You have entered my life uninvited. You were not supposed to come in inspite of the incessant airing of your thoughts. But you did or were it me who allowed? Don’t know. The boundaries where you crossed and I permitted are bleak.
Your arrival brought about sensations that I didn’t realize still resided in me. An unusual stance for me who tries to be stoic. Cant grapple with the feelings; trying to grasp for reasons to overcome these thoughts but coming up empty. For once the heart and the mind seem to be singing in unison. The operative word being ‘seem’.
The energy palpable from you has morphed in me and you seem bare. The love that emanated from you has resided in me and made you barren. The adoration that you showered has engulfed me and left you desolate.
Besides the love, the energy, the feels, the sighs of smiles, the slight touch of the hand grazing by, the glances when no one is looking, the pecks that get goosebumps rearing their heads, the continual exchange of expressions that we indulge in, the one thing that I have derived out of this unusual stance is the return of words to me.
Words I love, words I breathe, words I lie in, words I sing, words I skip on, words I spring to, words, words, words. They are quintessential to me. And since I have professed to you, I humbly offer you a few of them.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Milestone
Life keeps moving on surely and silently,
Nothing stops the wheel of life until eternity.
Absorbed we remain in our daily pursuits,
Our fear, our passions, our loves and dislikes,
Remain as tangible as our silhouettes,
Soon we only exist and forget to live our lives.
Brushing away a child, too busy to stop
To listen, to ponder, to understand, to assimilate,
Taking short cuts, in a hurry to be at the top,
Soon we forget to love and learn to hate.
Making maximum usage of time and energy,
We burn the candle of life at both ends,
For these days of instant success be,
Why worry about the means, just secure the ends.
Forgetting to appreciate the finer things of life,
A glorious sunset, a starlit sky so blue
But time cuts through your consciousness like a knife
Relentlessly with it comes the feeling of déjà vu.
Making you falter, stumble in exhaustion
The cost of undergoing stress and tension
Life has walked past you, comes the realization
Leaving you with a score not worth a mention.
Making you stop and take stock
The lightness of step, the laughter and gaiety
You find replaced by seriousness and maturity
Nothing is the same, time mocks.
What was bravery, is bravado now
What was adventure becomes risky business
What was fun, de classe now
What was innocence becomes childishness.
Feelings torn asunder, you are struck by thunder
There is a shifting of gears, a change of priorities
Then a taste of freedom, a sense of wonder
Freedom from the need to prove, to compete.
Peace comes with identification
There is no need for justification
The wonder of the starlit sky
The sunset, the birds that fly.
Regain now shades and meaning
A new discovery every evening
Jazz has changed to a waltz
Life has slowed, not come to a halt.
Nothing stops the wheel of life until eternity.
Absorbed we remain in our daily pursuits,
Our fear, our passions, our loves and dislikes,
Remain as tangible as our silhouettes,
Soon we only exist and forget to live our lives.
Brushing away a child, too busy to stop
To listen, to ponder, to understand, to assimilate,
Taking short cuts, in a hurry to be at the top,
Soon we forget to love and learn to hate.
Making maximum usage of time and energy,
We burn the candle of life at both ends,
For these days of instant success be,
Why worry about the means, just secure the ends.
Forgetting to appreciate the finer things of life,
A glorious sunset, a starlit sky so blue
But time cuts through your consciousness like a knife
Relentlessly with it comes the feeling of déjà vu.
Making you falter, stumble in exhaustion
The cost of undergoing stress and tension
Life has walked past you, comes the realization
Leaving you with a score not worth a mention.
Making you stop and take stock
The lightness of step, the laughter and gaiety
You find replaced by seriousness and maturity
Nothing is the same, time mocks.
What was bravery, is bravado now
What was adventure becomes risky business
What was fun, de classe now
What was innocence becomes childishness.
Feelings torn asunder, you are struck by thunder
There is a shifting of gears, a change of priorities
Then a taste of freedom, a sense of wonder
Freedom from the need to prove, to compete.
Peace comes with identification
There is no need for justification
The wonder of the starlit sky
The sunset, the birds that fly.
Regain now shades and meaning
A new discovery every evening
Jazz has changed to a waltz
Life has slowed, not come to a halt.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Elegy
Memories of you beneath the full moon
Dancing at the high tide of heaven’s rich boon,
Informs the cliffs and canyons of my soul:
With munificence so to crown your role,
Yet maintain exquisite control!
The memory has exacted its toll ….
Strontium Ninety in each falling bone
Have I been journeying forth alove
Through monasteries of mountain and of moor
And big city din of teeming public ways
Where changing lights brought no beloved face.
I dream on still, of brocade in the night:
Of jasmine trailing its soft allure
And peacocks that made the dusk more bright.
Dancing at the high tide of heaven’s rich boon,
Informs the cliffs and canyons of my soul:
With munificence so to crown your role,
Yet maintain exquisite control!
The memory has exacted its toll ….
Strontium Ninety in each falling bone
Have I been journeying forth alove
Through monasteries of mountain and of moor
And big city din of teeming public ways
Where changing lights brought no beloved face.
I dream on still, of brocade in the night:
Of jasmine trailing its soft allure
And peacocks that made the dusk more bright.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Slipping Away
The story slipped away from my grasp
Like my children
Once they had grown.
I tried to catch it and it teased me
Running from one corner of mind to another
But my limbs have wearied
Of the burden of fetching and carrying.
