Monday, February 15, 2010

SPRING SEEDS

and now the April has also gone,
Where are the seeds that I’d sown?
Like a ploughman I worked
in the summer almost melting bones,
Removed the stones,
Rattled which the spirit like someone
caught in desert’s sandy moans.
Then during winter my toil lit up a bonfire
amidst blinding blizzards and nature’s icy deeds,
These were my spring seeds,
embedded, impregnated in earth through my earthy deeds,
Spring seeds meant to
conceive, germinate, grow, ripe, flower and fructify,
But the spring came and went with a sad sigh,
Sorrows in my barren fields hit another high,
My spring seeds thus lost,
And me the farmer standing forlorn
without that harvest of which I used to boast,
Now the scorching May sun
beats down the dusty land with a fiery pun,
Peasant and his field thus stand mute,
Almost complete has’n the plunder and loot,
To gallows was sent my crop,
The hangman just mechanically pulled
the handle at the hanky’s drop,
Efforts’ dead body hangs from that noose,
And even the last strains of
faith, will power and hope getting loose.

People say that too much is my browbeat,
‘Why not clear another stony plot
to get something to eat?’
Perhaps they don’t realize
the blind, illogical passion’s treatise
which I wrote over stones with a pure soul,
Impractical, insane I stand out
with cracks and brain’s hole,
How could I expect fruits from this very plot?
And now I stare at the nullifying dot,
The desert storm meanwhile hisses with its lust hot,
Seeds have most probably been killed,
Aah, with amazing precision
the Goddess of infertility drilled!
While the songs of my fertile efforts in a chorus trilled,
But She has’n successful in its swipe,
Its blinding gung-ho and macabrous hype,
Lolloping its greedy tongue to
dejuice and deflower everything ripe,
Now I lay my back against a
hard, hot, unshaded rock,
My weariness, fatigue and torture
put me in a sleepy dock,   
In that short uneasy sleep
I get some relief from the pain of this injury deep,
A luxuriant crop I see in my dream
and nearby gurgling goes a stream.   

The Invisible, Untouched Debris


A painful churning goes on
in the deep, deep recesses mine,
Outwardly I manage to look well and fine.
On my skin sweat beads shine,
These tiny outpours of my desperation
are the struggling vestiges of battles
that I failed to win.

There is a salty sea of sufferings inside,
which the clothing and the mask hide,--
The sea of tears accumulated from yores,
Here mournful, tragic waves strike
the forlorn sand on gloomy shores,
There were deep, hollow pits and spaces
that could have’n easily filled up with
sweet freshwaters and lifeful braces,
But that wasn’t to be,
Rather the tears of endless traumas
made up the sorrowful sea,
Outwardly I just tread on the ground,
And even try to dance
to the social puppetry and civilized sound,
But in the deep recesses of the sea of my being
sharks shred the flesh like the bloodiest of hound,
Thousands of leeches suck the soul’s blood,
And the salty sea gets another torrential flood,
Surrounded by such deadly gloomy waters,
My being’s lofty peaks
shudder with protesting shrieks,
In those vales, precipitation born of miseries
sends down dark showers,
Creating mudslides and breaking stones
from the lofty towers,
Deep echoes of this sea’s triumphant storms
go rumbling through the inner being,
Rains, floods, earthquakes
storm the soul’s citadel,
Their combined fury unleashes mud and sleaze,
Carries which the ensnaring breeze
towards the salty sea of gloom,
Even though outwardly I manage to
keep up some bloom,
But the tremors from inside
reach new high day by day,
And the afraid soul runs helter-skelter
to find some solacing ray
that might say
a valiant nay
to the horrible avalanche pouncing on my soul,

Golden Noose

With that invisible love story
tied with an unseen cord
to my tightly sewn lips,
Let me kiss the last drops of her memory
from the cup still brimming
with her image.

The last spiritual door
opening finally for His light,
Preparing for something more,
somewhere in some other world and form,
Where down the distanceless
space-time continuum
lies the timeless face of an
untold, unrequited love tale.

The tiny waves of breathing
can now no longer carry the boat of life,
Last moment’s stormy seizure
quickly subdues the feeble efforts to stay afloat,
And down goes the body,
Hanged by the cord
of a painful love story that was never told.

