:: RiBHUS :: Presenting 'I No Longer Dream of the Stars'

The First Words that He Spoke

2010-08-09T17:06:00.010+05:30

And all He ever talks about

Is blood, death and the end of all our kind.

Free people, though we are

Our brains can’t discern want from need,

Anger from agony and most of all,

A cerebral acquiescence to pardon and gore.

The view from above, He says

Is of red on dewy grass; and black above

Spots of intense maritime trade.

(You dig deep to find

What you buried long, long ago)

But bleed your palms to see

That the said time and its devices

Aren’t wholly free of conscience.

Fail in the face of pain,

But try better a second time?

Unbearable as it is, for a last resort

You hope for death to relieve-

The feelings that tether you to this hellish life.

***

All You Need is Love

2010-08-09T14:00:00.005+05:30

Skin, the sense of touch,

Eyes and the beauty they behold:

Try for as long as life and light

To fool us of our right to love.

Unable to contain desire,

The mind gives in

To fill an illusive void.

You love, you smile, you cry in moments of joy,

You feel the wind on your face,

You crave for the touch of another’s skin on yours.

You love another, you smile:

Smug at the tears of the past;

You scream as you fall-

The wind and ground rushing up at you.

You lose the feeling in your fingers,

You lose your heart, you lose your soul-

Long before you realise that life in you

Is no less than gone.

Third, but not Last

2010-08-09T12:21:00.005+05:30

Pray for rain when you could seed the clouds;

Hope for the best when all you wait

Is for your own idle indecision to shatter.

Why ever claim that you are a mere pawn

And insignificant to the extent of vain modesty?

All this when you draw blood at the onset of winter

With no god to goad you and no sun above...

If ever His words were to come true, we’d be slaves,

Carrying out work commanded by our own delirium.

A World Crumbles

2009-01-28T23:44:00.013+05:30

"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.

What They did to the City of Dreams

2008-11-29T22:05:00.008+05:30

Dark shapes moving in the darkest night,

They leave not a shadow, you dismiss their whispers.

You sleep uneasily, unconsciously anticipating doom

To fall upon all: those were the darkest you ever saw.

‘Move from cover to cover, hide in the dark,

Drive the tanker across the city, remember stealth.

Strap the detonator, let it tick, let none awake.

That done, shoot into the night, at every straggler;

Shout the name of god, it’s for him after all.’

Wave after wave of bullets, screams and blood;

The walls were pockmarked with nickel, the glass translucent.

Every surface was a chameleon, confused at crimson –

Those alive aren’t lucky, they live with the dead.

‘Unleash the wrath of our god on those infidels,

Kill those who are bleeding, impregnate the pregnant.

They will look up to you, beg and plead for mercy,

Think not once, shoot them and send them to their Gods.’

The lights were turned on, their faces alight.

We saw them, but they saw us first.

Guns blazing in every room, it was bloodstained luxury.

A city’s landmarks of success were violated, burnt

And reeking of the dead who did no wrong.

‘Give yourself up to god, follow my words,

You lived your five and twenty years

For this night; you’re a martyr.

You’re a son every mother would pray for.

Now come to the tanker before detonation,

Praise him - you have to die to be immortalized.’

They had trained their crosshairs on aliens,

They did exactly what their master(s) ordered.

The dark shapes are darker, their minds blank.

They attain salvation, they see no blood, they see their god.

Our eyes are the ones that are cursed,

Or is it them, the ones being controlled?

We wonder about their intentions,

We fear the route they take to their god.

The Extent to which they go, we sometimes wonder

If the Imperius Curse* exists in reality.

*The Imperius Curse is a fictional element, but it's reality lies in studying those whom we call terrorists. Refer to Imperius Curse on Wikipedia to get a fair idea on what J. K. Rowling meant in her books.

Lines Across Our Eyes

2008-10-25T23:56:00.000+05:30

Terrorizing times stretched across our lives,

Times when one should see, feel and learn.

“We see those lines across our eyes,

The very lines that kill’d our lies and dreams.”

We were made to slide across steel,

To feel the smoothness of gravity’s pull;

All until we were impaled at the foot

Of the glistening face of reality.

Promises, made to make a change,

(That) won the votes and won the war.

