Monday, November 24, 2014

Lucifer

I was a flower, out in the sun,
Wilting and withering, torn by the wind,
I was a rainbow, across a sea,
I looked at the ocean, it mangled my face,
Then I grew wings, an eagle in the sky,
Casting my shadow on a minuscule world,
Sailing so high, fire on my back,
Breaking my strings, I jump from the stage
Pointed fingers, they roll their eyes,
An impudent puppet, a master displeased
Murmurs and whisperings, perched on a branch,
I shed my petals, I grow iron scales,
I was a flower, I was a bird,
I was an angel, now a ball of falling light,
Somewhere along, nova explodes,
I look at the ocean, find myself no more,
Once a flower, no longer scorched,
Nothing can burn me, I own my own songs.

Disowning Sorrow

Sorrow wanders my courtyard
And calls to me like a crying child,
Lost in my happy chores, I'm ruffled
by the sound of its clinking anklets,
At night, my dreamless sleep
is broken by sorrow that
calls out to me from its crib,

It looks at me longingly,
With sad eyes and hungry lips,
My soul over brims,
I give in and cradle it fondly,
Sorrow then cackles,
showing it's toothless gum
And feeds on my bosom,
And goes off to sleep...

Freefall

It is hardly ever the heart that breaks. It is reality that falls like a raindrop on a hard black rock and scatters, silently, in all directions. I have cupped a tear in the palm of my hands in an attempt to capture and to break the fall of such a reality predestined to doom.


When love exited, life crashed and splashed like the water balloons I used to drop as a child from terrace tops. In the freefall of love there are no cushions, no pillows. Only the sound of the rapid impetuous wind under your ears and the sight of the blue sky growing farther and farther as you plunge into your peace. The first touch of the ground devoid of sound and then, the impact and then the slow surge of pain that consumes every inch of your flesh. The metallic taste in your mouth that comes with the colour of love. Then the vision blurs. The blue sky fades out. And temporarily you escape from the cuffs of an inescapable reality.


Love is freefalling. A leap of faith. A back dive where you keep your eyes not on the inevitable ground but on the wishful blue canvas and the white clouds that appear so harmless. On this screen you project your aspirations that find their roots in an incorrigible faith that you shall not hit the ground, that the rush of blood, the thrill of falling won't spill out of your guts when you lie sprawling, broken and  mangled on the rocks of life.  One   fine day the white clouds that looked like peaceful idyllic sheep, will grow fangs, pounce on you and make you jump out of your skin. Love is freefalling. And you, an angel kicked out of paradise, unaware of its reality, enjoying the fall momentarily.  

Disintegration

A fallen leaf, in the month of December,
Everyday you wither,
Sitting comfortably in the
inner chamber of my remembrances,
Bereft of light.


Like once,
Under a banyan tree,
we picked and marvelled
at the dry net of brown viens,
of what was once a heart shaped leaf
after the cruel ravishes of time.


You held it against my face, smiling,
Entrapping a moment, a smile
in that transparent heart
Losing itself to the womb of gaea


Now you, a memory, losing flesh,
losing colour, losing life,
Reduced to a bundle of veins,
Clinging loosely to a skeletal frame,
A face behind a withering leaf,
Disintegrating, undone.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Resignation

Resignation has found its way into my heart,
Like a larvae that drills its way into the core of a bud,
It has eaten into me layer by layer,
If I were to bloom now, the sky would peer into me through these holes
it has left in my being,
If I were to bloom, my scent would leave its after-scent,
From where I have fallen all I can see is blue,
The warmest colour, as they say,
Hardly,
I whisper into my solitude, my sighs
boomerang through time, and
break against the walls of my life,
Every thought is an unwelcome intrusion,
Into this stupor,
like a hermit crab, defensive, possessive,
I shall secure this shell,
So when resignation drills its holes,
I still have a home to hide....

