Hot ash of the cremated,
There lies the voice of the Himalayas,
Stood which rock firm,
Now turned into grains few
by the holy flames,
Fire ate the fire—
an elaborate oasis
combusted to a desert small.
Hot air rising upwards
with liberating soul
and mourners’ tears,
To make rain of it,
which will shower upon a flower
manured by the cemetery’s ashes;
‘Will’ dies never,
The passion of a life whole
now forms the flower of a single day!
Night was falling in the jungle,
With stars smiling from a cold sky,
Early mist making a drink
to inebriate the trees through the night,
And the leaves preparing for a dewy bath.
A dark man matching the night’s colours,
Stumbled across the decaying windfalls,
His skin clad in more darkness,
White teeth flashed to life,
Like water in the abyss of a well,
A sigh of agony poured out
warmth in the imposing cold.
All vestiges fading out of sight,
Yet, two gentle eyes like an elephant’s said,
‘Live and let live’;
His burning self gave
some warm solace to the dewy, cold leaves,
His bright foot-soles drummed
on the decaying leaves,
Sowed seeds of life among death and decay.
The music approaching the forest’s centre,
With stars applauding
and the trees swaying to the tune,
Nature styled his hair:
Curls, locks, dust matched the jungle’s disarray,
He stumbles now more
and finally sits under a tree,
Sleeps then to eternity,
The last trace of life mixed
with the darkness around;
The morning came to enliven everything,
but not the last trace of night.
People come and go,
with genealogies spinning history,
Everything changes to survive,
Similarly, man becomes his opposite more.
Fast riding jockey he is,
Sticks to the saddle of time,
His horse trampling the turf,
And the cheers eating the dust around;
The ‘eagle’s eye’ spotting the winner
among the beasts riding the same,
Gallops match the applauds around
to cut the finishing line first.
Whoever may be the lucky one,
It’s nothing but simply
a line drawn over the last one,
And many parallels following.
What did the winner get?
Nothing but the smallest
glimpse of others doing the same;
Irony drips from the dusted moments,
Look, the victor ponders back the maximum,
Trickles which to zero
for the last one cutting across.
A trophy, a V-sign, a horse’s smile,
That is what they give him,
And some rest on the podium;
That is what life is,
Dropping every skill of ours
on the back of a beast
to carry us as a victor,
Half-man, half-beast,
we leave nothing but litter around;
Exhausted and throbbing hearts.
So much of the course is
trampled to death,
only for the thinnest line
connected by similar tangential lines;
With milestones of eulogy,
And battlefields in between,
This is what we call
history, progress and more.
White-pearled necklace smiles,
Of cobweb, with dew beading it,
Silvery, on a bonsai-like acacia,
In murky morning, fog and cold.
Prickly branches sprout, frozen,
Empty-headed, standing still and mute,
Like a bribed beauty silent;
Jewelled throats disclose nothing.
The fog-vaulted sky above,
Vapours riding nuclei unseen,
Making things around appear as sprites,
And the necklace among the bones and thorns.
Gallowed! Thus serene forever,
Like the ever-impressed eyes portrayed,
Follow which the observer always,
Greedy to be jewelled more.
Nature’s goldsmithy and the man’s:
The necklace in the thorns,
The other making the skin prized more,
Beauty thus defined, thrives on donated bounties.
Forget about the hoot and holler
emanating from the world outside,
And give an ear to the soft and murmurous
cooings emanating from the soul,
It has a soft and sympathetic
message for you only,--
your most personal message,
meant only for you,
Listen to these delicate chimes,
It’ll help you in finding peace in chaos,
In getting a foothold in the stampede,
In feeling rest, repose and respite
amidst constant buffeting by the world around,
It’ll help you in breaking
the hardest of superficial layers,
which suffocate and limit your identity,
And put you face to face with
your true self, your real worth,
Listen to it, close your eyes,
And pay attention with all your heart,
Just for a change,
don’t look far, look closest at yourself,
It’ll be as uneventful as looking
at a dust particle around your feet,
But it changes the universe for you,
You will have the biggest message
in the softest of whispering phrases!
And it’ll help you in finding yourself.
Be the seat of my strength, not weakness.
Be the seat of kindness, not cruelty.
Be the source of light, not darkness.
Be the source of energy, not idleness.
Be the source of creativity, not limited vision.
Be the source of love, not hate.
Be the source of smiles, not tears.
Be the source of happiness, not suffering.
Be the seat of optimism, not pessimism.
Be the seat of gain, not loss.
Be the source of help, not obstruction.
Be the seat of leadership, not just sleepwalk.
Be the seat of a better human being.
Be the source of a more loving person.
O my mind, my seat of potential,
take my journey further.
Choose the better half of all the dualities for me.
One should keep reminding one’s mind.
Repeatedly.
Daily.
With eyes closed with a fervent request.
It’s a very nice, nutritious pre-breakfast food.
The mighty lord whispers in a soft voice,
‘My son grow thou strong
and sire chances for those without any choice!’
Love loops
around on an early winter day,
In the
heart, endless things to say,
Shines a
gently warm, bright ray,
Before the
icy winters shout, and chuck it all out,
Enjoy and
make hay!
Fragrance scented and colours prismatic,
Flowers seduce with surrendering softness
and intoxicating aesthetics,
This alluring, sweet poison slays many,
Parasitically it creeps into
the hibernating, sleepy male vitality,
And the red, gushing blood of sense and sanity
turns into silly swirls of bluish oblivion.
Foolish torrents of bewitching beauty follow,--
A marvellous decolourisation of
flesh, vision and potency!
The woman does the same with the man,--
Her moves lie under the surface,
Letting loose amorous tremors,
The tamed beast clinging to feeble, unmanly chains:
the emotions, cooings and the mellowed stone,
Then she slaughters the prey most manly,
Bravo! Salutes to the femininity:
the hardest heart under the shield softest.
Weakness has its strength in vulnerability,
Don’t mistake power by the steel in muscles,
Soft flowers and seductive women
thrive on the dew shower of temptations,
Eyes thirsty, pining senses;--
The altars of the insected, infatuated masculinity,
More the offerings on the altar,
more the Goddess thrives,
So many wither to bloom a smile
in her sly eyes.
But her demands from the worshipper
are never satiated,--
Greedy Goddess!
She thus hunts around,
But greed can never make one complete,
So she just remains a fraction,
Men cut themselves to the same
to complete her missing portion,
The happy Goddess then
laughs at the follies of the maimed.
Black bee, man sacrifice to
prove the worth of an ounce of femininity,
Rivers eat mountains, while the stones
surrender to the fluidity of the majestic masseur,
The woman meanders to fragment the man,
Making round, harmless, cuddly pebbles.
As the feminine dreams web around,
The ensnared caterpillar hums the songs of love,
The spider salivates and chuckles,
The trap of seduction,
The cobwebs of death,
The river thus triumphantly
rolls on with mighty boulders,
The song of macabre swirling
among the torrential giggle and frightening moan.
Femininity wins through its weakness,
The flowers smile and bloom on showers of tears,
The woman makes the man a means to her end,
Travels on his strong back
to reach her destination
and find the purpose of her life.
