Where are the words tonight? Where is my Goddess? For the last few days I've not felt her whisper brush the lobes of my ear. I've not felt her warm hand cup my heart and entreat me to write her another piece. Today I feel lost, sitting in a dorm room in the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Today I feel lonely. Shoot's not really started yet, and I've been wandering around campus pretending that I'm getting in to the skin of my character. But in honesty, I've just been wandering around, lost and fearful. Another film to do. Another knot of worry and tension coiled around my spine. What if I don't deliver on this one? What if I'm not nearly as good as I hope I am, or I need to be? What if the fraud I am will finally be exposed on celluloid with everybody watching and sniggering and shaking their heads.

There is sun here, but no heat. There is wind here, but no cool breezes. Even the quiet of night sits uninterested and sullen. The campus if full of interesting people but they have better things to do than to talk to the strange, tall boy they see in their classes or sitting in their cafeteria. They stare, some of them smile warmly, some of them come up and shake my hand. Some of them tell me they liked my work. Some of them click pictures. But still I feel alone.

I'm staying in a large room, with a wide, soft bed. Too soft for comfort. I sleep deep and troubled, waking up like a man in prison. The lights are all white and bright and harsh beyond bearing. There's a moth in my room that may just be lonelier and more lost than I. Aimlessly he flutters from corner to corner searching for whatever moths search for from light. But these energy saving bulbs give them nothing either. One of them comes and sits on my desk as I write and stares at me with his antennae twitching, trying to tell me something. I smile at it and try to tell it that you can come sit on my arm, take some of the warmth from my body. But it's wary, and rightly so. In a lifespan of about three days, why should he trust me to do anything but squash it dead?

I have things to read but I'd rather read. I have two scripts other than the one I'm currently shooting but can't seem to find the desire to flip through them past the point I've already read. I seem to to have lost the ability to gauge whether they are worth the doing or not. Every little grammatical error, every piece of bad dialogue screams at me, and I shut them fearfully. I don't want to say no to them without reading them entirely, but maybe I'm just hoping they'll turn into something written by Aaron Sorkin by the end, so I push on. I've got an Indian Ocean song ("Ma Rewa") playing on repeat throughout the night. Raghu Ram's voice and it's soulful crescendo only serving to show me the yawning chasm that separates me from the true artist, the true seeker.

Dear Goddess, bless me tonight. Let me sleep and wake full of energy and hope. Let me remember the man you created me to be. I feel strangely exiled from the calm confidence I normally carry with me throughout my days. Maybe it's just this night and it's unfriendly silence. Maybe it's just nerves before I start acting again.

What a strange profession this is. I've been dying to get back to work. Now here I am, and I'm a mess. I'd smile but I'm too tired. I wish the phone would ring. But it's not going to. I should get back to my script, but I just stare at the spaces between words when I do.

I don't mean to transmit my gloom to whoever is reading this. I just felt like pouring what I felt out of me. There is no poetry in me tonight. There is no wit, and no charm, there's just me in an empty room in an empty dorm. I'd get out and take a walk, but that would only remind me how empty the campus is at night and quiet. I could wander until I found a cluster of students and try and join in, but the thought of doing that makes me feel weak. I shouldn't need to force companionship upon myself to feel better. So I write.

And then all of a sudden, I get a letter from a friend from back in the simpler days. And he tells me he just saw one of my movies, and he's proud of me. How do I tell him the soaring relief hearing that brings me? Because admitting that would be admitting how much I need to feel loved and affirmed.

And all of a sudden I'm laughing at how silly I can be at times. And everything's alright. The moths' flapping in happy circles around my head and the Kings of Leon's "Radioactive" is crashing against the unfriendly white light and driving all of it away from me. And I'm back to being ineffable, self-adoring me.

Thank you for listening to my latest rant.

Unfinished

You are what Sufis dream of,
When they can't find God.
You are what I longed for,
Every lonely night abroad.
Those were the days,
Full of more important people,
All just passing through.
These are the nights.
That turn into mornings
Full of mist and dew.
God will forgive me,
My many many sins,
For loving you.

In That Kind of Mood

The music never stops,
The heart is always broken.
The sun is always setting,
And the door is always open.

