Monday, June 30, 2008

Theos


Liquid garlic stings my eyes,
But I have forgotten to cry,
I have forgotten to sigh,
Everything I believe is not really mine
To claim myself messiah.
It is a desire to stay on oblivious
To the stark division in my impervious
Faith;it stands like a void ambition,
Cannot go on without the answer.
At the end of the day, it’s all in the head,
The beads of sweat, gathering at the frame of my forehead,

At night in the sapid darkness,
Are all yearning for an answer.

For,I swore my sins are my own

To remember alone...Yet?

As the hackneyed,holy chant goes on,
Eyes pressed shut in covert prayer,
The holy water clinging limply from some brows,
I gaze on into the clay eyes austere,
Forgive me, I have no prayer,
None I believe you can fulfill.
I demand no wishes granted,
I only wish for my questions answered.

They offered wishes this time to each other,
Stooped and touched a few wizened feet,
I hover like a shadow, discrete from the others,
Convincing myself the Dhup smells sweet.
Its milky tails of wisp, the earthy ashes stay scattered,
Amidst the stench of the sacrificial blood,
With the amorphous prayers of my mind’s blood clot.

This time, I shall walk the path of red bricks,
This time,I shall stalk the echoes of receding heartbeats,
This time, I shall seek my roots again…

I wish to know…
I wish to know the reason in the reason
In the faith of my Faith.
Where it started or why it ever ends?
My immortal bed,is dying and maimed,
The world’s caving in, I have to let it show.
I either believe, or I do not…
Where do I begin?
Answer me now…
That is my prayer, my wish, my ambition.
Answer me now…
Now…or never…

If not now...
Never call me back again,

Never sting my name,never call me again...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Happier.In this World.


I would have been happier…
In a different world…we would have all been happier…
Happier...not having to be ourselves all our defended lives…
Happier…to simply not be, maybe?

I saw a woman in rags today.
No she wasn’t a beggar.
I saw her as the day was inward bound…
Into the twilight suspension of mildew and pollution…
Wearing a kurta so dirty the color underneath had surrendered
To that color of slow submission, the color of comatose dreams-grey.
But she wasn’t a beggar…
She heaved onto her shoulders two bulging bags,
Her precious possessions…
Excluding her from the indignity of begging…
I couldn’t read her expression as I ran past, in my insignificant but frigid hurry…
In this world it should be…numbness to regression…
In the other, it is the desperation to live…
And that felt, though quaint in this world…but closer to the truth about her.
I wondered why she hadn’t committed suicide. Yet.

Yes, I would have been happier dead if I was her.

I would have been happier
If I didn’t hesitate that one delaying minute in reaching out my hand for you,
I would have been happier
If I could answer those questions of your five-year old eyes…
I would have been happier
If I could make the wind blow the hair back from your face…
I would have been happier
If I had a conscience loud enough to refrain me from breaching your trust…
I would have been happier
If I remember at the rightful moment, you never mean the hurtful things you said…
I would have been happier
If I didn’t have to satiate my narcissi by forgetting my past…
I would have been happier
If you didn’t have to stand at the tilted edge of the pavement looking like a beggar…
I would have been in a different world…
In a different life…

If only I could accept this the way you did,
I would have been happier.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Facsimile of a Praise

Hey, there…you
With your face all blue,
Buried in the hard morning grass,
Like it’s grown out of the soft soil
This very deaf morning,
Like all of this myriad while
You had not, really, even been.
But that is what earth speaks.
I say something else,
I see something else.

Now that you're helpless,
They speak of you.

I only see…
Your face all blue.
And in it, a betrothal facing extinction,
Been too long, censored forever,
It now lingers, while it threatens,
In half a beat of his heart,
Can anyone hear him calling?
But that is what she would speak.
I say something else.
I see something else.
Why would you not call for help?
Let her see your face...
The touch of your
Face all blue…
Too tangible for me to grasp,
The muscles are yet so strained,
Drooping eyelashes just brush
The earth ,by now,that is taint.
I feel,in your limp body,your neediness.
And a cry escapes you,
And me too!
You look up, and plea
With your eyes,
And close them again,
Before I let go of your blue face,
In the end,you called for me.
In the end you sought a savior...
In the end... I saved a stranger!







Friday, June 6, 2008

Isolated

Too close to the truth, tantalizing from afar
The throbbing of this migrane
Won’t need a rest as I…
Pull the lever of the subway train,
I need to rear my aching head…
Above the surface.
I need to know.
How the earthquake appears…
From up there.

As the metal snake came to a screeching halt,
My face fell glued to the pane,
I sing lullabies to myself,
To herald my guilt in my pain…
To have a reason to hate…
My own clustered self.
I had to know…
Beyond my own face…
There, out there.

No matter what we say,
Or how adapted we seem,
We’ve always taken nauseated steps,
Many of them, back,
As blood ,spilt from the throat of a rat,
Extinguished under the subway train,
Inched towards our feet,
Slowly…against gravity.

Its nature against knowledge,
The centre against edge,
I don’t want to live in ignorance,
Let me rear my throbbing head.

Somewhere faraway,
In the middle of a busy street,
A head appeared from a pit hole
Looked bothways,before…
It was isolated from its body
By more than one car…
Yes, cars-the evolved compartments
Of outdated trains, once isolated…
To remain forever that way…
Can we survive this way?