Some serious amounts of literally coming back to life!

Firstly, some visual work.

Ethics

Forever young

Then, some update.

I went book buying. Bought Secret Island, The Adventure River, The mystery of the burning cottage and Joe's Boys.

The current class 12 batch of St.James', of which I was supposed to be a part, had their farewell, and they didn't allow me to think that I'm not in there batch by insisting I be an essential part of the party. So I went, at 7.30. It was a stag night, at a friend's large and brilliant terrace in Southern Avenue, where a stage was fixed, with sound systems and laser lighting, and an all you can eat buffet and all you can drink, beer-vodka-whiskey bar were set up along with numerous comfortable and pass-out-on-able mattresses and pillows lining the dance-cum-eat-floor. Also present at the party, largely thanks to Raghav, Harsh, Ishaan and I, was an entire 'T' of hash, and some random 200 rupees worth of weed. I had a blast of a night, which started with some beer and vodka shots warm-up as the 'crack team' selected a comfortable mattress and some random 6 or 7 of us set up a comfortable base to roll out a formidable array of joints, supplied throughout the work with beer courtesy loyal juniors. Harsh also happened to have brought his legendary ice-bong, which we used extensively, and by 10.30 everyone, the entire crowd of some 90 people were drunk or stoned and enjoying the DJs loud trance music while the disco lights belted out fluorescent shafts of light amid the smoke filled darkness. Then, our school band, all stoned, gathered together their instruments, got on stage, set it up, and played a medley, non stop, of their favorite songs - Cocaine, Take Me Out, Black Night, Roadhouse Blues, Coming back to life, Baba ORiley and Hey Jude. All of them excelled, though all in some kind of trance, Arjun's guitar stopped everyone dead during coming back to life, Suryanil's synthesizer pulsed through us during Baba O' Riley and Raghav's drums and Protim's base echoed inside our heads throughout. I, as far as I remember, consumed some obscene two digit number of kingfishers and vodka shots, and a random 13 joints, both kinds. My capacity amazed me as I reached home safely at 3.30 and talked for half an hour normally with dad, before plugging into my newly acquired music, courtesy Archie-da, and then listened till 6, then went to school, and then came back home tonight, with 3 random leftover joints being consumed as an afterthought during the course of the day, and am now plugged back into my music.

Thirdly, something I wrote.

“A little faggot with the earring and the makeup,

The little faggot is a millionaire.”

~ Mark Knopfler (Money for nothing)

A lot of people believe I’m reckless. A lot of the things I do are considered, by most, to be irrational, unnecessary and recklessly extravagant. Some respect it, albeit due to various misconceptions, and some cannot stand it, from various misunderstandings. I just wish everyone would open there eyes and join me in this better world, where reason is suffused in every action and thought, and one can exist beyond fetters and unwanted constructs. Mine is a road that leads safely to a good place, carefully avoiding the one that goes down the dark and dangerous alley to the caves of despair and dependence, and maintains its sense of distilled beauty and simplicity throughout like the guiding and directing streetlights.

I think it’s a way of living actually, or maybe a way of thinking. If one learns to see the world in a more soothed light, peacefully and without anger, it becomes much easier to embrace certain practices that carry a bag full of dangers with them, without being burnt by any of that.

I see around me too many people rushing into things, without a thought as to what or why they are doing it. Most of them end up burnt. I’m too young to think about or try to judge what went on inside the minds of the greats like Jimi or Morrison, and hence I have no idea as to whether they were burnt, or just found a different meaning to the road, but I’m sure too many of the deaths from overdose and the cases of young and potentially bright people being found on footpaths or under bars is just a result of getting into something with the wrong mind. I don’t believe physical age has anything to do with it, as much as a proper view of one’s life, though those two are most often entwined.

Someday, maybe, there shall be more people who’d see, and then join me, in peace, and we can explore the mysterious lands inside our heads, created maybe while dreaming as a child or fantasizing as a young man. Maybe I’ll be an old man by then, maybe it’ll never happen, but I shall wait and hope on, for that someday to come.

