how do they see

Some people, they see poetry,
everywhere they turn their heads
A flower, a seed, a banyan tree
In swirling seas, in river beds...

In the color of streetlights, row upon row
In the burning tail of a firefly, so yellow
In reds, and greens and violets also
Of everyday objects, and in a rainbow

The birds, the fish,with a plumage hue
Of every known color, against the color blue
There is a poem hidden,  I dont know how
But these people see it & they make you go wow!

I wish I had it in me, the ability to rhyme
The words to describe a scene, To create
In words, those strokes that paint in time,
A timeless picture, my hunger to sate

Yet, such art, it is beyond me,
how some people see
Such lyrical magic, such poetry
In every rock and pebble, 'tis a mystery...

An Ode to my Wife

I see through my eyes,that lovely look she gives

A little glimmer of joy,a little fun, it makes me wanna live

Each day henceforth, towards making her smile

Towards holding her tightly, in my arms all the while...

That happiness in her laughter, which melts me in a flash

That infectious little mischief, inherent, yet a surprise

And I know, I've fallen for her, hard, like I was in a crash

And yet I love the feeling, with every passing sunrise...

My wife, my lovely wife, what a treasure to behold

In sickness and in health, till we both grow very old

I sit here and ruminate, on my blessings tonight,

And I wonder, what more can I do, to bring her some delight...

Yes, A poem, she had asked of me, for her, this night

A lyrical ode, to the love of my life, I must now recite,

What words do I say to her, she means so much to me

Would "I love you" suffice for my lovely lady?

Eye Spy

His hands felt feverish, as they gripped the cold steel of the door handle with less assurance than he felt comfortable with.
This wasn’t the first time he was on a late night lookout mission, waiting in stinking damp cars, looking for a clue to unraveling the mysteries of the universe, as he liked to think of it.
“Eye Spy, Inc.” he thought. “Nah, not snazzy enough”, He was trying to come up with more innovative names for his upcoming detective agency. He had high hopes of coming up with a suitable name by the end of the week. It was only Tuesday, he re-assured himself. There was always time.
He had been asked to investigate, with some measure of disbelief, the strange sounds and sights witnessed at No. 24, Brickview Lane, his neighborhood.
There were some unearthly sounds reported, at all odd ghostly hours, and the colony children had wasted no time in spinning yards of seeing ghouls, marauders, and blood-curdling screams along with a rivulet of blood seen regularly. Maybe it was maple syrup. Maybe not. Nobody dared to find out, until now.
It was late, around 1 AM, and the deathly quiet lane was bursting with the sights and sounds that only a rural suburban community lane would throw up at that hour. Crickets were chirping, Cats were yowling, dogs were howling, there was general mayhem in the animal world.
Al, as Alexander Gibbs was called by everyone, was keeping his place behind the bushes of No. 24 with a pair of binoculars for company, and leather gloves to fend off the crisp cold. The slowly falling fiery leaves in fall did nothing to muffle his steps as they rustled and bristled, complaining loudly about his uninvited intrusion into their world.
He had heard a small whispering, wheezing sound somewhere at the back of the house. As adrenaline pumped through him, he rose and walked on the path leading to the back entrance. The netted back door was slightly ajar.
He debated on whether he needed to risk life, limb and everything else even before his fledgling detective agency had started off. Maybe it was worth the publicity it might generate. Maybe he might even get some sponsorship money, with all the interviews that people would want to take.
A slight puff of wind stole through his bomber jacket, pushing the cold breeze down his spine, making him shudder involuntarily.
“Well, screw everything, and here goes nothing” he thought as he pushed open the door, and stepped into another world.
There was dust, everywhere. It was on the walls, it was on the furniture, and of course all through the floor.
It was like a living, breathing film of substance, all pervasive, omnipresent. He suddenly felt a great sense of respect for Mrs. Burns, his housekeeper. He felt even more greatly for his vacuum cleaner.
He had a pen-flashlight with him that he now proceeded to fish out from the depths of his pockets and switch on. The first thing he saw was the blood on the floor. His own blood froze, and not because of the cold. The lack of heating in the house suddenly became evident.
The blood stains were fresh. It looked like the victim had been dragged from near the mantelpiece, right down to the kitchen. He suddenly wished he had his gun with him. He immediately doused his light, lest the murderer see him.
He looked around for a telephone, but all he found was an ancient rotary dial phone, with its wires hanging limply by the side. That meant he couldn’t call the police. He checked his cellphone. No reception. Perhaps this really was a spooky place, and he had no right to be here.
But he had a job to do, and he pressed on, resolutely.
He walked slowly into the kitchen on tiptoe. As he did so, he stubbed his toe on a coffee table that had decided to materialize out of nowhere. He fell. He stifled his scream of agony, not wanting to make it the last sound he would ever make.
As he lay there on the floor, covered in ancient dust and grime, he found that he was now facing the kitchen directly.
There were three pairs of glowing eyes, staring at him. And the dead victim lay in the center of the circle formed by the three murderers. It looked like they were licking their lips in anticipation.
He could make out their footprints in the dust. Perhaps, he shouldn’t have become a detective, he thought.
Less than a minute later, anyone standing outside the house would have seen a flash of light going off inside, like lightning. Unfortunately, there was nobody there.
“Mrs. Rosemary, I am terribly sorry for your loss” said a small voice at the doorstep of No. 25, Brickview Lane.
“That’s ok dear, that’s ok….” said a sniffling Mrs. Rosemary.
Then she held up a five dollar note, and gave it to the twelve year old, red haired boy in front of her.
“Here you go Al, it was very nice of you to investigate his death. I imagine you gave those stupid cats a terrible fright, eh?” she chuckled a bit.
She looked at the photograph of her favourite guinea pig, Bob. Mangled, innards spilling out, surrounded by those dreadful cats owned by Mrs. Gibson of No 22. She wondered how he even got them to pose this way for the scene. Very CSI…
Mrs. Gibson would pay dearly.
“Yes ma’am, I did. They were very scared. But they’ll be back. But I’ll be waiting…” he said.
“Al’s Intelligence Gathering & Investigative Services”, he thought as he skipped down the steps, on his way back home… “Nah, the acronym is kinda funny…”

