Grey is the colour of Regret

It may be the clouds
or the quality of the light
or the quality of life
that I've chosen

It may the roads unwalked
the detours taken
the scenery unchanged
the thoughts smothered and killed

It may be all things leading to this point
or just a few
What weights must be released
to stop sinking in this oily slime
bubbles mark where I fell in
what will mark where I finally settle

It may be choices and karma
it may be sanskar and incomplete intelligence
it may be will-lessness or willful deception
it may be nothing but just the lens one uses

But this is dread and regret like a cement block
Acting both at the centre of the rib-cage and the feet
Dragging at 9.8 m/s squared, minus the upthrust from viscosity
Pulling everything down slowly

It's odd I feel, that the oil is pushing me up
While drowning me
As if urging me to live, while killing me
It's the mixedness of all things that makes it hard to identify
Just why it must all collapse
When I thought it was ready to fly .

XXXVI - Too old for potential, too young for self-actualization

36 is the square of 6 and also a triangular number.
Making it square and triangular.
36 is the sum of two prime (17 + 19), the sum of the cubes of the first three integers, and the product of the squares of the first three integers.
It is also an abundant number.
It is the number of inches in a yard, the number of gallons in a beer barrel.
The atomic number of Krypton.
ASCII code for the symbol $.
The number of chambers of Shaolin.
The probable outcomes with two die, the number of plays Shakespeare wrote.

All in all, a good age to be. A good age to do. A good age to dobedobedo.

The Spring of Discontent

It must be the season again
Which is why everything is so irritating
It's perhaps the imminent onset of furious summer
Or the fading away of my own spring
That makes the odium turn to rage
The listlessness to rancour
When will I make peace with the world
When will I not suffer from seasonal moods
When will the spring of discontent dry up
Turn to summer with the glorious sun of self-actualization

Venting without a plan

Purpose = pushpin = poetry
If only one could believe that Utilitarian principles governed one's life
If only one could know what's right
from what could possibly, may possibly be
if only free will felt more like it, or less like Free Willy
when will the answers come
when will things be done
meanwhile I continue to age
fester with potential, unspent and unrealised
I see the life my parents lived and I worry
It's so short, so fleeting
how long before I commit to doing something
instead of surviving everything
Double bugger double damn
I gotta gotta getta plan

Oh blah dee

I've been feeling blah for a bit
Dunno if it's a seasonal hit
I don't know what to do
I'm hating and hating what I do
And sometimes what I do not
I live without a single thought
Bored out of my wits and without a song
I'm usually blah, March to May
but never this far in the year or day
I seem to have copped out sold out shipped out
everything but made out
with my potential, sense of destiny
and now I'm down on bended knee
not proposing but waiting for decapitation
a release, onanism anything for a fraction
of purpose of blahlessness

Happiness

unhappiness meant unhappiness with mediocrity
with doing everything that has been done before, thought before, written before
now that I'm happy
does that mean I'm mediocre
and is that supposed to make me unhappy
is this a lovely circular loop from which one can't break

it isn't.
I'm happy, I'm alright
the only nagging feeling is of having deceived myself for all these years.

Ecdysis - Skin shedding

I have a thick skin, a thicker skin than most
Thickened with years of callousness, cynicism, odium, doubt
But I didn't sleep for much of the weekend
Some nightmares, some random thoughts on what I would do if I were trapped like this
What in a hotel room could be made into a weapon, a defence?
And I grew angry simmering on a slow flame
So I read the world press to grasp what I felt
Islam, kafirs, India, Pakistan, porous borders, pervious resources
Kashmir, human rights violations, ISI, counter-intelligence, bad governance
And the flame flickered as my anger dissipated
But I wanted to be angry requiring a channel for the well of self-righteous rage
And I realised how vulnerable we are now, perhaps more than before
For our cumulative anger could so easily break upon the wrong shore, the wrong back, the wrong battle
Everything seems complex once again
Perhaps I too would be leaden-footed if I was the government
Am I to fight back, am I to soothe or am I to repair
My anger fades, becomes a deep seated neutered powerlessness
The only thing I remain angry with is News channels claiming exclusive coverage
Do they really love their TRPs above all?
My skin is shed along with my exoskeleton
But what should I do with this blood covered flesh?