Queries about Escape

If escape was an option… how many people would line up in hopes of jettisoning their modalities and the beating of their days? If the new standard became the great getaway… then how exclusive would be the framework everybody left behind? How many people would like to slip into someone else’s lives and dreams and aspirations and broken chandeliers that they had left behind in chasing the way out?

Is it a restructuring of actual working modules that we need or a just a renovation of our minds? And if ignorance is bliss, is euphoria the abysmal dark depth of the unlearning? Who wants to regress into the unfolding of the codons and un-circling of cycles to a state of involution? You’d rather atrophy your vision then set sight on frontiers anew? Does it feed you the gustations so alien that you choke on the broadened horizons of your soul? Is familiarity your only last specter of home?

Where and when do you belong? And, pray tell, when will you let go?

There are answers you have unearthed for which no questions were posed to. There were many before us that probably led a more illuminated path of congruent peace and entropy. All of this amalgamates into one ying-yang of fashioned ideals. The obstacle courses created by her for her and by him for me, with a prize at the end, like the dangling of the unholiest of carrots. So feast on the nightmare that shines in your eye with every blink.

And when we find you still struggling to let go of your name; just know this: You have lived many other lives that spun from every misstep you thought you took and your parallels have taken up too much time and space in this alternate closet of vacuum. It is time to father the foster-child that you abandoned in the suburbs of your burgeoning psyche. It is time to dig deeper into the sky. It is time to make your bed. It is time to remember the reveries are indeed worth stopping for. Stop and sleep and dream a dream. Your circadians are aching from the rape.

Curfews & Clockworks

A para-revolutionized poem about the possible change that may befall.

Penned by: Adil Salik for an aural rendition in Late December (aka a hit song)

Curfews & Clockworks

Act 1

On the edge of waiting, at this precipice in time

the verdict will seep in the clockworks of your mind

The racing defiance you spent over me

collides with the fleeting in my brevity

Epilogue

The lights are all off; in hope of the storm

we’ve boarded up all the bad dreams

The restless will break the curfew at hand

to try to level this playing field

If the force of this moment bleeds into your heart:

the potion that renders every instance as gold

These are the troubled and these are themselves the saviors

and that is a secret that’s never been told

Act 2

You can ward off the yearning, wheel away the guilt

but the nagging will eat at the warmth of your soul

The policing of wisdom through the display of force

can never evade all the trapdoors and black holes

Epilogue

The lights are all off; in hope of the storm

we’ve boarded up all the bad dreams

The restless will break the curfew at hand

to try to level this playing field

If the force of this moment bleeds into your heart:

the potion that renders every instance as gold

These are the troubled and these are themselves the saviors

and that is a secret that’s never been told

Stolen guitar amps & marked subway spots...

Things keeping the boat afloat of late:

~ Stealing guitar amps. (will it work?? the burning question remains... watch this space)

^ Marking exact spots on the subway so the train drops you off next to the stairs/exit.

! Falling asleep in the train 5 minutes before the last stop.

{ Rediscovering Josh Ritter's excellent record Animal Years.

` Helping ishay/meeshu crack the back of the boards.

/ Revelling in Anais Mitchell's record Hymns for the Exiled.

^ Paraphrasing reveries.

` Waiting for the PJ Twenty 1080p rip.

~ Rejuvenating the Dye Corduroy Sound-Cloud page   and this very blog.

` Stocking up on the FLAC's - lossless music is the way to go.  If you're nice, I'd let you borrow some...

Meh.

Catching Flies - the poem pt. 2

The giving of new names to things much too old
is like a rhythm that’s beating in a marching bands wake
every disembarked dream leaves a mark on the soul
like a tattoo that’s pressed too hard right where it aches

And in the meantime
and in this mean world

All of this abandoned belief is now catching flies
all of these ghost of future past are running wild

Like the waves endlessly crashing on the edge of my town
there’s a silhouette of a welcome sign that’s been torn down
there’s a think tank that runs over all of my thoughts
bleeding the last drop of hope from my sky

(c) Adil Salik

Catching Flies - the poem pt.1

So my forray back into blogging* after a self imposed hiatus of a few months has to be shattered with great effect. Let me present part one of a poetic piece riddled & crafted in January of this year. 

*I have been micrblogging on my tumblr btw - which you can all sample at http://dyecorduroy.tumblr.com

Catching Flies - Pt. 1

This waiting is feeding more quarters in meters

fulfillment is aching to shelve all the lies

we tell ourselves to make time, like endless repeaters

we give ourselves reasons that tend to defy

 

And in the meantime

and in this mean world

All of this abandoned belief is now catching flies

all of these ghost of future past are running wild

Like the waves endlessly crashing on the edge of my town

there’s a silhouette of a welcome sign that’s all been torn down

there’s a train track that runs through my mind all around

like a vision that curtains the white of your eyes

(c) Adil Salik

Wallet in; Wallet out

It's not easy okay? Lugging a leather shoulder bag (mmm... this beauty was bought on the outskirts of Lahore & bargained down from Rs. 6000 to 3000 :), a big-a$$ totes storm proof umbrella so that the much too frequent snow storms don't snap them in half (R.I.P. 4 umbrellas), yer mufflers'n'gloves and what-nots, my beloved Creative: Zen (it's the mp3 player than iPod wishes it can be), cell-phone, metro-card, train ticket, office keys etc. It's not easy at all.