The Defeated King

The night was very long
and all moments thronged
with frustration, angst and despair,
The darkest faces yelled for anyone to dare.

Like a terribly lynched mule
sluggered away the day
without bringing a new ray,
Now, the night’s long sinewy hairs
cast ghastly shadow over the battlefield lost,
And battle scars get bandaged with frost.

A cumbersome long-long day
when his efforts got butchered
by some mysterious force’s riotous ray,
Now stars shine on darkness’ face;
Like tiny lamps they twinkle from
some fallen hero’s mace
and point to hope and smile
somewhere still holding onto tiniest of trace,
Their poking raylets brace
the frozen blood around scars,
‘The day will come’, they say,
‘and the next sun will light up a new ray!’
‘You will then forget these days dark
and still fearsome nights with a terrible hark!’

The wounded, handsome soldier’s hands
clenched a fistful of earth all blood-soiled,
There were more moments to be toiled,
Somewhere fire in his blood still boiled,
The enemy’ll return in a couple of hours,
‘Let me see how many heads my club covers!’
For the mace handle his hands fumbled,
But once again his feet stumbled
and he fell down,
But that effort’s majesty shone on his face,
Succumbed he then to his injuries and died,
Aha! Immortal was that last shot of pride,
It was found frozen on his face
when the victorious hound
arrived later on the trophy’s trace.

Invisible Scars

Too often I’ve stumbled, staggered
and fallen headlong,
Cuts and wounds mercilessly throng
the bodily stranglehold mine,
Deep fissures reach
where the soul’s diamonds shine;
Injuries so deep—
Aaah! Invisible, invincible dragnet’s richest reap.
Nobody sees the gaping holes in my spirit,
Here the destiny’s blind force
so venomously hit!

God!  Why is it that deepest scars
are invisible to the society’s eyes?
Why remain unnoticed
cuts and wounds of such mammoth size?
Injuries like deepest trenches on sea’s bosom,
Above on the surface
the worldly water waves normally,
Below the scars lurk dreadfully
and darkest of dark roam
in the gloomy, depthless womb.

I, the perpetual peasant,
Always engaged in the sacred labor duty,
While the foe doing
its undoing spadework continuously,        
Its ensnaring checkerwork grinning cunningly,
I meanwhile rise up again
to get some littlest bit of gain,
Alas, my mountainously bulky efforts
only but go haywire!
Not even a little mice I find,
And sorrowfully the tiny lamp goes blind,
The invisible scars
get enlarged and multiplied, of course,
But not even a single eye
sees the bloody bath and the loss!

Last Hideout

Here I sit in my cold, secluded corner
and take stock of the
pleasant profanities scattered around,
The world basking in its
majestic, unholy mundanities,
while the unhindered morality singing unbound.

The corner with its stagnant stench
and mucking air;
where my tortured holy-self lie,
Cruelly contriving world meanwhile tempts,
‘Why thou become the fodder of game fair?
Son, now have an unfair try!’

‘Succeed thou will,
the moment thou unshackle
thyself of poor righteousness!
This load will always find you a loser,
for too old is now the history of uprightness!’

And I shiver and snivel
in my little, dark hole
to keep the little flicker going,
The dark-race however gets
perpetually stormy and cries,
‘Let’s us see! How long you’ll keep rowing?’

Too small is the boat which carries me
across this deadly sea,
Big waves pound from all sides
and each crest devilishly neigh.

How foolish of me
not to surrender to the cozy
seduction by the compromising short-cut!
Cut after cut they give me
to break open my little hutment
whose wispy door is bravely shut.

Passes as the time,
graver still become the urgency to
drag me out of my hiding hole,
Too far and wide is the
swash of ‘only feasible game’
in which all must play a survival role.

God! Let me see how long I can cling
to my altar-like holy den,
But times are really dark
and the moment will surely come,
The little lamp will go blind then

Birth
This tiny flower
becoming a fruit;--
Transformation of this
once petalous soot:
Its beauty and color
now turning into a tiny vase,
Old flower and the infant fruit
transmixing for nature’s laws.

