I Waited

I waited.
Breath bated.
For a bait.
A bed.
Feelings that fail to abate. 
Only exacerbate.
I waited.
In vain.

Pretend me not.

"Could you at least pretend?" He stopped in mid conversation. Some discourse about the pairing of saffron with fish or was it paella. She had lost him some 10 minutes ago. Caught between the drone of his voice and the tinkle of Richard Clayderman's Ballade pour Adeline.

"Pretend what?" She asked automatically even though she knew the answer. Dragging the rocket leaves across herplate, watching the trails of dressing left in their wake. Blossoms of brown and yellow twisting, writhing into life on the white plate.  Now a face grimaced back at her.

"That you're interested in the damn conversation. Or am I such a bore?" The indignation,  frustration evident in his voice. And the implicit plea in the undercurrents beneath, the faint tremor barely discernible. 'But undercurrents are the most dangerous. So easily disregarded, overlooked. Till they overwhelm, drag you under and drown you.  And then it's too late. Too late for anything save to mourn.' The dispassionate part of her observed.

'But I have nothing to say.' The face on the plate now morphed into a torrid mess. Of nothing. Or what a baboon might splash on a canvas and others hail as art. The clatter of cutlery on plate. 

'Could you at least look at me?'

She looked up. Into the eyes of the man she'd shared her life with. Woke up to every morning. Stubble on the chin. Tousled hair now immaculately styled. The twinkle in his eyes when he grinned. His musky scent as they lay spent in embrace.

She saw the desire, confusion and the unspoken plea now written so plaintively on his face. She struggled for words to address his fears,  comfort her lover, her friend. But words failed her.

A flicker in his eyes. Like a passing shadow. Hurt, despair,  anger and resignation flashing past in quick,  silent progression. A silent movie on the face of the man she'd known and come to read like an open book. For his emotions unlike hers while equally intense, were open and undisguised.

Scrapping his chair back,  he rose. 'I can never tell what you're thinking. I'll get the bill. See you back at x at 7..'

 'Sit down!' The words unbidden, rang out like a gun shot. He stopped startled.  The forcefulness of her sudden ejaculation surprised her. Painfully aware of the curious glances from a couple of diners.  'Please.' she added. Not as an afterthought but one she really meant.

He settled back in his seat. A little warily she could tell, surprised by her sudden uncharacteristic outburst. With an apprehensive look that one would give a dog you can't decide whether to pat or risk having your hand bitten off.

Leaning forward, she grasped his hands. 'I love you dear.  But there are times I don't feel like talking.  And I never pretend when it comes to you. Why should I?  It's who I am.' He blinked, stunned by her unusual candidness no doubt she thought.

Then he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling in tandem with his impish grin and it was like a burst of sunshine on an overcast day. "I Love you just the way you are." Short, simple but all at once the mood lightened. The iceberg of tension and unspoken expectations shattered.  And all at once she knew they'd be making wild passionate love later.

Still smiling and holding her hand,  he called for the bill. Grinning like an idiot or a kid with his hands full of candy. She mused. But my idiot. And she smiled in spite of herself.

Words

Take the words
Chew them up 

Wet with scorn.

Spit them back
Black with dread
Covered in webs.

Words mangled 

I lie here entangled.

Seasons.

Spring

Shoots burst forth from frost
Scent of crisp green growth abound
Birth pangs morning brings.

Summer

In dreams they whisper
Tales of old all gone bitter
Parched like sun scorched ground

Autumn

Flowers in the wind
Cascade in billowing streams
Rippling coloured hues.

Winter

Lances of ice pierce true
Blood blossoms red staining snow
See how my heart bleeds

Rain

I look out. At the rain.
A fine mist coalescing into a shower of silver needles.

Sharp and slanted into the wind. 

Before exploding in wet demise. Silver shards on the black asphalt .
As tongues of lightning fork across the sky. 

Brilliant flashes rending the black canvas of night.
Amidst the lazy drawl of thunder. 

And the symbolism is not lost on me.
Of you and I.
And the dance we dance, to a tune only we hear.
But for now all I think.
Is of my bed and how good it'd be.
As it rains.
And so I shall.

I Dreamt.

I dreamt of dreams without doors
Of love without wars.

