Day 100

We will meet again at the witching hour
I will travel through the stars in my sky
Till I reach the ones you see in yours
Hopping over those twinkling diamonds of light
I will flit into your dreams
While you gently sleep tonight
And sprinkle stardust into your being
So when you wake up to a dawn, fresh and new,
You will know to view the world
through the delightful madness now growing within you

Day 99

And this is how, slowly, gently,
The last jagged piece of my heart falls away
Your light now shines through me
As if it were my own
Revealing you in all your indescribable glory
O so much fun it was to seek you
Here and there and everywhere
No go hide again
Let me not deny other seekers
The pleasure that is rightfully theirs

Day 98

I see you in the vast blue yonder
My journey now almost come to an end
I should be ecstatic, I have found you at last
My reward for these endless meanderings
Then why am I sad?
A deep sense of loss engulfs me
For everything familiar I am leaving behind
Now I am afraid to find out
What did I really love more?
You? Or my illusory longing?

Day 97

I look at you and wonder
Were you naughty when you were younger?
Did you look up at the clouds
and see elephants and dinosaurs?
Did you lie awake at night
and trace the constellations with your fingers?
Did you cry when you hurt
or were you taught to hold back your tears?
Every little detail I want to learn about you
But one lifetime is not enough to reveal all the answers

Day 96

So much have I written and said
Now I am drowning in the din of my own verses
And my heart, like a raging volcano,
wants to spew more poetry
So I simply reach in and rip her out
There, now I can hear nothing but your silence
And I have never felt more alive

Day 95

I have been awfully good this year
Look at all the poetry I wrote
With little regard for rhyme and reason, I admit
Surely you will not hold that against me now, will you?
That is a concession you must allow me
For how can there not be madness
When all year I have been carrying two thumping hearts
Within this frail being of mine

Day 94

I remember this day
It came last year too
And all the years before
Each time it unfolds
in a comically identical way
Fireworks and promises, the whole shebang
The only difference is made
by all the moments in between
that slip by without recognition or warning

Day 93

You are the vast, endless ocean
And I am restless as the stream
Weary of its relentless journey from the mountaintop
I tumble towards you in frenzied haste
Anxious to empty myself into your being
Now that I know how limitless your existence is
I will no longer be confined to my petty boundaries

Day 92

Now that I have found you
What need have I for vapid words?
I am one with the roses in your garden
How can I speak of their beauty with sincerity?
My heart throbs in the tender chest of the nightingale
How can I be the one to sing of her dulcet tunes?
But am I not then ungrateful
to shun the very path
that has led me all the way to your door?

Day 91

All the strange things happen
in the forbidden darkness of the night
Because no one believes what the moon conceals
In the shadows cast by her pilfered light

Day 90

Like rusty tracks we run forever,
Alongside each other,
Like arm's-length lovers,
Alone even when we are together ...

Day 89

When darkness closes in upon you
And you stumble over your own shadow,
When doubt and fear become your plight,
I will stand there as a guiding light,
Or lurk behind you as a strange creature of the night ...

Day 88

What would I ever do
without you, I cry
Why would you ever be
without me, comes your reply

Day 87

This game we play
In which you hide and I seek
As if I am looking for a star in the night sky
I see you everywhere I go
And I think, you are so clever
Surely you won't be found so easily, not even in jest
Or is that just a notion my mind has made up
So it can take some foolish pride in this delightful quest?

Day 86

The tree is up
Holding all the frosted glass baubles
Filled with oversized hopes and desires
Drape her in bright tinsel and fairy lights
So when the stars peep in through your window tonight
They will learn of all the secret things
you have wished for this year

Day 85

Happiness comes riding on the breeze
Settles gently on the window sill
Soft to the touch, a delicate feather
I ought to know better
than to reach out and grab her
She will not be made to stay for long
It is up to me to fall into step
And learn her inebriated dance

Day 84

Occasionally the wind drops
The trees stand still, nearly lifeless
Even the birds know not to shatter the silence
The waves settle, the ocean is a creaseless sheet of blue
For their spirits have momentarily trooped away
Into hidden shadows and secret tree hollows
Where they write the poems I will soon sing for you

Day 83

An empty space sits heavy on my chest
Sounds knows not how to traverse this barrenness
So the unspoken words remain pressed within my heart
Their clamour so loud
I can no longer hear you calling out my name

Day 82

Your voice is composed of all the obscure notes
That no instrument can play
Sweeter than the cry of the Indian koel
Calling for his lover in the heat of May
Your song rides unexpectedly on angel wings
The melody gone before I can discern it
And only my eager heart grasps and treasures
All the bewitching verses you sing

