On Happiness

Do you hear me, sometime? When I

cry out in the middle of the night, somewhere

do you also wake up with cold sweat on your palms? Do you

remember me, and have your sleep disturbed with

dreams of me?

It is not a happy state, I have a crowd of bottles, each

clamoring to testify in favor of my love, there is

an alcohol-sodden revolution waiting in my kitchen, waiting

to erupt in my support, a whole nation suppurating with

guilt and too much drink.

Tomorrow, you will probably not know me and there will be

shadows

who will ask you what to make of us. You will

probably say nothing, maintain that dignified silence which

is another way of admitting defeat. I will not. I will

wait in the silent café by the seaside, willing

you to come inside, unburdened by my loss, complete

with a radiant smile, that tells the world

that there are different kinds of happiness. And

one is more than most people get.

All Things Remaining The Same

From the window of the café, I can

see the airplanes taking off, hanging there

in the air, almost as if they are going to fall, before

turning, and flying away. And the sea. The waves

that break into nothingness, and my face

in the slowly darkening windowpanes as the airplanes

slowly turn into winking lights-here now, and gone;

so much like love.

 

Hunched over my beer, I am waiting

for someone, anyone to arrive- enter through that

door which faces me six tables away, someone

who does not look like he is wrapped in failure, someone

who enters this den of vice with a smile. The jukebox

plays a song from the nineties, some hyperemotional

thing I would never relate to when sober. Someone

to walk through the door who is not carrying

all of my defeats and theirs’ and those of

the rest of this world

on their shoulders.

Someone is playing seventies rock on the jukebox now. Part

of me wants to tell them to shut up: we were the generation

who drank ‘On The Road is evil’ with our bournvita. But I cannot

help it. There is a promise of rebellion and a new future. And I

know now, five beers in, that there will be no one entering those doors

who will be worth the waiting. I watch some more lights, as they

hang in the sky, promise to fall, and turn away. And then I order

my sixth beer. Tonight’s dinner, I will eat alone.

Ambiguity

I feel ashamed, sometimes, that I

have loved. I feel ashamed that I have been

an intemperate fool, when speaking or silent, I

realize now that all those hours I spent

silently looking at your were just folly, now. I

now know I was perhaps wrong.

I wasted my life, chasing the

things I, perhaps, did not want; or, perhaps; I

did and am lying to myself. There is no answer. I saw

you in my arms in a dream and was lost

for ever. Was that a lie? That is a question you

answer. And lie, or truth, how much of

it?

Carpe-diem

I think you like it, that you

have so much of my time. Every evening

from work to sleep, my every night of despair, you

keep me; happy, unhappy, lost, tired, in the morning

you are just a tinkle of glass on my frontdoor. But

you run my life. Not anymore.

I am not giving up, I

am finding control, tomorrow I will

forget you; and there will be a silence in the morning,

and you will

no longer be

part of my life. Soon, I will spend my spare time

reading, or writing about things I feel, not

those you want me to feel about. I will

not write about the night

you said goodbye, anymore. There will be no more

descriptions of the Acacia tree whose thorns

were blunter than your words that night, or the cop

I hit as I drove home. That TV whose screen I kicked in

Is anyway gone, what I miss is the carefully underlined

collection of poetry- Yeats, no less. Can you

courier it back to me? Tomorrow on, I take control of my

life, and there will no more be the tinkle of beer bottles every

morning. And that book was part of my life

before this was. Please return, if you can

those evenings I drove you home. Please

return my alone-ness.

Ever blue

There is a song playing

somewhere,

a background music of soothing, lost

desire. All around me, there is a mess, half-unpacked

bags, a forest of beer bottles, an ashtray

full of half smoked cigarettes, remnants of

a life slowly, desperately clinging

to hopes of death.

I do not know you, anymore. Nor

myself. A strange sadness this is, one that

begins in the mornings, and melds with alcohol fumes

every night. How alive am I? How much will I live

when I am dead? I do not know your face, your smile,

when I look in the mirror

I do not see you anymore.

The skies turn colours I cannot name, in the evening

seen from the windows of my cube.

This mundane life is killing me. But until you come

I will damn well die whichever way I want to.