
to things I covet.

The pursuit
of
objets du desir.
Today, it becomes
the pursuit
of happiness.

I swim in the shallows,
I know.
I have depths
you couldn't begin
to explore.

I want.
To bottle beauty.
To capture seconds.
To taste the tartness
of an orange sun
on my tongue.

Why contain
lust
to the flesh?
Let it loose.
In shop windows.
On web portals.
On sidewalks.
And rude bazaars.

Let me touch.
And feel.
Sexy touchscreens.
Complex lenses.
Fresh pages.
Soft linen.
4 inch heels.
Let me own.

Desire,
mostly delectable.
Desire,
when
for its own sake.
Desire,
lovely
as snakeskin.
As rich,
as wrong.

But where
ever
was the fun,
In anything
that was
ever
right?

Bite-sized

The ugliest day
Has moments
Aesthetic,
Uncompromised.

Today,
A full moon,
Glowing,
Corpulent,
Hanging
Between branches.

A garden bench,
In tableau
With a tall tree,
Petite blossoms.

An old crush
Glimpsed.
Still beautiful,
Sharp.
The one-minute answer
To life's
Complex questions.

Biting on a lime.
Tart,
Seductive,
Sublime.

An illusion
Finally cracked.
Like a mirror.
Each shard
A picture
Hysterically,
Satirically,
Bitterly,
True.

Metro Perspective

I like how people walk in
Mostly in twos,
Making their own Arks
To subvert singledom
For the duration of one ride.

Opposite me, a couple.
Much in love.
With each other;
Or the notion
Of love
And how to behave
While in it.

Touching,
Smiling,
Staring.
A prototype,
Regenerated
At every seat corner.

If they could see a little further
Than their hands and lips and eyes,
Sloping shoulders and warm arms,
Stray hair and eyelashes shed,
They'd see their future selves
Spread on the same seats.

The bride burdened
By her jangly jewels,
The cluttered sari,
The weight
Of the blood red streak
Running through her hair.

Or, the apathetic mum,
Happy
With her fifteen minutes
Of zen,
Letting her kids
Transform the coach
Into a bedroom,
Jungle gym,
Potty.

The bored,
Small time executive,
Peering intently
Into his neighbour's
Book/magazine/ newspaper/ file.
Anything that lies outside
His pitiful,
Everyday life.

The slightly sad
Teacher type,
Hiding behind
A book,
Behind earplugs,
Behind diffidence.
Seeing
Her past selves
Holding hands,
Not knowing what
Distance
Space
Individuality
Choice
Will come to mean.

After today.

Ten turns of the hand later,
The date will turn.

Will not turn my fortunes,
My opinion,
My temper.

The calendar will read
Second April.
Will no longer be
All Fools Day.

And yet,
I shall continue to be
A fool.
In love.
Sometimes out of it.

Mostly in between.