Carnival

Heavy moon rising above our sleepless streets
To carriage wheels a-clatter on broken cobblestone,
To shrill foreign laughter
That rattles the rafters
Of abandoned townhalls sitting piously alone.

Tonight's the night when gondolas come sailing
Bedecked in the glitter of faraway shores,
And the hot wine keeps flowing,
Red paper lamps a-glowing,
And the dancers at the rumba are keeping the score.

Sweaty-eyed, they're thronging to the fire-eater's pit,
And the caravan where temporal fortunes are sold,
And the old gipsy witches
Will promise you riches
By orbs that tell secrets in silver and gold.

Footsteps crescendo on echoing streets
As the masquerade passes in unbroken line,
Hangmen and heroes,
And black-hooded Zorros,
Kings, demons, jesters, and angels struck blind.

Under the eye of the ivory moon
The pantomime plays till distant bells chime,
Then encores are taken,
The citadel awakens,
And the dark yawning river bides its time.

The ant inched rapidly towards my left foot. Skirting around puddles of bathroom water, miniscule flurry of many legs. How unfortunate it is to be an ant, I thought. Lower form of life in the most literal sense. Brain probably the size of a dust particle. Confined to a world no bigger than my white tiled unreasonably clean loo. I had time to waste feeling magnanimous. Decided to put the wretched arthropod (I presume it was an arthropod) out of what I was sure was intense misery. So I directed the hand shower at it and pressed down on the pressy-thing you press when you desire water. I still don't know what it's called, so I've furnished the necessary diagram.

Gush. As simple as that. The ant was now floundering in a pool of water mingled with liquid generosity. That was that. I resumed with my book, got through a few more paragraphs. Funnily enough, didn't recollect a word I read a minute after I'd read it. My eyes dragged themselves to the mini-ocean near my left foot. The ant was still a moving speck in it, legs thrashing furiously, not a peacable corpse as yet. This was troubling. In attempting to relieve the pitiable organism of its awful existence, I had damned it to an even stickier existence. It wasn't my fault, really. I was trying to do the right thing. If only the damn thing wouldn't fuss so and just die.

A harder squirt of water directed at it, point-blank range. But wouldn't you know it, when the mist cleared the accursed creature was still kicking and screaming and refusing to go quietly. I fidgeted a tad bit. How long would this continue? Its fragile body was probably irreparably damaged by now, and yet it refused to leave its base earthly form. Every jerk, every tiny squirm seemed a condemnation. I sat there uncomfortably. Ought I just press my big toe down on it and end this terrible game? Why did I feel like such a criminal? It was just an ant, after all.

I ran before very much longer. Keeping my nose pointed firmly into my book, trying to ignore the stirrings of motion that continued on the periphery of my guilty vision. Someone waiting outside to use the bathroom cast a rolling-eye glance at my towelled self and the door slammed in my face.

I stood outside, water dripping from my hair on to the doormat. Straining my ears for the last bugle call I felt sure was coming. Nothing. No gasp of a martyred soul released from Purgatory. Nothing but the humming of the taps, the hiss of hot water misting up the mirror. And the heavy throbbing inside me that found no release even long after the flood had dried.

I look at you in the aftermath of smoky blue nights,
When the dancing's been done
And the wineglasses are quiet,
Touching the wet air, cold in my palms,
While you pull your solitude round your shoulders.

I'll look away till you're finished,
Till you say it's alright.

I'll count the glowing embers in the shadow at your feet,
And the cicadas still calling even though day is near,
And all the 'what if's in my fickle memory.
And I'll bet you'd never know I was here.

I'll come back on my own when the lights begin to fade;
You'll sit out the evening in solemn company,
Burning an anguish I never could see
In pools of echoing sympathy
And the early mockers' seranade.

Content with the new riddle you've made,
You'll look up to greet the day drawing near,
And, just my luck, in that triumphant blaze,
You'll never have to guess I was here.

When a night calypso's singing
And the moon's been busy stringing
A thousand stars out on the Milky Way to dry;
When the dew's begun to settle
And the sky's so stark that it'll
Make you want to laugh out even as you cry,

Let the fiercely stinging madness,
Strong enough to drown the sadness,
Lift you up into the passive heavy blue.
For there you'll be free to wander,
Up there hearts are flung asunder,
And a reckless, joyous ride's waiting for you.

Back to misty golden mornings,
Our old fantasises a-dawning,
And the sweeping tides come rushing to your feet
Carrying ghosts of long-gone laughter,
And the tales of ever after,
And a finished canvas painted bittersweet.

