Every Note of Music

Let me take you where

You've never been before

In this world of patterns

And pattern people

I want to unlock your cell

And release you to

My reality

I hear musicians

Playing tired rhythms

Or am I the tired one?

While they are full of energy

I'm bored by their repetition

The predictability

The order

Let me take you where

I've not been before

A trail in the woods

Marking the paths of

The first to make

The expedition

Let us always be the first

To venture into the new

The unknown

Let's make the music

That is ever expanding

More and more complex

Like thickly painted brushstrokes

Covering up in layers

Of shining pigments

The meek graphite grids

Of the simple beats

That came before

Exciting and daring

Like the hoofs of 

Cavalry

Not sticking to formula

Oozing out

Unfamiliar, yes, 

Like making an acquaintance

Rapturous, most certainly, 

Like laughter with a new friend

Like squiggles in the sky

Not at all random

Yet unlike any predecessors

Not trying to confuse

But to soothe

With the fresh

With the new

Every note

A

Surprise

We Puppets

We puppets had to wait

To pull down the puppeteers

While the ventriloquists spoke for us

We had to remain silent

While we jiggled and danced

We had to plan

We had to communicate in secret

Or how else would we organise?

We had to invent a language of our own

Unknown to our manipulators

We puppets had to wait

For that perfect moment

We had to choreograph a dance

Made just for our puppeteers

To wind our strings around their hands

Tying knots at their wrists

So that to free themselves they'd need

The same scissors that would free us too

Origami

As I gaze into your eyes I see your soul

And watch your origami figurine unfold

And as you return to a creased paper square

You wriggle nervously beneath my stare

But I mean no harm, sincerely so

I look towards you because you glow

In all eight directions out you flow

And my eyes are simply two brown holes

I could instead look away and pause

As you gaze into me with no such awe

I could instead observe your hands,

Your body language or how you stand

But my eyes are fixed looking straight ahead

And you may be wondering what it is I've read

In your looks and glances and the thoughts therein

But I swear I'm no mentalist magician

I hear your words and see your face

Against the backdrop of the human race

And to me you seem a bit out of place

Like a tortoise in a greyhound race

Your eyes reveal you'd like to see

The fulfilment of your prophecies

But what it is you'd manifest

I dare not ask nor take in jest

For though I have the power of sight

I know not what will be your plight

The corner of my eyes press your paper tight

To return you to your unseen might-

An origami shape to withstand the wind

Simple and strong and wiped clean of sin

A Plea for my Planet and Its People

A glacier melted just like that

In Nepal and Chinese Tibet.

In an instant

Thousands of lives are now gone-

Nepal, still one of the poorest countries

With one of the gentlest cultures

I've experienced,

The birthplace of the Buddha.

And Tibet, the birthplace of the lamas-

Painfully, shockingly, needlessly killed,

As the rest of us continue to live

Consuming,

Polluting,

Paying for foreign wars with our taxes-

The aircraft carriers, jet planes

Guzzling and burning petroleum fuel,

Manufacturing bombs and drones and guns,

Maintaining nuclear arsenals,

Driving emission-emitting vehicles,

Or electric cars powered by

Coal-burning electric plants.

The planet gets hotter,

Hurricanes arrive more furiously,

Forest fires rampage-

Even the upper class Europeans and

Americans are dropping dead in the heat-

Especially our elders,

Some of whom have brought us here

By their degradation of our planet

Via decisions made in corporate board rooms

And in high-up political circles,

Where lies are peddled

About our climate

And the path we are on.

Now even the engineers

Are relying on the Artificial Intelligence

That is draining our electric grids

To try to save us from ourselves,

With carbon-capture tech,

Efficient forms of clean renewable energy,

Geoengineering if it comes to that,

And maybe one day hot-suits,

Like what volcanologists wear,

To keep us cool when the temperature

Exceeds our human threshold of survival,

Not too far away in all honesty-

As we'll all be walking from air-conditioned building to building,

Not knowing what fresh air smells like

Anymore,

Looking like astronauts on Mars-

If we're so lucky.

But right now my heart has been strangled

By the scenes of innocent life

Being extinguished-

Not like the reaching of Nirvana

That Siddhartha Gautam spoke of

As the culmination of many lives

Well-lived,

But by the ignition of hellfire

By demons walking amongst us,

Dressed in suits.

As we, the meek,

Who “shall inherit this Earth,”

And those with faith,

Can do nothing but

Accept this as our Kali Yuga

And pray