Dream away
Tender day
Hear my cries
Take my sighs
Fade away
Dust and clay….
Angel’s eyes
Flowers to bloom
Pharaoh’s tomb
Times and tides
Awake, arise….
The blue above
The faithful sea
Magic tree….
And the stories
Bleached memories…
Fever raves
Rivers talking
Fear stalking
Eyes of goats
Teardrop floats….
Daughters and sons
From the eyeballs
Eternity calls
Oblivion…ahoy !
Hope and joy….
A cat sits on my porch everyday
With hardened jaws and a drooping face
Seems like he’s got something to say
Something very somber, that’s my guess
He’s rather old, and he seems very wise
And his eyes remind me of silent sages
Maybe he IS a saint in feline disguise
Conspiring against time through the ages !
Doesn’t move, though at times he winks
His whiskers quiver in the breeze
Our Lord in Heaven knows what he thinks
Oh senility, that dreadful disease !
The twilight bathes him in ashes and gold
As he sits like a statue, it makes me sigh
I stare at him and think of miseries untold
And that someday, this sad old cat shall die
Maybe he’s Macavity, repenting his crimes
Having given up his dark and evil ways
He gazes at the blank pages of the times
And seeks some peace in his last few days
With these flowing times the cat shall fade
Beyond those horizons, so tender and red
Or perhaps, deep into some silent night
He'll melt away in the motherly moonlight
Flowers shall bloom and flowers shall wilt
Empires shall fall, and new ones shall be built
Cats like these, they live, and then they die --
“Cast a cold eye on life, on death, horsemen, pass by”….
It is in these moments of wild madness
that I feel how much I love myself
It is in these moments of saintly delight
that I discover the hopeless optimism
that drives me on
It is in these moments of hollow mirth
that I realize the futility of sorrows and despair
It is in these moments of heavenly glory
that I open the treasure-trove
of faith, hope and love
It is in these moments of absurd joy
that I get all the strength to fight
my tears and sighs
These are those maddening moments
of beastly happiness
These moments are all lies – I know that
But it is in these very moments
that I truly live….
I live…..
That wild afternoon reverie….
I dreamed myself wandering –
faithless and tired, along the
desert sands of the twilight land,
Lonesome, hungry, yearning for some dust
between my fingers
which had withered away like
some unknown saintly flower…..
Bitten by my own lies,
Smitten with my own image
Suddenly, like a crazy midnight howl
of some stray dog,
the curtains lifted.
I could feel the whole world trembling between
my boot-heels
And then it came –
‘IT’
Like the realization of sawdust
Like the homeless orphans who die
Like the strife between my own ribs,
It came……
I could feel the mad spirits
staring at me from the other side of the sky
And those seven great serpents
hissing with blue fire
on their seven forked tongues
And the seven wild children of the night
were dancing atop those flames
with seven red roses on their hands
And on each petal of those roses,
bits and pieces of eternity were stuck
I tried in vain to scrub those bits off,
But then, I saw myself in a crystal ball
with everything I own,
and everything I have gambled away…..
I stared deep into my eyeballs,
which I had gambled away in
some long faded dreamy hour of
memory,
till I drowned in them…..
And then I reached a new world…..
Twenty nine sad conch-shells welcomed
me there…. but their sounds got burnt
in that blue fire atop which those
seven cherubs kept on dancing with the
mirth of life…. And that of death –
side by side, hand in hand….
With the charred remains of
those sounds, I built a castle
first, and then a kingdom….
and then a worship – to
fight myself……my faithless self;
The nights were ancient,
But the battles were medieval…
and the battlefields were empty,
with rows and rows of public lavatories
with the words ‘Victory’ and ‘Defeat’
etched on their closed iron doors…..
When these seven cherubs will grow up,
they’ll become seven seraphs….
And they’ll carry all the nights, all the
meaningless dreams and all the droplets
of time and tide waiting for none save
those who had gone inside those
public lavatories and had painted
blue sunflowers and butterflies on
their inside walls,
in their wombs
And everything else shall vanish
in the mist….