They did all things just like the waves,

They simply forgot to keep their charges safe.

We were marched into the silent cells,

With cloth balled up into our mouths

And tape pasted across our lips.

They locked the pins inside our nails

And watched our bodies writhe like dolls.

“The pain lasts just as long as you’re alive,

They showed us that death is the only escape.”

We speak and shout against them, hoping to defer;

We weren’t wrong, they were right all along.

They surround us at a lonely hour

And escort us off our very porch.

They race past the Freedom statue,

They throw us into the prisons of Libertad.

And when finished, they chopped us neat

And dropped the bodies (weighted) into the sea.

Sometimes a hand washed ashore,

Sometimes the others raised a finger –

Only to disappear without the sign of a fight.

The ones who chose not to fight

Lived a life of futile oblivion.

Eyes saw the coup, the terror and the torture;

They sealed their lips – everything was just fine.

The time they fell, with the cultured brains,

They had the merest of words to say –

“As to what he did and what she had to pay,

We know not his fate, our hands are cleaned by the rains.”

*******

The sun rises in another land,

A boy wonders if he’ll see a million minutes of peace.

He turns to see the blades of a windmill slice

Through a passing dove in perfect silence.

Baked Till We Were Dry

2008-10-12T23:39:00.006+05:30

Defeat, frustration, anger, rage –

A burning sensation from the pits;

Teeth clenched, with fingers itching

To crush bone and tear every sinew.

Tyranny and totality throughout the year 1984,

From Orville to Orwell, a flight to death.

Revenge existent but in a tight chamber,

Empty spaces created where birds died on their own.

A new order for containing chaos,

To cut the crimes at their root;

To feed a greater hydra than Hydra,

It was back to being lost in the deathly drums.

Politics was mixed with life to hope for peace,

Crime and drugs gave you a high,

They suggested death for disobedience,

They said we’d live safe and long.

People rotted by the thousands,

Carrion was strewn, corpse over corpse.

The vultures circling miles above

Screeched a signal to stop the fuss

Over dressing and burying the dead.

The parties in power tried to isolate

Fury from feeling and anger from agony.

They evaporated emotion from our eyes,

They convinced us of our crimes.

They cut our bonds, they let us free

To run around and feel ourselves.

They cut us free from the world,

We wandered off to the realms beyond.

The death of chaos in an orderly world

Is like a wave frozen in motion.

The carrier of peace is the hated anarchy

That prevails and outlives our kind.

Those minds failed to see

That the constant fight between good and evil

Is but a ceaseless motion to run the world.

Setting it Right

2008-09-28T20:30:00.003+05:30

There was a man on Ninth Street
Who hated everything about himself.
He wanted to work, but couldn’t.
He tried to pet a dog, and lost some flesh.
Whatever he did, wherever he went,
He never found what was wrong.

He sat on his chair for days
And thought about his losing ways.
He stared at the ceiling at morning light
And kept at it evening through night.

A fortnight’s brainstorming did nothing
Till Bruce struck a lightening blow.
The hyped spider performed on a silky trapeze
To inspire the hollow-headed freak.

Finding parallels where nothing runs apace,
He decided to set his beginnings right.
Just as the eight-legged started all over again,
Mr. Ninth Street was fated to go back in time.

A baby born nine and twenty years ago,
A mother tending both a garden of grass and ado.
One among many, just as sane, just the same –
He saw himself trip over his father’s name.

Life that was content with itself,
A happy face in the audience of death,
The carelessness of chance and fumbling hands –
Inappropriate he was, but could he do anything?

Bruce II faced his past,
He fought them hard, too hard.
His only treasure – the portraits on the wall
Were broken; his knuckles hurt, his fingers bled.

Forever stuck like a fly on glue,
He sat to think again, he sat to rue.
He stared at a deserted tower
Till the day’s light grew dim and dour.

For All Those Living

2008-09-13T20:52:00.002+05:30

Gliding through those gates and under those domes,
Lying on those bleached beds, amidst those gown'd in green.
Searching through the haze and through those gates,
Helplessly slipping down a tightening shaft of light.

Reliving the shades of light before the pain,
Like a ghost gliding through the past:

Walking in the glare of city lights,
Dazed beyond the towering skyscrapers-
Never feeling the fall of snow through those nights,
I tried to forget the tumor and blood-soaked papers.

