(click on the picture to enlarge)but that particular sky’s fealty
and obeisance that I pay,
I stay calm
amidst persistent shrieks -
confident of managing (with)
my resources shoestring;
I stand augured
to allegiance of this sky
and this soil that holds
legends of vassal’s pinions
and their flights
to absolved freedom.
Saturday December 29, 2007 is the date that this post records. Two days to go when earth will again complete its customary journey round its beloved sun. It’s surprising how someone else’s attraction, infatuation or loving journey stimulates all and every one of us in some way or the other. There wouldn’t be anyone who can claim not to have been impacted by their love story. Mine has been too.
Time (simply) flies by as seasons change their attire. And with it I too add another chapter to my life with words written in coloured pencils. Sometimes these words speak with thunder and I become aware of my somnolent senses and sometimes these words have soporific influence upon me helping me sleep with unrealised dreams .... Sometimes I erase them from pages of my indolent life and sometimes I add a few words to glorify ....
I have always believed in living life the way I want. Imitation is the best form of flattery and I somehow never wanted to flatter anyone by imitating them. When I look back at my life twenty years down the road, I hope I look back with pride for having lived it the way I wanted … for taking my own decisions …. for growing every second my own way … for living every dream that I dreamt of … for a journey that was mine, influenced by me and my circumstances .... (every year it is a persistent endeavor to realise this latent desire).
2007 had so many scenes in this artful play of life interwoven with brilliant contrasts … the contrasts that made me sit back and admire the beauty of life … contrasts that sometimes made me laugh with its facetious remarks …. contrasts that sometimes had the impact of a choir singing a complicated and elaborate psalm …. and contrasts that sometimes whacked me with its indignation. I cogitate upon the discoveries that I have made and sometimes exult with sheer joy in the prospect of a new season or in the reprisal of a winter that will surely pass away.
2007 also taught me new ways to living alone. Taught me the distinction between lonely and alone and how the way I feel is what translates into phrases that my life writes. Such a practice as keeping a smile on the face even in the light of cold, prosaic or matter of fact circumstances that time presents elevates poignant mind from the shackles of peccant Angles to the sacerdotal hymns of Vedas.
It is difficult to paint on a canvas scattered with colours that hasn't come from your own brush. For those who endeavors to build something out of it and succeeds, there is a different dawn that awaits them. Those who at least try even without succeeding, there is a different horizon that is drawn on that canvas and for those who never tried, the colours will read and behave in the same fashion and manner that the canvas dictates. Lessons learnt in managing expectations of one’s ownself and the loved ones is something that I will cherish along with the skills of saying ‘no’ the right way.
Overall as with other years, 2007 brought the same unexpected successes and failures. Neither of them have made me learn to be more excited than I am as it is with life nor have they made me learn to be disappointed and loose faith in the same magic that is called life.
Failure that awaith me
Failed me again -
Awaith the success
Success never came...
Both success and failure in its dualism never had a cognitive impact on my senses. That is perhaps why I am never overjoyed or depressed … perhaps because of the realization that both failures and successes are cyclical in their existence and come what may I can never control the results of the events. What I can do is try and I hope I continue to do that. Belief in life is different from belief in destiny. Destiny is nothing if I don’t give it a try.
Destiny … that’s not life
In every semblance of doubt that bores
A yes or perhaps a no …. But then
For every wrong, would life have made it right
Even without that one single try
Would it still be destined if I had not
Given it an honest try.
I am sure 2008 will be as uncertain and as unpredictable as all these years have been in the past. And I wish it brings with it a list of hopes that will continue to mark my being. Hope that 2008 is another chapter like all of the 26 previous ones that will help me become more aware of my own existence.
I also hope that 2008 makes you all believe in life … let you dream and promise endeavors that will help you realise those dream. Have a great year end and a fantastic new year.
(virtually unseen
abstractly close
this persistent insanity
of consistent rows)
or, let me write another phrase
to better describe
your consistent gaze
and close the loop
forever of those
swift, brief, sharp, -
frozen moments;
your eyes withheld …….