Flower’s beauty being sacrificed
at the fruity altar,
The Goddess of fruits
watches this pleasant hatching from far,
She muses with a midwifery glee,
Sings then a playful lullaby for the
fruitling in the flower’s womb,
Oh! How glittery is this little
juicy lad in the petalous tomb.

So, the soft flowery curls
take a hard, fruity mould,
The petals bold
vanish into juicy, hard fold.

Love Storm

When love smiles like a rose,
some famished heart gets a dose,
Cupid’s arrow breaks the shackles
and that unemotional, hard crust crackles.

A pumping machine is heart no longer,
as the softest turbulence gets stormily stronger,
Love-storm knocks at the rugged coastline,
There for a new dawn, several suns shine.

The Love like a flower
sways to sizzling dew-shower,
Dew-drenched, a new life sizzles,
and moments rejuvenate in precious drizzle.

The heart dancing in the rain,
Pleasant madness; nothing to gain!
Sheer abundance of all giving,
Gain-lorn is no longer the being.

Heart’s orchard in full bloom,
Archaic-old now seems that gloom,
Brightly starry is the night,
Self-esteem soars to loftiest height,
And when the storm ebbs out,
like a panicked fish heart’s angels shout,
‘Oh, thou uncertain tide,
when will thou again arrive with thy sweep wide?’

The Game

How hard and how long
I take to reach near
the summit of my hardworked hill,
All battered and bruised,
final steps I still try,
Above, the peak brags its highness,
while the caterpillar’s soul doth cry:
‘Yonder, still uphill sweet cups lie!’

My eyes ogle at the peak,
And heart ready to render
a full-throated victorious shriek,  
But eyes then see
the hard taskmaster’s glee,
Awaits who there to teach
that solacing sips are still out of reach.

Oh! Its quick ascendancies!
Always galloping ahead
with mammoth mirth in hand,
It is always the first
to quench its thirst
from the cup at the crest,
Then uproariously beats its breast:    
‘There lies another one!
Pal, let’s get promptly begun!’

Oofs, its insatiable thirst!
It claims exulting victory every time,
And I get my weeping, mediocre rhyme.  

Monday, February 1, 2010

Highway Murder

Highway Murder

Listen you all, men and nature!
They are killing me!
As the iron hisses, and kisses
across the rings of my age,
I stand benumbed in daze,
This end was not supposed to come so soon,
Wasn’t I fulfilling all the duties assigned to me,
entitling me another wintery full moon?

In self-imposed anesthesia
I just feel the saw’s butchering
into my bloodless flesh in my guts,
There is no blood in me
to give the evidence of a murder,
The sanguine darkness of my mass
is worth only stone for you.

On this hazily sun-lit winter noon,
The hounds are around me,
My murder has been sanctioned
by the state authorities!
For decades I stood for both nature and man,
During those beautiful days
this road was a simple friend
leading to common journeys and destinations,
Now it becomes a foe and highway
leading to some illustrious ray,
And I become redundant old,
standing in the way of progress
with my few square-feet of foot-hold.

If a healthy mass like me is no life;
no more than a mile-stone,
I hope to tell my murder story
till the axes, scythes and saws
send my tiniest of branches to be turned to ashes.

We trees never wince with pain
as your axes spray around chips of our flesh,
I understand we had equal rights
till mankind was just part of nature,       
Now this saw going deeper and deeper
into my bloodless guts,
reminds me of our inevitable fate,--
Every tree on earth now has a deadly date
with the greedy most, treacherous and unforgiving mate.    

They know that I’m massive and big,
So they are afraid of my fall,
Haa! The cowards!
They don’t know, while they rob me
of my few square feet of space on earth,
My saplings are still doling out oxygen
under this winter sun,
Even my murder can’t change me
because I’m helpless due to my nature.

