The lighthouse

 

Everything is meaningless

without loving and being loved,

After all, we are mere fishes

lost in the sea’s vast expanses,

We are scared of getting lost

in the looming prospects of freedom

swarming its massive gloomy depths,

So we’re running around

to be gaffed by the spear of love;

to be netted in love.

 

Aha, the sweet anarchy of love!

Love fragile like porcelain,

but still a beacon of hope,

a lighthouse on a rocky, stormy shore,

Spreading its guiding light among choppy waters,

Fighting the muscles and tissues of darkness.

 

Love with its ephemeral intensity

sizzles across the folds of eternal apathy,

It shimmers like a lighted powdery

splash of disarming mystery,--

a sparkling kiss of life

on the embracing gentleness of death.

The guide

 

Unconcerned about other’s judgments,

it’s your right to take steps to freedom,

But remember this o thou journeyman

that one’s soul should stay open to self-judgment

because that’ll guide you on the path,

That’ll be your key

to the channelization of your free choice

towards the best instead of the worst.

The tyrant

 

Love barging into the heart,

breaking all defensive barriers,

occupying the fort,

gloating on the throne,

giving orders like a triumphant autocrat.

 

Then its soldiers creeping up the chest

to fight the opposing armies in the throat,

The battles in the narrow pass,

Defeating the vocal cords,

Disarming them

and ordering them

to sing the sovereign’s songs.

 

Love has to acquire all,

Its rampant armies

have to march still onwards

to twist the lips to make them

casting molds for its signature banners;

to paint the cheeks with its trademark blush;

to pour possessive light in the eyes;

to put filters in the ears

so that they hear only its eulogy songs.

 

Finally the marching army

creeps into the head

to win the final frontier;

to beat down the strains of reasoning,--

the last rebellious regiment.

 

Love wages an all-conquering war

to change everything

as per its whims and fancies,

What a sweet tyrant!

What a stern dictator!

The beauty of an imperfect world

 

It’s a broken world

but still it has enough beauty

in its fragments

to help us hold onto

our dreams and imaginations.

 

It’s enough to give us:

a hope to put things together;

an invitation to move on the journey;

to see the sunshine in a dewdrop;

to absorb the nourishment of life from a smile;

to feel kindness in a tear;

to see flying rainbows

on the wings of butterflies;

to hear divine melody in a hill stream;

to hear paradisiacal songs in chirping birds;

to feel and understand that

life sprouts on the edges of broken dead pieces

like wild mushrooms on dead wood.  

Silence

 

Unspoken words

sometimes open up a chasm,

which no pearly string of words

can cover with a bridge,

And to know each other well,

we have to learn

the language of silence

emanating from someone’s

walk, frown, smile or stony look.

Drowning

 

Life is merely a flow:

molten agonies;

floating passion;

streaming desires;

evaporating dreams;

undying aspirations.

 

We try to cross it,

Taking it to be

the aim and purpose of life,

But the moment we reach the bank,

panting like a dog,

we turn our head

and look at the aims and goals

on the other bank,

We feel we have lost

something very important over there.

 

So we swim back,

And over and over again,

We get conditioned to think that

crossing the river back and forth

is the aim of life,

the proof of success,

Little do we realize that

it was supposed to be a journey,

a flow with the stream.

 

Mostly we realize it too late,

We don’t have even that much patience

as it needs to stay joyfully afloat

in a gently flowing stream,

Fatigued with incessant crossings,

we panic and drown in the stream

just near the point

of our futile back and forth fording,

We miss the flow,

We miss all that life had to offer

on its journey ahead.

Emptying the bins

 

We are too crowded inside;

too full,

We need emptying,

Not by dumping the extras;

not by outright discarding

the already crammed, clogged garbage bins,

but by spreading in nature’s open arms,

We just need to be in an open space

to allow ‘emptying’ start naturally.