Lines on Indian Paper - II

Continuingly fidgety with my pen, the following occupied me while others slept in class:

1. Physics notebook, don't know what seized me, it's different:

"The princess cringed away from the villain,

He pulled her closer, he plunged himself into her;

She screamed, he laughed aloud.

Her lover appeared - thrust a shiny blade

Through the devil and the object of his life.

He gasped at his act of possession and impaled himself.

His tears soaked him just as his blood deserted his veins."

2. Mechanics notebook, eventuality inspired:

"When left to die,

How long you survive

Is left to providence."

Seems to be more of a statement.

3. Physics tutorial notebook:

"We have a rule that the one who wins

Shall rule the world till their death.

To equalize things, we kill them

Just after five years of their stay on the throne."

I guess the General Elections creeped up on my mind.

4. Just like that:

"An old man smiles, holding aloft a jar of acid.

He drops it, the incendiary drops spray across his face.

He howls in pain, the smile not washed from his visage;

His senile eyes glint with a mocking guilt.

You feel he may be your future, he sees you as his son."

The changing times, the weary eyes and the wind that erodes you to dust.

A World Crumbles

"Time covers up what it has done,

Chaos settles to the rear end of memory

And scenes dissolve into shadows and myth."

"Lives wander away from their start,

Hoping to forget whole parts of their past."

The peaceful clouds above the peak,

The spotless skies afore that heavenly sight.

The world still has places untouched by ideology,

There is still beauty to take one’s breath away.

 

You see them bundled in wool,

It’s not cold, neither is there trade.

The colours of time are stuck in their flow,

They don’t seem to care about the distant smoke.

 

In this trough, flowers never lose colour.

Neither dust nor fog mars the air.

The people of the valley haven’t yet heard

About the truths of industry, and the intoned lies.

 

A day here is born as innocent blue;

It rises to yellow at its peak.

The paint wears off to sienna

As day turns to night, with its glow travelling west.

 

A year ends silently in the vale,

Another creeps on the old.

Never has a person here been killed,

They’ve only died in peace.

 *******

‘Twas quiet, not a wind, not a movement;

Still, gentle ripples caressed the lake.

Sitting by the fireside and scratching her dog’s ear,

A child senses the animal’s quickening breath.

 

The girl rises and goes to a window.

She sees the lake: calm from afar,

Smoke rising from beyond the vale:

One of many peaceful signs of life.

 

Three raps on the door, and a pause.

Three raps again, and silence.

The girl answers the door, sees nobody about,

The dog rushes out, she follows.

 

Tim stops abruptly at the centre of the street,

She kneels next to him and looks around.

 

A low rumble, now rising feverishly.

The world around her swayed and fractured.

Temples cracked at their base,

Houses flattened into a mat of bricks and dust.

 

Quiet was distorted, screams rent the air,

Impossible weights crushed those beneath;

Some tried, some nearly, almost all died.

 

The lake threw up waves that lashed its shore.

More smoke steadily climbed the air.

Eventually both would clear, both would settle.

 

Tears turn her eyes moist with loss,

She hugs her dog, he licks her in return.

She stands, turning, taking in the scene

And finally sets off towards the lake.

 

As the sun readies to depart from the horizon,

The girl wonders, perched on a rock near the lake

About who knocked on her door,

Three times, and three times again.

 

Time would pass, seasons would change.

At some point, white would overwhelm colour,

And black would be seen as dots, heads and stones.