Butterflies

Butterflies

What you want, and what you get...
Are worlds apart, and yet
some day, the horizon must meet,
And that will be a monumental feat..

Of existence, of tolerance, of strength
Of man, to endure, but one more day
To walk this earth, from length to length,
And make for himself, an undiscovered way

There are dreams unexplained, yet recurring still
Of Gold, and treasures, and a flag on the hill
Of so many roads to walk, yet unknown
of skies, unexplored, not yet flown...

There must come the day, just yonder, it will,
It must, it must, I know it must come soon,
When bugles sound out, the war cry, so shrill
The day when the butterfly, breaks out of the cocoon...

A Rainy Day

It was raining hard. Cats and dogs. He could see the huge droplets smashing
against the etched glass, trying their hardest to break it.

He was wearing a mackintosh over his suit, and he was dripping copious amounts
of water all over the aisle down to the altar. It felt like the church he was in, St.
Sebastian Church, had an aisle almost a mile long as he squished his sodden
gumboots all the way to the confession box.

He tried to admire the wooden lattice-work on the door but found that he
couldn’t focus clearly on any one single pattern. Maybe it was the foggy glasses
he wore. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his silk tie.

It felt sacrilegious to be wearing boots and all inside, but he wasn’t here to pray.
He didn’t even believe in the existence of an Almighty God. He was here to do a
job, and that was it. He opened the door, and slipped inside. There was a single
stool there with a leather seat cushion. Under the stool base, was strapped a
Glock 9mm as he had been told when he had received his explicit instructions.

He felt around for it, and pulled it free of the scotch tape adhesive. There was a
silencer hidden somewhere, he knew. He sat on the cushioned seat, but it felt a
bit wobbly. The right side rear leg was a bit off, so he picked it up and turned it
over. Under the leg was screwed on the silencer, fully camouflaged in a grained
woody color. He slowly screwed it on, all the while looking out through the small
window, at the emptiness of the church hall.

And then he waited for his prey to arrive.

It felt like the vapour had formed into an image, as he looked at the door. One
moment there was rain, and suddenly there was a man. It was one of those classic
noir movie scenes, a handsome man wearing a hat and a coat draped over his
arm, arriving from the rain into shelter, in a church, looking around with a
strangely pale expression on his face. All it needed was an alto voice, and an
orchestra to provide the background music.

The stained glass etchings seemed to know him, as they followed his every step,
their blue and green eyes on his steel gray suit, waiting for something to happen.

The man stopped three rows from the back and stepped into one of the rows of seats on the right, eyes locked onto the marble statue of Mother Mary cradling Jesus. He knelt, his shoes coming off, and began to pray wordlessly with eyes closed, lips moving silently.

All this while, the assassin had his eyes locked onto his prey. He wondered if he would need to leave the safety of the box, or would the range of the Glock make it necessary for him to be at close quarters to finish the job. No matter, his prey would come into the box, he was told. And he had faith in the person who had told him this.
A few minutes passed. The man rose, picked up his coat and walked to the altar.

He dropped a note into the donation box, as he eyed the painting of St. Sebastian on the right hand side of the altar. Perhaps the patron saint of sharpshooters would aid him tonight. The crossbow now hidden in his coat felt like the right weapon to carry under the circumstances. The Cyanide tipped arrows didn’t make him feel any worse about using a medieval weapon.
The assassin felt a huge sigh of relief as the other man walked into the other side of the confession box, and sat down to wait.

He quietly said, “Father, I have sinned. Absolve me of my sins!”
A single note of paper, creamy white and watermarked with the logo of his employer and filled with writing fluttered through the window. This was not his prey.

He had to wait some more.

He bent down to pick up the paper. Coincidence, or providence, he didn’t know which was it but at that same time an arrow thudded into the woodwork of the door. It was just where his head would have been.