(my eyes bemoaned)
holding your glares ---
kissing the sledding airs ----
(or rather better
let’s leave it
for some other day
or for some other time)
hope -
embracing earth’s root
nurturing life that sows,
animating and living -
and growing beyond
it’s own hold,
with thrift …
hope -
wrapped under espionage,
binding and unfolding -
spreading tentacles,
growing beyond
sustaining grit …
I have seen it there
once more as always
calling my name
sans censure
intoxicating
my vision ….
found him with open arms
when I looked around
standing as always
undemanding
smiling back
awaiting …
hope that sows life ---
life that sowed hope ---
let us redo your day
and
make night seem our again;
(- let us redo your day ….)
when air in its subtle coldness
smells the querulous play -
on a day bereft of sun
bathes in clouded rain ...
often found you looking through
pale winds caressing the flowers
breathing wry paints on window sills (and)
making little boxes of yellow dreams ....
(- let us make our night again ....)
when on incongruous pathways
where through leaves in the woods
lay the pebbles that you picked -
realigning your fragile senses ...
(- and )
as I hold on to few drops of your smile
between fingers of my closed palm
holding the stirring chirps in the sky
of countless birds flying away ....
- I await your consent to fly today …
let us begin by redoing your day
and
making the night seem our again ;
Music flows randomly across the room trying at it’s best to inveigle the mind and it’s surrounding. The book that lay on the table yearning for a touch now no longer looks concerned … it has given up on its reader since early morning. The bed that is tired of it’s occupant looks messy … desiring … wanting … expecting some breathing space but even that seems to be a distant dream. It has to wait for tomorrow - the beginning of another week …. another sun ….. another horizon.....
contradictions like this passage
in black fathomable words
capers through
flanks of a mountain
on the far west side,
the Zephyr marching
with a pleasant smile;
the mighty but pleasant
oh! No not again -
with your ever penchant
puff for contradictions
look not to rein …
on this fine frosty night
lets make a toast again;
and as temporary -
and as transitive -
the snow melts;
and fluxional contradictions
that mired this passage -
have dissolved into making
deliberate summers again …
what do I repine
for what claim I lie
or for whose claim
shall I lie
that what was yours -
was never mine.
drops that form pearl
in the depth of bed
or was it mud
that swung by the bay
for what shall I claim -
that was never mine.
what do I repine
at quests that ain’t quench
the sun ... the sky
or sudden respite
the steps that shan’t alight -
never meant to … not mine.
It is time to do my first tag. It is a writing meme tag from Priya. She had tagged me some time back and I just could not get myself to complete it. Well better late than never :)
I started this blog a year back and I was clueless as to what I should be writing here. It was more of just having a blog than with any specific purpose (intent). I used to write on current affairs and delete them after sometime (Don’t ask me why). I started writing regularly when I was in Hong Kong more to ensure I avoid spending the phenomenal time in front of television. As it is, I was (am) an agoraphobiac and there was this huge danger of me succumbing to this even further. Not that blogging has helped in getting over that (this) tendency but it has certainly helped in not assuming a gargantuan proportion and at the same time adding some diversity in otherwise same routines and surroundings.
Thus to cut a long story short active blogging started more as a means of distraction (digression or diversion) and (not to forget) the constant bickering of my university friend Triparna who nagged me to death as to why don’t I start writing poetry again (I used to be an active member of my school/college/university literary clubs (those days were different when one had so much time on hand, sighs!)). So the first poetry that’s there on this blog is something that I had written in my high school. All others are daily nonsense :)
Well over the period I found some direction and this blog turned more of a poetry blog as I regained my passion to scribble again.
I have got no structural knowledge of poetry and hence feel most of my work is nonsensical but then I enjoy jotting down these daily nonsense that make me think beyond the ordinary. It has become such a destresser and at the same time such a passion. Thank you all for bearing my nonsensical scribblings with me.
Now we come to the most important part. Five reasons to write:
Now someone needs to be tagged and I will let it pass. There are very few people that I know in this blog world and I am not sure that they will pick up this tag. If anyone who reads this wants to share their reasons to write please feel free to take up this tag and just let me know.
her smiled deceived
dismissive indeed
bashful and conceited
when she didn’t see;
tacit ... enterprising ....
courageous nonetheless
touch me nay
she says always;
lest her shyness succeed
hidden from treasures I see
she turns helpless
her distance beyond my reach;
by mere design
awkward indeed
vigorous with life (when)
sees no one in sight ….
