The Conveyor

The mass of milling multitude
Its multiple mouths open in noise
It strives, spreads
Diverse, Divergent
Focused or fierce
Drowning in life,
Flying on freeways
Stumbling on surgical blades.

Climbing ladders,
Some reach and watch
Alone on top
Alone, yet climbing still,
On top, but climbing still,
Climbing and clinging still,
While white smiles conceal
Unfilled hollows of hearts.

Some crawl, some stay,
Get kicked, lie broken.
A tide sweeps down another,
Riding the waves in sinewy display,
Crashing down on his own calendar.

They laugh, hold hands,
Or bicker or cry
Feel pain or complain
Or hate or fight
While all the while
The relentless belt below
Conveys the bug-mob
To their maggot holes.
.

Forgotten

.
When living is mere habit,
Breathing unstoppable mode,
When space is but a waste,
And volume is a load,
When sleep brings nary bliss,
And waking is nothing but sleep,
When words uttered are few,
And thought even less,
When there’s little left to hear,
And nothing left to speak,
When life by default is lifeless,
And the heart can’t want to be free,
the mind in geriatric lethargy,
And the angel keeps the key,
Did she turn blind…or worse
Has it slipped her memory?

Abandoned

These stones don't hurt,
The ones they threw.
The knife does not scare,
The one he drew.
The nest does not hold,
The one she would flee.
Her feet did not falter,
They might break or bleed.

Arms did not comfort,
The lover did try.
Years have not dried
The tears she cried,
Time would give her no respite
From the flame she saw
In her child's eyes.
From his silence behind the locked door
As her calls froze within her throat.

Smother

Words unsaid
Lips unkissed
Hands unheld
Head buried in sand
While the heart desires
The mouth thirsts
The arms empty -
A mother's lover
Or a lover's smother.

Post script: Why does a mother walk out of a marriage? Can she ever be happy with her choice? Who is the victim?

Keepsake

This dark of the void
This mass of pain
This wave of sensation
That engulfs
The prisoner in a
nameless numbness
vague yet vivid,
And shackled mind gropes,
Banging on unseen walls
The brow bleeds
Ah for nails to rip the cheeks
A knife
To cut open the heart
And tear it apart
And search it for a sob,
Hold it in hand
and stare at the truth
And then put it back
A keepsake, a treasure

Ache

I never knew I had a tooth
At the very back of my teeth.
It stayed there
unseen, unfelt.
Did it chew a chew?
Did it bite a bite?
I never knew...
Until
One day it throbbed,
It ached,
Turned black and rotted,
Powders of tooth
crumbling, crunching..
I knew then
I had a tooth
At the very back of my teeth.

I never knew
I had a heart
In the very depths of my heart.
It stayed there
Unseen, unfelt
Did it love?
Did it live?
I never knew....
Until
One day it throbbed
It ached,
Turned blue and bled.
Pieces of heart
bleeding, dying.
I knew then
I had a heart
In the very depths of my heart

Reclaim

Ego melts in mother's love
Not pungent not putrid!
Moments, years denied
The cry of the womb replaced
by a smile
To see her baby
fast asleep
To sit by him
And run her fingers
Through the black, black hair.
To kiss his cheek
Now rough with stubble
To watch him
While the waters wash
the wounds of pain,