White Spaces, Grey Shades 










This is the line that challenges emptiness

Then lapses back into the scrounging
For something to say or do
To preserve us

Ironic, we the champions of 
Bridging distances are 
Mute

A desert wind sweeps 
The plains of my battlefield mind
Trying to lift up some souvenier
Some reason to stay and not move

It is the feeling after the 
Last day of school 
In the last year 
Locker cleaning

Incredible the rubbish we 
Lock up 
Then discard

Have we relearned old lessons
Contributed something vital
For the perpetuation of the species
The institution
The individual

Doodle on a paper so that
In the throwing away 
It was not a waste of paper
Where was the value in 
That excercise

We fill our empty spaces
As we fill an empty space

And hope 
The impression we make
Is greater than the sum
Of our impressions

Interesting
That every artist
As every child
Is taught
With pencil in hand
To fill White Space
With shades of grey
Richness in texture
Variations of tone
And erasable

Interesting 
That every artist
As every child
Is taught
Of absolute values
Of blacks and whites
Of contrasts in color
Good and bad
Right, wrong
And consequences

Ironic, 
The struggle we face
Trying to preserve 
A penciled Individuality
And for the Universe
To acknowledge our
Singularity
Amidst all these
Systems

Every impulse
Every feeling 
Struggles with the paradox
Of embracing and challenging
Simultaneously


Four realities clash
In every word exchanged

Old doodles
Which I've never thrown away
Can't throw away
Teach and reteach
Tenderness...
Excitement

Perhaps the essence - 
I throw out nothing
The closet of the mind
As that of the tangible
becomes more cluttered
Tracing different realites
Of hope, anticipation,
Palpitation, savouring,
Distance, coldness
Harshness, fading
As so many dried roses
Which I dare not discard
Since each one bespeaks a dream

Withered?

Perhaps I am not great enough
To consolidate impressions
To create one Impression

So, I suppose
Before Unity can come
With Us
We must see each other
As multi-dimensional ones
Instead of many one-dimensions






(1999)