He could hear the rain splatter down on the empty streets outside, and on the sloping walls of the church. He could hear his own heart, thrashing about, happy to have gotten few more hours in which to beat. He could hear every wracking
breath he took, and the quiet exhalation of his would be killer. “What the hell is going on?”he thought. “Am I here to kill someone, or is someone here to kill me?”

He wasn’t sure that a 9 mm pistol would do much good inside the wooden structure. He had to get his guy outside, and that meant exposing himself to arrows. “Where did the arrows come from?” he thought. “Who uses arrows anymore?”

All this had happened within the first few milliseconds of his being bent down.
He lashed out at the lowest panel with his leg, smashing it, creating splinters and a hole wide enough for a gun, but not wide enough for his hand to go through.

Staying away from the sight-line of the lattice window, he put in his gun upside down through the hole and shot once. A small whisper of a silenced shot came through. No sound of a body falling. He had missed.
“Now now, Peter! Really!” came the gravelly voice from the door which now stood ajar with an arrow sticking out awkwardly.

He looked amused, perhaps at the sight of the assassin splayed across the box, hands and feet spread, away from the lattice window. “You don’t want to kill someone who wants to recruit you, eh? You’re fast, I’ll give you that.”

The crossbow steadily grasped in his hand-made sure that the assassin didn’t get the time to raise his gun.

“Let’s take a walk outside, grab your coat. Let me get my shoes.” he said. “And don’t shoot me with blanks please! It’s very irritating…”
So that’s what felt wrong with the whole setup. The assassin got up slowly and awkwardly, stretching his muscles, as he got back his circulation running.

He was being tested.

The sound of the rain became amplified tenfold as soon as he stepped outside.
The brim of his hat dripped with ice-cold water as he walked and it was all he could do to keep it off his glasses. He felt an involuntary shiver that had nothing to do with the rain. There was something about a crossbow ready to shoot an arrow at you that made you feel that way.
“I kinda like you, Mr. Knight. You have a certain something I have been looking for in my employees. Consider yourself hired. Here’s the person you need to eliminate”, the short gravelly voice barked at him from behind. He was passed a brown envelope, waterproof, with a single photograph inside.

Peter Knight, assassin par excellence, crack shooter and World War II flying ace with the RAF, was being recruited for his latest job.

“I’d like to discuss the terms of our contract, if you don’t mind, Mr. Smith. Specifically, the payment I would require towards such business conducted.” he said with an impish grin now spreading across his face.

“How do you know my name?” was the surprised reply. Clearly, being caught off guard was not a regular thing for this person. He recovered fairly quickly to resume his professional façade.

“No matter, I will be transferring a quarter of a million pounds into your Royal Bank of Switzerland account #33880 tomorrow. You will receive the same amount after you have finished the job. Satisfied?”

“How can I trust you?”

“The British Government does not lie about such matters my friend…”
He slipped out the photograph from the envelope. It was his own smiling face from a year ago, when he looked vastly different. Simon Templar. The real life James Bond. Agent provocateur. Thief. Agent for hire. Assassin.
The rain sounded louder in his ears. As he looked up, his eyes met the now hopeful but aging eyes of Mr. Maurice Smith, head of MI6. British Intelligence, asking him to kill himself. This was funny.

He smiled. This was going to be easier than he thought. “Where is he?” he said.

“We don’t know. We haven’t a clue, my boy. It’s been a year since I’ve been tracking him, but he slips off. Always he makes off with something valuable and sells it to the highest bidder. We need him shut down, Mr. Knight, now. That’s what you need to do. You’re a good man for the job, so say the boys down at the Yard… So if you’ll…”

The rain got louder. And louder. He couldn’t focus on the next words. All he could see was the end of an arrow. As it grew larger. He saw it as it zoomed towards his face in the rain which fell down like a shower of sparks.

He woke up with a start. He was drooling on the paper pad on which he had fallen asleep. This was a different ending from the last time he had this memory in his dreams. His reality had begun to blur with his imagination. Perhaps he was getting too old. Perhaps it was the scotch he drank before going to sleep.

“What’s the matter Grandpa?” asked his little grandson Peter.

“Nothing son, it’s just a dream. Just a dream…” he said as he smiled. He could still hear the rain as it fell in torrents outside his house…

sadness..all pervading..
boredom, onmipresent
ennui, everywhere
my sense of being, fading..

How goes your day?

It has but begun, and mornin sun
Has yet to scorch the squalid sky
And chirping birds, aft doth fly
Asketh thou in the evenin, when day has run….

How went thy day, Oh warrior great
In anonymity, in mere mediocrity
And how we spent an hour or eight
Waiting, just waiting with alacrity..

With shaded, eyes searching, searching
For the sun, amidst the clouds dark and mean
For the velvet sky, and the birds perching
And every other thing i thought i had seen…

Ragged breaths, with the innocent morning mist,
Furrowed brows, and with a limp wrist
What good came of today? Who knows how it was spent?
Tomorrow, I will know, how my today went…