A dutiful doodle.

Keep yourself alive.

Dying is easy. I’m clever enough to successfully carry out several different and silent methods that take no time to prepare. I was thinking of some kind of a list of things that stopped me from dying. The list was pretty much blank. It’s a barren kind of powerful feeling, not having anything tying you to life.

Maybe I’m just fucked in the head, or maybe it’s just the way I am, but others’ love for me didn’t make the list. Not Mom’s, not Dad’s, not my friends, not Neesha’s, not Tania’s, not Sanjit’s. I could just die when I wanted to. With a lot of pushing, I can be made to believe that I’m special, but that’s artificial. I’m never gonna be Mozart or Picasso or Joyce or Ramanujan. Hell, I’d never even make it a millionth of the way there!

The reassuring fear that’s supposed to kick in, as I’ve heard, when one starts thinking about death too does not come to me. Everything I do, or ever did, seems so colossally pointless and uninteresting that it wouldn’t matter if they stopped. It wouldn’t matter to me at least. People would miss me, mourn me, but that’s childish and again, mostly artificial. Maybe a lot of good I could have done a lot of people would not exist anymore, but I’m actually too selfish to be affected by that. Life is boring, pointless and routine, and I’ve just been trying to fool myself into believing that it isn’t. I won’t anymore.

People have tried to make me see sense about this issue by telling me to look at the lives of the truly wretched people. Never worked. Their lives can be as wretched as they are, that doesn’t make me like mine any more. Truth be told, I’ve no idea why I dislike my life, and its not as much my life as living. So if I was to ask myself what I’d like to change so that I’d like to live, I wouldn’t have the answer.

Fact is, I’m tired of living. It’s been long enough and tiring enough. Someday, soon, I’ll be fed up enough. I’ll be called an escapist, but I’d like to ask, what is it that I did and they’re “brave enough not to” escape? It’s not as simple as Pink Floyd is it? I don’t believe in afterlife or suicide notes. Others’ reactions to my death do not bother me. I once heard a story about a youth called Narcissus who died because he’d only look at his own beauty and love himself, and that’s the closest thing I can sort of call on to show my side of the fence. Maybe life just isn’t what I want it to be, or thought it would be, and I’d rather not continue. Once I die, my body, a nice collection of chemicals, will decay, and I’d have gone permanently from the Earth, and in time, from people’s minds. Things would return to normal. I cannot imagine a better situation, for me. There are a lot of things I’ve kept unsaid, but I’m sure I could do it in bulk, with A4 sized papers folded up in neat white envelopes, addressed in red and gold ink, to be opened when needed.

Koffee with Karan

I've been down with fever for the last few days. That means I'm basically under house-arrest, and I'm not even allowed to visit South City, which is like 1 fucking minute from my house, even when there's been someone waiting there to meet me for 4 hours. Out of sheer boredom, while surfing (I never get that term) the television channels, I came across "Koffee with Karan" (I love that first K) featuring Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar. Shabana Azmi and Karan Johar. They should have been married.

Kubla Khan

More random stuff I forgot to post, all done months back.

Runner

Truth or dare?

And then a doodle.

A little bit of rhyming.

Mister Lover

Take your rubber

Off and let me see you cover me with what you got.

When I was a child

I was so wild

That I could never smoke my pot.

What is good in me's

So hard to see

That I cannot show.

But you got to feel

It like you feel

Your lover when he comes to pour.

When I had a gun

I used to run

Around the block until I'd shoot,

And Bobby Brown's gone down

But i'm around

Until I'm found and get the boot

By those whose rounded

Figures are now grounded

And surrounded

By the filth they

Worship just to feel allowed,

But till that day

My swing don't sway,

I'm straight and gay

And happy feeling proud.

Homophobic people sleeping

With each other's

Mothers;

And taboo-haters weeping

When they find their lickers

Going

Through their daughter's knickers;

While Freud is laughing

Rolling on the floor

Until the door's

Not shut no more.