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Verge


Sitting by a French parlour,
sipping champagne,                                       
He speaks to me,
most polished, so sophisticated                       
Classy, like the fountain we saw
earlier by a bridge,            
A crystal glass, off white pearls,
water touching them gently,
like his fingers touching mine,
Clean nails, everything is so refined about him,
Like a king he speaks, like an emperor he walks
                                                    
His eyes catch the sun and my heart is on fire,
He drinks, ever so tenderly, such lips, my god,
A drop of water, clings jealously to them, refusing to let go,
My heart is now a waterfall,    
lashing mercilessly into boulders,
breaking into foam, freefalling,
He asks me where my thoughts stray,
I smile, he smiles...


And my heart, on the verge, breaks in a frenzy,
A third world savage dancing with pitchforks, 
And love, a bloodshot eye in the night,
Staring at me, hungrily, through the dark...








Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The Giant Universe. And then, me.

I stare at the sky. At times like this when I am made aware of my place in this giant universe. The ever expanding cosmos, the endlessly revolving heavenly bodies, comets, planets and lesser mortals like myself trapped on such celestial rocks. The space inside me contributes to the universe. Like a grain of sand on a seashore. Small and separate yet a part of it.


Sometimes I battle with my keen awareness of such a separation. An alienation of sorts. I feel the pressure build inside my lungs, strain the organic tissues and I find the need to scream into the night half hoping to hear a voice calling back to me. But such is life, people caught in their own doings. A mass and yet all alone individually. Sands on the seashore of day to day living.


There is a void. And the cosmic rule dictates no void be left alone. But one has few choices when a void resides within a peculiar shape carved into one's heart. Nothing fits. The air flows through. The water sinks in. And the earth is lost on the wind.


I am disappointed. Surprisingly, over and over. If there are lessons, I choose to ignore them. Unlearn them to preserve the essence of the being that is me. I paint on water, powder my days and let them loose on the wind. I look at stars and search for reaffirmation that there is indeed some purpose. Some grand scheme. God's giant infallible plan as those who believe say. Something that validates this monotonous repetitive cycle of misery and fleeting happiness. A pathological need for meaning pervades my thinking. My mind is colonised by my necessity to make sense of what I am and what it is that I find myself in. I resort to philosophy and science. I find dead ends and circles. The road never ends. I am walking. Different roads, same journey. Different musings, similar conclusions.


Why live? Why wait for Godot? I dont understand. And that bothers me. How do you manufacture meaning when there is none ? How do you blend when you are a grain of sand ? What if there is no death ? Only living, day after day, over and over. A cyclical life in which at some point your mind and body returns to day number one and the whole life up until then is repeated.

It depresses me. And I consider shaving my head, shedding my clothes and walking off into the Himalayas. But who am I kidding, I know I don't have what it takes to be a wandering ascetic. Even when I feel alienated I am deeply intrigued by that which I am alienated from. I can't and probably wont ever understand life. But I can't detach myself from it.  Perhaps in there lies the core of my problems. Perhaps.

I think of people I love. Are they real? Or did I make them up ? How sad would it be if I was the cosmic god who set up a pipe dream within a fractured reality to escape his/her excruciating cosmic loneliness. It is one of the reasons I rule out suicide. That would be too much of a disappointment. Most of the times I tell myself, let's see how far this goes. Perhaps tomorrow I would attain some higher meaning and be the next Buddha in town.

That would be nice. Halos have always fascinated me. Wonder who came up with that. When I find myself slipping into a despondent lunatic search for meaning and company I ask myself to take a break and deal with it. Then I try to deal with it. Obsess on dealing with it. And then dealing with it in itself becomes a problem I have to deal with.

Perhaps this is where sanity breaks. Perhaps meaning resides at the heart of insanity. When rationality fails to please the mind I find solace in my own irrationalities. And then I feel jealous of rocks. It must be so easy to be one. The life of a rock. Always at peace. Perhaps.