Escape

(This is the most touching poem I've come across for a good while, so i decided to post it here.)

i was coming to find you
to tell you i was wrong
that you were the one for me

you were drunk and depressed
but it would all be ok
once i found you

the last thing i saw was your car
the blinding headlights
as you came driving
i thought you'd stop
i waited smiling

you didn't stop, you didn't see
as you crashed into me

the last thing i knew
was you stood over my body
not having a clue
hating me forever
not knowing how much i loved u

- S Snigdha

Tell me, Dark Angel

Life's like life,
We'll live it.

Years, perhaps,
We'll give it.

And then,
When we can't anymore,
Then,
When we can once more,
We will.

Only,
Many more than the years
Will be the haunting tears,
And much sweeter than this life
Will be our memories.

So tell me,
Dark angel of my life,
What do we choose?
Memories to live with,
Or a life to die for?

If I Could Fly

If I could fly,
If, like a sparrow,
I could roam the sky,
Where shall I go?

To the house of old:
Snowed down, still,
A goddess on the windowsill,
And a parent oak without
To perch on with brothers,
Forever.

If I could fly,
If, as an arrow,
I could whisper “die”,
Who shall I kill?

The tyrant of this age:
The devil of delusion,
Of wastelands of confusion,
The scorpion of waters false,
And his barren, stinted heart-
My mark.

If I could fly,
If I could borrow
The tempest’s sigh
What shall I sing?

The lyric of a lyre:
Every string ablaze,
And a thunder tune that says,
"Time, o dreaming sparrow,
Go fly and be an arrow
And ignite the dawn to come!"

An Infinity of Lies

Every right is left behind;
All solos flipped in front.
Round and round I turn;
“Oh, forsooth!” I grunt.

Is this a joke, or a dream?
Do the demons play me
For a fool?

What else, possibly,
For was it not this morning
That, broken, beat,
I had asked them to retreat?

Yes, oh yes, and then I’d slept
With hope that by nightfall
The sun would have swept
Every coin of ill around.

Yes, I’d hoped
That the brilliant, blinding arc
Would have cut, from east
To west, each ripened wrong
From branches old and weary
And healed them, from rise
To rest, to forgotten glory...

And I ask why
They take me for a fool.

For how could it,
Even the mighty sun,
Just how could it
Turn this earth that spins
Forever on titled wings,
Forever balanced
On the side of the ugly,
To good, and to beauty,
To relief from the rotten,
All at my bidding,
All in a day?

Lesson learnt:
It was a folly.
The world slapped me hard
And woke me for an answer.
Yes.

But even so,
Even if I am right,
What strangeness is this?
Where in the world am I?
This topsy-turvy tapestry
Of rights becoming lefts
And solos flipping all around,
What is it?

I think I know.

To my right there is me,
To my left, me once more;
In front and behind I stare
At me as before.

Ah, I get it!
Just as I discern millions
In company, all alike,
All the same, all me,
I get it.

It is, after all,
What I had wished for;
My world has woken me
To itself, inverted.

The demons became no angels.
Instead they stare me down
In millions, now exposed.

The root to my wicked willow,
The source of my lament,
It is this room of mirrors—
An infinity of lies.

The Sidewalk Dweller

Asleep against a wall,
His life a grateful stall,
The beggar dreams of love.

His cheeks like dirt-vales cry
Of thirst for streams
And a lullaby,
But blessed instead
With sweat-beads running dry,
They sigh and dream of love.

Painful memories of a life
That death has long denied
Flame-like lick
And finger his mind,
But slumber-killed subside
Beneath his dreams of love.

A passion seems to grip the man,
As if he wouldn't let go:
His fists below stick-thin hands
Are curled as eagle-claws
To hold it looks like precious prey,
His elusive dreams of love.

Then of a sudden he is hit
By a gust of stifling dust,
And waking, watches,
With wetness in his eyes,
The road beside him split
With heat and horror screams.

Waken, shaken, his dreams
From him thus taken,
He makes a plea to a passerby
For a morsel, with paper palms,
Which refused, he staggers up
And calls above to the burning sky

For a cloud, and a drop of rain,
To love him some, and cleanse his pain.

Alive in Hell

What strength of swing, what depth of cut—
So deep, not a hundred years shall heal;
What skill, old foe, what dearth of ruth—
So rare, not a nerve you lay revealed.

No song in your praise the minstrels sung—
No warning to prepare for your blade;
Ere I turned and saw the silver glint
As sword slit flesh, and blood hit glade.

But yet I could well have persisted
Had you not dealt me the cruelest blow;
Had but just wounds of body inflicted
And watched the warm blood froth and flow.

Instead you chose not to slay but stay,
Let recover and rip apart evermore;
Enough to hurt, but too little to die,
Till my soul the risk of perdition bore.

Achilles couldn’t match your matchless flair,
Odysseus not the cunning of your ways;
Elves were wise, but you, my lord,
Are beyond the reckoning of my days.

And thus in hell I live on earth.

Fake Fairy

Last morning in a hazy fit
Mosquitoes biting, turtle lit
I met with the fairy of good wishes
Who came in a flurry of white swishes.

Through the window she flew
And to my shoulder she drew,
Stood, and then demanded, soft and slow
If I had a want, or a vision to let her know.

In truth I was sleeping, mildly bugged
And my mind like ever slogged and slugged;
But at last, after waking a couple of times
And killing mosquitoes, I hit rewind.

What I wanted and wished, was for me
My people, and a certain frog-eyed she;
What I wanted and wished, was for me
And them to forever in wellness be.

I said as much, and the angel departed
Quickly, frowning, as if a dog had farted;
And then as I slipped into a dreamless sleep,
I knew she was fake, and I had promises to keep.