façade

Today I realised that saying 'Hello' out loud is not mandatory. People have already warned me umpteen times against this horribly anti-social habit. They say that a smile is a much better alternative. Less messy, low on calories and high covertness. In other words, I said, a very effective façade. I was furious, almost to the point of being pitiful. The sham, the artifice!
But today, walking back from breakfast I came across this guy I don't know too well, and have no desire to either. Mostly because of his/my smugness. Automatically, without the slightest thought or provocation - out came a smile. A less messy, low calorie, highly covert smile. And at that very precise moment, I took back every Hello I have ever said. The sham, the artifice!

Over the past few days I have also realised my mind is not free in its musings. There is a dark cloud of logic gathered above my skies. It filters every soulward ray emanating from my atomic brain, so that all that reaches my shivering core is a faint smudge. There is no warmth. I think too much before I think. In zeros and ones. I have an OCD, whence every sentece must be spic and span. Perfectly ordered. Blacks and whites, clubs and spades.
Yesterday I read Heaney. Listened to Van Morrison. I realised how ordered my life is. How free their art is. How free I am. Only I refuse to accept it. I refuse to work towards it. And therein lies the issue. The arid monster. So, today, I want to be inkorect. Polætically offtrackened. Ethicaly chällenged. Erothik eveन! And so, I presen to yuo, the most wvile of ऑल human kreationß, I presenn to यू, a meop ...

not to be deflected
the arrow, puffed up
speeding busily
straight to its
          targjx

- an excerpt from 'Interferences: a sequence of nine poems' by Edwin Morgan