A painting

I cannot wield a mighty brush, so I take refuge with the mouse. This was done in Photoshop7, using only and only the brush tool, with no fancy effects. So I guess it can be called a painting.

The Road

Updates

There's been some stuff I've done over the last week, which I didn't get time to post. Here they are.

The family

Joy II

Discontent

8 9 10

Condemnation

Flipperoo!

My Year Book Article, untitled as of yet.

Come April, and I’d have spent 10 years in St. James’ as a student, with another year to go till I too, like this preceding batch, shall step beyond the fences of high school into the real world. Now that I’ve been told to write something for the batch’s yearbook, I feel more intensely what it means to be batch, though I’m at a complete loss as to how to entrap through words what my heart feels now; so I’ll take refuge in narrating certain experiences I’ve been gifted in my school life, which I hope shall illuminate to whatever degree what school life has meant to me.

After leaving what was deemed a “sub-standard” school, I joined St. James’ in class 3, and spent my first year as an outcast, friendless due to my alienation from the higher cultural practices like Pokemon Card trading and PS2s and computer gaming and Nickelodeon.

Through classes 4, 5 & 6 I picked up on these and a lot more as I gathered friends, some close and some closer, lost friends, made new ones and slowly assumed my role as a Jacobean. Classes 4 through 9 were a whirlwind of tumultuous and passionate friendships and enmities and the formation of numerous “gangs” such as the ‘jungle-gym-monkeys’ gang or the ‘jocks’ or the ‘cooler nerds’, peppered with brief yet immensely enjoyed friendships with random strangers like Dipayan, Pronoy, Ishan, Madhav, Protim, Anjishnu, Abhishek, Biswaroop, Jason, Jeremy, Vicky and Louis, to be followed later by Arnav, Aaron, Shahrukh, Fusail, Akshay, Dwarkesh, Nikhil, Ritwik, Akshay, Varun and lots more that evade my ebbing memories.

In class 9 and 10 I met some people who would later turn out to be my closest, most trusted and treasured friends. I met Anurag, a shy, immensely talented and the owner of an intellect that is almost the exact match for mine. We have grown, over 4 years, to levels of friendship, if that be the word, which cannot be quantified, or even fathomed. I met Srijon, a happy go lucky boy with a heart of gold, and Arjun, talented and suave, with another heart of gold, two friends who had grown into being a part of myself within an incredibly short span of time, as if we were brothers separated in past lives, waiting to reunite. I rediscovered Tirtha, a friend of class 3, to forge yet another channel of concrete that would bring me immensely fruitful experiences and a constant wall of support. Unobtrusive, and reserved, he’d help me get things that none of the others could. I discovered Akshay, a passionate friend with many faults and many marvels. Our friendship, along with Arnav and Shahrukh was most probably my most tumultuous and marvelous. We went from intimacy to cold wars and everything ended on a rather sad note, with an un-scalable mountain emerging between me and Akshay, equally pushed by both our egos and his faults, and maybe mine as well.

Came eleven, first time round, when my existing bonds grew stronger, Srijon, Arjun, Anurag, Tirtha and Arnav taking up progressively larger parts of my heart, while yet more new connections were made, Shashank, Jatan, Raghav, Samay, some of bloomed more than others. Over the year and eleven second time round, Srijon, Arjun and Anurag became inseparable blocks that were the foundations of my identity as a young, talented, kind-hearted and rebellious idealist who should have been born in the 70’s!

I found a group of people, with whom I could build up an entire Bohemia inside my head, friends dearest to my being, even when completely stripped to its utmost raw core, at moments of ultimate disinhibition. They fed me and ate from me, as we all progressed into being young adults, more ripened than earlier. We learned to respect and enjoy each other, as I fed from them and them from me. Anurag, Jimmy (a senior), Srijon, Arjun, Raghav, Protim, Tirtha and Arnav all entered into the deepest worlds of mine as my first true and deep and beautiful friends. I met others who I wished I’d met earlier, since with equal time they too would be just as dear, such as Harsh (Bansal), Uday, Anjishnu, Suryanil, and many more who again outwit the feeble grasps of my memory.