That we could belong
In some place together for long

Of conversations without qualifications 
Of expectations without recriminations

That we talk as we walk

Only to find you stopped the talk
Much less walked the talk.

And I remain. Alone in my dream.
For some dreams are best left unshared.

Essence of Absence

In absence the sun doesn't shine.
Peals of gold that divulge the paradigm
Of senses garbled blind
Riotous shrieks of colour
That mock the divine

Out of dark does light divide.
Fields which unfold before hungry eyes
Down the myriad hued tiers of paradise
The sun in yellow does arise
In essence, your love, my divine.

Rotten to the Core

You weren't very promising to begin with.

Spiky on the outside, hard, unyielding, forbidding.With just the faintest hint of the fragrance within.
A heady, intoxicating mix, at once overpowering yet fragrant. The allure of the flesh therein.
So I tore my flesh from rending that skin, bloodied my hands on those treacherous spikes.
Just because I believed there was something worth the pain within.

Then delving deep inside, through the layers of spike, I saw at last the sought for sight.
Golden, yellow, creamy delight.
But the flesh was more bitter than sweet. It even made me weep.
Yet still I ate, confident that sweeter flesh did await.
But the seed I saw, was black and hollow to the core.

For you repaid trust with deceit, loyalty with disdain, support with scorn.
And I shall never partake of such fruits again.

Not. - Navi's Admonishment

Blame not the foul north winds,
for the rank stench of decay and complacency .

Look not to the sands of time,
for succor in your quest for redemption.

Shake not your fist at the barren heavens,
for its callous contempt for your cries of refreshment.

Cling not to finely wrought metal for comfort,
Cool to touch yet quick to burn.

Perceive instead the rot within,
the impatience, insensitivity, idiocy.
The face painted ogre you bedeck in finery.
The one you prostrate before in abject adoration.

And rouse,
from this reverie you so obstinately cling to.

Lies of the sky.

Do not lie,
when you talk of things that fly,
And jewels in the sky.

For in my mind's eye,
all I see are men that squirm beneath pewtered wings of vacuous glory,
And stagger with vapid smiles and fevered brows.

To where they do not know,
only to find what they do not seek.
As the world shudders with every step we take.

Fallen

I love your honesty, when you look at me with eyes that glow like liquid onyx, the purse of your lips tight and unyielding. The words unspoken, yet elucidated in every shiver you make, the nonchalant puffs you take.

I muse over your quizzical regard, the cock of your head. The remarks you make and the punishing speed of your gait. I ponder, dissect, dissemble, reconstruct every statement you make. To fathom your thoughts and the ticks that make you tock. Till I hear your raucous laugh and see your impish face.

I love the warm flush of your face, the rough crush of your embrace. Wreathed in smoky musk, your gentle probes, tentative, like in a daze.

I like that you will spare this post nary a thought. Perhaps grace it with a little snort. Like ballast to my heady helium, the Sun to Icarus. For I have already fallen, fallen for you.

Lying with Liars

I remember that night.
As we lay in bed and you laid your head on my shoulder.
When I said the fault lies with none and that you should lay your cares on me.
I lied.

Care

Sometimes I sit and stare and wonder why you care.
About the little trifles and idiocies you feel you bear.
Then I remember you are you and I am me.
That the things we hear while same, may differently wear.
And that really I shouldn't care.

The Awakening

Errath woke to the sound of his hacking coughs, prodded awake by the constant aches in his body. The Sundering had come to pass and his health had deteriorated steadily since. The trials and tribulations of the constant adventuring and front line battles in the diverse places of Azeroth ranging from the depths of the earth against power hungry dragons to the icy wastes of Northrend against a megalomaniac warmonger had taken their toll.

All the healing he'd received had simply served to slow the decline, not reverse it. After all, there was only a certain number of times one could mend a threadbare cloth before it disintegrated. Death could not be cheated forever and the inexorable march of time was something no man could fight against.

But there was so much to be done and his mind burned as if with fever, keen as ever but constrained by the increasing infirmity of his body. There was no comfort for a young mind trapped in an old body. His one regret was not having an apprentice to pass on his wealth of arcane knowledge to. The wars had claimed the lives of the few apprentices he'd bothered to take under his wing, the promise of fame & glory attracting the other talented ones like moths to a flame. But Errath refused to go without a fight.

