A smile's a smile

Darkness darkness in the sky,
Coldness spreads from eye to eye;
You will learn and I will leave
While golden threads my absence weaves.
I will smile and you will stare,
To see that I just don't care;
Or maybe I do, you shouldn't know;
A limit's the line you shouldn't tow.
Your shadows darken forgotten dreams,
Your face enlightened by night, it seems;
So why hide behind politeness' veil?
Conscious killed in Sunny dale,
Hope gone awry in thunderstorms,
Life entangled in confused norms,
Thanks for all the love you gave,
Taught me courage,how to be brave,
And now I stand miles away,
And still there are no words to say,
Which is the way it has to be,
When blindness teaches you to see.

DARKNESS SURROUNDS LIGHT

   (I loved this painting by Van Gogh the first time I saw it and tried my best to paint it myself; and this is the result)

Let me see, let me say,

Let me rise and have my way,

Let me live, let me die

A forlorn death beneath my sky.

Let me feel, let me stare,

Let me fight, rebel and dare,

Let there be light, let there be night

To bury weariness away from sight.

Let there be pain,

Let there be gain,

Human parodies

Gone insane.

Let there be shadows

In my blue sky,

Let there be darkness

Fighting light,

Such pain is hidden,

You cannot see,

My world and sky

In harmony.

Lost

I think I'm losing it,day by day,hour by hour,my condition grows worse,like a disease.I feel so much hope at times at things look bright and gay all around me but then, there's always this place that I have to come back to,a place that unfortunately I call home.

It's a place of refuge,a shelter from the madding crowds outside,a relief from the hustle and bustle and competition of everyday life,a man's home is.I wish I could say the same thing about myself.My relationships,in all their varied forms have deteriorated to the brink of failure and I'm lost;this much at least I can admit.I'm sorry to say that what matters is the show of love,real feelings have no real value.In certain places I had a choice of staying away from such things and I have but in some places I continue to take this abuse day after day after day.I don't know where all of this will lead to,don't even know whether I'll survive at the end of it,if at all this comes to an end.

HERE'S TO YOU BRYAN

I have never really been a good representative of people and so all that I am about to say is about myself. It's been quite a journey, these few years of my life with its ups and downs,its amazing highs and lows, and this journey continues......................
Sometimes I wonder what is more important, realizing dreams or the process of dreaming,

I guess I'll never find a satisfactory answer to that question and so it would be fair to conclude that both are equally important, in fact either one is meaningless without the other.

It is this process of dreaming that had led me to do foolish things, and looking back on it, although I know I could have done things so much differently, I am okay with what happened,

to sum it up............"Those were the best days of my life".

And hearing the man himself speak about this song, I felt a shiver going up my spine,whatever he was saying was everything I had felt,not once or twice but every time I had sung his songs to her. I must admit that I am a pathetic singer but somehow being in love felt so wonderful that this fact was somehow most conveniently over ridden.

Adams' songs were and still are something out of this world, and when I had sung to her "Cloud #9" I hope she had felt the same way about it.

What is the use of remembering stuff that brings

tears to the eyes? (that's just a figure of speech

'cause I don't cry anymore). I guess its all about

remembering that familiar happy feeling that

brought so much warmth and comfort that even

all the sadness that followed was worth it.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm glad that

I fell in love and yes Mr. Adams, I have really loved

a woman, though the odds of me doing it again are

very thin.Keep up the good work Bryan...........keep on inspiring people to fall in love.Even if their hearts break, at least they'll have your songs.

THIS IS ME

What is happiness I ask you,
And there's no reply you can give,
Because you don't know the answer yourself.
It is strange what pain can do,
It is unnerving,yet it's nothing out of the ordinary.
It is what pain does,
It draws out emotions and sets them naked
Before hungry mocking eyes,
Which are only too ready to mock and abuse
Behind veils all the time,all the way,all the while.
I sit and I muse over half forgotten fairy tales,
Which ended in a nightmare.
I have woken up a long time ago,
Yes,the pain is now gone,
But what remains is perhaps what words cannot measure,
Something my soul cannot fathom,
Something which I cannot feel anymore,
Because there's nothing there.
On streets where lamps spread darkness instead of light,
I used to wander and without even realizing it,
I lost myself in an effort of self recognition.
Today,I should be happy
And maybe I am,don't you see,
I can put on the same derisive smile I used to hate once.
I have changed,I have grown in the matter of a few years
Into a ragged old man with a non existent heart,
And yet there's an effort to seek happiness,
Out of this mundane solitude that I am now a part of.
This cannot be real,this cannot be true,
Yet in front of my eyes my days go on,
And I tell myself that I should be happy.
Indeed,the storm has blown over
Leaving in its path a few scattered broken huts,
Which perhaps time shall make amends for.
Those huts will stand again to see the light of day,
But what of the life that now is gone,
Time cannot put broken shards together.
It can only put up an appearance of doing so.
In the end all that is left,
Is the mangled remains of a childhood,
Lost in bitterness and confusion,
The cacophony of life,a burden too great
For young shoulders to carry,
Give birth to a man after killing the child within.

A MAN AMONG COWARDS

Is it only me who is bitter?

Or is it the world which leaves a taste so sour,

That the soul revolts with disgust.

When this quest shall end,So shall I.

On a desolate and forgotten island

Do my fate and fortune contrive against me.

"Thou shall outlive thy agony",

They shout with joy,And I watch, crucifixed, with open eyes

That see darkness and beg for mercy.

I have wings hidden beneath my values,

But are they too weak to take flight?

Burdened and mutated beyond recognition,

My wings are no more, no more am I.

And yet, I live and breathe and dream and expect to find my place under the sun.

Call it foolishness if you will,

But this is what I do,

I paint pictures which your eyes don't recognise.

Far far away from here,

Beyond the seven seas,

And beyond the land of dreams,

I had once set out to conquer my fate,

But my fate conquered me instead.

Acceptance has become a part of me,

And yet I struggle in my chains,

Trying to shake off these bondages,

Trying to fly free, to fly away.

I dare to stand and wage a war,

Mutilated as my heart maybe.

In a land so hollow

That the earth buckles under it's own weight,

I have taken a thousand careful steps,

But no more,From here I throw away my compass,

I shall go wherever I want to,

Beyond my need, beyond my pain, beyond my wish;

And at the end of the day,

When the sun is no more,

I shall be what I had set out to be,

A man among cowards.

Breathe out when you must

Eventually it will die down, as my breath will,

And fade away, perhaps leaving a scar or two,

To show for all the effort it took in deserving.

Pain is a reward, an anchor to a nightmarish, but sweet dream.
So does the memory grow weak as I wish it would,

Or does it still eat into my conscience,

Demanding the things I never could give,

Tearing apart the few good things I must have done.
For a man is only as strong as his thoughts are,

And my thoughts are strong, though I yearn to be weak;

I long for sleep, the soundness of a few hours

In which I would not be dragged, reviled, whipped by my own thoughts.
I travel on roads and hold hands in my sleep,

I talk and I smile not knowing that I dream,

I float back and forth and feel the gut wrenching scream

That I always held back and which now is dissolved within.
Looking back I see another world and another person,

Who though looks familiar is totally unknown to me,

Metamorphosis of the thought process is real,

And so is the agony that is a present from the past.