Wanted. For whatever illogical, apologetic reason.

Much to my embarrassment, some sentimentality still perseveres. First Best Friend. The Bestest. Who always gave me the red plasticine when I demanded it. Who preferred tilting back to stare at the domed ceiling till we were both hiccoughing with dizziness, over playing school with the others. The rickshaw trips to and back, twin water bottles danging from necks, banging together, entangling unconsciously in a jerking, spinning ride that seemed to encompass this side of the world from horizon to horizon. I remember crying just after this picture was taken because some undefined 'uncle' had, too insistently, wanted me to smile. And all I have left is this, the taste of cake with sugar roses, and an expression that never changed over the years.

I didn't know how to be sad when I turned four. Didn't know if I had the right to return to the tucked-away house with the washed-out green door to ask for a boy whose name I don't remember. Waited too long. Realized too late. And now some irrational whim begs release. So I ask. If you see him, you need not tell him I'm looking. I'm not, really. Just come back and let me know if there's any sign left of the boy with the solemn voice and the simple words, the boy who is content to follow you to the ends of the known kingdom for the sake of a game and will help you find the way back. I trust you'll know.

There's a lady on the moon who has to endure a lot. If left to her own devices she would spend her hours idly swinging her feet, because pretty feet make for pleasant occupation. Often have I seen her, scrutinizing her reflection in the glassy oceans with a secret gleeful vanity. However, every time she glances down at our ugly little earth, opaque clouds come scudding into her eyes. Only a few days ago she was startled out of her self-contented reverie by the realization that hundreds- thousands- of women, bedecked women straight out of a Fair&Lovely ad, were looking up at her with impersonal stares, a thousand smiles that scorched. Unnerved, she retired, a little hurt, more bewildered. So it has been. Often has she been unwilling witness to hastily breathed promises between skinny maidens and adenoidal lads by the shelter of April moonshine, which is all well and good and ought to be made into a zabardast movie or two, but which in reality drives our poor lady into fits of nervosa. How many times have lovers and murderers alike lurked under the eye of the moon. How often have fervent poets drunk with idealism and cheap whisky written odes to la belle luna. How often have foolish people like you and I leant upon our sleepless windowsills to yawn and gaze and imagine and sieved out inspiration with such careless abandon. Not always is obvious admiration the most welcome form of flattery. The lady I know with the lovely, brittle smile wishes away to distraction that for one season, one night, she would be left alone with her own assurance of her beauty, one night with only her naive conceit to comfort and sustain her.

Nowadays she counts the wrinkles on her white forehead. And wanes gratefully into the shadows as the month dies. The Astronomy Department publishes voracious theses for a month on the altered phases of the lunar cycle and we are momentarily satisfied.

The plant in my bedroom window is dying. My father, ever enthusiastic, bought it as a young creeper, leafy tendrils venturing over the rim of the pot. I merely saw an overgrown shrub that would repel the morning sunlight from my window and become a free haven for mosquitoes. But I did not deter him. And now it stands, in an obscenely red clay pot, obstinately dying in full view of all and sundry. The sun coaxes it from above the college wall next door almost every day. The wind is kind and the rain obliges with free showers. At least three times a day it is watered, tap water, drinking water, muddy water, leftover water, even some Aquafina I found lying around. But it's a stubborn plant, unnamed creeper, would-be adorner of a would-be poet's window. Die it will, and what a grand spectacle that shall be. Very inconsiderate and thoroughly bad-mannered, I think. If one wants to die, one ought to do it decently, out of the line of vision of those who do not enjoy such displays.

But I will not complain. It looks beautiful now, far more beautiful than it ever did when it was springy and horridly green. The leaves have all curled up into knotty brown bits, veined with dark gold. The branches reach upwards like ancient spidery fingers, clinging on to the grille as an invalid desperate to peer outside. A morsel of life drains from those fingers with every sunset, but they will not let go. It is beautiful, this creature suspended in time on the very precipice of its life, and the vitality ebbs from it, bathing the delicate tendrils and wistful leaves and even the hideous red pot in one last burst of golden light.

I know a satisfied plant when I see one. This one is, for taking hold of death and making it beautiful, even for mine incredulous human eyes.

So I'll make my own lovesong
Dare I be crazy and call it so.

Searching my guitar for a familiar face,
My fingers reach for that special place
Where these words so strange to me come breaking through.

Oh the surprise in your eyes
If only you knew.