'In Kalimdor ere the Sundering, a Priestess of Elune sleeps. Her power is strong but her will is weak. Wake her not by will but by choice and by that choice, submit. Then breath shall become one with no demise.' a sagely druid from the Cenarion Circle advised. Be aware though if you fail, there is no return, he had cautioned. Errath cared not, he would not live much longer anyway. Better to die knowing he had tried than to curse furtively at the dying of the light.

Clearing his mind, Errath commenced the ritual that had taken over a week to prepare. All at once, he was surrounded by multitudinous threads, stretching out as far as the eye could see, many flickering and flashing in and out of existence as people awoke and slept around the world, stronger glowing ones signifying deeper states of consciousness or unconsciousness as the case may be. Concentrating, Errath located that single thread as the druid instructed him, a throbbing emerald green glow, and grasped it. The world spun, blurring into a nauseating swirl of myriad colours, the wind tearing at his very soul.

When Errath opened his eyes, he found himself ankle deep in a cool, crystal clear pool lined by thick lush foliage and delicate ferns, the earthy fragrance of flora native to Kalimdor. Shrouding the foliage immediately beyond the banks was a thick grey mist that barely stirred with the occasional breeze, cool and wet. 'Typical nightelf dream of paradise, a slice of Kalimdor.' Errath mused. 'Now how should I get the Priestess' attention? I doubt she'll be very pleased if I burned down a couple of trees to announce my presence.' And he chuckled at the ludicrosity of the thought.

“What amuses you so human? And why are you here?” a crisp voice emerged from the mist. The mist parted to reveal a tall night elf woman in a shimmery white gown that matched her long snow white hair and regal composure. “I am..” “I am aware you are a mage. You reek of magic. And your archaic affinity with the arcane is palpable to me, even if you have sought to hide it. Now why are you trespassing on my domain?” the night elf interjected.

Errath raised his eyebrows at this observation. “So you can sense my presence. It is true after all, you certainly possess a great affinity for magic, more than most of your kind. I am here simply to offer up my entire knowledge and memories of the archaic arts to one who may continue the fight in my stead. I believe you are that one.” The night elf looked startled for a moment but quickly regained her composure. “I am a priestess of Elune and we have not practised magic since the corruption of Sunwell. We have no need of it.”

“Ah but you've always been a priestess out of a sense of duty haven't you? And did you not ever feel that strange yearning desire for more. That seemingly dark unspoken urge for the forbidden archaic arts?” Errath countered. The female night elf stared at him silently, the shine in her eyes accentuated by the reflection in the pool.

“Things have changed now. The Sunwell is restored and magic is no longer banned amongst your kind. Even now many are rediscovering the old arts in the effort to fight against the abyssal forces of Deathwing.” Errath continued. “But I am happy here. I have lived without magic for so long and can do without” came the reply.

“But are you really? When in the waking world all living things are threatened by the Cataclysmic forces unleashed upon us and doom only awaits those who don't resist?” “Stop lecturing me human, I have lived many a Spring more than you comprehend the threats to our world all too clearly” the night elf snapped. Errath sighed softly,“Yes, but you won't be able to assist while in this world would you?”

“What do you want?” she asked, affixing her cold crystal green eyes on his. “To pass you my entire mastery of elemental magics, the memories and friends, that you may continue the fight my body no longer allows me to take.” The night elf sighed. “Humans and their short lives, they blaze in glory in their prime and splutter out just as quickly. Which may be good too. Long lives means long memories and possibly unbearable grief.”

“Even so, I have not been able to leave this place.” the night elf indicated with a wave of her hand the surroundings. “It is at once my sanctuary and prison. Penance I must make for my incompetence in the conduct of my priestly duties.” Errath shook his head. “Hardly. It's your guilt that's weighing you down and your refusal to acknowledge your arcane talents that leaves you powerless to escape this finely wrought refuge. But if you agree, I can show you how.”

“Words of wisdom sometimes come from the mouths of babes.” With that, the night elf turned away from Errath, silent. Errath found it objectionable that a man over 80 years old should be called a babe but decided that it was not the best time to raise it. The night elf stood silent for so long that Errath was expecting her to turn him down, when she spoke again, back still facing him. “Tell me, mage, what is your name?”

