A slice of solitude

A slice of solitude,
Sometimes I own it myself, 
sometimes I share it with someone. 
Both means are important 
in their own ways.

A moment of life in a dead lifetime

 

Fried, pickled and roasted by life,

And proud of the pearly beads

of hard labor earned on the skin,

We set out to seek freedom,

but end up getting more trapped,

Desperation dripping from every pore of skin,

we die many times in a single lifetime.

 

But even if we have lived fully,

in totality even once,

there shouldn’t be any grudges,

Because this one moment of totality

is worth lifetime of fractured being;

a moment of liberation

among the living chain of

restlessness and incompleteness.

A curator of freedom

 

Honey-dipped,

Dripping with grace and glee,

Almost a rain of sweetness,

Full of sadness and beauty,

This tiny grove dripping with

mystical indulgence and pleasure,

Shaping its own self

for a better world for others.

 

Here my frozen identity,

—curated with fear-born care—

starts twirling with a buzzing audacity

to dismantle the tiffin tiers

of honorific geometry,—

a tiny stack of food for the

little caged beast inside,

And throw it away

with a ballooning distaste

from the edge of the dark pit,

Meanwhile, cheers erupting

from the unchained soul.

 

Here just the smile of a flower

has the power to turn one hopeful,

Here one need not hide oneself

in a corner

so that guilt won’t reach,

Luminous streaks of some warmth

touch the chords of deepest sadness,

mellowing all arrogance and pretention,

pushing me out from the darkness within

where I’d disappeared

and couldn’t find a way out.

 

What a great artist it is!

Stripping all falsehoods of their varnish,

Leaving them naked to the core.

 

Beyond the debate of

accidental or created change,

here the giddying fresh air

fills my lungs with freedom.

 

Songbird hunters

 

Autumn mist on a solitary trail,

A path leading into the woods,

Leaves dancing on your head,

The steps tuned to the rustling

like a child playing with fallen leaves,

Mother nature planting a sapling of silence

in the soil of solitude,

Joy melting from heaven

and falling on earth with each leaf-drop.

 

Here I walk,

Running away from the chained,

suffocating loneliness of a crowded bazaar,

Rushing and rustling into the

wild and free loneliness of this forest,

Crossing the intersection of bliss and torture

to enter the free domains of the former,

Exiting the shimmering and turbulent

zone of the latter.

 

But there are shadows here as well,

Here, where language is love and beauty,

Even here, the beautiful colors

and the songs of the songbirds

are chased by the curly tentacles

of the songbird hunter,--

the merchants of memories

who trap love and beauty

for worldly gain:

security, fear and convenience,

They lay the mist-net

to catch the present

in the invisible threads of the past.    

Netted butterflies

 

Melting with delight,

Tickled by the blush of youth,

The air sweet with wildflower scent,

Adolescence rushing to the peak

to quench the thirst of all curiosities,

And awaits there

the trapper of butterflies—love,

With its beautifully designed, silky net,

To catch lovely colors on the wings,

To see them flapping

for the agony and ecstasy of

loving and being loved.

 

What else are we when in love,

if not netted butterflies?

We love getting netted

in the silk threads

of that sweet bondage,

We just pine to be caught

with emotions all fiery and hot,

Aah, the cupid’s high scoring, slaying shot!

Self-charity

 

Be a stony support to someone

and that person naturally becomes

a velvety cushion support to you,

Because when you give support,

you receive the same as well,

A kindly giving

is a subtle taking in a nobler form,

Giving a hand to the fallen

is a loving means to

avoid falling yourself,

Words of sympathy for someone

are a prayer for your own benefit,

To be there for someone in need

is to invest in your own safety

against similar challenges in your journey,

Good or bad,

what we do to others

is primarily looping back to us

in the same form without camouflage.

 

In the same vein,

being friendly to a lovely soul

is to befriend one’s best version.

Welcoming the self into a cage

 

The immensity of the free skies,

its vastness,

its endless vistas of freedom

get us scared,

We soak in the freedom initially,

Then we fear we’ll be lost,

We feel lonely in the free vastness,

The adventure dies,

Pursued by our own fears,

we rush into a cage,

Its known confines

guarding us against the unknown,

We drop the anchor,

We get chained

to a smile, a kiss, an embrace,--

a sweet entanglement;

a pleasant bondage called ‘love’.