Bounty Paid

He rode up
With the early dawn
Two pistols by his side.

"Come out old man,
And pay the price."
To the window he had cried.

"This is the time
To face your fate
There is nowhere you can hide."

Slowly then
The doorway slid
And the guilty stepped outside.

His face was scarred
His eyes were dark
His hair was surely dyed.

"You call upon
The wrong man"
Came the feeble alibi.

"I was here at home,
With my wife and child
I promise I do not lie."

The rider paused
A second still
And considered the dice.

He sought to make
Sense of the face
That stared into his eyes.

As the sun rose up
Behind the mill
And shed its blinding light

A shot rang out
Gunpowder smells
Choked up the countryside

The scarred man
Stood in the doorway still
While the rider slowly died.

He walked up to
The bleeding man
And knelt down by his side.

He pulled aside
The two guns and said
"I'm sorry for my crime.

"There was no way
For you to live
And me to keep what's mine.

I know the day
I'm judged for this
There'll be no mercy to be had

So let them send
Ten thousand more
If it makes them just as glad."

The rider gave
His final breath
To have two words as his last

"Burn down"
He cried to the dark eyed man
Still clinging to the past.

The murderer
Picked the body up
By sundown it was lost.

While the two guns
Raised on a mantelpiece
Reminded of the cost.

A man who seeks
Another's blood
Should dig a pair of graves.

There is no hope
For vengeance when
Luck and fortune saves.

Rebound.

I refuse to be,
Just another name.
In your list of strange bedfellows.

I choose,
Not to remain.
The fool you made of me.

It wasn't by your glance,
Or your lingering hand
That I was slighted.

I don't think it was,
Your affliction to the phone
That made you seem benighted.

For a moment there,
You got me going.
I believed I meant more than every other.

And you even had me,
Happy with the fact
That we had no great future.

But I refuse,
To be just another name
In your list of strange bedfellows.

I don't think,
I was made to lead,
But this time I refuse to follow.

I don't think,
I can become.
Another lover whose heart turned hollow.

I would rather,
Forget you today.
And look to a calmer tomorrow.

Still useful.

I love using words that have grown almost completely redundant. You know, the ones the English language forgot to evolve in its own sick etymological-darwin method. These are words that just fell by the wayside as spoken word evolved and clear definition went the other way. It’s not like these words stand for anything anymore. They’re just there. Lying sad and puppy-eyed, asking to be used in some half-meaningful conversation. People haven’t really forgotten them. We happen upon them in some weird crevice of a memory where ages ago an Enid Blyton novel had implanted it with all the might of the three golliwogs.

Like ‘flabbergasted’. That’s just one of the words that sounds like it makes sense but if you ask most people, they’re simply too flabbergasted to answer. We all know what it means... but do we? Then we Google it, which kind of means we didn’t. No one knows where it came from. And it had nowhere to go towards. That doesn’t seem like latin to me. It just seems like a bunch of alphabets flabbergasted at finding themselves being taken seriously. It’s a word that’s dying. It never got the fair trial of an abbreviation. There is no #flbbrgsted.

It’s not just the long words though. There are a few short little quips that beg to be recalled, but aren’t because few would understand what a quip is. Which poses, what I still like to call; a conundrum. Or rather a word that just sounds made up. Of course you might try to solve this by pointing out synonyms. But that’s the point! Such phrases are synonyms for things we use every day yet we choose the many others and forget these rhinestones of vocabulary. These are just the bastard words of the 20th century. Except barely as precious and half as likely to survive without our help. As a collective whole we have decided to leave them behind and move on with our hash-tags and our ever growing urban dictionaries.

Yet every once in a while, these words just creep up on me and grab at my mental tongue, twisting it into shape. They arrive at these uncomfortable places in life where I’d least expect to run into them. There’s this awkward silence as these poor, neglected, uncared for ‘expressions’ find a way to be themselves. And it’s on my able voice that they hope to somehow leap into the limelight once again. So that someday they too can leave people flabbergasted at their utterance.

