When I was eight
At the park

Playing football
Getting dark

Older kids
Stole our ball

I can't stand bullies
Not at all

Then out of the blue
Three more kids appear

Did I mention they're black
So now I felt fear

But to my surprise, they said
Give the ball back!

What's going on?
I thought they were black

This confused my young mind
From all I was told

Stay away from the blacks
Or you'll never grow old

That one little act
Fifty years ago now

Changed the way I see color
Changed my vision and how

Today I was out
With my eight year old son

God, how I love him
We're having such fun

Then I see someone starring
No, it's more like a glare

I can't be that ugly
It must be my hair

Then an old thought creeps in
From way, way, way, back

She's glaring at us cause
I'm white, and he's black

So my prayer for this world
And I hope you don't mind

Is the day we can say
We're all color blind!

Amen

It’s all theater
I’m just behind closed curtains
That’s probably why no one looks
The fabric forcefields let me perfect my routine though
I certainly have an array of props to play with
A little cardboard box I call home
My reliable, evergreen jacket that kinda looks like swiss cheese
Oh, and a Styrofoam cup to collect my keep
My reward for tonight’s performance

Are they all in on the act?
Pretending that I don’t exist just for fun?

I must say, this new crowd is pretty **** good
Even the little ones get in on the charade
“Mommy, daddy, look at that ma-“
The clutching and quickened paces tell me those young talents might get cut
What a shame

I remember when my boss hit the line “you’re fired!” with such conviction
I was **** well impressed
When I said I couldn’t pay last week’s rent,
my landlord must have been practicing that disgusted look for hours

I like this new production, though, so it’s all good
Sure, the nights get a bit chilly and the days can be musty
but it’s all just show business
I sleep happily knowing this lifestyle is just a big act
It’s all theater

**….right?

Beyond the walls of sandbars and streams
waves break into silent white foams
often I've crossed them in my dreams
beckoned by the distantly looming haze.

The sky goads me to traverse the stretch
clouds hinder to ask what if rises the tide
the sea is all around in deadly embrace
her monstrous curls in hunger bared wide.

Climb the sandbars and reach her remoteness
calls the wind of the sizzling September
days as this would be gone in haste
shelled in memories to be ever remembered.

I slip into the lagoon in a drunken trance
the ripples break into a victorious song
the sea she breaks into a joyous dance
the time is here and the tides won't be long.

She shivers as he puts his hand on her forehead.

Ma, you have a fever, he says
and pulls up her blanket.

She closes her eyes to hold back tears.

it's your touch, son, her lips hardly move,
like rain on my arid heart, long awaited,

streams of films roll in her head,
the baby, skin of her skin, blood of her blood,
the umbilical cord never separated,
severed as the baby grew up,
a man of another woman,
the expanding distance
huddling all those cuddles into memories.

It's your touch, my son, it heals.

The son rises to call a doctor.

She knows she has no fever,
only pains of sweet memories.

On my selling on a day in the blazing May
I was looking for a small place for a light bite
when I noticed through my heat dazed eyes
the signboard "Snack Bite".

Inside was the peaceful coolness of a suburb bylane
and I would have pretty soon dozed off
but for the strong smoke of spice, garlic and onion
that shut out every senses except hunger.

No menu card, sir, the waiter cut the silence,
on our menu at this hour is only fish fingers,
all else sold out.

No problem I said, I have been here for a light bite.
How many pieces come with a plate?

Ten, sir, superbly fried.

By ten minutes the steaming thing was before me
ten red crispy slices of fish fingers
and I immediately got into business
remembering what my ma used to say,
To a hungry mouth every food tastes fine
and so neat and fine the pieces looked
so artfully arranged on the plate like human fingers
I reflected on the pause having finished the fifth.

Human fingers? I froze in terror,
why didn't I notice
leftovers of crunched bones and nails
on my plate?

The only other man at the table, I heard
was ordering for another plate.

I met the man by chance on that riverside town.

The only one around at the deserted strand
I asked him the shortest way out
after I had my fill of the river.

He told me about the fish market
where the fresh catches arrive every morn
and the place ten minutes farther north
where if I slowed down
could catch the magnificent spectacle
of the orange orb thirstily dipping in the river
and if I stayed back for the night
would surely go insane
when the moon sets the river on silver fire
but if I was really intent on leaving
a half hour's drive would get me the highway.

I was thinking of the amazing mathematical probability
of my traveling over three hours to see the river
and his traveling ten minutes on a bicycle
to fetch his son from school on that riverside town
for our once-a-lifetime meeting on the life's highway
and then having him a permanent visitor in my memory
at sunsets and moonrises over the river.

Do you remember
The fairy tales we spun
On those blazing summer noons
When the road tar was melting
And we bunked classes
To be under the forest flame
Shadowed from the world outside
When we thought time would be immortal
As you wiped the sweats from my forehead
And with every thread of yarn
I would grip you harder
In an effort to prevent gravity
From letting those moments fall
Into the abyss of memories.

Do your eyes still see the Prince
That never took you away
When you tell your grandkids
The fairy tales?