Summers are forever ending,
And the waters are always cold.
The flight's still leaving in the morning
No matter how tightly we hold.

The food is over, there is water
Enough for one sip, maybe two.
They ate through your dreams,
And now they hunger for you.

The words don't flow, they march,
Angry and militant, a zealot tide.
Their torches are blazing bright,
There are no shadows where I could hide.

My soul remembers only sorrow.
The night is no longer my friend.
There is no great hall of greater men,
Just a quiet, wasted place waiting at the end.

The cold has come to visit,
And sits contented in the room.
You don't know when you're dying,
But you get a feeling it'll be soon.

And you're glad.

Stream of Consciousness Writing

I've got all the love in the world, nestled warm and safe in the cool cradle of my being tonight. I've managed to befriend my inner mystic, who loves only the wandering Road. I've managed to invite him into the stillness for a pot of tea. I've managed to smile through an entire night without slipping once. For a man who went through a year where his eyes never knew whether his lips were trying to smile or not, I've managed to finally arrive at the happy centre of my being. I've come home only to discover that home was a little square box of hope, holding within in nothing but the purity of me, nestled safely on a cushion of faith, that lay lodged just beneath my heart. It's the part of you that aches when happiness pushes past our skepticism and atheism. So unused to happiness I've become. At war with my quiet moments, exiled from my own peace of mind. Tonight I felt myself take another step home, another step closer to my Goddess.

I never want to let you go, even though sometimes life get's me by the ankle and I get caught in the undertow. Sucked deeper into the filth, where I can't breathe and I stand, bewildered and drowning, staring up at the receding of the Light. Sometimes life shows you just how quickly you can come up into the Sunshine.

Be still young heart, there are many oceans of blood yet to pump through your arms. There are oceans left to cross and mountains waiting for my feet. There are rivers where the waters were poured only for me, and even the fish circle in wait for the party we're going to have when I splash in.

There's a girl I know. With hair like the winding of a secret staircase, and a smile like a page from scripture. With eyes that have stared lovingly at the Goddess that resides in the Moon, and matched the Dragon stare for stare. Amber beacons that come alive when they see me, like twin lighthouses guiding me into the harbour of her arms.

There's a man I know, that I love for all the cracks in his soul, wrinkles around his smiles, and sadness in his shoulders. Tonight I will meet him in the mirror before I rest my head to sleep. Tonight I pray to my Goddess for my soul to keep, and lay me down in blankets of peace. Tonight I swim in the stillest of waters, with my soul as tall as the waters are deep.

Shall Remain Untitled

Lonely rivers flow
to the sea, to the sea.
To the open arms of the sea.
But I shall wander lost
forever.
There are no more oceans,
Waiting for rivers like me.
There is only the dust
that hides in beams of light.
There is just the ache
that comes from a heart
tired of changing it's beat.
There is the thought of you.
Always and ever,
The thought of you lying
alone on a hospital bed,
forgotten.
Waiting for some final pain
to pull you through.
Goodbye Old Man.
You could have loved me
a little.
I should have made you laugh
a little more.
I would have done anything
To make you love me
The way I remember you
Loving me before.
Lonely rivers flow
Silently, silently,
Through the broken heart
That once lived inside of me.

For the Funeral to Come

I understand sadness because of you.
This is sadness.
Your hand, barely holding mine.
Your eyes tightly shut, hoarding
even your pain.
You make me feel guilty I never visit.
But when I do, you close your eyes
And say to me not a word.
I sit in front of you
Staring at eyes that never meet mine.
Eyes that have only ever looked inward
Even now, when they should be
watching for God.

This is our relationship.
Full of unnecessary silence even
in the last hour we may have together.
I have bad coffee in my cup,
A hole in the begging bowl of my heart.
And rage that refuses to fall from
my tired tired eyes.
A sudden storm roars awake outside
And shakes and pounds the windows
and smashes down the street
and terrifies the small people
that live huddled against the Light.
But we can't even make small talk
about that.