Day 81

… Night after night,
The restless waters
break up the face of the moon
into a jillion smithereens of silver
… They steal the fragments
And tuck them into oysters
In a place where darkness
gobbles up the light
… One night the moon fades away leaving no trace
And the sea regrets his folly
So he lures her back a few slivers at a time
And we helplessly watch the moon shape-shift until eternity

Day 80

The very thought of you makes me soar
I transcend the invisible boundaries of this world
Nothing can weigh me down now
Light as a feather I drift
Wherever the breeze blows me
Everybody thinks I am a vagabond
Aimlessly lost in some psychedelic haze
But only I know you have instructed the wind
To gently guide me to your abode
And bring me to rest in your soothing embrace

Day 79

O there was so much I wanted to tell you
I penned these songs by moonlight
Fussed over each verse, each melody
For every little thing had to be perfectly right
But the first sight of you renders me speechless
All my songs quickly desert me,
Those traitors, how unworthy of you they proved,
I am ashamed,
So now in this eternal span of silence
The only music I have is the tuneless pulse of my silly heart
Who still wants to sing only for your attention

Day 78

And should I ever run out
of things to say to you
Remind me not to fade away
behind a veil of silence
But to make things up and tell tall tales
To spin stories from flax-golden yarn
To peddle a few dreams
for you to remember me by
Long after my sojourn in this world
has come to an end

Day 77

If there is only wish you will grant me
Then make me so small
There will be room only for you
in my world, now so tiny
And no other desire shall dare slip past you
To seek refuge in me

Day 76

How strange it is that I pine for you
So much, when we haven’t even met
But I know how beautiful your face is
How your music reverberates through my breath
Could it be you were once
an inseparable part of me
Cleaved from my soul
when I turned my attention away from you
And now all that remains of you in me
Is this inexplicable love
gushing from the fractured heart?

Day 75

There were parts of me I wanted to hide
But even the bluest oceans were not
deep enough for me to bury my secrets
And then you came along
Resplendent, bearing a light of your own
And you show so brightly on me
The world has now become blind to all my imperfections

Day 74

Like smoke and fire
Never one without the other
We leap together in a playful dance
When your proud flames leap skywards
I come into being only in your presence
And when you perish
in the dying embers of a festive bonfire
I too gladly cease to exist

Day 73

Now that the last of the autumn leaves has fallen
The sky is shattered by grief,
It crumbles into flakes of frozen tears
That fall swiftly to the ground,
all its million pieces
To lay its friends to rest
under a white blanket
A warm grave to last all winter

Day 72

I run to your altar, my heart set aflame,
By a thousand desires burning in me for fulfilment
All it takes is one look at your beatific face
For me to shed my longings
Like drops of water slipping off a lotus leaf
And I wonder, what need I ever had for anything
other than to nestle in your reassuring grace

Day 71

In your unconditional love I bloom,
A rose just made aware of her beauty,
And now that is all I know, to blossom so fervently
You can smell the scent of my heart from afar
And should I wilt before you return
Preserve me not between sheaves of your poetry
Crush my remains instead,
so I can sublime away in the air around you
And wrap your being in my tender fragrance

Day 70

I am looking for you in the skies
Which one of these twinkling stars are you?
I am looking for you in the woods
Tell me, which one of those exotic wildflowers are you?

My bewilderment amuses you
Why only one of those, you say,
Come find me in all of this world,
Imagine me in any shape, in any form, you offer.

O my beloved, but grant me not such trespasses
For my imagination can do no justice to your beauty

Day 69

The mist rolls in from the seas
Bearing secrets from distant lands
The waters help them carry their burden
Drowning whispers in the ocean’s roar
Mysteries strewn in the glistening sand
Hush now, put a seashell to your ear, and listen
To the sound of time passing you by

Day 68

How easily does darkness exist
in the realms of outer space
in the depths of the ocean
buried under the aches of a troubled heart
But the light, when it comes,
is always from a source
that burns unto itself
then falls apart like a shooting star

Day 67

Our words fall
Like the last of the autumn leaves
And are quickly buried in the snow
Winter is always so long
By the time spring comes around
The fallen words are forgotten
The untold stories have changed
And so have you, and so have I

Day 66

This is the thing about roads
And the quest for truth
The roads have no beginning, no end
It is me and my journeys that are bound
Within the confines of space and time
Like the roads, the truth is there is no truth
My quest exists only to give my life some placatory meaning

Day 65

O rising sun,
How you set the ocean on fire
Even the dull taupe sand at my feet
Glitters unabashedly like gold
And I wonder, if I laid bare to you
all the precious secrets of my heart
Will you please make it shine a little more
As if stardust were sprinkled on my soul?

