The Night

I'm laying in the dark
Not figuratively but literally
While outside not a single dog barks
Wondering where the words went

Selling words like slaves
All bound in chains
While I need to be paid
Literary freedom is stayed

Testing intelligence with stupidity
Avoiding expressions of creativity
To gain points of authority
And a certificate of authenticity

Is it still writer's block?
Not enough words on the clock
Up to this what do I chalk?
While my muse it mocks

At the end the only respite
Is leaving my desk out of sight
When I finally lay down and sigh
Wrapped in the darkness of the night.

(C) Rahul Chidambaran 2016

Funny Not Funny

Funny how things are usually not funny
Forever tiptoeing on the sidelines
Kicking the dirt as I look up once in a while and feel no less an outcast

Go play with the other kids they used to say
But how? Why would they want to do that?
Today as then, feeling an invisible barrier between me and the world
Still somewhat withdrawn, still somewhat in my shell
Still incomplete
Asking me what's wrong is like trying to use a lighter when the fuel has run out
Pointless and frustrating
The root of the problem is so deeply buried under the mountain that is every failure and every sadness and mythical unturned rocks that may or may not exist.
You could catch me when I fall but I may keep falling
Landing nowhere and everywhere at the same time, an implosion within an explosion
I cannot tell if I've been moving too fast or if everything else has while I stood still
Getting lost within the shoulda woulda coulda's, being left with my hands still empty
The desire to escape persists as does the burn up in ash and nicotine

Go play with the other kids they used to say
I never did really
For the times I've kicked a ball around, I couldn't tell you if I was running home or walking the plank
Then again, I couldn't tell you where home is

Funny how things are usually not funny
Forever tiptoeing on the threshold of nothing in particular
Kicking the dirt as I look up once in a while and feel no more at ease than I do at home

Dyslexic Mime

Torturous it would seem

Live the way we do

Remedy this with what

Hold on my dear

Taking a vaccine hurts

So does not taking it later on

Pain is inevitable

But happiness is a possibility

Writing dischords of rhymes

Feeling like a dyslexic mime

Tomorrow brings rocky starts

Home is an idea I don't have

Unlucky the son of lucky

To be loved but never had

In the end there isn't one

As in the beginning none

Sticks and stones they

Broke my bones see

But words oh how they did me

Scabs of my mind still itching

Find it in his heart frantic

Future remains unsteady balance

Sunsets melt down into nothing

Dark exists without something

Hanging on gossamer thread
Breathing clean mission dread
This ones for me but you can see
I burn on the inside like tobacco indeed

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Questions

All these questions in your head
Your head in my hands I cradle
With these thoughts I fall to bed
Would you and I be fatal?

Ignorance is bliss until you breathe
Open our eyes to see what's real
Dreams are great but we must feed
Our brains need as much as our hearts feel

Little wounds that cut on your heart
Tears fall as if they seek to soothe
Inevitable we would have had to start
Lean on me, I won't be rude

Of all the questions there is the one
On a day when discomfort wins
Shoots like a bullet from a gun
Revealing your empty tins

Question to which you know the answer
The answer is forever eternal
I love you even if we sever
Your heart in my hands I cradle

Tripping In The Dark

Spoil me for the world
Soiled now every word
All faces sporting masks
Falling graces slippery grasp

They moved away in my dark
Lights now on in empty room
Then and now dissonance stark
Swept up in witches' broom

Hunger grows for new game
The heart though not tame
Looking around for the start
Tripping In The Dark

Wretched Emotions

These wretched emotions that I could do away with
I am not one to deny them though, I can barely sit

She looks to me as I look to her
We try to slow down the blur

Will she do away with her emotions?
Will she deny this strong compulsion?

© Rahul Chidambaran 2011

Exhaled Fogs

You hold my hand but you don't know
What it means to me I don't show
What it means to breathe and not grow
Why the world does move so very slow

I know you look but you don't see
I react quite constantly
I prefer to live in my make believe
Here there are no fallen trees

Would you come with me to the other side
A place where you and I can hide
A space were we don't have to decide
A time when we have never lied

Of course now that is wishful thinking
What's real is this feeling sinking
I am alone and slowly blinking
Far from me you are shrinking

You are welcome to enter my illusion
Your being here is no intrusion
Your being near there's less confusion
The air is clear and there's no pollution

Sick of moving with the mob
Bored of smiling at the job
I refuse to sit down and sob
Got my eye on the door knob

© Rahul Chidambaran 2011

Quick Rant

I want to be on the road
I want to be out on the open road, I want to compose and play music
I want to record and perform that music
I want to travel with my music like a troubador!
I want to be able to let go and detach
I want to not worry about hurting peoples' feelings by doing so

My heart screams and stretches at the seams
My muse hurts to be set free
My head is not where it should be
My mind will not shut up and let me be
My soul resides not inside my body; and
My disconnect may never leave me

Peace is just two fingers that barely mean anything
These emotions burst through me like photons in lightning
Seize the night on a chance, don't worry about timing
Release the beast, it needs to be freed from all that is binding
Please take the time to find in this life a meaning
Need not wait to see what the tide will eventually bring

© Rahul Chidambaran 2011

Go Figure

Your stars have changed they say
"So what?" I ask, if I may...
Can we really put our faith in a photograph of a million-year-old yesterday
Can it really predict what's happening this Friday
Even if it did, I would make sure that changed, so really, no way

No pain, no gain
So true when you do gain pain

Not much more to say or type
Can't force my hand to write what's not right
They say I've got to keep goin'
If I want to wake up dreamin'
It is hard though to force these thoughts
I guess this is some place I've got to start

© Rahul Chidambaran 2011

Eyes to the Skies

It seems to me that if you are not here and you are not there,
then all you do is stare at the people that are around you like you are the animal in the zoo

Work, Home. Work, Home.
A stone drone, a lone soul in this crowded dome.

Fleeting thoughts, most forgot in the exhaled fogs.
Mind not stale while the soul flails, aspiring to spirit away on any given day.

Not producing, just reproducing, though unpleasantly.
Fingers itching, deprived from the wood and steel string, notes in a sling.

The questions pile with no answers nigh
Breaths turn into sighs and eyes turn to the skies.

© Rahul Chidambaran 2011