My reflexes have slowed down
From the sheer monotony of routine chores
That are a series of mechanical moves
That needs no brains and just a bit of brawn.
Like an amoeba,
The story keeps changing shape,
Stretching itself now to grow in this direction
And then in that
Deliberately defying the authority
Of its would be author
Punishing her for neglect, indifference, insularity
And then one day,
As we kept on at our endless game of
Hide and seek
My story and me
It became an amoeba
A glossy, gooey, organic mass
Reproducing and decimating itself
With a blend of sadistic and/or masochistic glee
And I keep watching
This strange metamorphosis of
What might have been my own creation
Helplessly
Like my children
Once they had grown.
I tried to catch it and it teased me
Running from one corner of mind to another
But my limbs have wearied
Of the burden of fetching and carrying.
My reflexes have slowed down
From the sheer monotony of routine chores
That are a series of mechanical moves
That needs no brains and just a bit of brawn.
Like an amoeba,
The story keeps changing shape,
Stretching itself now to grow in this direction
And then in that
Deliberately defying the authority
Of its would be author
Punishing her for neglect, indifference, insularity
And then one day,
As we kept on at our endless game of
Hide and seek
My story and me
It became an amoeba
A glossy, gooey, organic mass
Reproducing and decimating itself
With a blend of sadistic and/or masochistic glee
And I keep watching
This strange metamorphosis of
What might have been my own creation
Helplessly
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Affection Magnet
Life has its shares of travails. At times we share a few strands with some who are either close to us or with some who touch us in a way that makes us feel like sharing the same. To make them comprehend. But do they? Do they get us in the way we intend to?
Whilst sharing the walk of our lives, we also relive a few shards. And boy do they mar. Kind of makes you wonder, when will they ever be embalmed in the pages of history where one just kinds of glances at them and they don’t have the power to saunter back again in your life.
Today commented to mom that I was tired of walking. She reminisced about my childhood telling me that amongst my siblings, I was the one who was the first to start walking and that too without any support at all. It seems I had taken them by surprise. [It’s a different matter that later on in their lives’ I did bestow quite a few surprises and not necessarily of the nice variants]. And if I was tired of walking then it’s just because I walked a slight bit “Abol Tabol”. I was blown away. Such simplistic reasoning to my enervated stride.
That abol tabol path has shaped the present me. Yes it did bring a few impediments along the way, but living those experiences don’t label me as an affection magnet.
Whilst sharing the walk of our lives, we also relive a few shards. And boy do they mar. Kind of makes you wonder, when will they ever be embalmed in the pages of history where one just kinds of glances at them and they don’t have the power to saunter back again in your life.
Today commented to mom that I was tired of walking. She reminisced about my childhood telling me that amongst my siblings, I was the one who was the first to start walking and that too without any support at all. It seems I had taken them by surprise. [It’s a different matter that later on in their lives’ I did bestow quite a few surprises and not necessarily of the nice variants]. And if I was tired of walking then it’s just because I walked a slight bit “Abol Tabol”. I was blown away. Such simplistic reasoning to my enervated stride.
That abol tabol path has shaped the present me. Yes it did bring a few impediments along the way, but living those experiences don’t label me as an affection magnet.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Divorcee
I
Bit by bit
The smooth rounded shape
Of her happiness
Acquired angles,
She herself
Had become sharper, brighter
Bearing the weapons
Of a ‘liberated woman’
She was probably the only one
Who knew and admitted
After sleepless nights
Spent weeping
That’s the liberation
Was nothing but despair
Nonetheless,
She wore the mask
Of a proud Modern young woman,
The product of Introspection
And a piercing together
Of what she remembered.
II
She spoke with such indifference
Such derision
That it would have been pointless
To contradict her
For she herself seemed
Always ready to step down
From whatever
Stand she has taken
But in fact she never really did,
She clung to her prejudices
Her personal experiences
To a code of living
That had been instilled
More from Harper’s Bazaar
Than from the Gita,
And her weary voice
That dragged a little
And was so convincing
A cover-up
For a frightened pitiless woman.
III
Yes she was afraid
Afraid she wouldn’t have enough money
Though she had plenty,
She was afraid
Afraid of being old
Though she was young,
Afraid that she would give herself away
Though there was nothing
Under that air of elegance
And offhand manner,
There was nothing at all
Behind that façade,
No haunting Memories
Nothing….
Bit by bit
The smooth rounded shape
Of her happiness
Acquired angles,
She herself
Had become sharper, brighter
Bearing the weapons
Of a ‘liberated woman’
She was probably the only one
Who knew and admitted
After sleepless nights
Spent weeping
That’s the liberation
Was nothing but despair
Nonetheless,
She wore the mask
Of a proud Modern young woman,
The product of Introspection
And a piercing together
Of what she remembered.
II
She spoke with such indifference
Such derision
That it would have been pointless
To contradict her
For she herself seemed
Always ready to step down
From whatever
Stand she has taken
But in fact she never really did,
She clung to her prejudices
Her personal experiences
To a code of living
That had been instilled
More from Harper’s Bazaar
Than from the Gita,
And her weary voice
That dragged a little
And was so convincing
A cover-up
For a frightened pitiless woman.
III
Yes she was afraid
Afraid she wouldn’t have enough money
Though she had plenty,
She was afraid
Afraid of being old
Though she was young,
Afraid that she would give herself away
Though there was nothing
Under that air of elegance
And offhand manner,
There was nothing at all
Behind that façade,
No haunting Memories
Nothing….
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