Clinical odours seeping through reminiscence,
The hands searching for my memories.
Thrashing around and struggling to stay with pain
When death itself is free from feeling.

Hours later, days later, one of my blood,
A friend, a brother, one who'd die for me.
My voice went low - to beseech;
I didn't have the strength,
His eyes glistened, his voice faltered.

Some eyes refuse to see despair.
Some lips refuse to speak of
Death that has no holding back.
I had hands that didn't feel the need
To feed a dying body with a despairing soul.

Eyes looked unto eyes; searching, begging -
For a release from tumor, trial and torment.
Sweet music to my ears, those bells
That tolled from an ever-shortening distance.

Just the throw of a switch - an act the age
Made easy for those who wished to take leave.

"I looked to him to commit,
He looked away with shame."

*******

"His fingers completed the circuit,
He died with lips whispering my name."

Lines on Indian Paper - I

2008-08-31T15:02:00.001+05:30

The following are random lines from my stationary:

1. This one was written while waiting for a stubborn lecturer to arrive (and I guess I was
thinking about both my recently deceased uncle and Dorian Gray) -

"Time frozen as a painting,
Holding the youth as one
Forever as he was - for
The million eyes to envy.
To think, if he was only there,
Still there, to feel the
Force of time on aging lines."

2. The next one was written by me on the rear cover of my Communications notebook-

"An endless journey
To pierce the void
And reach the stars beyond.

An endless journey
To douse the light
And feel the void within."

3. This one was when an Environment Concepts lecturer refused to accept that she was wrong-

"How do you expect me to believe
The words that you utter,
When the truth that you hope
To convey, comes from a lying mouth?"

4. The one below is a slight mockery of a classmate's mistake-

"When you say that the void is empty,
I guess you mean that you are never full.
You think I demean the weight of your thought;
Don't mistake me, you weigh the void beyond me."

5. This last one was the beginning lines of my opening speech on 'Experience is the name people
give to their mistakes'-

"I tried to climb when it rained,
I tripped, I slipped and fell.
I tried again, I fell again;
But somehow I reached the peak.
You think I learnt a lesson,
All I did was count the stairs."

Some People Still can't get It

2008-08-30T12:53:00.002+05:30

Whenever the times are bad,
Whenever the world turns its back,
Why do you look to that idea?

Where is that which you can’t see?
Where is it when you are lost?
I can see it in the clouds,
But what is it doing up there?

Times when the spine shivers;
When a dot spreads
The darkness across your eyes,
Where is it that kills the void?

What can it do when the fear
Is from within, deeper than itself.
That every sinew of your heart
Is black, weak, enslaved,
And like Lavinia, ravished.

That the wrong think themselves wronged,
That they try to pray for pardon,
Is the lowest that filth can reach.

Taking up those arms and ideas,
Waging war against those
Whom you never knew,
And will never see in Hell.

See all the harmony around,
Feel the ambience of death.
Lie to me that you can,
And you’ll see that which none
Can see in life and neither in good death.

Tasting Reality

2008-07-31T12:35:00.000+05:30

Why is there a need to sweeten,
When you have to suffer when bitten?

You see the world as it is,
But still want to feel amiss?

The very want of the mass,
To kill death and live crass.
The sights on mounts,
In the wake of jaunts -
A collection of errors that incite
Man to chase an imaginary light.

We wear those plastic masks
To hold our faults in casks.
We never exult when we can,
We kill our mind, and refuse to tan.

The man who started off
To reach, but dies at scoff.
He never learnt that his imperfections
Were as obvious as his infections,
To cough at the onset of cold,
And to bow whenever told.

The scenes around than you can see
Are part of the illusion that is reality.
For as long as you like, you can try;
But don’t be convinced that you can taste reality.

Converting a Foe

2008-07-20T20:45:00.012+05:30

'Twas a hole of profound depth

In which I found my foe.

Such shadows that hid him,

Just to keep me from walking away.

The echoes came before the rain

An added reason not to help the pain.

Each I agree was thirsty for the other's blood,

Then why stand, and not escape the flood?

Getting rid of trouble, was it itself;

Had he been me, he would've saved himself.