“Errath, mistress”. He replied, using the honorific usually used by night elves for a servant of Elune. Turning, she said “From today, you are not Errath but Sepharael. And for the first time, the night elf smiled, a warm smile like a sliver of moonlight dancing on the cool, clear lake. “Sepharael, the mage.” “Come.” still smiling, the night elf extended her hand to Errath. Who reached for it with his gnarly hand, a grin on his face.

A continent away, an old man shuddered and breathed his last. The hiss of escaping breath not detracting from the smile on his face. Leagues away, a female nightelf roused from her slumber, fire in her eyes. “There is much to be done.” Beckoning at her two surprised attendants to follow, Sepharael strode out of the chambers, attendants in tow.

Time

Time is a paradox. Not the concept (and I'm not talking about the mechanics of time), that is easy enough to grasp. The inexorable march of Time, that Time and tide wait for no man or inanimate object for that matter. The physical impact of Time and its inescapable effect on the material universe is a reality we come to comprehend and accept (to varying degrees) early on in life.

Rather, it is the impact or effect of Time on the intangible things of life such as relationships and love wherein Time is an enigma, a paradox. It is this enigmatic allure of Time that spawns the myriad phrases, idioms, nuggets of wisdom about Time that we are familiar with. For Man is always fascinated by what we cannot comprehend and we seek to define what we do not understand in the hope that by setting certain parameters, by making observations about the few applicable truisms; we are able to impose a clear definition on what is essentially undefinable. Much like the proverbial shoving of a round peg into a square hole.

Yet we draw what comfort we can from our paltry definitions, making the best we can of our observations of the duality of the impact of Time on the intangible things in life that are dear to us. What is Time? Seconds extending into minutes into hours into days into weeks, into years. A continuum of reality that goes ever forward, never backward (at least not yet). What is the effect of Time? There is no satisfactory, all conclusive or remotely acceptable answer.

Take the impact of Time on relationships. We have oft heard of the tongue-in-cheek phrase that "Time is a great healer but a terrible beautician". Time may be a salve to soothe and heal the raw wounds inflicted by an unpleasant breakup or altercation. A convenient amnesia fickle in its embrace or a carefully constructed defence elaborate in deception, tough on the exterior, brittle within. I would think a genuine healing and acceptance of sorts would only be achieved if the parties involved have come to terms with the reality of the situation, are fully apprised of all the relevant issues and reached a tacit understanding on their respective positions and the need to move on.

Yet Time can exacerbate the distance in a relationship or friendship, can deepen the misunderstanding, the animosity and ultimately the indifference. For issues left unresolved or untreated, the failure to discuss or communicate with a view towards sincerely resolving the issue(s) is like glossing over an untreated wound. Which slowly but surely festers and poisons the entire relationship. Time and tide wait for no man or relationship, friendship or otherwise, soured by unresolved issues, poisoned by insincerity, destroyed by apathy.

Time the great ravager of men's ambitions, destroyer of great monuments, grandiose cities erected by men to last through time. But Time has the last laugh as citadels crumble, civilizations collapse, their claim to grandeur and all memory lost with the shifting sands of Time. Time that exalts, propagates and celebrates the greatness of individuals, concepts, ideas and religion. Time that deifies, reveres and exalts the formerly mundane.

Time is a fickle master that promises much but guarantees nothing. Time's only predictability is its very existence and relentless onslaught. Still we live our lives ordered by Time, resigned to its governance, cognizant of its paradoxical effects, fascinated by the enigma. As Dion Boucicault aptly noted, "Men talk of killing Time, while Time quietly kills them." Indeed, the same way Time quietly kills relationships plagued by unresolved issues compounded by a lack of sincere communication and poisoned by indifference.




Widor's Toccata from Symphony No 5 has always been to me akin to what I would imagine the relentless flow of time to sound like. This is one of the better versions. Like a vivacious burbling stream, constantly surging ahead, steady and triumphant. After all, it is Time and time is on its side.

Farcical Humor

I seldom blog twice a day. Not out of habit or due to some idiosyncratic principle. I'm just too lazy. But this is an exception, fuelled in no small part by the fact that the modem was fried by the recent thunderstorm which means I'm stuck with a 500kbps internet tethered connection over my iphone. Meaning I can do precious little (ie: no downloading, gaming, etc) Wouldn't even let me access Auction Sniper for fucks sake.