I have a picture of you on your knees,
with me riding you piggy back,
Your hair as wild as your smile.
Another picture of you looking at me proudly.
But I'm a baby being washed in a blue tub
with ugly yellow ducks swimming around.
Two pictures, but no real memories.
So many things you should have told me.
But you barely said a word.
And I remember everything.

All I have from you,
Is my sadness,
and my empty, open hand,
And my tired, tired eyes.

Back into the Sunshine of the Doubtless Mind

I know I'm not the man You created me to be. Mind full of doubt, heart full of hate, and a body that knows nothing but lust and fatigue. I know I'm not the man I was supposed to be. For everything I try to do right, seems I waltz around doing three things wrong. Every time my soul stirs awake out of the slumber of my times and my eyes gleam and my pen sighs with pleasure at the sight of an empty page, all that remains when I'm through is another twisted little song or a now sad empty page. Of all the sins that man can commit, I'm guilty of the worst of them, not realizing my full potential. It's easy coasting along being ever just so slightly above the norm. I could go higher, I could hug and kiss the sky and dance back down on moon beams. I could make this world better. I can make anyone I know laugh until they cry and yet, often, all I want to do is stay in my apartment and sit alone moping about being lonely and unwanted. I could sketch with such burgeoning skill, that my best friend, who is an artist of sublime skill, told me that I too had been touched. When was the last time I picked up a stick of charcoal? when was the last time I dimmed the light and let my eyes wonder at all the marvelous shadows there
were around me, deep and thick like a Carvaggio painting and try to invite them to lay across my sketch book just so? When was the last time I stopped my train of thought at a quiet station and just walked a gentle sloping path up into my hills of peace? I know I haven't turned out like the man I'd hoped I was going to be, when I was sixteen and on my way to the Big Apple, full of dreams and promise, full of that liquid fire flowing like laughter in my veins. I know my apple fell very far from the tree and rolled way the fuck down the hill.

But tonight I want to ask for forgiveness, Goddess. Forgiveness for doubting your love. For doubting that I was exactly who I was meant to be. I needed the scars and the wrinkles and the cracks in my heart. To quote the divine Leonard Cohen, "there is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the Light gets in." And I can feel it tonight. I can feel the blessings.

Thank you for getting me here in one ridiculously rough and ready piece. Thank you for the joy in my heart and the pep in my step, the skip in my hips and the smile on my lips. This night something great begins. Or better yet, this night I finally realize that something great began, and I get to be a part of it. Tonight I am happy to be Arunoday. YEH SAALI ZINDAGI releases this Friday. On Friday, the dreams of a nine year old boy everyone called crazy and deluded come true. That's me baby, up on that marquee. Clap your hands for me one time. Mama I made it. My name flashing in bright, bright lights, and I didn't sell my soul to get here. Dear Mama, I love you, for telling me I'd get here, every night you held me in your arms to cry. Papa I made it. I may have rolled down the hill, away from your tree, but I can feel in your arms when you hold me, that this here cub makes you proud of me. Dear Life, I love you. Thank you for keeping the faith, even when I couldn't.

Here I come. They don't know me yet. But they mudderfugging about to find out.

While You Were Sleeping, I Was Writing This Song

Angel of the quietest light,
Only star in another wise silent night.
I love you.
And that's the truth.
And the truth shall never set me free.
For being here, imprisoned by your arms,
Is where this Wanderer wants to be.
Around you even falling
seems to feel like flying,
at least for a little while.
I heard that in a story
About a man named Bad.
Who played a sad song,
Every night, down every country mile.
Every night you crash into me
with the sound of a thousand
thunderclaps muffled tightly
in the hollows of my chest.
You are the reason I write poetry,
and sing out loud to an empty room.
You are my Sunday morning,
You are my day of sacred rest.
The dancer and the dance.
The lover and the beloved.
The drunkard and the wine.
The Sufi in his whirlwind trance.
You are my music, you are my song,
You are the sound that moves me along.
You are mine, in this world
and all the others that may come.
You are my destination,
Whichever way I may choose to run.
You are. So I am.
Here in the shade of all these
crumbling things is where we'll stand.
In a growing pool of liquid regret.
They say all things must end.
But we're not done loving each other.
At least, not quite just yet.

