Patchwork Heart

I've done it again 
Put my heart on the slab
Butcher knife in hand 
I didn't think that I could 
Though now I know that I can 
I clean my dirty lenses
A futile effort 
Because perhaps they're broken
And that's why I have no foresight
It doesn't matter though at the end
I'm just a silly man 
My heart I've failed to defend
Now it begins 
Stitching back together my patchwork heart
Soon it will be time again 
To put my heart on the slab
Butcher knife in someone else's hand

(c) Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Heart In The Well

Found my heart at the bottom of a well
So I sent down a pail to fetch it
All in vain, for the pail was broken
Hole punched through
And my heart fell back in
Sinking into the depths

Many times I have tried
To climb down inside
But it got deeper as I cried
My tears filled the well
I'd climb back out a shell
So at the bottom my heart did dwell

I need a little help
Someone to hold the rope
Help me descend into the deep dark well
So I may bring my heart to the surface
That I may be loved once again

(c) Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Master Of None

Done it all
But never enough
Life's at a crawl
Around the edges I'm rough

From selling phones
To cooking food
I've swept floors
And reported the news

Worked at Amazon
Did a stint at Tesco
My education's gone
Many times I've let go

From microbiology to sound
I might have had some fun
But in the end I only found
That I am Master Of None

(C) Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Autumn Romance

Leaves that drift to the ground
Over fall, turning red, yellow and brown
Veils that part to show your face
Each day basking in your embrace

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

House of Cards

A relationship is like a house of cards
It is hard to tell who supports whom
Like her head resting on his shoulder
And his head resting on her head
If she is his strength, how is he her pillar?
Scientists would solve the energy crisis if they could work out those figures
But then there comes a time or a few, if you're lucky
And from the delicate balance of card supporting card
One of you becomes a wall
A rock strong enough to take it all
An immovable mountain standing resolute to the earthquakes
Biding time until you both can say "piece of cake"
Until finally when the dust settles
And with the air clear, you sift through the rubble
Find each other at the end of the day
Build your house of cards once again

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Missing Happiness

It is a strange thing to feel happy

Something beyond the high of a drug

A different planet than the mirth of a drunk

Immeasurable like the idea of a god 

Leaving you to sit there and nod

While the waves barely tickle your toes

You miss happiness

Not entirely but almost unlike missing a person

Like falling in love with the shadow of someone 

You never really miss being happy, just the idea of it

Like a joke heard more than once becomes less funny on each retelling

You're not sure if happiness is just not as happy as it used to be 

Or is it just me, you ask 

Part of you wants to turn around and run back

Back to where it was always happy 

Back to when sadness was just an empty pack of cigarettes

And happiness was finding that one last smoke

Back when sadness was not knowing what to eat 

And happiness was good old biryani 

And so you miss happiness 

An idea of feeling that poets like me fail to describe 

Even if you bottle it, you wouldn't like it

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Teacher

They say those who can't do, teach

But those who can teach should

For it is not enough to just read out loud 

Use this stage to do some good 

Yet we are mostly treated to glorified human textbooks 

Making school the same place they hated

The love and the passion mostly lost 

The magic of the lessons surely ill fated

As the world spins out of control 

Weather turning pages on human history

The need for bright young minds rises

Invent ways to fix our ecology 

Education is for the privileged 

And school is for their growing minds

But what is the point of a ship without a compass 

Just victims of the education decline

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Vices and Explosions

Quitting my vices

Like one last goodbye 

Like one last kiss 

One more "I love you"

Something about it that is so attractive 

Even with all the warning signs 

Yet the obsession with feeling good 

With something that isn't 

From cigarettes to junk food 

It always crosses the mind that I shouldn't have 

It is as if danger sits quietly in my blind spot 

Sitting with the smile of evil patience

The kind that accompanies slow death 

My determination to stand resolute

In the face of the hard slap that comes in slow motion 

Even though I know I can move and duck this at any time 

But instead of getting up and walking away I sit right there 

Sitting across from death on the other couch staring back 

As if willing him to get to me sooner 

Leap across the room and sink his teeth into my neck 

Only pausing to say "you had your chance"

Death doesn't flinch however 

In his slow, yet finite evil patience 

Choosing instead to see if I have the will to get away

Get up off my couch and walk away 

No last goodbyes to my vices 

Not pulled back for one more deathly kiss

Instead, set it alight and walk away 

Without looking back

Because cool guys don't look at explosions

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Keep Calm

Take my breath away
I don't want it back
In your eyes hold me sway
Until the day I fade to black
Once again I see dreams
Of special days and more
Reign in my hope-steed
Dreams that I adore
Calm down the heart's flutter
Fireworks in my brain
There are words I dare not utter
Oh how I must restrain

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

Book Worms

I opened a book
Out came the worms
But I didn't mind
For they were my friends within the words
Wrapped up in their blanket
Keeping me warm with their stories
The worms they came out
Like from an apple core
Boring into my mind
Leaving their homes behind
Making their stories mine
Drilling deeper and deeper into my soul
Trying to fill my heart and its holes
And then in the mirror I see
I'm the book I meant to read
That my book is a mere reflection of who I meet
Every book I've read
Every moment I dread
Every word I've said
And all those I haven't
Just worms that burrow into the book of me
Footnotes upon footnotes
A human journal with the pages faded and fading
Open my book and the worms come out
Like from the core of the rotten apple
Do you read me like I never have
Let these worms into your hands
They feed out of you
As you feed out of them
Please stay just another page
Close my book at the end

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015

The Ladder of Hope

By now I should have figured it out
Who am I and what am I all about?
I'm not anything by definition
A stack of many grand delusions
But I should have had something by now
A job I know and some luxuries allowed
Instead I feel like the last kid writing a test
Struggling to get through, his worst at its best
And if it wasn't enough to feel this dumb
My machine is faulty and I'm feeling numb
Finding irony in that numbness can be felt
Trying to laugh, hoping my fears melt
What of hope and all that it never brings?
Just a ladder leaning against nothing
Yet the fool that I am continues to hope
Even as I fumble on the slippery slope
I am ever the wounded optimist
Slowly infected by the pessimist
Yet I find no point in all of me
Write as I do, poems are all they'll ever be

© Rahul Chidambaran 2015