Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Phase

After what seems like eons, creativity seems to be dripping out of my pores every now and then. Thanks to Jishnu, whose presence virtually makes it impossible for me to write at length and to Twitter, that has forced me to distill vast ideas into couplet concentrates, the fount of miniature poetry has been let loose. All day on Twitter, big and small inspirations provoke me to retaliate with these specimens. I'm calling it the phase, that has come as unexpectedly as it might go. Before they're lost to a fickle timeline and fickle-r memories, I'm assigning them to this trusty, old, if often ignored blog. I will keep adding these little personal treasures to this post as long as they choose to manifest themselves to me.


1. Now there is a point / now there isn't./ You were born with a curse to have to choose your realities / Over and over.

2. As I stand outside / the forlorn reject / eavesdropping every vain word / I am almost glad / they did not let me in.


3. For I wonder / if in their company / I will find so much pride / that I will lose my loving.

4. So I turned / away and unto myself / and found / that I needed no other.

5. Take me love /while my love glows orange/ for tomorrow might be too late / with ashen indifference.

6. Rummage through all that baggage/ Tell me if you do./ Find some innocence tucked away/ In that quiet corner of a careworn satchel.

7. And what is that / rushes through your ardent arteries? / Cut yourself to see / if it be some worthy blood.

8. Pointless days and pointless nights / I live through endless, empty words / Scribbling with a pointed zeal / To finally find my swan song.

9. Lost, I wept before the mirror / Found my soul mate staring back / So I packed my bags and eloped with me / To a world where I found myself.

10. Careworn, he left./ Picked up his mind of a child / his heart of the wild / and blended into nothingness. 

11. O pride, when you lead the way/ to a land without friends/ all I have, to seek comfort in/ is a satchel full of imagined insults

12. Spilled secrets of a rotting old heart/ unaccepting of its fading youth/ wonder where the constraints are/ for this looks like perversion.

13. Uncaring words / like botched baubles / forever adorn the memories / of those hurt by them.


14. To my hesitant feet/ even a step was feat/ and then they hurled an unkind joke/ and crippled me forever.

15. Acid fumes of a carnage/ caused by the fallen children of God/ linger long after, in the throats of those/ who once trusted humanity (26/11)


16. Ignored so long, she was the colour of dust/ until one day, when born again/ she walked up and said "Hello. I am."

17. Hands held, bodies intertwined/ minds mating even/ but alone you will be at night/ in sleep as in death.


18. Fight against the fears they cause/ fight against the tears they cause/ but in the end the worthy fray/ is you against your choices.

19.  Love, O tainted love/ luscious is your promise/ for you stand, teasingly/ on the far side of right.

20. I scrounge my lessons/ for words that may sound deep/ hang them atop like stars on a tree/ just so I can earn my keep.

21. Warm drops of vulnerable love/ trickling down her cold spine/ like blood red petals strewn/ on a white sheet of indifference.

22. A glass doll behind a glass wall/ he loved ceaselessly/ said, "Since she does not know/ she will never hurt."

23. Deep love, stare me in the face/ yell me in the ear/ tell me you will win all odds / in the end, because you are.

24. Rave and rage, O angry child/ break a few things and hearts /purged, sleep will be your fairy soon /and render all truths, lies.

25. Helpless, wrapped in sheets/ she tumbled down endlessness/ woke up before she could fall, broken/ wiggled her toes and said 'Phew!'

26. If only you'd ignore the snarls / and oft times, the bites / If only you'd 'doggone it' the devil / If only rabid thoughts died.

27. Hush tonight 'O weary voices/ for tomorrow will find its provocations/ will make you make more noises/ and drown you all over again.

28. Who wants to do the climbing/ to reach the zenith or nadir/ leave me alone to stumble and stand/ for I am but a human.

29. Romeo by the roadside/ blue then numb then dark/ braving the cold and hurt and anger/ of nature and his lover's heart.

30. He looms like a pregnant raincloud /like stale breath in an empty room/ disturbing me with silences/ and his oppressive invisibility.

31. Viscous, dark, sticky, stringy/ folds me in over and over/ till hot and burning, my soul scalds/ the asphalt of your black love.
 
32. Vivid eyes, that see all/ hear all and smell all/ where do I hide from thee?/I can, oft times, even feel you taste my breath.

33. When untrod paths came a calling / when unheard loves beckoned / hope flashed - a lightening streak / in the heart of the lone deranger.

34. Lungfuls of guilty breath / memories tripping her step / she ran from fast-paced pain / picking the shrapnel of his broken heart.

35. Come, sit by my side/ Be black when I'm white / and white when I'm black / Show me the mirror or be my foil.

36. Cut me a sliver of your life/ just a day, but the darkest/ let me place it next to my mundane days/ and count my many blessings.

37. Rage away, dear heart/ but there will come a day/ when love will have rubbed off on you quietly/ and your jagged edges will have softened.