Bad Advice

All the voices in your head
Are just things you've heard
Or have been said

They are just words meant to misguide you
The only thing they know
Is how to deride you

There isn't a rule of thumb for you to follow
More an echoing sound
In the world so hollow

Pay no heed to the herds of storytellers
And don't you listen
To the easy lie sellers

Leave them be with their pointless games
Let them lose their minds
In search of their names

There is no need for you to drown in worry
Happiness is a slow mover
You'll outrun her in your hurry

Remember who you were a long time ago
The years have been kind
The trails are easy to follow

Maybe as the journey ends
You will find a simpler place

Somewhere with a cleaner mirror
The reminder of a familiar face

Until then beware of being so easily defined
That the interest of strangers
Cannot be confined

But mostly beware the smoke you will breathe
For it can make you write
Verses like these

Confession

Let me just talk to you,
And tell you what's in my head.

The world isn't a simple place,
Biding time only leaves us dead.

I want to confide in you,
I'm sorry this took a while.

We could be a good mistake,
I just want to see you smile.

Tell me what to do,
Just show a sign,
And I will fall for you.
Anything you do,
Just ask sometime,
And I will fall for you.

There isn't a perfect time,
That we should be waiting for.

This is our reality,
It's not some imagined war.

I need to stop fighting this,
Before my heart gets confused again.

I want you to turn your head,
And listen to this refrain.

Tell me what to do,
Just show a sign,
And I will fall for you.
Anything you do,
Just ask sometime,
And I will fall for you.

You take me for a fool I know,
But this is not a simple task.

I want you to speak to me,
Is that too much to ask?

Tell me what to do,
It's not to late,
I will fall for you.
Everything we do,
We'll find a way,
Just let me fall for you.

Introspection

I was grappling with a terrifying notion the other day, that I'm unable to write from the heart any more. Because I've started falling for the crafting trap so much, I'd stopped simply putting pen to paper and pouring my unedited soul. A necessary practice in my opinion. In an effort to derail this horrible train of thought I decided to see where it was headed in the first place. The result was this 7 page poem which I still believe is incomplete -

Your words seem wary and your prose seems to crumble,
When the thoughts you used to cherish begin to run away and stumble.

The truth you seek seems lost somehow,
And the light that was shining seems to have drowned beneath the flow.

And every little dream that crosses your mind,
Makes you wonder if it’s you or the world that’s unkind.

As the potholed roads seem to spin beneath your feet,
And the sky falls down catching you underneath.

So you set out on a journey not knowing where to go,
Hoping the dream that you had wasn't a lie like before.

And you travel through streets littered with burned down homes,
As the skyscraper citizens turn to God-fearing drones.

You know it’s something you can’t really understand,
If you did why would you walk through this land?

Why lay witness to the darker side of man?
Why put yourself through the terrors of the land?.

Why else would you wander here in search of a dream?
Where everything around you is something other than it seems.

That’s when you hear the voice in your head,
Asking you to look inside instead.
Asking you stop searching for that unheard story,
Because someone else’s life won’t bring yours glory.

So you pay heed to the wisdom that was said,
And for a while your life seems to move ahead.
For a while everything seems to go on so well,
When everyone is entertained by the stories you tell.

And slowly you see a crowd gather around you,
So you start lowering the walls that surround you.

You even give an ear to the fool of the town,
As he tells you the latest things going down.

In the middle of it all the voices seem to fade,
As the people start screaming, ‘Son, you've got it made!’
They say you’re on the right track,
Going at the right speed forward.
So what if it’s the easy way?
That doesn't make you a coward.

You leak a weak smile and tell them they're right,
But you feel a little sting and it’s your conscience putting up a fight.

You wonder again if the dreams you had were wrong,
Because the noises of the world is now your favourite song.

The planners and schemers say you’re doing just fine,
But the voice in your head hasn't spoken for a while.

That’s when the silence starts to scare you,
And you fill it empty words.
Because the truth you knew back then,
Is nowhere to be heard.

You swear you’d written it down on the tissue in your hand,
But the ink was washed by tears and no one can understand.

You wake up with a jerk and sweat on your brow,
You try to remember the dream you had just now.
You swear it’s the only thing that makes sense,
But the words you write don’t come to your defence.

They can’t save you from the truth of this life,
They don't show you the way to the light.

So you try your best to control these thoughts,
And you watch as the battle in your mind is being fought.

In the midst of the tussle the truth looks you in the eye,
But it scares you and makes you wonder why.
Why do you wander in the maze of these words,
Why every new thought seems even more absurd.

For a moment you even believe it’s god in your head,
Or the universe that speaks through sharpened lead.
It’s a comforting idea that you have no will,
You've been gifted time and it’s time you have to kill.

So you’re back where you began with the silence you don’t understand,
With a pen between your fingers and a book in your hand.

