Images Pt.2 (Prologue)

He blended into the crowd on Saville Row. His suit was excellently cut. He entered one of the tailor's shops. Probably an aristocrat. Rauney and Smith's was one of the many excellent outfitters that made Saville Row the epicenter of male (and sometimes female) fashion in London.It was raining heavily and I could barely make out the shapes of the gentleman and the tailor as he stood to be measured. Rauney and Smith are tailors to the Royals.

Tailor to the king, eh? But aren't we all? Tailors and bootmakers to kings?

Images Pt.2

You turn circle the ring. Your eye is swollen shut and your jaw hurts right where he dropped that upper cut that you'll feel all through next week. Your left eye gleams. 'Cause you know your doing what you want to do all your life. People stare at trophy cabinets stacked with medals and smile. I stare at my face and grimace with pride. You can play tennis. You can play football. But you can't never "play" boxing. When I first stepped into a ring I was 5'7" and 150lb . Fourteen and bursting with confidence. Four inches taller and 30lb heavier and four years in the ring later the most important change in me has been my ego. Once you've been subjected to the physical abuse of a full fledged punch up. You know , no amount of pain will hurt anymore. That's exactly when I walked out of my house. Eighteen. Strong. Beaten and huurting but still dancing to the count. What's a little bit of heart ache for someone who's been hurt more times than ever?

Is that why I

Images Pt.2

The light hurt his eyes . The ants

Images Pt.1

They trooped in sombre yet noisy. That quiet bustling sort of noise that characterizes a family. The noises you make when you've been with the   three people all your life. The people who've seen you since you were twenty four inches tall to when you were six feet tall.
                    The husband was a tall lean man. Fashionably grey at the temples , spectacles that foretold hours of reading. A scholar. Deep lines on his face.Laugh lines? Worry lines? Neither? The wife suitably garish. Loud. Scandal perhaps? A lover tucked away somewhere? The girl was pretty. Pretty in the way most Indian girls aren't. Her hair rudely sliced off at a jaunty angle and then coloured a flaming pink. A girl just finding her indentity probably .Vaguely pretty. The boy was tall and walked with long loping strides. Spectacles hid his face as did his overwhelming shyness. Probably didn't know of a world that existed beyond his physics text book. Had that clumsy awkwardness of a boy tucked inside the body of a man.
                   I looked into the bottle of wine that held their reflection. I detested it as much as I detest alcohol. The memories I try so hard to forget flood back. Standing up I fling the bottle against the wall beside me. Every shattered piece reflects a million families back.

 All broken .And  all bleeding little drops of wine.

She Knew No Heaven

….And her beauty softened the hardest of hearts,



Warriors came from home and abroad,


To ask for her hand and her father’s hoard


The capital flowed with riches and stones aplenty


Warriors, Princes and Kings there were many


But He came not on a chariot shining brightly


He stood silent, grave and mighty


No slaves walked before his Majesty


Only a sage with a whispered homily


“You are but a man, great amongst all creatures sentient”


“Know now that greatness and beauty are but transient”


“And long after Man’s guns have fallen silent”


“All of heaven lives with peace none violent”


And so he stood with the Princes great


Shoulder to shoulder, pate to pate


She surveyed all with a discerning eye


Cunning conversation behind every lie


He neither spoke nor at her he stared


Who in our faith would have dared?


Intrigued she was by this silent creature


As much by his elderly preacher


“Who art thou? What king? Whose son?”


“Can you not recognize the Chosen One?”


Spoke the sage in tones repentant


She gushed forth in word that instant


“Chosen by which power fair sage?”


“That power which rules both you and I”


“That power who’s rules man liveth by”


She struggled hard to hold her temper


He blasphemes but through his mentor.


“I know no power, but my father’s hand”


“His wrath and love felt through this land”


Softly smiling spoke He,


“I speak of another who’s power is mighty”


“Who’s breath is the breath of Our Lord Almighty”


The sage watched on as his companion spoke


“Do not the flames of my anger stoke”


“I come not to ask for your hand fair maiden”


“Nor rob you of your coffers laden”


“But warn you of The Judgment coming”


“Be forewarned, be not found wanting”


And the heavens burst forth in storms of rage


Who dared question My holy sage?






I write not song or delightful lyric


Nor verse for the wily critic


But that the truth of a future darkness


May not overshadow this brightness


But may spurn a heaven of repentance and anguish


Not a hell where souls will burn and languish


-Mendes de Francisco