That’s only a prelude I thought stately
But wafting through whispering winds
And the loveless trees’ desires
I saw your settling glean
Healing my wounds
To vitality again;
And as death bestowed on barley sheaves
And weary worn out skies bequeathed
In the waning hours of my time
I heard your jouncing steps
Summoning my desire
To live again….
The two arms grab
or holds in embrace
the capacious time
awaits in earnest ….
Arms that supplied
the sutler -
loading his mule, with
provisions for future;
Or the suitor
whose roses poor, with
damsel yearning, for
ere life … wastrel dear;
Or the wren
slender, tender, rounded
whose songs so rich .. alas!
unrelated .. so many .. so poor;
Most of the times, lifeless do breathe life into our very listless life ….
Sometimes you simply do not know what has hit you … And most of the times you survive the phase that momentarily you would have ascribed to been the worst crash of your life …
Do we need to analyze every gnome feeling that surrounds us … Can’t we just let it pass the night test and see what the morning beckons …..
Restless fugacious times seldom understands balance of emotions. Emotions …. boundless emotions. Or emotions …… boundary less emotions. Emotions that knows not how to house. Emotions that seldom recognizes sounds ….
Again my experiences or memories abound
sketches peccant paths and astute sounds
redirects where I seldom visit
roads left behind or rather entwined;
And I keep walking unknowingly or perhaps like
most of the times, in my own glacial silence
under stentorian skies and its trenchant cries
walking through voltaic journeys ….. galvanizing life;
the wave’s lies
and shore’s cries
the eddying seas
and blank skies
thus she died with fallen desires
crouched in a squatting attire
and continued servilely
on path to uncertainty
waited for a moments thirst
to quench un-necessity
and questioned her lust
to seek eternity
the moon forms
and shore awaits
the tides gnaw
and skies adore
thus the path back to home
her realization of unsung desires
she had asked for a piece of night
when days awaited her in full sight.
he looks over the paling fence
of my mind and heart
searching where I live by;
looking across the grassy yards
breaks my inner most thoughts
into boxes of several placid cards;
and through several graffiti miles
the effulgent rays penetrates
and rocks upon the rocking chair
lying beside my veranda’s despair;
it’s not the same today
it’s not the same
it’s some other sun
that has found its way.
When I thought about you last night -
or was it more like a dream
like beads of rain drops
caressing the moon
in a luminous muse;
You walked across the room -
like frail clouds treading
carefully the rasorial path
for awaited on the other end were
season’s chasm of monsoon skies;
You sat beside me holding my gaze -
like ribbons of moiré
over several gnome ambitions
sewed together
in a singular pattern;
Now that you have come -
stay with me and my times
like deserts' desire
of -
their oasis dreams.
on the other side of the fence,
a seethed road
laid open and wide;
chaotic,
with meretricious noises
and -
overbearing crowd;
my irascible mind
as always,
remains effervescent
in lost sounds.
and there -
in a high pitched tone
the cicada ceaselessly sings
on a night driven by roads;
his desperations
too evident to note.
What amuses me is the secret that I hold
a secret that only I know
secret that treads
as I walk on roads.
Beneath the moist monsoon soils
the leaves clutter and chatter
making me wonder -
do they too know.
The quivering trees too beat -
the sounds of cluster ....
amongst themselves
and the pulsating winds.
The wind that smells distinct
far more today, letting off something -
is it just me -
or something like disaster knocking.
The wind that blows the tide
over and over on the other side
must have marked the land
with signs of sticky sand.
I know they know the secret
but they shan’t say, I assured
only the ladybird sings
but in a dialect unheard.
What amuses me is the secret that I hold
a secret that I think only few know
translucent ... blatant secret
that hopes sow.
on an otherwise inveigh night
see I could still see ….
anew … of only
me and you;
Your body painting
with the innate brush
of my folded fingers;
Firm smooth paints -
and turpentine grease -
filling sense of your fragrance
slow stroking shocking lush
and sudden lurch of sea side rush;
My body craving
for the sustaining love;
Or is it aspersed lust -
to make up for something
that bears close resemblance;
But then red will red
and white will be white
forever with or without
the sprinkled thrust;
Our thrust ….
Your … mine … ours ….
