Shadow
Not of me, yet so palpably mine.
With every dreamy clock tickings, I
Give life to shades of fantasy, by and by.
Coloured by longing and fervour divine,
Will ethereal turn bona fide?
Exhausting thoughts and tears, wish away
The Shade to perdition, till tis’ nothing more
Than a never dream, littering Coeur’s shore.
But yet ache steadily, till coherence flimsies away.
Why won’t reality eradicate you?
Enough! As the cadence hastens with every word,
I seek the wooden stake to end the haemorrhage.
Will Holy Water be enough to ethereally exorcise
The painful Shadow? How very, very absurd!
What will it take to forget it?
As it decimates sanity, my heart flutters to my Shadow,
And I plod along, mind consumed, zombie to its whims,
Waiting foolishly for relief to be brought by the end.
Inconvenience
"Smell of gangrene permeates the air.
Bags full of donated clothes.
I lost my boat ...But why would they care?
Sanitary towels
Depression and Death.
Typoid and Malaria
Semi-permanent tin shelters,
Charity and counseling intermingle
Open up! Open up!!
But what is there to open up?
My child perished...I lost all that I cared.
Piles of clothes, yet none are mine!
Tsunami is thy name ...
You shall forever bear the name that destroyed our lives.
Is there a bigger pain?"
I sit and type away, far away,
Ensconced between walls of concrete.
Never truly knowing, never really grasping
Magnitude, sadness, nor the profundity.
Too selfish to send nought but minutia,
While others altruistically do what I should.
I sit and type away, far away.
Ensconced in walls of ignobility.
I to B
I start to question behaviours
Of I and those that surround I.
Alphabetically speaking I is favoured,
Magically self-destructive, it remains
I-chink of narcissist like myself.
The path from B to I is long,
Meanderingly torturous, yet
Some take it, day in day out, why?
I refuse to correct my outspokenness
To please one or two meaningless con-artists!
So the Path from I to B, I will not take,
You, my dear Sir may take it or lump it!
seashore--by--Tagore
(I found this beautiful poem by R Tagore on a forum ...I just thought it was so meaningful at this time... "on the sea shore of endless worlds children meet".. the mother who gives life can also destroy it...)
Seashore
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The infinite sky is motionless overhead
and the restless water is boisterous.
On the seashore of endless worlds
the children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand
and they play with empty shells.
With withered leaves they weave their boats
and smilingly float them on the vast deep.
Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets.
Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships,
while children gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
The sea surges up with laughter
and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.
Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children,
even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle.
The sea plays with children,
and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
Tempest roams in the pathless sky,
ships get wrecked in the trackless water,
death is abroad and children play.
On the seashore of endless worlds is the
great meeting of children.
bonds of friendship
(has not been edited--written in the spur of the moment in response to a poem titled "is this called lost friendship")
sorrow,
a burning desire to rip the planes of time.
guilt,
blame asks for a soul to burden.
anger,
rage at the all engulfing helplesness.
I miss our street roaming days,
from window to window, stall to stall
never missing the obvious nor the regal.
Our lazy days, sunbathing on communal grass,
Ben and Jerry our companions Du jour.
Coffee never plain but majestically grande,
Chocolate enriched with marshmallows,
Who cared for the hips when the lips
Kissed the divine itself.
From The Strand till London Bridge,
The South Bank till cross of Brent
No-one escaped, our lazy eyes,
Nor tongues sharpened on laughter.
Quiet days, secrets shared on the banks
While watching river birds pick debris.
Time and circumstance,
With all their cruel pompousness
Can cut ties as strong as steel.
Once melted the snow disappears,
Leaving nought but fading memories.
A friend lost through time and distance,
yet so close, heart beats are heard.
We roam the net as once we trawled the capital,
Searching for nothing more than a minute together.
One day, we shall meet again,
Old and worn by tide and time,
Each with a bevy of young 'uns,
And no more pyjama parties.
But it is not lost friendship,
For although I have lost closeness once had
and shall never regain it,
Traces left by snow will remain
Urging us on to newer pastures of relationships.
Ties can be reformed,
Perhaps not in steel but with fibre otpics.
And with the melted snow,
We will water our cyber flowers.
grandma-அம்மம்மா
(I had received some pretty upsetting news about my maternal gandmother's health during the summer)
அம்மம்மா
Ripe sunrays swell the chestnut, in spiny green, cocooned.
Soon the succulent flesh will be grilled and consumed.
Birth, growth, death, eternally cyclical. Inescapable.
Her hands so soft, yet lined by experience now invisible,
Caress my cheek, with tender love and awe.
A child of her autumn, stubborn as her mirror, yet
Cherished beyond doubt, fed on dreamy tales of might.
Concentric circles, slowly indisputably spread far.
Yet revolve evermore like unruly planets around the star.
The depth of her eyes tells stories of long ago.
Leaves have long gone, bark resplends in the cold light.
Unruly snowy softness of her hair, tied in a bun, tight.
She sits revisiting autumn days of glorious colours,
When child and woman filled airy castles full of treasures.
Her voice sings lullabies, aged and mellow.
Ice cold rays highlight imperfections of withered Nature.
None can escape the perfect circle of life forever.
Each second, a bullet piercing her bounteous heart, bleeds.
Slowly numb dreams to come. She shan’t hold my seedlings.
Her fragrance surrounds me like a halo.
Slowly time takes all that Nature generously gives.
Ticking slowly but unstoppably, it tells of non-stories.
Flowing ceremonious robes with pomp and circumstance,
Her withering happy eyes shall not glance or praise.
Her embraces calm my reckless nature.
In winter, Nature wishes back, all that she gives.
Ashes to ashes, the soil shall absorb the bonfire leaves.
She won’t see my crimson regalia, nor tease shyness away.
Her witty repartees will no more, adversity in my path, slay.
I do not wish to see her parting coiffure.
