restarting…

I admit it, I have been neglecting my blog, and watching a lot more movies-based-on books, and reading the books that the movies are based on… It’s a self-propagating process.
But somehow I managed to write a poem that I was meant to perform, but didn’t. I write a lot less than I used to, perhaps because I have so many outlets for what I have to say, especially Twitter… All the same, here it is:

Restart
bridges burned
corners turned
Blistered fingertips from the last match
I used to set the last of my memories
Alight
Fireworks explode
The great leap
off the last stepping stone
that sinks into the past
no assurances
all is lost
there is no undo
Mon Dieu
Am I scared?
Perhaps
Of ghost hands
holding lingering strings
once tied to balloons
limply hanging
Popping, churning up
Cruel memories
jagged pieces
cut into rugged slices
but then a recess
made way for progress
Moving only forward
every so often looking back
at pillars of salt
tall and solid
till it rains
But on I go
To where I know
I start again
I suppose
It’s a cycle

I’m also translating for Global Voices Swahili, so that’s also something interesting that I’m doing on the side…

Hoping to write more soon. And proper stuff as well.

what is love?

Pray tell
What is this love
That is dreaded and longed for in equal measure
That both puts the heart at ease and raises the pressure
That hurts and heals
That builds and destroys
That fills and makes hungry
That quenches thirst and dries the throat
That fills one with words
And takes the same words away
That opens the mind
And closes it at that instant

What irony is this
That love should be blamed for so much ill
And the very same love
Is touted as the cure to these ills
That love should be so open in its appearance
And cloaked in mystery
So routine and mundane,
Yet bursting at the seams with newness
Feeling so right
And yet so wrong…

What is this love
That blinds so many
But opens their eyes to other things
As high as the highest mountains
As wide as the boundless oceans
As deep as the valleys of the earth
As narrow as the space between you and me

Such is love
Its meaning is lost when you try to understand it
But to go unguided risks getting lost
It is personal
But felt by everyone
It is the end of ends
The beginning of beginnings
It is the indulgence of the body
It is the victory of the soul…
It is, after all, love…

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when we stop

When we stop fighting,
have we the peace
That we were promised?
Or are we bored,
Looking for other things
To engage us for the time
That we are here
Devoid of purpose
Staring into space
Following the lights
That shine in the night
And disappear in the day
Leaving us to daydream,
Wishing we were there,
So that, for that time at least
We would have something to chase
Before the blindness sets in,
Before it gets cold,
Before we feel nothing
but the sharpest pain
In a warm, deceptive numbness
I want to start a battle
That I can rally behind
Not peace, for I shall have to think
of ways to keep the tension alive
Small wonder
I consider love to be a lie
Because love is a system
Of checks and balances
That comes and goes
And leaves a trail
Of hopes and dreams
Tattered and crushed
Deflated and discarded
For more realistic things
Like settling for less
Than we bargained for
Then start something
This pause is long
And dark
And quiet
I cannot sit for long
It hurts
To have nothing to do
To be gentle, to think of you
Iguess this means
That I have to learn
To love…