When clouds rain -
And unabashedly so;
Who cares for cries of wolf?
Its the life - -
Life that rains -
In no time frame.
In baskets of several tears;
Happiness counts stratus pebbles
And Bliss is dear;
And Dearer counts -
It’s those moments rather
Sweeter than sour.
Let me try, if not reach-
Over the spire steep;
Who but me will count -
The scattered drops
Of my fallen sweat.
A folly is someone's gain
I thought it ignored me
of reasons only better explained.
Ethnic enclave ruined under besiege
seldom an uncommon spectacle -
of all creed …. frenzied herds of sheep.
Normalcy was soon gone
envious of its zealous friend -
abnormality masters how to reign.
Only when I thought
who needed a shelter to brave -
rooted off my own feet – surrendered and dead.
When pillows rumour of traitorous bed sheets
the blanket stands guard to the night,
The old blanket of yesteryears
still holds fragrance of our stride.
Almost like every other day,
the night looks upon pariah moon
and the braggart stars remembers its light,
When on an otherwise windy day
your skin for the first time smelt as mine.
The lights themselves were no more bright
and the sea rode the heavens and skies,
Conspired to coup de grace, and
through boundless surge of putsch
I was held forever in a moment’s veil.
Your touch is what I live for
it wasn’t indeed a night alone -
for I am no longer the same as before;
Like sods I wear upon your open heart
for all seasons of yesteryears to behold.
Don’t call me by names
Or by any means
In far deserts where I live
Beyond those continents I see
The mirage of my nascent dreams.
Don’t wake me up
Let me sleep
Just for another night; where
Dreams dance unsynchronized
And winds bear joyous whims.
Yes the cembalo breathes distinct
But I still need your swing
To feel subtle resonances
And in perpetual happiness do I see
The crystal shines of icy mountains.
Through chthonic realms of night
Dance ebulliently over effete dark
Hold me close as snail’s shells
My moment arrives over clapping shades.
Rise today through the strips of vim
Meander through ribbons of streams
Over the strings of anonymous rays
Let me grab a piece through gazelle’s rings.
I now see it through verdant hills
Then over the jouncing sea strips
Yes it’s here round that corner
Playing the regular hide and seek.
And I wait patiently ....
And I wait expectantly .....
Through silence of moon -
It will surely arrive soon.
He scoffs at the letters I wrote
And sometimes smiles angrily
My questions gauche
He bothers not to answer….
Belief mostly has no substance. Like fluidity of water it can flow like a stream often running the risk of crossing the path of other streams. It mostly takes the shape of an individual’s perceptions. There are certain beliefs that I never question. Courage is often a recluse and truth is repulsive. I never question the Truth. It is something that is beyond my capacity and I intend not to indulge in this blasphemy. Someone fashions over a drink to be atheist and often emphasizes the relativity of belief and exactness of science. Few questions that such vertical stream of education fails to answer is put sorely on psychometric conditions. They always seek an answer and I seek never to question.
It’s that moment
when winds have changed
and days have merged
into its inseparable night again;
I stand between
winds and fire of time
and wait for the Father
and His judgment today;
Munificent as days have been
I add the same to this night
Amidst several jejune thoughts
“Am I afraid?” I ask;
And repeatedly …..
“Am I afraid?” I ask myself
……
“Am I afraid?” I keep asking myself
…….
It was around three in the noon, I remember
distinctly ... quite a few stammers coming forth,
on an otherwise hot sultry afternoon
the office seemed astoundingly cold.
I couldn’t understand the lingo, even her grammar
seemed fractured beyond my recognition;
but she kept murmuring from a patch of dark coloured
urban monument sans the natural conscience.
A frown that seemed alien to my continent sneered
with wry punctuation to my very predicament;
no she never intended to inveigle and come to my doorstep
teasing every moment with her unrecorded address.
If I resisted her calling it would surely have been a sacrilege
I followed its path, yet mindful of boasting my intelligence
under the sky that seemed so relentless, .... I stood
there with my open arms; …. but it wasn’t exactly raining yesterday.
