untitled

before i speak -
i take care
to walk on to a patch of soft grass.
and to bend my head
upward.
and only then gradually, softly
utter them.
so that the words.
don't.
fall down.
unaided.
- to you.
in case you are not there.

Water colours

- With Pablo, After a long time

The Best Paintings in the World Are Those

Where colours stay intact and don't blend

and with people spattered over, like those solitary colours

isn't this world, one of those paintings ?

White, Black and Brown together without mixing

A world which the artist can easily mend

and the blank spaces in the painting need not be filled

for there is always an elegance in emptiness

It helps when the paintings don't move

So they become new a thousand times for you

and a thousand times you fall over and pass by

without noticing how they, and you, have changed together.

And these stories they tell get better with time

Differentiating themselves from what the artist drew

they travel to far off places like people

and come back, only to laugh at how they all began.

This flat surfaced world enchants us

And keeps us happily locked within itself

like how it does not matter to those colors,

how they look from far away.

Untitled

going where i am
is no where
and walking with me is.
the songs follow behind
out of breath.
occasionally catching up.
i move rapidly.
and once in a while
turn to look back.
without ceasing.
or only when
something important
has fallen off.
left behind.
without getting lost.
steeper now.
i hope there is a peak
to reach.
where i could stand
and look at all that
i did not halt for.
and the barrenness
of everything. 

stars

stars. they walk with you all along.
not the trees. nor the milestones.
the further they are. the better.
we trespass howling generators
working alone in the night.
for no reason. there are no lights i can see.
and yes. there are dead dragons i see
buried in the road. not to be feared.
they are refugees in the dark. it is their home.
like dogs in abandoned homes during harsh. winter months.
they are friends. close.
and we talk about shapeless non things,
before dispersing away. we are fragments
of nothingness. beautiful for no reason.
and ugly for none. we are like stars.

meanwhile

meanwhile
life went on as if
there was nothing missing.
the sound of sea i had
carefully captured
one solemn night
and preserved
in an air tight box
had gotten lost somehow.
i kept pretending
that the way i appeared now
was how i had always been.
meanwhile
the things i tried to stash
kept getting lost.
i refused to look for seepage
or accomplices to guard over me.
but i could never
remain unencumbered.

...
It all lasted less than a minute
but the rest of the world.


-Henrik Norbrandt

la mer

i am the sea
with mountains inside me.
i can't narrate stories
and all that i have seen
but i listen for hours
to all that they bring.
i am not new to this world
i am not strange
i will not die soon
and i do not live.
they come and speak to me
without having to listen to my soliloquy
and i live while i listen
and when they go i seem to die
i exist only when they want me to be
and all those mountains
i hold inside me