So February 14th comes around again and there is a love (or lust) frenzy going on. Buying flowers, cards, chocolates, perfume...all those nitty gritties that are meant to say how much you care (or lust). Sunday will be a really good day for some; the ones who are assured of getting their champagne chilled, served in some fancy restaurant with a menu all in french. never mind that you cannot read the menu, or that the champagne costs a month's salary. It's valentines day after all.

But what about the unlucky lot? The ones who will spend the night at home in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn watching 'Gone with the Wind' on TCM, alone. or the ones whose mothers will suddenly take ill and they have to get out of town? The ones who will go to bed in Winnie the Pooh jammies coupled with thermo socks, alone. And wake up on monday morning a little disoriented as though they missed the parade, roll over in bed to find they are all, alone. how bad must it be on Valentine's day, the one day of the year that everyone acknowledges everybody ought to be with somebody else if you are all by yourself?

This is a tribute to those who find themselves alone on Valentine's day

love comes when it does
In its own time and place
Sneaks up on you with no fuss

love finds you when ain't looking
Embraces you when you stop seeking
Follows you when you stop hunting

let love come, it will.

It's Just a Bad, Sad Day

Today just happens to be one of those mornings I wake up on and I know I am going to have a bad day. It can't be the weather coz the sun is out already, and the skies are blue. Actually, it seems all the people around are cheerful, if for no other reason other than the fact that it's Christmas in a couple of days. So being the poet that I am, I try to shape my emotions into words, to answer all the questions I am going to be asked today about why I look so sad. It's just a bad, sad day, that's all.

still

locked inside myself
inside my head
inside my skin
i keep the world from creeping in

they touch me not
alien that they are to me
as i am to them
i remain remote

and i wonder
why i choose this loneliness
in the midst of life
my way of aloneness in
in the midst of crowds
of remaining in stillness
in the midst of sound

or why this loneliness chose me
with which to be

Soul Poetry

Good Poetry is the poetry that speaks directly to your soul; for me it has a lot to do with that moment when I come across lines that though new, are vaguely familiar and somehow seem to belong to me.

I feel my poems are far from perfect; I cannot begin to compare what I do with the works of veteran poets like Tennyson, Shakespeare, Dickinson, Brown, Frost, Kipling, among a host of others. My lines are as yet, young and unrefined. But I write from the soul; I try to distill my emotions so that my words remain true to my feelings. I try to get into words the taste, texture and shape of my emotions: fear, anger, elation, joy, uncertainty, loneliness, serenity. Everything that I feel.

So, to all my readers, welcome to Dee's world, my world, seen through the murky lenses of my soul's eyes....