Now the saw has gone sufficiently deep,
And I get some signs of that eternal sleep,
I feel some unbearable pain in my painless mass,
For death is death after all,
Hope you will understand!
Like hangman’s noose, thick hemp ropes
are tied to direct my fall,
From a safe distance, the tractors pull
to bring down this wooden bull,
And now I feel the pain
as cleavage breaks through that portion
still holding me to my mother earth,
From softest saplings to rock hard tissues
my whole body is panicked,
Saplings are crying like purely innocent children,
Hardest of trunk tissues are shamelessly crying
like battle hard, handsome soldiers after losing a battle,
But who cares!
This big snapping sound is my death cry,
And I fall with a thud,
Yes, man you win,
I’m dead before I thought I will! 

Spring Seeds

SPRING SEEDS

and now the April has also gone,
Where are the seeds that I’d sown?
Like a ploughman I worked
in the summer almost melting bones,
Removed the stones,
Rattled which the spirit like someone
caught in desert’s sandy moans.
Then during winter my toil lit up a bonfire
amidst blinding blizzards and nature’s icy deeds,
These were my spring seeds,
embedded, impregnated in earth through my earthy deeds,
Spring seeds meant to
conceive, germinate, grow, ripe, flower and fructify,
But the spring came and went with a sad sigh,
Sorrows in my barren fields hit another high,
My spring seeds thus lost,
And me the farmer standing forlorn
without that harvest of which I used to boast,
Now the scorching May sun
beats down the dusty land with a fiery pun,
Peasant and his field thus stand mute,
Almost complete has’n the plunder and loot,
To gallows was sent my crop,
The hangman just mechanically pulled
the handle at the hanky’s drop,
Efforts’ dead body hangs from that noose,
And even the last strains of
faith, will power and hope getting loose.

People say that too much is my browbeat,
‘Why not clear another stony plot
to get something to eat?’
Perhaps they don’t realize
the blind, illogical passion’s treatise
which I wrote over stones with a pure soul,
Impractical, insane I stand out
with cracks and brain’s hole,
How could I expect fruits from this very plot?
And now I stare at the nullifying dot,
The desert storm meanwhile hisses with its lust hot,
Seeds have most probably been killed,
Aah, with amazing precision
the Goddess of infertility drilled!
While the songs of my fertile efforts in a chorus trilled,
But She has’n successful in its swipe,
Its blinding gung-ho and macabrous hype,
Lolloping its greedy tongue to
dejuice and deflower everything ripe,
Now I lay my back against a
hard, hot, unshaded rock,
My weariness, fatigue and torture
put me in a sleepy dock,   
In that short uneasy sleep
I get some relief from the pain of this injury deep,
A luxuriant crop I see in my dream
and nearby gurgling goes a stream. 

Friday, January 22, 2010

MIRAGE

MIRAGE

How possessed the show of life floats away!
Self-absorbed and self-satiating eyes
perpetually ogling at that last ray,
Shines which with trayful of exceptional mundanities,
delicious crumbs and specks of pleasant trivialities,--
Prize’s lesser essence exaggerated manifold,
How deceiving has’n this mirage since times untold!
The rioting mob, meanwhile, creating a stampede and storm—
Thirsty, hungry, eating and breathing sand,
Trying to outpace each other
to reach that coveted oasis land,
where the mirageful sweet speck lies
and the supposed spring of will never dries.

God created us to walk brotherly
on the lush green pastures hand-in-hand,
But we take the path lost in treacherous sand
to out-run each other,
Leaving each other dying
and lying to be buried under those sand dunes,
So much we lose and force others to lose
while running to catch those boons,
Blindly we trample orchids
to catch up with the call by those sandy sighs,
And see, so many die with sand in mouth and eyes!

See that fellow huffing and puffing like an animal
going after that ever-escaping destination,
Like an oxen sweating out the precious drops
to drain out even the last ounces of humanity
from those strained innards,--
The orchid inside suffers a drought,
Aah! How valiantly he fought,
But unfortunately always had’n taking unnecessary shot,
And then the chase became unbearably hot,
Desire’s hallucination sparkles in his eyes as the loser’s dot.

