Disfigured

I shooed the pride away

In silence it grew around my neck little by little

So, I curbed it by its neck

It ballooned out of my hand

I waited for it to explode

In silence I heard it roar

And I can’t hear me speak any more.

So, I started humming a tune

From a melodious to a high pitch one

I spoke expressions that gushed out of no one’s land

and wore colours that bloomed

out of the pond of self-conceitedness

Engaged to night in broad daylight

I stand still in front of a mirror

and all I see is a clueless veiled bride

So I take the jewels off my body

I rub the colours off my skin

till I feel the warmth of my own blood

And for a moment, for once, I feel near to me

drenched in the two red; one false and true

And as I look at my hands trying to identify

I realize the loss that I once used to dread

And when the swiveling group of pride stings me

I run to save myself on a road unknown

I know I’ll get lost, I know

I’m thinking of the place where I might land

If I could have my fears fanned

I would stand still and feel each sting

And in my ears, hear the pride ring

The lies it has got for me

I try to hear from distance the warning

Of the flying truth soon to be a bygone

So I close my eyes and I remember

a music that can still reach my ears,

A melody so pure that can meet,

the truth’s seat at a depth inside me,

in a well where both heaven and hell flow

A song that can melt my pride into tears

and smile, honey and brine

A tune that with affection can lift the veil

to smoothen my disfigured face

And I’m hearing it now

a harmony in the chaos

With a curtain that’s not low

I’m seeing clearly a dove

with which, to bliss a melancholy just rose

and a pride glowing with humility

Where’s the disfigured me?

All I now see is splendour

All I now hear is splendour..

image source: www.taschen.com

Rush

We talked, and more often we use to have arguments, unending discussions which used to exhaust our energies but not the content and thoughts fueling our mind. We wrote too, on Microsoft word, on our own tangible old buddy-paper, in diaries and at times we scribbled too on bare walls of our hostel rooms.
Well I’m talking about one of my dearest friends-Pooja Joshi (if I were putting it on facebook, I would have tagged you Pooja!!) whom I recently asked to write a guest post for my blog. And just as I had expected, she came up with a beautiful piece I can decorate my blog with. And here I’m sharing it with you guys.

  
    "Inspired by Each thing I do I rush through so I can do/ something else" - Stephen Dobyns

If I had a single moment to myself each day,
That day would be filled with pain again-
For in that moment I would unquestionably find
That what I'd become is not how I'd begun.

If I had a single chance to take,
That instance would be filled with doubt again-
For in that chance I would not rely,
This what I wanted is not what I need.

If I had a single fibre of courage bestowed,
That strength would slowly waste away
And to that strength I would not hold
For tears taste better to a hopeless soul.

If I had a single hand to hold-
That gesture would be frowned upon,
For in that hand is a touch of kindness-
That guilt would be my ultimate withdrawal.

If I was asked to make a single wish,
That dream I'd seen open eyes would revive,
And in that dream I would want to reside-
For what I rush through is just life.

So don't give me a moment, a chance or courage
Don't lend me a hand or ask for my wish
I don't want to cherish what I can't nourish
I just want to rush through this life.

Image source: http://www.123rf.com

The Embrace

“Show it some mercy, it’s burning in flames

The skin of all hopes is melting;

tell me out of this what do you gain?

Shower it with some relief; it’s scorching under the sun

The soothing peach color has turned into brownish red

Tell me how do you plan to resist your misdeeds’ brunt?

Oh well yes, I’m, talking about myself in third person

That’s because you seem to have some grudge against me for some reason!!”

You see, for an artist, stage is a temple, and performance worship

So this pain that I have been talking to, who has got the stage, does not leave

And I tell it that it has to go away

And I have tried to convey the message, but it simply pays no heed

Yes, it swirls around my bed across the hall of nothing

And the dryness in my eyes

tries to sip its beauty and wrath

The tears entering in my ears cheer its performance

But the curtains have to be drawn, and as I doze

This pain, not giving up, then sits next to me, and waits, swinging to and fro….

I do get some relief while I sleep

And I wish the consciousness won’t greet me again

But I guess even if all the wishes would wish for the same

I would still be made to open the door to the pain

And with a smile on my face

To respect the piece of art that pain puts up with such grace

So I decide, why should I fear the fate

Instead I should join the beauty that has come to my gate

and be the excited audience it deserves to have

So with pricked ankles and bare face

And non fancy fabric in which I’m draped

I give it a standing ovation and clap

As if I were standing in the meadows amidst the colors

that are waiting to be refilled, to be shaded darker

Finally overwhelmed by the response, it embraces me with grief

But my suffering then escalates, after all this is the closest I’ve got with the pain

But then satiated with the response, for a while it takes a break

and the needles are plucked out of my veins

I then bid it a good bye with a sad rendition

It leaves but with a bonding condition

That I shall always cheer for every beauty that I come across

I say ‘yes’, immediately, although with the premonition

That it will be back for the greed of applause

Or perhaps, my pessimism is ballooned

and optimism simply pricked and flawed..!!

image source: http://good-wallpapers.com/abstract/1778

Love is Petering Out…...Really??