For Yeats and For You

I'm glad that you are frightened.
And that my words pierce into your core.
I feel like I've been dancing around you.
And you have just let me into the door.
I never wanted to scare you,
Or to ever cause you that pain.
But it's better you know me as I am.
And help me be someone worthy again.
You are a white Lily in the nighttime,
Wearing starlight in your hair.
I am a seeker seeking no more,
Now that you're standing there.
Maybe you're right to be frightened,
Of all the hurt that may lie between.
Maybe I am not worthy of this,
And I should pass by silent and unseen.
But poem in hand, here I shall stand,
And think of you breathless and shy.
And we'll defeat this loveless land
With a tango under a blueberry sky.

Apology Arpeggio

It's getting dark,
Too dark to see.
I'm adrift and alone
A million miles from shore.
Open up your locks,
And set me free.
Dear darling, I promise I’ll
Be better than I was before.
I want you to know
It wasn’t me.
It was the man in the mirror
I smashed into the floor.
All the shit I put you through.
All the lies I said with a smile.
And here I stand knocking.
Saying it's you I adore.
Am I a monster hoping
Just to get a peek?
Of the sight of you standing there
Unclothed, afraid, unsure.
You told me once
Love's not a game.
So why'd you always let me win,
No matter what the score?
The wind storms in
Falling harshly on me.
It punished me some, but I
Keep begging for some more.
My love went on and on.
Until she locked herself in a room.
I can hear her crying through
The holes I made in the door.
All through that night
I sit outside in the dark,
Playing an apology arpeggio,
Hoping to be let in for the encore.

My Beautiful Love

Run into the darkness,
Run into the cold,
Into the arms of my
Beautiful love.
It tries to reach
you over every ocean
you run across.
Beautiful, for it comes
from the core of
my ugly heart.
It comes from all
that remains of Heaven
in the dust you
call my name.
I raise no shining cities,
Nor temples cast in gold.
I raise cracked palms
to the butter of your
weathered and weary soul.
I sing no ballads
Nor pen great poems.
I stutter and gasp,
and hum love songs,
badly, but you smile
all the same.
My Beautiful Love.
Come to me across
the boundaries of my
idiosyncratic idiocy,
Through the walls
I regret I built.
Come to me.
Here is where
I wait.
On a one tree hill,
underneath a sky
with no moon at all.
Come to me like
winter rain
in sheets of cold.
I deserve twice the pain
I etch across your face.
I'll bear thrice
the weight I press
upon your shoulders.
Run to your ocean.
Run to your sea.
Run across the city baby.
Towards whatever
version of me
you've chosen to see.
I'm waiting on the shores
of my beautiful love.
Where the ocean
soaks you in sorrow
every time you swim.
But we care not a bit,
not for the sorrow
nor the pain.
We care only that
in some other life
we were together. Now
Finding our way
towards each other
again.

Beautiful

I'm wondering why
I keep pushing you away.
Be patient, love.
It could be love.
You found the key
To the vault in my chest.
You freed all the doves
I caged and oppressed.
You made yourself at home
in the quiet heart of me.
I was unprepared for the
Miracle you turned out to be.
That's why you're beautiful.

I offer nothing but tears,
And a laugh now and then.
I use you as nothing more
than ink to fill in my pen.
I beguile you with moments
wrapped in silver and promises
chased with gold. Even then
With permanent tenderness,
Working quiet as a gardener
You ignore every one.
You bring the wood of my soul
Out into the morning sun.
That's why you're beautiful.

There's magic that remains,
On the dark side of the moon,
It's just that you're a symphony
And I can't seem to hold a tune.
Tie this wanderer down, love,
Just lift your hair away from your neck.
Take my faithless fingers,
In pilgrimage across your flesh.
I won't exchange the gift
You want to give me.
I never wanted to hurt you. But I did
and I will. And still you'll forgive me
That's why you're beautiful.

You were out walking the day
My legs gave way and I sat,
By the bench near the bay.
You didn't have to smile
when I looked up to pray.
But you did.
And that's why you're beautiful.