A childish reaction, to expect

Him to tell me not to infect,

That he would rather rot

Than freedom from an enemy bought.

The rain chilled me,

And sank him up to knee.

The silence and shadows fought in my head,

Trying to convince me that he'd be dead.

Knowing that inaction would lay a wreath,

It seemed like conspiring with Death.

Searching at last for the needed tools,

To pluck him out and thwart the fools.

Pulling out the weight between,

The time the evening took to lose its sheen.

Inch by inch, brick by brick,

Deconstructing that which made us sick.

Rising from the shadows -

Watered by the rain's throes,

Came the enemy, and then a friend,

Into the light, and out of the shadows' bend.

Unfurling the fabric of peace,

Walking on, and walking away.

The barrier finally broken,

To build a bridge between.

The rope was frayed,

Neglect ripped it apart.

Now of iron, forged,

The bond was built to last.

The Flight of Reality & A Hint of Illusions

2008-06-21T19:27:00.014+05:30

"Where is the hope that dwindles,
When the end of a tunnel is the start of another?
Where is the spark that kindles,
When the fire that burns is the same that floats a feather?"

* * * * * * *

Wispy clouds floating across
The frosty glass and painted sky -
A final answer to prayers and joss.
Perfect renditions to the eye, but why?

Planets and stars spinning
About an axis of the wildest dreams,
Trapped in leaves of matter thinning,
With sanity bursting from the reams.

Dancing away the illusions,
With thorns gnawing at your soles;
Life is but another's dream extensions,
So complete that you fear the whisper of tolls.

Ego-built barriers to fend
Against the ravage of emotions.
Such strict lines that refuse to bend,
See the last ravish and all its veiled intentions.

A hole awide in your heart,
To hurt you and kill your art.
A hole to spawn the serpents of spite,
To test you and see if you can fight.

Dark angels ringing your halo,
Turning your colours into shadow.
That you are living or not,
Sustaining illusion or reality,
Is the question you'll never get answered.

Changed, But Seemingly Same

2008-06-17T12:02:00.012+05:30

Ten years after a farewell,
A decade of silence and whispers.
Not a friend too close;
Carried away by the clock-work life,
Where everything's a ritual.

It may have been years
Since I last saw the face.
We - two of a quartet,
The best minds in a lyrical asylum
And the perpetrators of chaos.
And thus I sighted him -
Wider and ears redder -
Changed, but seemingly same.

Feet from him, and I called -
A recognition? Maybe surprise.
Eyes wide and ears redder,
And then a crease of the temples.

Eyes searching for a name;
His face wasn't lying -
Recognition absent, but just that hint.
Or was I just hoping?

The same man, the very same,
In ticks of clocks,
In spinning of gears,
And in the passage of time,
Had a feeble mind.
'Twas the age of silence, in ignoration.

The head turned and
His feet took him away.
And I stood there, just there;
Looking up, seeing, not the sky
But the truth of time.

That it wasn't the same as then,
'Twasn't a twist of fate,
An everyday error: to forget.
That it had to happen then;
That it made me think he was
Changed, but seemingly same.

It May Just be Far - Fetched

2008-05-16T21:06:00.004+05:30

A vision, there just beyond reach.
Can I touch it and still dream?
That many roads shot off,
Driving me to the very verge,
Just needing fingers to hold on.

To make a difference across times,
To show there was a me,
To find that which eludes.

Is it a ripple or a wave?
Or is it just an army marching away?

Never overlook that time still flows,
That blacks grey and greys white.
Ever that the last breath may come to pass
Way before the billion eyes
And way before the glint of gold.

The memory of many such stories,
Of trying souls and later souls,
Kept at work, without the rub of silver.

Shall this end just as another?
Or will the eyes glue and the necks crane?

Heinous should a crime be called
When the fire goes out from within
And let everything without, crumble to dust.

Wistfulness? No, it's Cold Greed

2008-05-06T21:38:00.011+05:30

Sinful eyes lost in indecorous awe,
The sights inspiring both flame and fear.

The desires of a mindless million
Shaped in stone and scrapped with shame.

A reminder of undying lust
For objects of power far beyond our cusp.