I was molded in school, by these friendships, and a few treasured gifts of tenderness, protectiveness and care from certain teachers, who I’d never be able to thank to my satisfaction. Ms. Chand, my first class teacher, Mrs. Khambatta, my second and best, Mr. Pope, a friend almost, Mrs. Neogi, the disciplinarian with a golden heart, Mr. Dasgupta, the ideal Master, erudite and elegant, yet not distant or stone-hearted, Mrs. Banerjea, compassionate owner of a soft yet sure guiding hand, and last, and equally far from the least, Mr. Sircar, the teenage genius who never grew up, a master logistician, with a humour to cut, and a contagious curiosity as he pursued his passions, math, crossword, hearts and freecell, and efficient and clever programming with the passion of a youth.

I have always been sure that I’d grow up to be something I’d dreamt of as a child, free of society’s mundane catacombs and with enough resources to live on and enjoy, but this has been enormously boosted by all the things that the school has given me, both treasured and despised, by providing a everlasting nourishment that nothing else could ever provide.

Before nostalgia takes complete hold on me, I’ll end this attempt to give an insight to a part of myself that I owe purely to luck bestowed upon me by some kind spirit somewhere. It is redundant to say that I’d never forget these days or people, and I can honestly expect that none of them would ever forget me, or us.

“This is the end, beautiful friend. This is the End.” ~ Jim Morrison (The Doors)

Another try at Kill Ducks

Another shot at some graphic design. Kill ducks with some useless elements removed:

Kill Ducks II

A step in a different direction.

Today I thought, what if I make a portfolio of my drawings, and just keep it, uselessly? So I decided to make a formal portfolio, using some of my work, like a visual CV or exhibition-like thing. I made a front cover for it, and here it is.

A Front cover

Thank you, friend.

I've always felt ecstatic and amazed when some song, or poem, or any text at all has said exactly what I've been trying to! No one has done this more frequently or accurately, of late, than Lennon. Sadly, it's very futile to try and tell people that these are the exact words I was trying to say, because that is never believed, to whatever degree. But that shouldn't, to any degree, reduce the ecstasy! So, here goes a little tribute, with whatever effort I had, to a friend who came in times of true need, even if his help never materialized. In John I found what I always dreamt of being.

P.S.

I forgot this one. I again tried bringing in text as a graphic element, and experimented with color.

Propaganda

When the freedom was channeled into my hands and fingers.

The first was a thoughtless process, where my subconscious mind controlled my hand without the conscious one interfering. The second was much more thought out, yet not adulterated.

Fear

Eye of the bigger.

Plea

It's actually a few weeks old, I just forgot to put it up.

A Hard Day's Night.

Last night I went to a concert in tribute to the Beatles held in Calcutta Cricket and Football Club grounds, performed by a British band who tour the world doing only Beatles tributes, look like (somewhat), dress like and act exactly (on stage) like the Beatles. I got sufficiently disinhibited before going, knowing there would be enough and more alcohol in venue itself.

Neesha, who loves the Beatles even more than me, had to get herself out of town exactly yesterday, and hence couldn't come along, but I met two very close friends (especially when we're disinhibited), my OBO instructors and lots of random known people, including an ex-school-captain who was emcee-ing the event.

I cannot write out, like this, my experience without turning it into a boring journal entry, so I'll simply quote some of the SMSs I sent as I walked back home, edited and translated to English (from SMS lingo).

"Hey, are you awake? I loved the concert, and missed you as much. It was a tumultuous experience. The sadness when you weren't there to listen to Nowhere Man, the distilled euphoria during Daytripper. Today I realized how much I loved you and the Beatles."