Ever pretending to kow-tow the pious injunctions,
most often we do the opposite,
How coquettishly we keep God
unaware of our motives true!
The characters outsmarting the creator’s real hue,
Betraying thus God and trampling orchards,
whose seeds He planted,
we move ahead,
Unaware the spirit is already dead,
And the title deed with the creator
torn and tattered to its last thread,
Then we go out without any dread
and tread over each other in blind race,
Spit each other in the face
to stop (or made to stop) finally at a place,
where there isn’t those presumptions’ single trace.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Phoenix

                                                    Phoenix

In the fire of my passion
people say I will burn my wings,
And then I will not be able to fly,
How mischievously society takes a dig sly
at those who dare to be different,
For rutted path’s stranglehold is luring,
doling out short-cuts aiming massive gains,--
The ordinary paths avoiding the penanceful pains.

Burn I’ll myself in my own fire
to ashes and ambers,
Or the inferno will bake the skill raw
To turn gold in my soul’s chambers,
Either ashes or gold—
Though the path full of miseries untold,
But even this treacherousness has exceptional charms,
Its forlorn sand is pregnant with virginal solitude,
Its uncluttered loneliness, a mine full of possibilities!
Far away from the crowd
How brilliantly shines that prospect!

The solitary walkers on this path
either die a lonely, ignominious death,
To become the unencumbered particles of its ungutted earth,
Or if somebody carries through the desert,
He arrives at an oasis of gold,
where the creative bliss takes him in charming fold.

These sufferings might turn me into ashes
or turn me into gold,
If the ash is my fate
then I should not hate
my passion’s flame,
For I turned out to be a horse lame
that lined up for the toughed race,
Or with inferno lurking on my face
I play with the fire
and make it my mistress to sire
the golden-winged off-springs;
my consummation signs with the infernal houri,
That wedding night’s taming with creative fury.

The moth is aware of fire’s fury,
Still it doesn’t hover
around a desirous flower’s utility,
With passionate ambers smoldering in its guts,
It goes for a dazzling display around fire;
Its perilous, exciting, flirtatious orbit around the glow,
And the flame laying snares for the deadly blow,
Yet with intoxicated zeal
nearer and nearer it comes to kiss and feel
that finest nectar hidden behind the fiery eyes:
The honey sweeter than any flower for which a worldly honey-bee dies.
Fuelled and fired by every ounce of its instinct
it buzzes around with ecstatic swirls,
It lives life thousand times more
than the ones lured by worldly flower’s lore,
Even its death isn’t just painful plights,
It is merely the pinnacle of its
gradually graduating love flights,
And when it meets its end that explosion of its flesh
is the acme of its fiery passion.

Likewise, I’m the helpless satellite
of the sun of my art,
Hardest I might try,
but from it I can’t part,
Its my life and source of light,
Without it everything is a blind flight
and nothing of purpose in sight,
Hovering around my inspirational sun
is the only form of my fun,
Even if it means the final
crashlanding into the fiery ball,
For the artist it is still a regally carpeted hall.------Sandeep Dahiya

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Donky

I think it always (without exception) helps not to lose your temper. When you lose your temper, you not only deprive somebody’s chances for more happiness; you in fact deprive yourself of the same. So why fall in the trap of such a bad bargain. If nobody gains anything out of it (except perhaps that hypothetical and flimsy enemy of ours, called “ego”) why invest in such a loser scheme?  —Sandeep Dahiya
                                       *******
May be there is a fixed quota of suffering in the cosmic account book of karma to be doled out to the humanity. If that be the case then feel proud for bearing the heavier load from the destiny’s side, while so many others trudge ahead with unjustifiably lighter weights on their shoulders. Feel proud that God considers you as a tough guy capable of handling the issues on the wrong side of the fence. While you sweat it out with the larger issues, possibly your each and every step paves the road for some easy stroll by a frail fellow human being. Just carry on mighty guys! No use in browbeating now! You have been chosen for breaking the tough nut so that many a weak teeth can munch survival crumbs.    —Sandeep Dahiya

Saturday, January 2, 2010

New Year

This foggy, cold midnight says,


The next sun will have rays

that will warmly gloat over wrong shades

bitingly, filthily draped around that beggared mass of flesh,

Tomorrow it just won't be mere trash!
**********

V salute the rising sun and upcoming fates,

And dump the rest as mere names and dates.

But this year on death bed (or in labour pain?) sighs,

'Dear, forgrt u those promises amidst these hasty byes!'
******