The subject of this entry is an innocuous article I stumbled upon while googling a wholly unrelated phrase 'what does it mean when my watch is hard to wind'. With the title 'my farts smell really bad' and a website called poop report, it sounded like an aunt aggy forum/ helpline for the offensively flatulent. Something like your average litany of embarrassing health problems that hapless souls often relate in your average women's/ men's magazine. Only presumably more embarrassing. In other words mortifying if you're the person with the ailment, amusing if you're the spectator reading about the problem.

The brief synopsis found in most google searches was the clincher that made clicking on the link, the natural thing to do. (I.e :' if I fart in the car,it takes about 2 days for the smell to go away. ... For I am destined to spread the unhallowed wind of raw sewage until I expire. ...')

The main article was serious enough (read: not very entertaining), a desperate plea by 'Smellyass' who can't even stand the smell of his/her own farts for advice and help. However, it was the farcical, unabashedly shameless comments to the article (scroll down) left by people that left me in stitches, laughing so hard till I cried.

These are obnoxious, brash sods with flatulence noxious enough to clear the room in seconds and peel paint, yet they have no qualms about reveling in their odorous abilities and depict their smelly escapades to devastating effect. In a tongue-in-cheek perversion of sorts, a decidedly major social handicap is trumpeted as a major virtue with manifold benefits. Take this hilariously, shameless anecdote by the aptly named 'Chief Thunderbutt':

'ChiefThunderbutt (3375) -- 06.26.2008

I picked the user name ChiefThunderbutt because my flatulance is the stuff legends are made of. I was told by a friend when in the Air Force, "If you were an indian your name would be Thunder Butt."

I take pride in my farts and love the really stinky ones the best. I enjoy them even more when I am able to share them with others.

I have shared them through devious means a few times. I was once expelled from the control tower cab in which I worked because of my gas. The watch supervisor sent me down to the latrine and told me not to return until I had taken a shit. I continued down one more level to the room that contained the air conditioner, I climbed into a chair and farted into the air return vent. The crew was huddled around the vents in the tower cab getting fresh air. It made me very happy when I heard their voices coming down through the vent, "God damn, it smells worse over here."

Stinky butt,you have been blessed with a great gift. Learn to enjoy it'

Another person after adroitly noting that the person in question (Smellyass) must have really smelly farts if he couldn't even stand the smell of his own farts, remarked that eye-watering flatulence was useful to have in situations like 'when you're standing in a long line at a store or bank, or when you have guests at your house that you wish would just go home.'

Spent 20 minutes reading all the comments and almost died laughing. Pretty sure the abs got a good work out in the process and no, I didn't fart. Good to know some people can still make the best use of their stinky situation. That's one league I'm happy staying out of.

Though for the loud, proud and happy gasers amongst us, Chief Thunderbutt has a tip or two:

'For the most wonderful smelling of all possible farts you must eat "gyoza",

small meat dumplings (your choice of flesh)
with lots of cabbage, garlic and onion. These little gems can be steamed but are much better pan fried. They are dipped in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar and chili pepper. They should be washed down with prodigious quantities of beer.

The farts that ooze from your anus several hours later will be hot and rancid. Those who are around you will be highly entertained.'

Good lord, now I know why Y. is so hung up about paos smelling like Fart. LOL.

Sophia

I am the saint and the prostitute.

The primordial being, an enigma beyond your exoteric understanding, Ennoia.

The carnal spark you see in the eyes of your lover, as your bodies lie entwined, lost in lust and sweaty with the sheen of passion.

I am sacred and profane.

The chaste prostitute with many lovers, who spreads her legs to all but satisfies none.

For my promises are many but my favours are few.

And the haughty I transform into fools, the rich into paupers, philosophers into dolts and the deceived into loquacious deceivers.

I am the heat that floods your loins, the rush of blood thundering in your ears, the dry brittle taste of lust in your mouth.

I am the moist warmth you so eagerly thrust your sweet cock into, inviting darkness, wet with desire.

I am the turgid lance of flame piercing your rarefied consciousness, sending you to ecstatic heights while grounding you to lover and self.

I am the mother and the mistress, sinner and saint.

The fruit of your loins, blessed little being, cherubic and perfect.