Caught by the unblinking lure
Of light shut up in a crystal,
The eyes glint with ancient emotion;
Hard to hide this – an endless season.

None exceed the wanting wind,
In size of dreams and crazy speed.

The use of eyes, all in sockets,
Just as needles, threaded through.

Pain – the aftermath of awe,
As much as the tilt above the rest.

The hiss of quenched desire,
Still the splutter of unfelt loss.

The world of hidden emotions
Say nothing, but the eyes betray.

A life hath all that itself want,
That the things without, are shifting tricks.
For many may have done things,
Many more may have said things.

When it all comes to the basic meter,
We say a simple rhyme in tune:

"The meanings of a forgotten verse,
Scratched on steel and left to rust.
The needless need for a blackened curse,
Etched in stone and turned to dust."

Refractions

2008-04-28T16:53:00.009+05:30

The haunting memories of a frenzied nation,

The frequent attacks with peace so scarce,
The sadness that only comes
When that is past and what's next
Is worse than worst can be.

A step into unfamiliar land,
A stride on unchartered territory,
A leap over hurdles scattered,
And the lessons meant to be learnt.

An eventful journey through Hell,
Only to know what it is
To be in Heaven,
With good at your side,
Drenched in bliss
And the mind set free to fly.

A broken road on which my life wanders,
A tingling difference, not diffidence,
A surrender so complete, it distorts
The very air around me.

Nearing the border,
With war behind,
And a battle ahead,
I seek a miracle that's in my control.
I write my story as I wish it to go,
Just as the light into the night,
Just as the million stars that fade at dawn,
Not a bang, not a sudden demise,
It shall be a fading, with a different end.

Looking back at the path I've tread,
With a tinge of guilt, a twinge of sadness,
The things I did, the things I could've but didn't,
Flashing on a faraway mirror,
A reflection of those very days,
Reminding me of something else.

I know what it means,
And carry on under the stars.

The End Is Near

2008-04-04T19:26:00.004+05:30

The smoking funnels, turned upside – down;
The blocks moving faster than ought to.
Time warming up – a rehearsal
To end a slow demise.

The little that little things did
To return in kind the deed
Toward an ungrieving sentience
Spun the cogs that chugged End on.

Surprise and shock born
Just as seeds stayed asleep.
Refuse that was cycled, gullet through gullet,
And ended just as before.

Greed: too hard to contain,
The desire to live off the dead.
Sympathy for other things,
Long after came their end.

The touch of poison on the lips –
Momentary pain, and an endless addiction.
A high of insensibilities,
With the generous relapse.

Prophets whispering the end
Of you and all your kind.
Fallen in the eye of minions,

You die, to fulfill a tyrant’s curse.

Bills and Billings

2008-03-05T23:24:00.011+05:30

The sweet law that was,
In the grip of iron jaws;
Lost in dreams of green,
Never trying to wean.

The talk of evil men
Going round since then:
Speech full of gloss,
With never – steady moss.
Abstract content spilt
Till every sane ear wilt.

The jarring tones
Of victory and phones,
Kept up the sway,
Day after day.
And week after week,
Did stink every creek
Till they finally phased,
And then lay encased.

The times after then
Saw men just like them.
The good old story
Went on, just as gory.

A fiery wheedle
Pulling every needle
Out of their wily graves,
And come reborn as healthy knaves.

[The comedy above is 'short lined' as it was originally typed out as a series of Short Messages (SMS') to a friend. On request, I have compiled the scraps of political gibes into this poem under the title: 'A Tale of Politicking'. I hope that poetic justice has been given to the pioneers in the field of 'POLITICS FOR SELF - PRESERVATION']

'Cause it Matters if You Care

2008-03-05T20:54:00.011+05:30

Pictures still fresh in my mind;
Seem'd as vivid, but couldn't be real.
Was it a vision, or a dream unkind?
Whatever it was, our race has lost appeal.

Shadows blurred, but forms clear,
Walking about on damaged road.
Their purpose certain, method unclear,
A bridge there is, still wade across the ford.

Evidence of the tide of times,
Our coming dark and dire fate.
Smog and smoke - the deadly chimes;
Surprise not when comes the final spate.

A window have we, but small in size
To escape not, but let the worst escape.
Prudence pays and so to be wise
In saving ourselves, as well our dear landscape.

