Moods oscillate in cadences of peaks and valleys Music to fractious emotions on greasy dance floors Mistimed cues of flares smouldering relationships Angst of redundancy seethes from within as lava Anger is camouflaged with the cloak of reticence Ardour suffocated with the noose of indifference Cataracts of devotion flow from the heart’s crevices Compassion brightens the visage with deep dimples Caressing arduous tasks to lighten others’ burdens Attrition grates the soul baring the mind’s low estate Audacious mien casts the mould of a mean persona Attracting pestering quizzes on casual promenades Undeterred optimism as binoculars peers into a future Unresting feet daily eat up distance seeking solitude Uncharted landscapes nuded and printed with flourish Life’s harsh lessons came bound in teeming volumes Lecturers of sundry genre pierce the ears from lecterns Long lonely nights pass away brooding tough theories Attention always spurned with multitude of entreaties Attires are the shields of invincibility from prying eyes Amazement and wonder to acquaintances and friends Years of toiling under hard-nosed instructors for a scroll Yielded bitter results hunting for game to stuff the table Yo-yo appointments as boulders crushing elevated hopes Obstinate phase of season invited foes within and without Ostracism dug wells of acrimony pulled by cord of hatred Outcast engraved on the forehead with pens of odious ink Longings stir for kindred spirits to occupy the soul’s void Letters are dispatched far and wide on wings of honesty Letting in respondents through the window of brotherhood Unbridled tongue lashes out blindly to sting innocent flesh Untainted heart in atonement pours out songs of lamentation Unseen are the weals of self-flagellation trenched in the heart Sequestered recompense curdled milk of unity with affront Stories unfurl the firmly swathed bard with mystical verses Satires the canvasses littered with brush strokes of humour Enigma garbs the character in fineries not of gold but awe Etchings of astonishment imprinted boldly on dull apparel Enamoured of any able to break into the mind’s penitentiary Yearnings of affection resonate from the depth of the soul Yearlings and all invited to a banquet of friendship and love Yesterday’s delinquencies wiped with the duster of repentance Insatiable quest for erudition compels him to drink in cupfuls Imbibing in long drags the wisdom poured out on parchments Infused parched organs energized to purge constipated passions Apparitions of buried memories exhumed with rash eulogies Arouse dried up tears that ever fail to cleanse the robe of guilt Arraigning again before the partial jury of tormenting thoughts Kaleidoscopic filial relationships hypnotize the mind to dumbness Kamikaze images on ethereal screen longingly beckoning for a role Kedging the ship of life’s voyage with sorrowful tugs to damnation Intentions misjudged rivet spiteful labels reflected by wicked eyes Impaling arrows of hate perforate the spirit to seep out its essence Invitation to invasion by dark fiends to fetter the mind’s fragile walls Neglected on shore as brothers and sisters sail out with patron’s hearse Neighbours cut out their flesh of revenge measuring with unjust scales Neutral judges acquiesce with stolid silence as the gavel of authority Black skin refuses to be cajoled by those richly perfumed emollients Bronzing came by nature’s quirk and glistening the sweat of its kiln Brawn cultivated in the gymnasium of hard labour threads the body Anodynes are moments of laughter with friends that rob sorrow of joy Allayed fears sucked into the chasm of oblivion by a vortex of pleasure Annoyance a rare display on a platform erected on the base of candour Mistakes of the past hurled as fiery pebbles of insult across continents Mark with contorting bruises turning the face into an offensive mask Maturity date for restoration of loaned out bond suspended on a caveat Intermittent pulses race to recesses of cranial bank to withdraw memories Intractable dramas staged to the roars of disgust banished with entreaties Internalized are kernels of the fruit of life eaten hurriedly in ignorance

zahida