The juggling act becomes a full blown circus when coz' of the snow, the train timings are thrown off. Cut to me: purchasing a ticket at the kiosk in Linden, NJ with the bus AT the platform about to leave. So I rush in, wallet out, flailing articles mentioned above. Last dreaded Wednesday this was, the day of the big storm. (this last line sounded like old man crazy-face narrating a forbidden tale of unfathomed natural disasters, unrequited love and whales and what not).

So, Wednesday it was, and then I got off at the Penn Station in Manhattan & proceeded to the track 10 escalators. Some shady looking mexicans, breakfast burrito in hand ofcourse, were waiting by the mouth of the escalators whilst everyone is always trying to push through. They were three, as in the three mice or rats (pinch me when this becomes racially incorrect). Surely, I brushed past them, toting my beloved, aforementioned, hot as fudge briefcase on my right shoulder, covering my right-hiney where the wallet rested peacefully (OR DID IT?). From the corner of my eye, I saw the lil critters get on the escalators behind me. I paid no heed. Not a single f**k was given. Then, halfway up the escalators, I felt a nudge of sorts; my bag was pushed. My sixth sense surely tingled & I was going to check my wallet - but the capsule that is the Track 10 escalator & the mob of people prevented me from reaching around my bag.

As I got off, ofcourse, the wallet was missing. I ran down & raced the train so I could tell the driver to stop - it was headed to the yard. In any case, I requested a search, got the train number & the conductor said he'd look and call me if he'd find something. Then, I proceeded to freak out - my permanent resident card, debit cards, even my social security card was in it. Don't ask me why I was carrying all originals everywhere.

So I got a call back, nothing: the conductor said it's clean. However he said a thorough inspection is made at the yard so check with Lost & Found in a day. So I filed a report - and Umme & I settled that it was indeed a pick-pocketing. A certain salsa dippin, tortilla yielding, taco munchin type of pick-pocketing. I filed a report with the police at the station - ofcourse after waiting ten minutes to see if the sniffer dog would leave the station. He didn't. I had to brave it. Not that I had weed laced in my fundies. I just am generally scared of dogs that are more than yay high *holds out pinkie*.

The report was filed, I went to worked, I came back, got stuck in the storm, had to walk a mile in the worst of it, we shivered, we mourned and the snow day that was Thursday was spent in an in-illustrious mood.

Come Friday, this morning. After I parked my car at a few rare dug out, non-5 feet of snow mountain spots - this whitey fat rednecky ass-munch comes out & starts squealing like a demented buck, that it's HIS spot. It's a street. It's not yo-momma's. He kept crying until I told him to get the frak out of my face and stop squealing like bacon. Amidst this clamor, I had to find another parking spot - and the 7:35 train was missed - so I caught the 8:02 one. Which was a good thing.

As I got to Penn station & headed to the Lost'n'Found that I had visited twice before to no avail - It was revealed that I had been at the Amtrak Lost and Found window & not NJ transit. Why the officer didn't mentioned that the last two days - no one really knows.

And thus - sure as sunshine - NJ Transit Lost and Found had my freakin' wallet. All the $76 odd were gone. But the 50 Dirham note was in there. This was the one Mom gave me before she had to leave for Dubai and when me and Umme were moving to Amreeka. So, in some blessed reprieve, it was nestled in there. Thanks Mom :)

Whether the wallet was pick-pocketed or I had dropped it on the train will forever remain, much like most of my friends true paternity, a mystery. Thank God it's F**king Friday indeed.

p.s. Umme: time to pay off yer prayer-debt :P

Keyed Out...

So, I lost the key to my office this morning. Probably on the maddening dash from the NJ Transit terminal to Madison Square Garden. Anywhoo... whilst googling places to get key copies made in the Theatre District in Manhattan, I'm pretty much looking at a 6 minute walk to a well reviewed place called Westside Home Center. Everyone's given them 5 stars except one person who took a star off for the following reason:

And the one star I'm deducting is because of the sketchy guys that sometimes hang out near the register conversing sketchily with the slightly sketchy employees in a language i don't understand. For all i know they're discussing what to get for dinner, but the vibe is always... well, sketchy.

Well, come lunch hour, I will do my best to decipher the "sketchy" conversation, ethnicity and subject matter.

More on this later.

p.s. I've also discovered the slightly disturbing, borderline neurotic obsession of some fetishists for collecting keys