It’s your fragility that compels me
to be continuously afraid of you;
Breathing your space between my netherworld
could I be brought back to life like that,
your slightest touch is my memory
beneath the tumulus lies buried;
Perceptions vary the understanding between us,
of all the wishes that I were to ever encounter
the vein that bloods the earth and reaps its harvest
would never scorch the field barren;
I am afraid to even touch you; your fragility
compels me to be afraid of you; if you can
just enclose me for the moment and
many moments more borne out of you.
Love is the thought without wings
Over the mist flies absentmindedly
In eyes that behold, a framed picture
Sans horizon and boundaries ashore.
Over those roads of emotions
Sweet waves of reflection walk
Who determines the antecedent
When ebbs follow moonlit night.
Alas! The wise men thorough
Examined the ignorance before
Time and again love claimed
If only it could ever be blamed.
Breathes into frugal animation
Awaken me thou wind
Blow over to the fields
Through bracing essence
Invigorate my presence.
Take me high
Over those mountains that lie
Bring me closer
To the heaven that’s out of sight
Will you last long
Oh! Thou wind stay for the song.
Breathe through me
Come let’s walk a mile
With nothing on mind
A promise I wouldn’t ask for more
I intend to smile after you go.
It has been a while
With abundance of distraction
Concentration hasn’t been wild.
Give me a moment
Let me complete chores
And my unfinished task.
One of the hot words these days is work-life balance (one of those management coined terms). It wasn’t very long ago that I wrote as comment to one of my post that writing and reading is becoming increasingly difficult with the pressures of work. That got me thinking to this whole concept of work-life balance and how patronizing it is to life itself.
Everything that we do is part of life. So how can work-life be different from life itself? Isn’t working a part of life? Isn’t it as integral to our existence as everything else? Just because we have fun doing something else, does it mean fun is life and because work ensures that we compromise our time to “fun” mean work is external to life?
This whole attitude also gives rise to negativism towards work. I have so often read film star saying that it is fun to be paid for doing something that you love. This statement makes all other clerical and back office job seem deglamorised and abhorrent. Why can’t they simply say they get paid for doing what they do the best? As an accountant my skills are specialized. I can’t just go ahead and do something else that others do the best. Finance is best that I can do and that’s how I earn my livelihood. It is also my earnest belief that we all find means of earning from what we know how to do best. And if we do that best why not better enjoy it.
On a very personal level I enjoy my work. I enjoy dedicating my time and energy to what shapes my present and future. Yes along with it I also enjoy doing some things else. And my comment on my post set me thinking can I continue to do other things along with work and have a more satisfying day than just doing work.
All that was required was a little more planning and allocation of time. The result has been satisfying. I have practically been able to scribble my nonsense all through this week. I have caught up on my newspaper reading, my books, music, solitaire(I play it on my iPod on way to office), devote time to my research paper which is lying incomplete for sometime (I just started it and left it in between) and read my favourite pages on blogospheres. I have also caught up with long lost friends and have finally managed to complete a book that I had been reading for two months now. Yes a little less sleep but honestly I am not complaining.
Mother I want but still don’t
to know what’s conspicuous,
Conscious of the surround
and the world egregious,
With morning would it seem
all is worth hollow and capricious.
.......
Mother will you still
love me the way you do,
Now that I am you
tomorrow with form
that would no longer
hold me to you.
Mother will I remember
the dreams of your eyes
and unhold penurious minds;
Will I live to be obsessed
with light and will you
name me for the sight.
....
Mother I will see the world
through my nascent dreams
borne with me and
revel in the light ....
wallow through blood and
await the moment to arrive.
……..
Mother my acquaintance
has been long for world
he who knows will abide; and
The laconic small fellow
will remember what you read
to him all this while.
No I don’t remember
Your unpracticed grace
The aversion to conquest
Testifies my bequest.
Through the fissure of time
The surfeit of emption ruled
Even after - perilous churl
I decree all that you see.
Till not very recently contradictions used to irritate me a lot. It wouldn’t be too harsh to say that I abhorred contradictory statement coming from the same individual. But then we all grow in life. Sometimes the evolution is faster than envisaged and undermines the dictates of history. Such is also the contradiction of human mind. You never know what it might pick up down that unknown alley of future and when it would convert those misdemeanors into undisputable beliefs.
Somehow contradictions no more seem unnatural to me. Irritations at contradiction have melted away into acceptance of that which is unnatural. Today the colours of mind are no longer mired in black and white. The vagrancy of grey has come to stay with me.
