departure at 27

James Marshall Hendrix (Nov 27, 1942 - Sep 18, 1970) - Barbiturates OD
- 27 years 9 months
Janis Joplin (Jan 19, 1943 - Oct 4, 1970) - Heroin OD
- 27 years 8 months
James Douglas Morrison (Dec 8, 1943 - July 3, 1971) - Heart Attack?OD'd?
- 27 years 6 months
Kurt Cobain (Feb 20, 1967 - Apr 5, 1994) - Shot himself?Murdered?
- 27 years 1 month

in a world of cliches
and beaten defeated roads
you defied the rules
you challenged the gods

on a comet's tail
you streaked across the sky
and crossed all the frontiers
did you know
did you see then
all that fame and fortune
did you dream then
your own deaths too

when you invoked the magic
with your words and melodies
when heaven and earth was set ablaze
and the jealous gods raged

in a flash, in a blink
darkness descended
faiths were betrayed
and dreams were stolen

the songs' over
the fires have died
all's gone, gone too soon
requiescat in pace

changes

Last week, i met two friends after about 6 years.

Both of them are married and one of them has a kid already. We had lunch together, we talked about the old times, we talked about our other friends - what they are doing and where they are.

The names conjured up images and memories enclosed within the quotes of another space and time. I also saw my 2 friends and their wives. I have known these women too, since the time they were going out with my friends. What happened? What really happened to all of them?

They have changed and I expected that. But not this!!

We studied our engineering together. One of them was into classic rock; he was also into books and guitars. These days, he reads self-help books, listens to pop and doesn't play the guitar at all. The other was a very thin guy who didn't smoke or drink. Now he does both. The worst part is that they are into these new things and ideas without the same old passion they once had.

All of them had grown fat too.

Have they all changed for love or for themselves? Or has society conspire this change so that they will look and think alike the so-called majority?

Then they turned to me. You haven't changed at all. When will you stop listening to rock music? When will you stop reading those 'serious' books? When will you stop changing your girlfriends? When will you mellow down? You are born in the wrong country!!!

I don't have the answers for that, my friends, and I can't promise anything. We'll meet again someday, somewhere. And when we do, I hope I still can recognize that old friend of mine. Change is inevitable but please don't give up your passions and your 'old familiar' smiles coz these are the things I will remember about you. And these are the only things that will identify you when the cruel hands of time give you another man's face and skin. Till we meet again, my dear friends.

untitled

they came
dark, silent and heavy
and i looked up
searching for hope
in a heaven gone black

life beckoned
my spirits flew
my soul's quiet
...i'm waiting for the rain

lines from Kerouac

Love the Beatnik poets and writers, and these quotes by Kerouac's are amongst my all time favourites:

The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing,
but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars
and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop
and everybody goes "Awww!"

Oh little Cody Pomeray if there had been some way
to send a cry to you even when you were too little to know
what utterances and cries are for in this dark sad earth,
with your terrors in a world so malign and inhospitable,
and all the insults from heaven ramming down
to crowd your head with anger, pain, disgrace,
worst of all the crapulous poverty in and out of every splintered door of days,
if someone could have said to you then,
and made you perceive,
"Fear life, but don't die; you're alone, everybody's alone.
Oh Cody Pomeray, you can't win, you can't lose, all is ephemeral, all is hurt."

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy,
even bored solitude in the wilderness,
finding himself depending solely on himself
and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.