"The guys were really very good. They weren't the Beatles, but pretty damn close! They're called The Beetles, and the 4 guys are actually named after the originals (first names only). They copied the exact voice and (on-stage) behaviour patterns. Voice-wise, Paul was no match for McCartney, George was almost as good as Harrison, but John, I thought, was better than Lennon. Their guitar-ing was exact, Ringo's drumming just as soulful and perfect as the original, n Paul's bass was magical! We all went crazy jumping, singing, laughing, crying, climbing on each others shoulders and singing in the air, having dance offs, but never feeling tired or spent, throughout the 2 hours. I met Mirna, Shreya, Tara and Athena, and stepped on Tara's toes by mistake!"

"They didn't play Norwegian Wood, but they played Nowhere man, With Love from me To You, Daytripper, She Loves You, Hard Days Night, Help, Roll over Beethoven, The Ballad of John and Yoko, This Boy, Do You Wanna Know a Secret, Twist and Shout, Can't buy me love, I should have known Better, and more that I can't remember right now!"

Duality

I've been attending a bunch of workshops organised by this group of college students called OBO - Our Bodies (Our) Opinions. They are trying to create a platform where young people can talk and find out about the more taboo but important aspects of life and society, like Child Sexual Abuse, Domestic Violence, Sexual Identity, etc. They've urged us to use our talents (visual, musical, linguistic, etc) to help spread the word. So, here is the first piece I made for them, themed on sexual identity - the difference between sex and gender.

Reclining Woman

invitation

Today I'm combing my hair, and my mom walks in, nearly faints at the sight, and takes roughly 3 seconds to regain consciousness and ask me, "Babu, tor ki kono girlfriend-thirlfriend hoeche naki? Eto beyam korchis, chool achracchis, roj eto chaan korchis, thote boroline makhchis, byapar ta ki? Aka aka thaakis, soft soft gaan shunis (eluding to Beatles and Dylan, after being used to too much Metallica and Iron Maiden), kotha bolishna ar sharadin sms korish? Ami mind korina kintu, amae bolte parish!" It's starting to get quite disconcerting of late!

Drew again today. My best roll till date! Hopefully it will last.

Random Drawing.

Just something I drew randomly - with no reason behind it. I wanted to work with text and color.

Julia

Yes, I heard yet another Beatles Song that completely blew me off my feet. This one did it more than any other till now though. Jealous is the only thing one can feel about Lennon's lyrics once he hears this! The very first two lines were like lightning bolts of realization! After every line, you go "how the fuck did he come up with that, and why the fuck couldn't I?"

So I sing a song of love, Julia

There is a Beatles tribute coming up on the 31st of this month and the 1st of the next. I've no idea as to who's performing, but I've decided, not after much thought, to go. My parents, with equally little consideration, have prevented it, and so it looks like my study table will be seeing me for longer periods of time till the weekends.
My parents have, of late, started having weird duschinta(s) about me. They think that I'm in a relationship, engage in drug abuse and god knows what else. It used to be funny, now it's pissing off. Dad just now walked in, asked me whether I was going through any mental turmoil, said he'd talk to me later about it, and left. That indicates a nice hour's worth of time going down the drain.
My last 6 drawings have been on paper, and hence I've not been able to put it up, so now I'm about to embrace MSPaint again.

Good Morning

Amidst the integration, trigonometry, adolescence and Jaco Iz related logistical impossibilities, I have gone into a fearsome drawing streak. I've drawn some 6 times in the last 36 hours. I've also been down with a Beatles and Bob Dylan fever. Not a lot of people I know, like Bob Dylan much, but he's a bloody genius. Got addicted to Hurricane yesterday, and it hasn't passed yet. I drew this in the morning -

Joy

Throes.

Today I tried to explain to a paranoid mother that just because I talked to a girl from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m., does not mean that I'm doing "improper" things at the "wrong age"! Apart from that, my other achievement was that I did math for 4 and a half hours today! Then I drew. GluconD should hire me for research purposes.

Throes

Change

I just realized, the colour of the titles in my blog are very bad! So, I got it fixed.