Writing Poetry to Disco Music is Good for the Soul

I got that Monster Love
Vibrating through the bones
of my home. Coming closer
to the dream of you, dancing,
getting more naked by the turn.
Fling away your clothes
and your darkness, baby.
Light my fire, make me burn.
Spin round and round
Like a trip hop pixie under
My disco ball fan.
Bombay nights are starless
because all of them dance
in the flashes of your smile.
I got that Monster Love
growling for your touch.
Scared the shit out of Dracula.
Had King Kong singing a song.
While I was waiting for you
to hear the beat in my soul
and come dance along.
You are the reason
God made fireflies.
Sweet sugar dream,
Technicolor surprise.
Shimmy shake shimmy shake
Let all our problems wait
outside the door tonight.
I'm alcoholic for your skin,
Girl. Come here. Got
Monstrous thirst to slake.
Drink this wine then
Redecorate my world.
Take me on a magic carpet ride
through the pyrotechnics
of your soul.
Shake me loose from this
Rhythm less little world.
Shake me through the night
I'm your man, you're my girl.
Only atheists don't dance.
Take my hand, let's go
Walk out into Velvet,
This night was made for disco.

Two Words

You cry
I cry
You ask
I lie
You love
I pretend
You begin
I end
You give
I take
a little
some more
You shimmy
I shake
Why not?
What for?
You push
I choke
You breathe
I smoke
Angel angel
Ugly bloke
Run away
my baby
Run away
Get in
Get on
Get gone
Temper thin
Pain prolonged
Shuffling along
My face
Your smile
Your inch
My mile
Your heart
My sleeve
You start
I leave
True love
true lies
One moon
Two skies
One poem
Two knives
Now hush
No more
Be still
Be pure
Maybe she'll
remember you
as you
were before.

Lonely Saturday Night Love Song

The night came to me
like my father.
Tall and quiet and wise.
It scolded me
much like he would.
Then hushed away my cries.
The night reminded me
of the promises I made
under damp sheets and
your ceiling fan.
While you lay there
on your stomach, your cheek
pressed happily
into the palm of my open hand.
It told me to make you smile
saying only that could bring me
back, from the edge of despair.
The light in the corner
showed me the harsher poetry
of the ugly grey lack, of you
upon your favorite chair.
I am less than I was
hoping to be.
I was less than
you need.
I am what remains
when lightning strikes
a tree.
You became the only priest
that could listen to my sins.
You became my last port of call,
and I hated you ever since.
I wanted to be the wings
you used to touch the sky.
But all that's left of me
are the tears in your eye.
I had put on all the masks
of the men I wanted to be.
You saw through everything
and loved the man
I never wanted to be.

And now you're gone.

And I'm sitting here
with four lamps of
darkness all around.
Ink frothing at my lips,
Poetry choking me from
making a sound.

I'm in Trouble

------x------

She smiles when I speak.
I speak because she smiles.
Does it matter which came first?

She pours cool spring water
into my mind. And yet, still I
look at her, and feel thirst.

My heart beats in rhythm
to the sound of her speech.
Even her breath to me is versed.

Here I sit, with my words, alone
trying to write something good enough
to free her from mortality's curse.

This isn't love. Not even close.
This is me punching Love in the chest.
Damn em all. Do your worst.

A Perfect New Year's Eve

We ended the year in the cold, by a fire, pouring our regrets into the flame. A little family and a group of friends, happy people all. Growing happier sharing the warmth of each other on a winter's night. We looked for answers in the embers, knowing nothing much would change. But we hadn't lost hope thus far, and were so very glad we came. All the dregs of the year we consecrated to the fire, and all our hopes as well. Down to ash it went to make room for something new. I sat there. You sat there too. We lit firecrackers full of joy, and scattered our own luminance across a glittering sky. We added soft creases around our smiles and returned that hunger to our eyes. We became beloved of the Moon and it's laughing sisters, the Stars. We sipped wine and told stories, refined laughter into a three-act play. There was so much we kept hidden, so much that made us afraid. But that night we became who we were meant to be, and so the Joy came to our souls, and there it stayed. We watched the Sun rise over a forest meadow, and saw the dawn deer quench their thirst with the morning dew. We saw the leaves of the grandfather trees, stern and tall and wise, with all that morning light shining through. We saw the ghost of Kipling walk across and get into the jeep. No sounds of traffic or crowds, just the swish of the mosquito net, as we lay down to sleep. We found what we were looking for. Momentarily, in each other. We looked at stranger's faces and saw nothing but a sister and a brother. We ended the year happy, full of all the things we really need. True friendship, love, and a perfect meal, every time. Our New Year began like a prayer. The way it's meant to be.

