Wednesday, February 25, 2015
A Falcon in Flight
Am trying, am trying,
Am trying to get by without you---
Without your presence
Without your voice
Your touch
Your breath...
But tell me how do I
Pluck you from my heart? You're in
The arc of a falcon in flight;
The nod of a blade of grass;
The happy games a little girl plays;
And in the helplessness of an old man getting by---
How can I then, pluck you from myself?
How do I stop breathing?
Am trying to get by without you---
Without your presence
Without your voice
Your touch
Your breath...
But tell me how do I
Pluck you from my heart? You're in
The arc of a falcon in flight;
The nod of a blade of grass;
The happy games a little girl plays;
And in the helplessness of an old man getting by---
How can I then, pluck you from myself?
How do I stop breathing?
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Self-Obit: Saon Gupta (1980 CE – 2700 BCE) Retreated into a Time Warp
If you’ve ever chanced upon it, there’s this seedy
back-alley tucked between 221B Parliament Street and Platform No. 3 at the
Central Secretariat Metro Station. Now here’s the insider’s tip that Ms. Gupta
was in on—courtesy her pathetic peddler of psychedelic dreams—it led off to a
wormhole housed within a ramshackle haveli of yore…
Built as it was during the same decade they put up poor Dara
Shikoh’s library by the Gate that possibly led to Kashmeer—it’s been overgrown
by weeds ever since, as cobwebbed and decrepit as the tomes in the latter. From
the last ecstasy-induced glimpse he’d had of her, she had disappeared around
the bend that led to a crumbling mansion within the said seedy
back-whathaveyou.
They say she was smitten by the great ‘oiti-hash-ik’ bug ever since she could place her Bimbisara before
her Ajatashatru, and her Jane Seymour after her Anne Boleyn. Mayhap she was put
to good use by Clive’s rascally bunch at Plassey or was carried away by the
whimsy of Tansen’s Megh Malhar…no one’s really sure.
A Harappan seal was unearthed the other day, announcing that she had steadily made her way upstream the mighty Indus; but then no one can rightly decipher these thingamajigs yet you see...
Published at The Delhi Wala on March 2015:
http://www.thedelhiwalla.com/2015/03/06/our-self-written-obituaries-saon-gupta-1980-ce-2700-bce-near-parliament-street/
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Promise of Eternity
Do you feel the warmth of my breath?
The brush of my tresses as I shield you from adversity—
The whisper of my lips against your's?
The promise of my soul for an eternity?
Should you stand by the precipice forever, my love;
Never to plunge into your soul ocean?
My spirit awaits with a spreading net 'neath the waves,
Amid a rising chant, Ambrosian...
Delve deep, deep within your self, my love...
Cross your arms, close eyes, and
Plunge to the ocean floor—
I promise it'll take you closer, ever closer to your core.
Where I wait by to net you in
Before your breath should escape continuity—
Where my soul stands waiting to meld into your's
With the promise of eternity...
The brush of my tresses as I shield you from adversity—
The whisper of my lips against your's?
The promise of my soul for an eternity?
Should you stand by the precipice forever, my love;
Never to plunge into your soul ocean?
My spirit awaits with a spreading net 'neath the waves,
Amid a rising chant, Ambrosian...
Delve deep, deep within your self, my love...
Cross your arms, close eyes, and
Plunge to the ocean floor—
I promise it'll take you closer, ever closer to your core.
Where I wait by to net you in
Before your breath should escape continuity—
Where my soul stands waiting to meld into your's
With the promise of eternity...
The Greater Illusion
This ache buried deep within my soul;
A subterranean cleave drowned
Beneath living life every day—
What do I hesitate to confront?
What do I bury fathoms deep?
Why this procrastination? Why mistrust?
Is my soul liberty at stake
With living life each day?
Do I die every second,
Burying possibilities inch by inch?
What is this world that confronts?
And then what is this within?
Which a greater reality
An which an illusion still?
Who's to say? Who's to say but I?
Who's to say if my life was successfully led?
Who but I? Who but I to decide what was meaningless—
My net worth, my happiness, peace of mind, or my loves?
Who but I?
And once disclosed—will the pain subside?
Who's to say?
Monday, February 02, 2015
Choose your friends carefully
Shared
ideals, belovéd quirks and common concerns;
Are these
all that cemented us together thru’ the years?
We were free
to choose whom to walk with,
Yet we chose
each other from a myriad other possibilities.
We were at
liberty to let anyone at will
Step right up and over our thresholds,
And yet we
chose each other from a million other permutations…
In springtide,
choose your allies carefully my friend!
For they
alone can gaze right to your soul —
Unadorned.
Unencumbered. Whole.
Such ease
and camaraderie past youth is rare,
When the
world beyond forces up shutters and doesn’t care.
So choose
your friends carefully in youth;
For they
alone can fathom deep your truth…
Unshadowed,
unclothed, sans ruth!