The seed of your pain, spawned because you resisted not my siren call.

I am the master and the slave.

The face in the mirror that holds your gaze, the self that inwardly blazes.

Carnal and chaste.

I am Sophia.

Dark Waters

Water in Darkness, dreams in sleep.

Lay me down in those waters of deep

To settle in its ceaseless flow

Feeling naught but a cooler breath against skin

And the sighs of whispered dreams.

Essence of truth, senses will lie.

Lay me down where the light will die

For in darkness every shadow is lost

And carefully wrought eulogies are but a verisimilitude

Bleeding into an abyss so vast.

Certainty scours so, a world without wonder

Lay me down beneath that midnight creek yonder

Where in darkness no shadows are cast

And forests reach out imploringly to a silent sky

Even as streams make pilgrimage to the sea

Ask no question, the river will answer

Lay me down on stones embraced in darkness forever

Where the hills hold fast over the plains

And the rain seeks to bind all flesh and blood

Question the river, find the answer.

Soil & Sea.

We are but pieces on this board of existence, mosaics in this greater scheme of things. Men, gods, spirits. To the gods men are pawns, the visible entities behind the invisible mechanisations and shifting loyalties. Alliances forged and shattered over mortal battlefields stained crimson, blood the price exacted and paid a thousand times over.

But the players are also played, skeins in a spider's web, inextricably linked, master yet slave. Pieces on the board, mobility the illusion of freedom but infinitely interconnected and forever bound.

We cling desperately to the sodden shore of our fallacious beliefs against the pull of the tides of change, only to be swept out to sea. We clutch our rapacious support of carefully wrought schemes, push furtively against the winds of time, only to be uprooted and tumble like weeds in the wind. We are as the soil and the sea. Driven by unseen forces, forever in motion, even when we stand still.

Inequity begets fanaticism in all its myriad forms. Fanaticism that stokes the feverish flames. And when inequity burgeons into violent conflagration, the gods themselves are helpless. They cease to lead and can but follow, dragged by the will of their worshippers.

Gods annihilated, ascendants fall as blood is spilt by avid worshippers in the names of their fallen gods. Heedless, uncaring of the very gods they profess to serve. Blood shed, repaid in kind as the heavens weep in helpless despair and the crimson stained sand turns a runny pink.

Black Death

In the night they ran, under the guise of darkness, faceless forms clad in black, the wind parting before their silent onslaught.

A blur of motion, blades of grass bending momentarily, before springing back up, the only witnesses to their silent passage.

Human in form yet strangely fluid, the night distorts around them, weaving and warping into something sinister, malevolent.

Tireless, unceasing, they hurtle onward, swift silent sentinels of death.

Miles away, an old man stirs, in the feverish throes of death, beads of sweat peppering his clammy forehead.

And in that fevered fog of semi consciousness, that ephemerous state between this world and the next, the dying man sees, what mortal eyes blinded by the frail sparks of mortality cannot see.

With a wretched sob he cries out to warn of impending doom, sightless eyes transfixed at that invisible horror, pain racking his already failing body, but no words emerge.

Only blood specked froth on purple splotched skin.

Bear it, have faith, resigned family members cry, holding him tight.

A shuddering sigh, and he is gone, quiet sobs rising into the night, a dirge to the recently departed.

Under the cover of darkness they arrive, disappearing into the multitudinous shadows, sudden, silent.

Shrieks and wails pierce the night, for one by one the living fall, the crimson horror of blood and purplish spots on the body, sigils of death.

Then the last lights die, and they leave as silently, as they had arrived, thieves in the night.

Leaving naught but the miasma of death and decay, and silence, oppressive and sinister, deafening in its entirety.


P/s: Based loosely on the Black Death which exploded in 1347AD and subsided 3 years later (though it never really died out for another 200 years) but not before decimating more than half of Europe's population and crippling economies in the process.

"How many valiant men, how many fair ladies, breakfast with their kinfolk and the same night supped with their ancestors in the next world! The condition of the people was pitiable to behold. They sickened by the thousands daily, and died unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their rotting bodies. Consecrated churchyards did not suffice for the burial of the vast multitude of bodies, which were heaped by the hundreds in vast trenches, like goods in a ships hold and covered with a little earth"

- Boccaccio, Giovanni, The Decameron vol. I