Let it be not a deathly tone,
Let it come never, true as skin and bone.

[In view of recent developments, leading to the possible (if not imminent) end of human sustenance on Earth, this piece has been composed by The Armchair Philosopher for the benefit of people who may be inspired to make a U - turn in their outlook towards the all - giving planet. If you wish to, you may quote for the benefit is that of our Environment. Clarifications may be requested through leaving a comment below the post.]

A Midsummer's Nightmare

2008-02-10T20:18:00.002+05:30

A far – flung tale, from the lips of a fictitious man.
A storyteller in the land of horrors: -

Stories – respite to a bleeding ghoul,
The spirit of an unsatisfied soul.
The dark digests of a burning moon,
After the candle in your room.

The hideous creatures that you beheld,
Took you for a ride on wood to be fell’d.
A sun that refused to rise
In the land of witches, never wise,
Went up and down the skies,
‘Cross an old man’s dying eyes.

Just as night saw the last wick burn,
The l’il one did twist and turn.
In its sleep saw wondrous things,
Stricken hands spinning heads of long – gone kings.

Leering faces, ripp’d from their sorry bodies
‘Dorning walls in perfect Dees.
Blood that dried upon the tearways,
Will flow again on July freeways.

Dark forms upon the road,
Hooded and gown’d – The Black Metal Lode.
Reeking shapes throwing lengthy shadows,
Rising from graves, sporting Luciferean haloes.

Never looking up, eyes on hell’s brink;
Souls banished, sentenced to the devilish drink.
A dreaded realm of death and fire,
Of scalded bodies, ‘fraid to spark a master’s ire.

The rise of apathy, a recidivist’s pleasure;
A soul with no remorse – old Satan’s treasure.
Rising materialism that killed a saint,
Such cold assassins, seem’d usual but ain’t.

And when the book was shut, the story done,
The teller I saw, his eyes with wicked cun (ning).
Spelling out words with evil ease –
‘Twas the Devil himself, that brought me to my knees.

A Wizened Speaks

2008-02-08T16:05:00.003+05:30

On the breaches of a lake,
At the foot o’ the mounts,
A wizened spake:
Of times far past,
Of memories before the Raj.

***

Of royalty that never believed.
A greater power that had come
To annex, but through his child’s fair hand.
To consent would be to lose:
His life, land and all that ever was his.

Blighted by his queens’ capacity,
He was the lost, the loser and the loner.
If not for the story the wizened spake,
I would have left in a trice, elsewhere.

A Moghul’s hate of temples
And all that was Hindu,
As sweet to the royal ears,
As nectar from a raided hive.

The hills were moved,
And in a month, they did it.
‘Twas the most splendid thing that
Human eyes did ever behold.
Aah! The senses would fail,
Just imagining its columns.

Thank’d did the convert, and erected
The serpent umbrella’d
As high as the temple spire.

The army came, and went.
The disgusted guest did speak of alliance,
But with a land nearby.

The signature of a lost wonder,
Lies as dust, now under
The form of the meeting tusks.

***

Saying so, did the wizened shift
His eyes upon the peak;

And vanish into the rising mist.

Al-Khamseen (Part - 1)

2008-01-30T17:34:00.000+05:30

There he was. Lean, with his extraordinarily broad forehead and short, but thick beard, streaked with silver at the chin. It was hard to miss him. Though his prematurely greyed hair would not show it, his eyes still had the lingering twinkle of a twenty - seven year old.

On his way to the mosque, one could notice his strained face as he ascended the stairs. The limitless torture that Sa' aduddin Al-Khamseen had subjected himself to, were only too evident from his blackened soles and cracked heels, visible as he knelt for Azaan.

Denied of the luxury of time, enjoyed by those of his age, he pushed on towards another sweat – siphoning day at the mines. The workers, here, were not fortunate to have helmets, mounted flashlights and customised boots. They wore the traditional kaftaan, and were barefoot.

As he approached the entry shaft, the supervisor handed over a candle, a box of matches and the pickaxe.

The candle in Sa' ad's hand brought terrifying memories of the week last; when a poor miner was left to his death when a fellow worker lost his grip on a crevice and dropped his burning candle. The miner hanging from the sheer rock face was lucky, climbing out of the coal - mine, just in time to escape the fire sparked by the candle’s contact with a pocket of methane.

