A temple in my palms

Close your eyes
Forget the smoke
Breathe in fresh air
Girl tell me
How did we get there?

Rain dancing over your hood
Bricks scrape your back
Got your music on blast
They forgot your name
But your words are not mud

Your strength is gilded by blood
You’re seeking guidance in stars
But those stars explode
Believe me when I speak
It’s the beauty in the aftermath

That shapes your bones
Those stars are just one in a million
Destined to end
When there’s nothing left to grasp
When the day is frigid and opaque

Lean back and think
Cunning never got you so far
And empathy burned your gold to dust
You’ll know then that it is time
To pull that dagger out your back

Let intuition guide every blow
The bridges falling
Place pieces to the puzzle
And remember even silent dogs
Bite

The wind guides you softly for now
Slash your way through
But do not to stain the dust
Least the stones are jagged against your soul
When you reach the fountain

Bow before you dip your bowl
Heed your warning
Find God along your journey
And respect them
Thank the spirits that light your torch

And when you’re an old lady rocking on our porch
We will reunite
Gray hair but the same colour eyes
Together under the same moon at last
I’ll lean against the rail

And as we discuss youth
Our heart will swell
The phone finally rings
The sound a kind reminder
Our heart awaits the final journey

And as we set out
Crows call softly now
The horizon echoes with laughter
One last match is struck
However, no blade is drawn

Guided by the galaxy we find peace
And among love we rest

I pray let me just fall asleep
I beg, let me dream when I sleep  
The sun rises on top of my head and set on my feet
For pay day..
 
 
Am surely not too late
Am just roaming around the most strangest of a place
Holding in my both right and left palms an empty silver plate
I called this my fate  
My deeds I have to pay
Take this to be what I wanna lay
On pay day..
 
Walk around run around always looking sideways  
Even if I set my sight forward, I can clearly see both the sideways  
Lord show me the way  
I've started counting the rest of my days  
In paradise I beg save me a place..  
On pay day!  
 
Eh, eh!  
 
I got some big big dreams in my sleep  
I licked and tasted the sweetest creams in my dreams.. Of pay days..
 
Stopping me is highly unlikely..
Am blindly walking and talking brazenly
Seeking to be the most committed of men..  
Oh Amigo! This turns out to be the worst omen..  
Stand still all day long as the sun rises and set
See, am lonelier than loneliness for decades I live along with my pet..  
Payday!  
 
Eh!  
 
For many years at night, I won't sleep
On my knees, kneeling down until at dawn  
Feeling am the most committed of men
Believe I am not insane
It's just that I need to find my way
On pay day.  
 
 
I also witnessed the scariest things in my dreams..  
No cream applies to me can resuscitate  me or muffle my pain screams
 
A farewell!  
 
I pray let me just fall asleep
I beg, let me dream when I sleep  
The sun rises on top of my head and set on my feet
For pay day..

 
I pray that…
You discover your vigor and courage coming from within
That resilience and heart carry you in their eternal wings
That they give you the driving force in those darkest times
And light will shine and steer you pulling at the heartstrings
.
I pray that…
You find solace in knowing you are worthy of love and respect
That no matter how hard the punches have been you can still stand
Even when the pain has been much to bear something is there
And that the fighting spirit will be near giving you a guiding hand
.
I pray that…
You feel something in the deepest recesses of your mind and soul
A strength beyond strength like you’ve never seen or felt before
That the voice of enlightenment becomes a true insightful friend
Giving you advice like a moral compass that gets you to a safe shore
.
I pray that
Your mind becomes a fortress of power and remarkable resiliency
That no matter how harsh life may be, you have inner tranquility
But most of all, I hope that no matter where you are you’ll find…
A safe haven, where you have balance, wisdom, focus and stability
.
.
.
That I pray

Embarking on the journey we all take
Life cycles in patterns of summits and pitfalls
Running on common ground divided
What’s the end game and what is the means to get there?

This life is not the destination
Nevertheless we forge vision in the temporal
Time figures into cost when monetary value is resigned to material dreams
Circling mountains trying to find a way up hill to remake home

Independence savored against the burden of crippled development
Learning to run on broken legs that heal crooked
Every step taken with a slant towards the foot I favor

Whose straight and narrow do I follow?
Enduring to arrive somewhere in between
Lives built towards the means of more luxurious ways to die

Every second is but a waiting room for eternity
Laying aside the weight of former things
I fall and get back up again
It’s not in me to give up
When life is a warpath, every moment is fight or die…

On the day of horror,
Tony was teaching at MIT.

“Can anyone tell me the answer?
No? How astonishing!

Will any of you ever do any work?”
Tony said to his first years

(well, tried not to shout-
they should have done it).

They gaped at him, mostly.

Some scowled.
A couple looked away.

“You don’t get a Fields Medal
from doing nothing.

If you want to achieve what I have,
you’ll need to work.

Not play online chess.
Looking at you, Tia.”

Tia frowned, closed her laptop.

Tony sighed, adjusted his
red and white bowtie.

Forty-five years.
He was forty-five years old.

Forty-five years devoted to
mastery of mathematics.

And this was his thanks?

He should have started
his own YouTube channel after all.

“If you want to grasp greatness,”
Tony continued, trying, mostly successfully,

to keep his voice even,
“you’ll need to sweat for it!

When I won the medal, well,
do you think it happened overnight?

No! Of course not.

No, it came after years of effort.
After building a life.

With a beautiful wife.
Two small children.

A nice house.
And a Fields Medal.

Don’t you all want that?

Don’t you want to tell
your children you tried?

That you did the work,
didn’t waste your brains on Tetris?”

More of the class were
frowning and scowling, now.

He hadn’t driven his point enough.

“I think that’s the problem
with your generation,” Tony sighed,

more loudly than he meant.
“You don’t know the value-”

A knock on the classroom door.

“Saved by the bell,” Tony muttered,
then wandered to the door.

The University Dean.
Who didn’t seem his usual.

Almost seemed… Sad.

Tony frowned.
Opened the door.

“Well?” he said.

“I have some bad news,”
the Dean said softly.

“About your wife.”


A few weeks after the accident,
Tony clasped Jemima’s hand

in the hospital.

“Honey, hold on,”
he whispered, softly,

maybe it was softly.

“Honey, keep fighting.
We need you too much.”


He spent his days at home.
Never working.

He just waited for news
from the hospital,

the news that Jemima
was back, even stronger.

He would sit in his office,
in his three-storey house.

Glance at the phone.
Not pick it up.

Open a book.
Usually, one on math theory.

Look at it.
Wonder what it was saying.

Glance at the phone.


beep beep beep

It had happened.
It had finally happened.

Had only been a matter of time.

Was a mercy.
In a way.

Tony stared at her green eyes.
Eyes that had always gleamed.

Up to now.


Three nights later, he sat with
his kids, Bessie, and Layla.

They ate dinner.
In theory.

More accurately,
they stared at it.

Finally, Bessie said:
“Do you think…”

Then stopped.
And gasped.

And started to softly sob.
And wept, and wept, and wept.

She wept in shudders.
Layla started too.

Without knowing he was,
Tony started to hug them.

And enclosed them in an embrace,
unlike any he would have before.

“I know, I know,” he murmured.

He would later be stunned
at how gentle his voice was.

“But there’s nothing we can do.
Now, we only have each other.”

And he began to weep, too.
Soft at first.

Then, like his children,
his two companion survivors,

long and shoulder-shattering.