Loneliness

Random decision

I've decided. I'm gonna make this blog function as a journal from now, and not just the free exhibition studio as I used to! Last night I didn't want to sleep, so I sat on my windowsill and drew 3 random sketches. I picked up a pencil after a really long time, but I'm quite happy about one of the results! I'll see if I can digitalize it and get it up here.

I'm an only son, with one female cousin, who's learning how to cut up and put back human bodies somewhere in south India. That does not, for some reason, exempt me from Bhai-phota. My aunt and my grandmother, again for some unknown reason, have decided to bring me the honour. That means money, so I stay cute.

Razor's Edge.

My first attempt at metaphor.

When the roads ended, he walked on.

When hope was foolish, he walked on.

His footprints fading, he walked on.

The tree lied to him, he walked on.

No wishful thinking, he walked on.

A taste of ruin, he walked on.

With introspections, he walked on.

With no directions, he walked on.

The branch had broken, he walked on.

When the stones gave way, he walked on.

The meanings lost, he walked on.

And through the frost, he walked on.

The trees were thinning, he walked on.

The question looming, he walked on.

The place was nearing, he walked on.

The answer waiting, he walked on.

He reached the meadow, he looked around.

His gaze was searching, his answer sure.

The glade was empty. He dug a hole,

And there, in peace, he rests his soul.

Untitled

This was done about a month back, but I forgot to upload it.

Youth is a quality of being, most naturally exhibited during time, and most difficult to retain post the time. Youth is bestowed upon a child at birth, a gift of purity from its sender, to cherish for as long as he dared. Yes, it is fear that takes youth away. Fear of consequences, fear of "what's-to-come?", fear of unfamiliar situation, fear of challenges, fear of being singled out, and fear of unacceptance. They all occupy greater and greater portion's of the thought process, pushing out the pure, carefree, lens in the child's eyes. He's worried about the answers off too many questions to ask any himself. He's taught to seek external approval for every step he takes, and to avoid steps which don't assure that. He's blinded and artificial eyes are fit into him. His being is poisoned by the venomous worry, by the external, ununderstood orders, by the concepts of power and control, by stubbornly injected doses of disapproval of all things not bringing profit, and the fear of condemnation.

It is important, and beautiful, to hold on to the gift of youth. It acts the x-ray for the gold plated filth in reality. It guides him through the murky mass of human contempt and envy. It sheilds him from the bullets of power shot down on him from all sides. It helps him remember what purity is, a thing forgotten so very often with age. It infuses him with molten hot innocence, that drives him through all decision-making, where others are stuck trying to gauge options. What happens in absence of youth is the being stops being, and starts giving an examination.

Youth, is what I wish most to retain, till my deathday. People ask me, "So, what do you wanna do? What are your ambitions?", and I don't say anything. Well, that is my ambition.

Deafness gone

After recently being told that my writing ability is not, in any way whatsoever, connected to my state of intoxication, I tried my hand at writing without the high. Personally, I still believe that they're connected.

Music isn’t actually just what we think it is. It’s difficult to gauge the depths of music with a normal mind, and personally I admit that I cannot do it unless intoxicated! When one’s high, Music really starts stripping down to what it is. She reveals her hidden nuances, her secretly guarded details of beauty. It is at that state that one realizes why Pritam could never ever become A. R. Rahman, and why Matchbox20 can never ever become Deep Purple. As far as I can recall, it’s the Bass notes that begin to matter most at the beginning. This is where most of the rubbish fall out, the ones with almost no bass frequency and shrieking treble sound. The subtle, powerful and everlasting bass notes welcome you to this new better way of perceiving sound. They flow deep within this stream of sound, but are ever so luminously prominent. Sometimes fading away, then returning with new purpose. The higher frequencies do their best to attract your attention, and you finally turn, satisfied, to their performance. With gritted-teeth and wild ferocity you emit every note out of your face, as it fades away. The music of the beats now snatches you into the regions where music controls your body. You shake your head, making your torso float and sway. Your legs join in a little later, one at a time, right first and then left. You feel the beauty of being able to move your two feet with two separate minds.