He would refuse not but once
To tergiversate from the known
A man his age will learn
From eternal conquest
To lionize change
At every single stage …..
Sustenance in vagrancy is admirable
Only if I am able to reach
The definition that I seldom seek
In contrast I indulge and not live
In the relativity of moments
The meaning of which I seldom seek
The thrust of water and the thrust of blood
Both without colour worth that soul
Lust for heaven and of love decreed
That’s the life I have stopped to seek.
The veil of caresses never seem to leave
the semantic of our relationship over unwritten
unsaid, unheard and unspoken language.
…..
Left with a distance that never seemingly mattered -
on this other side of the world, - I wish a little
just a little, ..... after a long lost time
for another life, ... mirrored with you.
I remember those escapades willingly and wanting to
on those benches where questions were answered
with unanswerable questions …..and yet no complaints
ever followed the understanding that preceded every context.
On that night all along, when you were beside me,
basking in the light of that unsung crescent moon;
your soft touches and playful quibble
arrested my senses … devoid of percepts.
……
Boorish bacchanalia tortures my heart
and erotic exorcism fails to soothe my soul
entwined in conjured spirit of your spells
I am bewitched, all my way to the hell;
Splatter of blood all across the veins,
running tumultuous in frantic frenzied rain
as fire lights the sky and burns the moon dead
I cry foul over thy larceny, to dead ends;
......
Languid lethargic winds -
show some respect,
when thunder strikes within -
how can you be so suppressed,
banished chimera -- rise
I command you to rise -
once she sees thy ...
If I wished for another life
amidst these gibes of lonely pillows
and neatly tucked bed sheet
it wouldn’t be for anything ---
for anything without you.
I look timidly from the window panes
Descrying the stretch of open vastness
Or is that the omen I am looking for -
The caw of the crow over running rooftops
The cusps of this nightmare
Occludes the path of that dream
Or is that the omen I am looking for -
Over the roads where chariots rolls on
In the four corners of this walled rooms
Obedience servitudes unnecessary veneration
Or is that the omen I am looking for -
To reinstate my abnegated freedom.
The house behind the backyard
Found and lost to macerate
In open fields the shadows lurk
Of interdicted foolish murky souls ...
Shadows lead path to my heaven
The credulous house withal
With soft dripping renditions
And sermons less unattended songs ...
Pause … look … Wait on the road
Hear shallow …. slow profundity
The house smeared with black paints
And impressive impersonated self gains ...
What a folly on a wee bit morning night
The teasing shadows of moonlit sky
Haven of consolation for lonely departed souls
In the backyard of the house with closed doors.
Into the moulds of sea moss
I lurched in the unwarranted
dusty laden storm, across
the thrust of rocky ledges
lay essence of dead grasses.
I followed its footsteps
from muskeg to muskeg,
perished in the storage
of peat and smoke, I walked
slowly, with weltered questions ….
Once a tree, the girth of the log
I could embrace with shame, today
its befallen pride lay dead
in a cabal of destiny or shall I say
observe … His matter of fact play ….
A desire .. a dream …
Not often for being
Clipped off its wings
In an aviary the pigeon lie
Dreaming some day to fly
What if I stopped dreaming someday just because I thought even without giving it a try worth it’s salt that the dream wouldn’t be realized.
For every dream that I give up, I loose an entire life. I wish I could be like the pigeon some day who can dream even when it is in a cage, even when its wings are clipped, even when it knows it cannot fly, but still holds a desire that it can … one day …. perhaps some day ….
Who knows what holds, who holds and for what
The clodhopper perambulates the dim lit lanes
And breeds a yeoman far more succinct
Than the prig on his way to a school
Destiny.. that’s not life,
That’s not what soul had engendered
That’s not life without its own karma
That’s not the soul that had betrayed my decision
That’s not life if only it was ever to be destined.
Destiny … that’s not life
In every semblance of doubt that bores
A yes or perhaps a no …. But then
For every wrong, would life have made it right
Even without that one single try
Would it still be destined if I had not
Given it an honest try.
a single branch of hawthorn
gropes across the bushes ...
summer sky above,
my eyes looked on indecently
awakened in the emblazoned pond