The fire flourished, eating up the meagre amount of oxygen present in the narrow chamber where the pathan lay trapped. The deadly tentacles of smoke put the man out of worldly repair, even before the flames could touch him.

The Reason Lost

2008-01-13T00:30:00.004+05:30

The unknowing smile, from the lips,
Wiped. Rising tragedy, harden the face.
Hands holding guns, waging a war,
Is and never was theirs to fight.

Ancient prejudice, the Promised Land,
God’s own words they said.
Reason came too late,
The great Book had long been forged.
Forged, the message lost in translation,
Everything to the despot,
Meanings and mistakes conflict
The sanity of the human mind.

And still they fight, their homes as good as lost,
Their freedom bought by higher echelons.
Cometh men to save them from
Their predicament, and die themselves,
Marring the sand no more than already.

It was prejudice, of faith.
It is obstinacy, a mistake.

It will be ignorance, stark on their face.

The Law Of Shadows

2007-12-26T09:34:00.003+05:30

The sinister form following everyone,
Untold entity, part of anyone
Exposed to the sun, out on the street,
Even to places where the sheep cease to bleat.

The only things that follow the laws
Of shadows and followers; devout claws
Clinging to one akin –
Under imaginative skin.

Nearest help, at hand wherever goes one,
But long and gone, when the sun is done.
Live as anything, but still just a thing,
Becomes to one without a mate, the only thing.

Shadows peeling from the walls,
Living lives, never heeding our calls.
Stare as you may, but in the blink of an eye,
Creep on you as they all do, and walk you by.

Imagine as one may, but shadows
Always follow, right to the gallows.
Faithful to the ownership,
The very one who jumped ship;
Company that you can never shun,
Mute, but there till the sun vanishes beneath the horizon.

Intangible Notions

2007-12-04T16:39:00.004+05:30

In a world where tangibility is all,
Never a chance to hope a dream.
Shattered fantasies, of a dream bygone,
Never to stir again, from the flames
Of the romantic phoenix.

Every chance for a dream to come true,
Made blunt, by the weight of time,
Is there, but just not there.
Then does he realise
That his dreams will only be so;
Belated in time,

And lost to posterity.

Relinquishing Paint

2007-11-21T21:40:00.002+05:30

To paint on the canvas of life,

With a brush of certainty,

Is to relinquish the use of

Those colours that essay

One's anguish and envy at

Another man's prosperity,

Without oneself tasting

What is bitter and

Meandering, ultimately into Light.

It has, and will always be,

That to try is never criminal,

For it is best to know for

Oneself, what is right, and

What is not.

The Thin Thread Of Reason

2007-11-19T17:24:00.001+05:30

It was a time when the world
Hung in balance,
Courtesy a thin thread of reason.

It was then, that the equations
Shifted to give way to anarchy.
Anarchy in an avatar, never
Seen before. It uprooted
Reason from the minds of the lesser
And gave no glade in the murky
Woods of despair, to the able.

This, was the undoing
Of many a man and the making
Of a New World Order.
It was then that everything
Changed …. for worse, forever.

Memories of Yesterday

2007-10-02T08:50:00.003+05:30

I see a dove, and in it’s eye, the reddish
Glint of a dying sun, signalling the end
Of the day’s giving and the spark of
Night’s taking. Man’s worst fears take
Definite shape, haunt him and test his hope,
Hope for light, a tomorrow, one different from the
Moderacy of today, a tomorrow that is
Far ahead from his primitive
Fears of a modern thought in a life
In renaissance. The joy of days long
Before the illusions of modernity,
Times when simplicity was beauty itself,
Bring emotions rushing at one
Reminiscing his days.

A helping hand,
A rarity in the age of shadows,
Seemed soft as ruby in velvet, a smile
That melted the hardest of men to
Humility and compassion. Fair faces and
Cheery voices dot my memory of yesterday;
Will there be another?

Past all convention, past all that’s dear
To the dreamer, I see something familiar,
Yet so different from experience. There will
Be another, one that’s no different from
The past. It will repeat, all over again,
And when it does, my words

Shall be sole testament.