You write jumbled words and hope that you’re right,
Because the light that lit your eyes doesn’t shine so bright.

You begin to doubt the things that defined you,
And you try you best to leave them behind you.

But you can’t move on if your feet won’t listen,
You can’t fix yourself if you don’t know what’s missing.

So you find solace in the words written by others,
Hoping someone else has an idea about the things that matter.

You pray you’re not the only one haunted by these thoughts,
You hope to meet strangers who’re just as lost.

You trundle on down the road you’ve chosen,
And the voices in your head have all but frozen.
You make peace with the silence and keep moving on,
You hope someone else can understand this song.

Because you've started to wonder if it’s all just a lie,
If life’s just a train and it's passing you by.

Maybe it’s a joke and the punch line was lost,
While you were busy trading stories not caring for the cost.

Maybe there's a reason behind the dark clouds hiding,
And the hooves you hear are the four horsemen riding.

But you can’t read wisdom from the pages of a book,
The meaning disappears just as you look.

You swear someday the answer you will find,
To the questions that echo in the back of your mind.

Till then you vomit your words in the shape of a song,
And they seem to make sense even though they sound wrong.

B&Y

The three wheeled demons of Mumbai roads are a peculiar species. Like freshwater crocodiles are most dangerous when fought in the water, these black and yellow speeders are nearly impossible to snare in the rain. They seem to revel in the power that this hazy downpour affords them, so they sit safely in their clunky mobile shelters and start toying with their would be prey – us.

The game begins as you stand there patiently, soaked in and battered by the thunderous showers, looking only for a way home. Through the curtain of water you spot a 4 inch guiding light, the beacon of hope; your knight with a shining meter. You stick your hand out in a desperate attempt to grab his attention and notice the sphere turn in your direction, like the Eye of Sauron focusing on the One Ring. Then, with scientific precision, the driver begins his approach. You are now the probable prey and for the next few seconds, he literally steers your fate. He’ll first slow down to test the depths of your desperation. Take a step ahead and he’ll immediately reroute his trajectory to a safer gap, in accordance with O.V.

Over the years every badge-toting chariot rider in this city has learnt to measure the Optimum Velocity at which to approach a pedestrian. O.V. uses a complex formula to calculate the ideal speed and distance of an auto from a potential client and, like a twisted Watson and Krick method, it comes into play during cloudburst. Accurately derived by the driver within moments of taking stock of a situation, it’s a sublime process that considers things like the number of probable clients, the quality of the road, the gender of the client, the measure of rain, the quality of the vehicle itself, the temper of the driver’s wife, etc. Though the exact number of variables isn’t properly known, what is known is that it allows for two decisions to be made by the driver at a moment's notice. In this city’s unforgiving monsoon, Optimum Velocity is an auto driver’s greatest weapon.

It allows him to come tantalizingly close to you, just close enough to be able to hear you yell out your destination over the storm beating on his tarpaulin. If he wants to go the same place you wish to, by some miracle, then O.V. lets him to come to an absolute standstill long enough for you to board. If, however, he doesn’t agree with your point of view all he needs to manage is a flick of the wrist and suddenly he’s gone. So you’re again left standing in the middle of the flooded street, with that momentary hope lying tattered in the rain, praying for a more benevolent three-wheeled saviour to come along.

Ha-ha

The last laugh was always his, even the first time they met. He laughed while she just stood there, head tilted with annoyance and lips curdled in fake anger. He laughed as they lay cradled in each other’s arms, not knowing how else to show he heard her over the wails of birds protesting the dawn. He laughed when they were together, hoping the sound would bring her concrete defences crumbling down. He laughed in loneliness, knowing the empty hysterics were his only solace. He laughed as she told him everything about her because she revealed nothing at all. He laughed when she repeated those lies over and over again. He laughed not because he believed them every time, but because it was supposed to make her feel better. He laughed when she broke the many promises he pretended to treasure. He laughed to show he didn’t care that she did. He laughed when she walked through the door the mascara running dark rivers down her beautiful face, fed by the tears his laughter had wrought. He laughed as she yelled that he was insane. He laughed because he already knew it. He laughed when she beat upon his chest, her tears making little patterns of sorrow on his favourite shirt. He laughed while she turned away and slammed the door on his contorted face. He laughed so it would drown the echo of her footsteps. He laughed so it could murder the memory of her. He laughed with the mirth of madmen, because sadness was the only thing he’d ever known. After all, the last laugh was always his.