Day 64

All the times I had love
I never quite knew what it was
Now that I have let it go in my carelessness
I know what it is only through its loss
Love has a way of finding us through time and space
But this time would I remember to cherish it?

Day 63

In this search for stillness
I yearn to be like the sun, unwavering,
Unmoved by the turmoil of planets around him
But in truth I am like the moon
The restless shape-shifter, truth-obscurer,
Protector of lovers and thieves and cowards
How can I be like the sun
when even my light is not my own?

Day 62

When I stand by the shores
All I see is the endless ocean
So I return home and look out the window
Brown tiles of the Jones’s house
Yield into a small patch of sky
That I have to crane my neck to see
But there I also find rainbow swings,
Elves at work, pixie dust, mermaid fins
And all the beautiful things I see in my mind’s eye

Day 61

Sometimes even the seas and skies
would press upon my chest
with all their weight
The stars and the infinite galaxies
Their black boundaries
would close in on me
And when I yearned to run away
it seemed there was nowhere left to go
But now I know the world is
only as large or small
As my little heart imagines it to be

Day 60

It must be that I spend far too long in winter
The cold has my heart in its icy clutch
Pressing inside my chest
with its frozen gnarled fingers
Now that the summer sun in here
You’d think my fears would melt away
But even the slightest breeze
knows well how to make me shudder

Day 59

Even the wind howls on occasion
Worrying the clouds and the treetops
The ocean groans, in deep guttural sounds
The sun fades,
an old silver coin pressed into the colourless sky
But we mistake their anguish for fury
Or is it a convenient lie we tell ourselves?
For we know only too well
Anger subsides sooner or later
But grief only lingers on

Day 58

What good is a diamond without its rough
Or a pretty star without its black night?
You cannot look the sun in the eye
Without the cover of clouds he shines just too bright
Is not the lotus adored for the murky depths she springs from
Or the rose made more beautiful by her thorns?
So too my darkness will be the fertile soil
From which my divinity is born

Day 57

All the wise men told me
To shush my boisterous mind
And trust the tiny voice of my heart
to guide the way
But look where that has got me
To raw wounds and broken songs
So blame me not should I wonder
If it were my heart or the wise men
that led me astray

Day 56

The grains of sand, they cling to my feet,
The waves wash them away
And then I make my way across the shore
Tiptoeing on the sand,
But the grains, oh so annoying,
They cling to my feet once more
So I hurry back home to run a warm bath
Lay myself in it, my feet clean, free of the pesky sand,
Now I can reminisce about the golden beach and the ocean’s roar

Day 55

This room of mine is bereft of windows
So on the ceiling I have painted
my personal patch of sky
Azure in one corner, ebony in another,
A place for night stars and dainty fairies to fly
Just as they do in the dreams
I see behind closed eyes
So when I wake up in this windowless world
I will look up and know my happiness wasn’t a lie

Day 54

There are all these memories
Jostling for space in my little head
More gather at the threshold, waiting to be let in
Reminders of every little thing once done and said,
And so I weed out the bad ones from the good,
Clear more space for the happier thoughts
Maybe this would make the past in my head
A lot happier than it truly was

Day 53

Like the waves of the sea, cresting from afar
I rise and fall, again and again
To the silent rhythm of my trance
All for a momentary glimpse of you,
standing by the shore,
Until I wash up at your feet,
buoyed by my inebriated dance

Day 52

There was a time my soul would bleed
Into the songs I wrote for you
But now you are gone
Swifter than a memory fading into the past
And it is hard to believe
my heart once knew how to love

Day 51

O little bird
Come sing to me your sweetest song
A song of all the days gone by
Of dewdrop dreams and lovers’ sighs
For in all my travels around the world
I have left pieces of my heart behind
In places that I may never return to
And I need something to remember them by

Day 50

The journey ahead is only as long
as the paths we’ve left behind
But now my boots are muddy,
my limbs sore
My breath is short and catches in my throat
The sun blinds my eyes,
The woods close in upon me
And I stumble on in an endless loop
So forgive me if my words collapse in between lines
And float around like alphabets in your soup

Day 49

Like a vagabond, I have scoured this earth
Looking for a place
That will cure my heart of its restlessness
But now I fear such a place does not exist
Except in the hidden recesses of my mind
And I can do little else but write about it