All the couples muddling through long distance relationships wouldn’t have had mustered the nerve to sail through the windy sea of The Relationship in the absence of mobile phones, telephones, internet and other telecommunication and transport facilities. OR would they have still gone for it?

Frankly speaking, I don’t know. Nowadays relationships fail to hark back to the antediluvian times when none of the above mentioned facilities existed. In today’s world, we need the constant regular feed ( the facilities) to poke the fire and keep it kindling. Am I mistaken here? Shouldn’t the only feed required be love and the above mentioned facilities be mere (though nowadays important) catalysts?

It would have been such a marvelous thing called ‘Love’ in those days when the Love was both ‘The Entity’ and ‘The Mediator’ within the two and between the two.!!

Are gone those days when there was pillar-strong connection between the two despite the absence of any putative mode of connectivity? Can such love subsist in today’s world? Has the growing connectivity today, actually rendered the strength of love as relatively lilliputian?

But then in the realms of all these questions, rises another one that changes the cusp of the previous questions. What was Love then, in those times? With the distance and no connectivity, how did they care for each other and where was the sharing?

For me love is too mammoth like to be defined or seen in its de facto figure. But there’s one aspect that I vehemently believe in and that is sharing.

I fail to discern that how can love last in the absence of sharing. But then, the fact is that it used to exist then. How and in what form it used to exist is a mystery that still evades me. 

Today, even in the times of multiple networks, love fails to get connected between the two. It definitely needs more than just technology & gizmos. It needs love..

Nevertheless I believe that love should be like a river with continuous flow. The moment it behaves in an ebb and flow manner, it can cease to flow altogether at any time later.

So once it is ignited, pull out all the stops to keep fueling it even while the most dire circumstances and also never abandon it even when prices of the fuels go high!!

                                                          After all for all those who seek love, it’s the raison d'être…!!!

At least I believe love is still there with its intact core nature. I guess, it’s just the times that have changed..or else people would have ceased to seek ‘the Love’…And So,

 It made her touch the sky and fillip the clouds

To hark him against the sweltering summer..

And to meet him she rowed across the river

Even in the cold nights as she shivered

It made her do everything

while doing which earlier she would have quivered

She went against the tide

Her spirits were not dampened nor dithered

But then the angry rains swelled the river

And every second, her life, her love seemed to sink deeper

Her eyes were getting closed, with petering out glimmer

Her heart was cold, with hopes getting dimmer

......But then the sun shone and the clouds disappeared

She was there on the shore and even He was there

After all He too had taken the same route to meet her.........!!

image source: http://shareyourlovelifestoryatthisblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/ldr-long-distance-relationship/

Symphonies-Loved or Illegitimate…

As the fat walls hug you in the lazy afternoon

and no one hears you humming the loud music playing in you earphones

For few moments you ride high on the stout waves of drumbeats

before a  tune strikes you and you pause the music…everything coming to a standstill

You stare impassively at those walls now

as if playing the ‘Game of Statue’ with them,

Now who’s to say ‘Start’, when like walls, you become flabbergasted

Your competitor, the wall,  remains still, but a heartbeat of yours can’t be omitted

So while you lose another childish game, you remember the lost battles of your lifetime

You’ve stopped the music, but the time would stop for no gold no dime,

So you keep sitting fixed onto your bed

In your mind hundreds of times you’ve fled,

and feel the pain in your feet that turned stones red as they had bled,

whilst in the background the same meddlesome music being played……

This powerful can the music you hear be……….

