Ballad for a Hungry Ghost

a poem about lost memories

Past lives in present futures
Walk deadly amidst the mist
A shadow emerges in shade light,
As rose specters in the sky unite
Hanging their heavy laundry in the air
Powerless, we cannot resist,
The search for life’s great repair

A wintery, wasted garden.
Living ghosts and graces
Echo last year’s laughter,
Hardened in stoned burden
Here, we are laid to rest.
These faceless forms are etched eternal
Eternity could happen more than once
In the turning of days nocturnal


Moving on, we often move backwards
Worlds that precede worlds of disdain
Beneath the dead flesh, time, words
I looked for you time and time again
Neither apparent nor apparition
Our existence is only mutual.

We danced in a paper apartment,
Origami suits and presents
We lived like frail lanterns,
Soon, they burn these golden leaflets
Along with our pop up, cut out hearts.
In a pitiless auction for human things
They make their way to a faraway place,
Of disaffection and broken human parts.

We have left this ash-covered world
No black and white photographs
There is no technology for time
No escape from this daily rewind.
Refugees of movement and history
We died long before our deaths.

Frequent Flier

i wrote this when i was on a plane from Singapore to Madrid

It was always evening, on the way home.
A moment of dullness when dishes are washed,
Where houses smell like ginger and garlic
Beating with the sound of showers on tiles.
And repetitive voices cast no effect or course,
On mechanical engines of fuel and dark exhaust

Evening wears on endlessly like a chord.

You’ve seen this scene many times before
Like a time ordained, pre-mediated score
Often, you let yourself be written into the lines
Rehearsing polite sips of coffee and wine
But today will be different, you told yourself
You’ll appreciate this local, rooted world of things
But the neighbour’s small talk and ringing newspaper man
Spoke to you of an altogether different plan.

And she sets the table for no one in particular.
“Are you coming home today for dinner?”
But you, afraid on the other line to say,
That you, her only child, was leaving the house for faraway.
Dinner is served for one with steaming hope
But food chills quickly in bitter mouths.

Evening wears on endlessly like a chord.

Each time you were neither here nor there,
Flying is a state you knew and you were often there.
The crevice of in-betweens put you together with hooks
Your body a map of Chinese clothes and Western books
You had a talent for understanding the transience of beds,
Living mostly in musty-smelling, anywhere-taxis instead.
Restless mutterings could be heard in the night
In between the sleepless world of dim street lights
And so taking off again and again was easy,
Like those weightless, air-suspended souls

Living at the cross section of time and sleep.
A world of strangers, stranger yet to themselves
From here, all worlds look the same
Civilization’s merry go round in a plane
Ahead you saw and felt that empty space,
That horizon where night meets day in one place

Years wear on endlessly like a chord.

Smiling, the lady gives you a shiny new card
Because you’ve won all the games of connect-the-dots
You had no allegiance to any country or to any home,
Never knew what it was like to be possessed or owned.
Time spun by the web of a meridian’s robe
Everyday was new in the jet-lagging globe
Where did you take off, where did you stay?
You have absolutely no memory of that day.
An old lady in the one room flat
Serves dinner for one with steaming hope