I once knew a man in a chair
made of cracked maroon hide,

he was wreathed by reefs of smoke
rooted in pipe-glow, and he told me

how youth was all maybes: maybe
I'd pan for gold in a cold course,

maybe love would drape me flashing
in slices like Christmas tinsel, or

maybe I'd **** someone who stumbled
into the road under pitiless wheels.

It's all just a handful of maybes,
held loose, dealt at random

as our paths divide, divide again,
divide into myriad matrices

of still further divisions: because
we're plural, we're entire armies

of fortune, and we fill cemeteries
with our regrets. Strange-faced

angels are also our oldest devils,
& anything can happen to anyone.

Until, said my friend with the pipe,
you reach a certain point in life

when maybe thickens to never.
When sourdough hearts know

that division is over, and it's entropy
steering our dwindling gambles,

when the lacunae are closer, more real
than memories of any yesterday.

I can find you in the dark
By touch
The blue eyes shine and glow
The music is soft rock
Cotton
Satin
Silk
With all the laughter
The Joy
The tears
Hoping for many more loving and lovely years
For your eyes only

For you has blossomed,
I know you are not ready yet,
But if you can cherish even a single petal of my love in your heart,
I pray its fragrance may awaken and
blossom your love for me,
I await patiently always by your side.
31/7/ 2025

Plum ripe from windowpane
Meets enamel

Two drops
Blood-red juice

New shirt
Baptized

There’s a mist on the water,
When I wake.
It gets thicker every morning,
Creeping a little farther into shore.
I spend my days now,
Moving my house,
Further up.
Trying not to drown,
In the inevitable gray.
It’s one of those things you don’t escape,
It’s one of those things that never goes away.

It rests,
Slumbers for a while.
But never stops,
Creeping up.
So close to me,
I fear that I’ll run out of energy,
To run,
To escape.
I’ll die in this foggy place,
Join the sirens with their frowns,
Dragging more people,
Down.

To the fog.

It's a clockwork — like the dances of phantoms in the hallways, in the glow of lights through the window at night. I stared like a burglar from afar, It's the fear and anger, that's keeping me restless — a reminder that I should sleep with one eye open, meager, furiously shame.

I understand how stubborn they are rewriting the history, as I try to recollect, catching trails like they were footsteps. Love is all they worship from the beginning of time, thus it crumbles them to dust.

Are they second - hand embarrassed? If I couldn't see the ghosts and shadows lingering everywhere, yet here I am nestled to all that fairy tale, for a momentary, and still plotting the sweetest lullaby. Did they haunt you too? as if it were a chunk to the armour or it counterfeits them?