38. Who let you out, O pure one?/ to walk this cruel world, to learn their lies./ Who let you out, knife in hand/ and told you 'twas God's will?



39. Shush, my love, why do you scream?/ What are your pains, that you seek to drown/ in a noise so loud, it loses you/ loses me and all meaning.
40. Coil up now, cold you are/ a blue heart you have, and a closed mind/ let me take you back, my child/ when you were safe in my womb.



41. Battle scarred and blood stained/ valour badges on my breast/ I carry swords by the day/ but wear my love's arms in the night.

42. She rummaged through chests/ under sheets, in sheets/ between people and lessons/ to find another word for her savings box.



43. She could love at hat drop/ and fawn over sweet nothings/ but in fury, she turned ugly/ and let out gargoyles that kill.



44. Like an unabashed picture of inelegance/ he plodded along the unwarranted road/ foot firmly in his mouth, head high/ said 'this is who I am'



45. She landed there, with no warnings/ perhaps in a dream, all naked/ and hid to protect her modesty/ until she noticed all was shorn of shame.



46. Her white dress hitched a little/ goody two shoes kept aside/ she stepped into the slime/ and said, 'I wanna play too!'



47. It is cold out there/ why stymie your warm love/ share a lingering smile/ that might melt some frozen faiths.



48. Her happy feet danced in the air/ her spirit blinded darknesses/ a joy of living that teased them all/ said crush me if you can.



49. He thought they were aimed at him/ benign looks of harmless people/ he let these non-wounds fester/ and gave himself a malignant heart.



50. Here I am/ the literary philanderer/ seeking partners in crime/ who can talk back in eloquence.



51. Crazed in love of a man unknown/ a man who pained every bit of dream/ made her rave and rant and search/ sniffing for imagined pheromones.



52. Murders behind him, he woke one day/ took off and away from a life of sin/ lived then on as a hermit-saint/ with a hollow gun for his friend



53. Give in to the seductress, sleep/ Lie down with her, in her arms/ Let your dormant dreams awaken/ Let them teach you to dance.



54. He really was alone, inside and about / perched atop a lonely island/ surrounded by a crowd, a mirage/ talking to his thoughts and back.



55. O' ye poor heroes of the feeble fable, may greatness hunt ye down and find a trophy story.



56. He sought naked bodies/ and in naked wonder, drew / until a purist cried rape/ and crushed his art and soul.



57. Ingrown anger, coiled beneath his skin/ a few eager nails, picked at his heart/ said, the hurts have to end here/ the love's got to end now



58. She parted her lips in a smile/ that could mean anything/ a condescension, an apprehension, an affirmation or a negation/ and walked away.



59. Came back as nasty boomerangs/ his half-baked thoughts, half-thought words/ because he couldn't say what he meant/ forever held his silence.

60. She spoke like there was no tomorrow/ spent happy, sad, angry words/ never looked once at the vanishing trove/ till it ran dry and muted her

5 comments:

Akanksha said...

"...they choose to manifest themselves to me" these are the actual thoughts of a genuine poet. M sure they are not going anywhere and are here to stay :)

Samir said...

I read all of these live, as it were, and enjoyed them then. Glad you decided to collect them.

All I can say is to keep going. There is a great craft in your distillation.

Anonymous said...

I hope the 3rd couplet never happens to you. The 7th one is a good suggestion and the 9th one needs to be framed and put up on the private walls of my mind. The 14th one is vicious and may the cripplers be crippled. The 15th one is poignant and pure and the 17th and 22nd ones draw forth a tear, but the 18th one is a great stance.

You are a million lost voices rolled into a single bugle. The warfield is dead, but the bleats bring hope.

Nidheesh Tyagi said...

I read somewhere poetry starts with a lump in the throat. I added further.. and leaves you in a very dense silence thereafter..sometimes so dense that you can feel that in your hands..

Reading you in a very new light is also getting to see a person I didn't know. Your words reveal a new you. A world of manifest(s) of life, which is you and not entirely you, yours and not entirely so. You are in the circle living it and at the same time a step outside it- seeing it happen, take place.. Chronicling the moment while being there.

They come back to you, the ripples of throwing a pebble hopping on a clear lake. You are the lake, ripples, pebble and throwing. They are all knocking at the surface of a higher knowing, to have their own life, to walk on their own, cry, laugh, whisper in a thousand shades. You become the mother of a thousand sons.

Remain open and spaced to let more light find you in more shades and slants..to write you with words, which punctuate a denser silence each time.

Look beyond the tree, the seeds and fruits, and perhaps open to the idea of this lake and the ecology of your being.. Go beyond the constellations and become a planet embraced and illuminated and defined by space and light..

Because those are also knocking at your surface somewhere and you hear that in your silence.

For their own freedom. For your own.

For all good things are evolutionary.

Beauty and the BEast said...

Poetry is a reflection of the potential of emotions.

Some of them were so brutally captured out there, that their stark exposure sent a shiver down my spine.

Lovely!