Day 48

Like crepuscular rays
that pierce the sleepy clouds
Or moonlight beams
that light up headstones in the dark
Like the sliver of light
that escapes closed doors
There are dreams that lurk
in hidden alleyways and forgotten shadows
Simply another of those things
that somehow fell through the cracks

Day 47

Shadows flicker on your face
in restless anticipation
Happiness floats above the warm candlelight
Your eyelashes tremble,
clinging on to the wish that is taking shape
Come now, blow out the candles
The momentary plunge into the dark
will give your wishes a good place to start

Day 46

Look not into my shallow mind
A million thoughts crease its surface
And shatter every reflection of yours
But come, peer into my heart,
It waits, still and clear,
like a silver-backed mirror
Come and look just how beautiful you are

Day 45

A faint mewl rises
from the earth below
No cat can wail like that,
but I know a bird that does
Bluebirds peal in the distance,
too early for churchgoers
And there is that hysterical laugh again
Is it a madman, or a kookaburra?
Oh, I need a Shazam for the songs of nature

Day 44

Another day is soaked up by the night
Darkness shields the shadows lurking in my land
But tiny dots of light speckle the regions beyond
Like gleaming crystals hidden in the grainy sand

Day 43

Twilight sweeps over the dark shadows
That cease to linger in its wake
The curtains fall on yet another day
As night takes over for darkness’ sake

Day 42

You may not love me tomorrow
But you do today
Is that not enough? You admonish me
Then teach me to lose myself in the here and now
So I may stretch this moment of your love
To last an eternity

Day 41

Just as the endless silence
carries the longest echoes
And the gravest secrets ride
on the back of whispers
So too the bearer of love in the heart
That is lighter than a tiny bird’s feather

Day 40

A walk home past the beach in the dark
The taste of the salty air on my tongue
The music of the waves crashing upon the shores
All my rewards for a long day of jobs well done

Day 39

There is a reason the skies are vast,
the oceans boundless,
and the mountains proudly tall
It is to make all our heartaches and worries
appear piteously small

Day 38

I run from afar and race with dawn
My pace is quickened by my greed
To soak up all your morning light
But sitting by the shores are your devotees
Who have waited through a sleepless night
To be drenched in your golden sunshine
And I know theirs is the greater need

Day 37

My heart flings herself
against the cage of my chest
And clamours for your attention
I shush her, but to no avail
She has long ceased to be mine
Won’t you look after what is rightfully yours?
Else, teach her to be in two places at once

Day 36

Look how gently the sun slips
behind the shadows of the night
How daintily the moon glides forth
ostentatiously decked in stolen light
And when dawn breaks, hers is a graceful retreat
For even in their eternal war, there is peace

Day 35

Some I have stashed in a shoebox in the attic
Some others are tucked between pages of my favourite books
A few I have carelessly lost along the way, I am sorry
But the one I can never forget
Is the first love note you ever wrote to me

Day 34

I dove into the depths of your world
To reach the treasure bed of oysters
And there I found your precious pearls
The ones that blot out the light of the sun

Day 33

My depths are immersed in your blues and grass
My waters race to kiss you at the horizon
So when the seekers stand at my shores
Quiet and still in the face of our love
They know not where the ocean ends,
and where the sky begins

Day 32

And then there are days
When the words simply won’t come your way
No poetry to ease the pain
No lyrics to lift your spirits high
And all you can do is sink into the earth,
Close your eyes, and imagine you can fly

Day 31

Like a planet orbiting the sun
I spin round and round, all around you
Ecstatic like the whirling dervish
So eager am I to fill you with joy
I will grow wings and hover like an angel
Your wish shall be my every command
For you are the only God I worship

Day 30

My poetry is
all the words strung together
often with emotion
but sometimes with silent spaces in between
where the unspoken words reside

Day 29

Now I see you
With the fuzzy sight of the intoxicated
An obscure view
Through a rain-streaked window
Vague, unclear,
Like the explanations you left behind for me

Day 28

When darkness settles on our paths like dust
And the owl’s hoot pierces the sleepy skies
My world glides to a gentle halt
Nothing can stir me now
But the melody of your voice
humming my favourite lullabies

Day 27

My heart is sinking
Weighed down by its own sorrow
For all the words strung together
Are burdened by their own meaning
And fail to promise hope for the morrow

Day 26

The more I learn to love
The more I cease to exist
All that remains is an empty nothingness
Like the hollow of a bamboo flute
I wait for your lips to brush against mine
And compose the melody I am meant to become

Day 25

Like the butterfly that leaves behind
her delicate colours on my skin
Your love has freckled my soul
with indelible imprints
And now my heart will pay heed
to no voice but yours