And you’ve to be careful as it makes you climb a tree…

coz it can break your joints if you don’t know how to step your feet back onto the ground

Or else repeatedly falling off the favorite colorful tree, would aggravate the deep blue wound

But I guess, it must be like smoking or other kinds of addiction

Where you stand by it vehemently expecting some kind of exaltation

Or like while flying a kite, your spirits also with which soar,

for which you can stand barefooted on the hot terrace  with your slashed finger ignored

Or like speeding a bike on a long forlorn dusty road,

You cut the air with a countryside/rock music’s blade 

Unperturbed by the palpable dangers clouding around you like a swarm of bees

This stentorian that music can be………

But if it rains how many times do you fear cold

and refrain yourself from sprawling out and getting chilled in downpour

You breathe in the music, as we exhale it in our actions,

The music calms us while at times we fall in for its pretensions,

So we unconsciously stand, as if standing in between a rock and a hard stone

In the case of which it’s better that we sit and enjoy the unpredictable outcome

Either we may live the epitome of our fantasy world

Or we scathe our time by unfolding the fears that were earlier bundled

The feelings that emanate are either like dew drops dripping off the fresh leaves palmed by thirsty ground,

Or it may be grotesque like blood gushing out of a cut throat or a noisome wound

Such are the contrasting outcomes of music that we hear

We taste it, we ravish it, at times we even spew it out

But then we consume it like food, like water, like life

This music dutifully walks along with us, like our life’s wife

Whom we can’t abandon, whose presence in our world is simply ubiquitously rife…!!

Image link: http://www.worldgallery.co.uk/art-print/Symphony-in-Red-and-Khaki-II-21667.html

The Final Flight of the Feathers

Quickly Alma opened the window

A little rain bird flew in and perched itself on the palm of the widow

“What message have you got for me, my bird

through the thunderstorm you have flown to my place

I’ll always take care of you little bird, I give you my word

Just let me know if my son’s alive under grace….!!”

The bird fluttered its white wings till a Golden Feather fell

She held it with her dampening heart and for a while she went pale

Impetuously her eyes, scurried through the words inscribed

Reading which, the life in her revived

True tears of joy streamed down her cheeks, she ardently proclaimed, “He’s Alive!!”

And As I watched her down from here, I was exulted………………………….

She dozed off into her chair, after the bout of forlorn days

She now atleast knew that both she and her son were kissed by the Golden sun rays

As the morning blossomed with the fragrance of sunlight

The rain bird chirped incessantly like a child till she arrived

Alma fed the bird with grains and water

She pampered the bird as if it were her own daughter

She wanted to reap the overgrown past and grow her future

But how could she do it…after all she was a mother…!!!

As I watched her down from here, I missed her warmth, and I shuddered…………………..

Years went by, with her each day, spent on the wings of the bird

Alma recited lullabies to it at nights, she went on living like this unperturbed

And then one day the news of the war stumbled upon her doorway

“The War is Over..!!”, she chirped like a bird..just like the rain bird

She was to meet her son, the twinkle of her eyes

She sewed the future events of his life, for him she had to find a lovely bride

The innocuous bird panicked caged in the incongruous sight

The now fledged bird couldn’t grasp the meaning of Alma’s behaviour

As I watched her down from here , I too feared…………………………!!!

One day it thundered and the tumescent clouds outbursted, as if failed to feign the pain,

Amidst the angst, the bird was caught yet again…!!

Alma this time awaited her daughter, she sat near the window praying

Till the bird flew in , and this time another feather, but a White One, fell out of its vest,

And Alma intuitively picked it up in a haste

It read, “I love you, my mother, and I miss you more than ever

But I want to make you aware, of the fact that my scars have now become fade

The rain outside your window has wet me, but don’t worry, I won’t catch cold

and I can see the sun winning over the sky, and forming the rainbow, it looks just  beautiful from here

but let me confess a lie, that I can no more wear

I had to lie, as you and your daughter were alone and needed to be taken care of ,

When you had met it at first, when the golden feather it had doffed

I had sent it, to you, for you, my Mother..

I was avowed that you would love it the way you would love your daughter

You’ve waited for me for a long time and now that the war is over

Now’s the  time for you to confront the inevitable truth….

the truth of the feathers…………………”

As I watched my mother down from the heaven, I missed her rebukes more than anything else in that world…

She wept helplessly deluged in her grief,

Which I had anticipated earlier and so to save her, I had sent the bird, the little nymph..

Who roosted on my mother’s thin shoulders

The bird chirruped a tune, which it had learnt while crossing the heaven’s borders

As I watched her, down from here, I too hymned the song…

That night I tried to sleep, but grief had thorned my pillow

I then heard a familiar lullaby, soothing me, gliding high from underneath the sky,  from under a willow

I got up and saw the mother’s beautiful face cupped on her palm, looking out of the window

She didn’t drag the grief anymore, she had learnt to bid farewell to the yore

She was singing the lullaby, for me, like always she had in my childhood

She knew, that she alone had the power to heal my scars

And so, As my mother watched me, up from her house, her eyes shone

I was freed from the heaven, freed from the insatiable heart borne

I then finally winged my Golden Feathers, to Fly Higher… to diffuse into the White Dawn…….