Still I Rise

How you feelin', Baby Boo?

Blue, Daddy. Your baby's feeling blue.

I sit in stillness for a long time. Hoping my mind will learn my body's lesson. I sit in silence for a long time, hoping that my soul will at least try and pretend. The weekend of a movie release...damn brother. Good God damn.

There are so many things that I could say, that I should say, and that I really really want to say. But all of them are choked amidst the viscera of my thoughts scattered like gravel in my throat. I feel as if some one's roasting my dreams like marshmallows at the back of my mouth. I drink coffee after coffee, but the smoke keeps coming out.

But my heart's always hopeful, ever optimistic. He always thinks the Heaven's are going to sing my name like a paean, and the stars dance me down a red carpet. Every single time. God, I love him for that. We take hits, we get bloodied, but he never lets me lose that pizazz in my two-step. We're ready man, dancing in the center of the ring. Rumble young man, rumble. Life's a trip, you know you're gonna stumble. Shake off the dust, laugh never grumble. Remember, you're still a lion in anybody's jungle.

This morning I felt blue. Like dark, heavy jazz, played by men with eyes that matched the cherry of their cigarettes. Like how a raven feels watching all the other birds start flying south without saying goodbye. I felt blue. Down in the muddy water, with the Moon refusing to shine. Down at the bottom of that last bottle of wine.

All it took was a couple of smiles from a particular girl. Smiles I hung on her lips for her, even as she was feeling a little blue, too. And the smiles I smiled in return, and a great cup of coffee. And that new Cee-Lo Green album playing shuffled in with the new Kanye West album as I cruised back home on Bombay City streets that must have been cleared for me, in the middle of a Saturday.

And look at me now. Look at me now. Flying up higher than the ninth cloud. Wrapped up close, dancing a merengue with the dark blue of the night sky. I've got my pen acting like it's got my Muse on speed dial. Every word written is another quiet breath towards achieving oneness. I can get lost on any street in any city in any world and still find my way home without any kind of compass. Still I rise even as the fear and the demons swell, and every minute is the perfect cell in a metal hell. Still I rise up on surging, golden wings above an evening tide. At least I'll be able to say I went in there swinging, before I died.

Still I rise.

Blame Me

I'm sorry I hurt you.
Again.
You should have called
when you came.
But you didn't
and I'm to blame.
Again.
You had an idea for
a perfect night
but it's ruined now and
I'm the cause.
I was supposed to be
where you wanted me to be.
Instead I stayed
where I was.
This is the night
you see me
clearly,
not half the man
you need. Not nearly.
Mind stuffed full
of me, no space left
for you.
You wanted a castle
upon a hill, I'm a
prison cell without
a view.

Tell me once, more
you love me.
Tell me twice, more
it's true.
Tell me now, that
you still want me.
Because all I ever
wanted is wrapped up
nicely, in you.
I don't want to write
tonight I want to
widen your smile.
You're crying again,
and I do this to you
every once in a while.
Just pick up
the damn phone
darling. I don't know
what I did wrong.
Please. Give me a clue.
You're screaming
"I hate you." But I
know that's untrue.
Blame me for whatever
you want, just let
me talk to you.
Blame me for whatever
you want. Unlock the door
Please.
Let me through.

Fallen

Every day we fall
a little further.
From Grace we fall
away from all
the comfort in the
shadows under God.
Every day we grow
just a little bit
uglier. Closer to
the Other One we go
laughing with open
arms.
Sinners united in
petulance.
Comedians united in
grief.

I am not
happy here in my skin.
I am not the way
I was intended to be.
You are not
as God hoped either.
Slowly rotting apples
falling from
a dying tree.
But as we fall
and rush towards
the dirt and the trough.
At least let's fall together.
And hope that'll be enough.