Day 24

I trace your mouth with my eager lips
Our breaths mingle and dance skywards
Like tiny slivers of our souls
Drifting together in the misty air

Day 23

All too often we remember
How the story ends
But can barely recall
How it all began
So we conjure up plots and twists
For it to all make sense
And by our own madness
We are unwittingly entertained

Day 22

Oh Death, you must love me so much
How patiently you wait, biding your time
As I go about my wayward life, untethered
How can such love ever go unrequited
And so when the time comes, I shall run into your arms
Bearing the gift of a life fearlessly lived

Day 21

Mine is the world of make-believe
Of half-truths and illusions
All smoke and mirrors,
Of legerdemains and delusions
There is magic, no doubt
But that makes it not untrue
For your truths rise from what has been
And mine soar from the artist’s dream

Day 20

He makes up stories
Tells terribly tall tales
He twists and bends words out of shape
Then strings them together
He creates new worlds, alters reality
Tricks me with a clever sleight of hand
I think he must be the most skilled magician
Or just a very eloquent liar

Day 19

You are the song I play
On repeat mode, in an endless loop
I have committed to memory
Your every note and refrain
Each lilt and beat of you is familiar to me
As the rhythm of my own breath
My body sways to your tune, effortlessly
So I hit Play. Then Rewind. Again and again.

Day 18

On grey cobblestoned streets
By the banks of endless rivers
They peddle lover’s breath and baby socks,
Moonlight beams and foxes’ whispers
Dreams of rainbow colours, love in a bottle,
Even hope from the bottom of Pandora’s box

Day 17

You cross
I scribble a nought
Cross, then a nought,
You cross, then drag a line,
Is the game over?
Or will you play again?
I like it when you win,
For what’s yours is also mine

Day 16

Lying awake on a sleepless night
I sift through my memories for some solace
And try to piece together in my mind
The hazy contours of your forgotten face
And sometimes I remember who you really were
Not merely who I wanted you to be

Day 15

Precious moments of time scattered through the day
Like little beads of silver and gold
Stitched onto a patchwork quilt for the night
So we can shape our dreams into its folds …

Day 14

Thoughts pressed beneath the creases on your forehead
Questions lurking voicelessly on your lips
Secrets tucked into the folds of your skin
I reach out to unravel you
Only to lose myself in the maze you hide within

Day 13

No sheets of satin for her
No scented candles, no kisses in the moonlight,
Her’s is the tale of hasty encounters
Of cheap thrills under neon lights
Of strange men who slip in through the back door
And pretend to be her lover for a night

Day 12

Mine is not to be the lone star
Mine is not to shine the brightest of them all
Mine,
like that of a million others,
is to play my part really well
In keeping the blackness
pinned to the skies above after nightfall

Day 11

There is a hollow at the base of my throat
That wells up at the memory of you
Where grief gathers, uninvited,
And unspoken words lose their way
From where even the warmest scarves
Fail to keep the winter chill away

Day 10

The dots lie scattered
farther than the eye can see
Skip from one step to the next
Take baby steps, or leap over giant walls
For when you look back
You know you will clearly see
The mysterious line
that connects them all

Day 9

You are a treasure chest
Sunk to the bottom of the ocean
The burden of your loot too heavy to bear
How much longer will you carry within
The only key to unlock yourself?

Day 8

Like orphaned shards of broken glass
Your heart lies in a million pieces and one
But scoop them all into a kaleidoscope
And see how beautiful you grow at every turn

Day 7

We dance through time and space
As if on a tricksy tightrope walk
Imagination morphing into memory
One step in the future, another in the past

Day 6

I etched my poetry on grains of sand
But the ocean lured all the words away
Perhaps, like a message in a bottle
My verses will wash up on your shores some day

Day 5

Where the nights are sleepless
And the stars restless
Blinking in the Stygian skies
There, under the watchful gaze
of the shape-shifting moon
is where the unfinished stories lie...

Day 4

Your voice warms my soul like golden sunshine
Your melody washes over me like a psychedelic dream
Your verses are etched on my heart
Deeper than the lines on my palm
I hear you from afar
For it is your song I have become

Day 3

Yours is the song of the wilderness
The ecstatic dance of the untethered
So long by doubt and fear
your spirit remains unfettered

Day 2

I am the dream you see
with eyes shut tight,
I am the dream that dies
when you wake to the morning light.

Day 1

Thunder roars like an angry lioness
Lightning cracks like a rider's whip
Look! A camera in the skies
I bet the Gods have brought out their selfie sticks