The dance is over. Techno music announces it entry with flat, overtone-less notes of medium frequency. They proceed in drawing a techno-ruled background for you to observe. Some weak yet strengthening bass notes keep you just on track. The medium frequencies now rule the sea. They blare out, not too rash, in a simple repetitive melody.

That's about as much as I could write in the limited time I had, but I think I shall resume this topic at a later, more comfortable time.

Riding the high.

So, what does one do once he/she has reached the top?

What does he do when he feels that he has outpassed feeling, and the world floats away at an ever so steady tempo?

His hands work without his consent. His eyes see without his control, the brain reacts without his awareness, though the music assures him that he'll be safe. He's slipping into higher levels of perception, and is unsure whether he'd want to leave the safety of reality behind.

Fear battles desire, he stops. Clears his head, and chooses desire.

Desire, to go higher and higher till it makes no difference whether he went higher or lower.

Desire, to ask the questions that he would shrink from in reality.

Desire, to laugh, to be free from all obligation and expectation. Free from rules.

Yet the music plays with him, toys with him, drops him down and turns away from him.
Sweeps him off, embracing him through the mountains of doubt and insecurity, he hopes to scale them someday. She lets him run free on the meadows of confidence and innocence.

Here he gets nutrition from the soil below him and the sun above him, grows, yearns, learns, laughs, cries, frolics and goes to sleep.

He wakes to find the tree full grown, and he detached from it.
He ripens and realizes that it's time to move on.
Higher things await him across the door from his world and comfort.
He moves on and she meets him.


She pleases him and takes his money. He is pleased, he goes on down the staircase, to the dimming lights below. He grabs the burnished doorknob.
The door creaks open under the fear-filled wrench he gave it.

The pitch of the road shines the streetlights onto his face.
Rainwater trickles down the manhole cover.
He walks to the manhole and jumps into it. Sewer-water - mankinds deposit of filth - surrounds him and drags him on.

Pre-script:

Six syllables per line, sometimes an extra unstressed syllable is squeezed in without disturbing the metre. The rhyming pattern is A-B-A-A-C-C-B. Unconventional yes, but this sort of adds a sting to the paragraphs' endings, in accordance to the main theme.

Death of a young man.

Troubled sleep, not too deep,

Occupied all his nights.

When awake, it would creep,

Discreetly, then to sweep

Him back to dreams, nightmares.

He would writhe, unawares,

Grotesque thoughts, ugly sights.

Morning sun, he would roam,

Droopy eyes, shuffled gait,

Streets unknown, lead to home.

Shifting thoughts, frothing foam.

Passing time, wasting days,

Working on with an empty gaze,

Pending work, cannot wait.

He is rich, Rolls Royce

Earning money, buying things,

No mistakes, has no choice,

Smart and suave, James Joyce,

Clinching deals, crunching sheets,

Turning cogs, march-past beats,

Empty mind, no Saturn's rings.

As a child, he would play,

He would dream, fairytales.

Making trouble, running away

To places private. Stay

over with friends, young boys,

Treehouses, wooden toys,

Backpacks and hiking trails.

Bruised elbows, marbles won,

Skipping rope, hidden treasure.

Trying to stare at the sun,

Learning to whistle "Your ma' hun".

Lie alone, in the tree house

With magazines that arouse,

The forbidden pleasure.

Then came college, too soon,

Don't do drugs, must do well,

Parents' hopes, money's boon,

Ivy League, no full moon,

Live up to the expectations,

Games and sports, meager rations.

Perfect grades, head did swell.

Then, campus interviews,

Swept him off to Wall Street.

Houses with ocean views,

Trousers, ties, leather shoes.

High society, finest wine

Bosses coming over to dine.

Matte finis, velvet sheet.

Trophy wife, still no say,

Books for Bed - Starter's Guide.

Two point four kids, valet,

Son - tennis, daughter - ballet.

Thus life went on, clockwork,

Never stop, don't think, work.

The child who lived, hath died.