And I shall be engulfed by the great
oceans of nothingness…. Where even
those blue fires which had burned
the twenty eight hollow sounds of those sad
conch-shells of which one was silent refuse
to burn
But it was not a haunting midnight
dream,
It was a late afternoon reverie,
nothing more and yet nothing less….
And when I woke up,
The blank wide world
stretched to the horizons before my eyes….
That was all…..
That was it –
‘IT’.
Crowds
Everyday… and faces
Mostly unknown
A thousand whispers gather
Stories build up….
Skeletons hang from the rooftops
Misty mornings…. Vacant shores
Lonely horses and lonely skies
Ancient forests….
Leaves…. And crowds…. crowds…..
Eternity is dead….
Every night…. In sleep…
Somewhere, deep down,
Life seeps in….
Clocks – stare…
from the other side….
Silent, like the oaks
Rain….rain….and that
single voice from the stars
Shapeless, hollow…..
Moths play around
That mystic halogen haze…..
But beyond all these,
the river of desire runs……
And thus, all stories unfold….
Clouds gather
Meadows and phantom darkness
Fires leap up from the womb
of the river
And so, like the times, a thousand
stories are woven
across the skies of a thousand and
one desert nights….
Arabia…. The Bedouin tents
Laughter and the horizons…..
They sit around the fire
They tell stories
They sing
They dance
They live……
Dust and sands in the breeze
Cobwebs, hourglass, mist….
Puppet-shows…. Battles….
And then, the clouds….
the clouds…..
Someday, it’ll rain,
Till then, let’s dream on……
This is the other world
Where the death-cold eyes
of fishes meet
The three great forked tongues
of the serpent touches the dark
hood of the sky
The black fire burns with the
blue silence of Ovid
But not the cold pallour
nor the nameless dread
of the unknown makers
of the pyramids, with their
names etched on the sandstones
Only the knitted brows
and the silent sullen forehead
of the Pharaohs and phantoms…
Only the death-mask-pale
of the shapeless moon, moon, moon –
Mother of bats, owls, shrieks
and cobwebbed cellars swirling with the
banished blue
But the other fire burns
in Babylon…the Sultans
and the sleepless sparrows
and horses stare on, in wonder
of the moaning graves,
parchment graces and the
swelling breasts of the virgin sea
The three great bells
wait for the Resurrection
in silence, in silence…
The skulls of the planets
dance with the maddening harmony
of the emptiness of the smokes…
The hands of Colossus strive to
tear away the lullaby of the sonority
and the rhyming clocklessness of times
from the womb of the lost tides
and lost souls – shivering in the
maddening numbness and clouds
This is the place where the last
pantomime steps down from
the proscenium and the first puppet
begins her show
This is the place where the Magi
reaches after chasing the starry
mirage of faith and Jerusalem
This is the place where
The Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost disappears
in front of the vibrating eyes of
Sisyphus and all other absurdly
happy strife and void and eyeballs
This is the place where the waves
become still and wait for Philomela to find
her lost voice This is the place where the last
teardrops and sighs of all the restless jesters
become one and the same
with the soundless dirge of the lost inferno…
This is the other world –
The world beyond all twilight meetings
and bohemian grains of sand…
Rhapsodies -- end
Reveries -- silent
Verses -- unwrite
Pages -- burn
Crickets -- sing
Finality -- attain... attain... attain...
Loser loser on the wall,
Who’s the sickest of them all?
Loser loser on the wall,
Build your tower and build it tall
Loser loser on the wall,
Give me hope, coz I’m small
Loser loser on the wall,
Fight the rain and fight the squall
Loser loser on the wall,
Lose to them but do not fall
Loser loser on the wall,
I feel lonely, gimme a call
Loser loser on the wall,
You’re my master and I’m thy thrall
Loser loser on the wall,
Take me to a shopping mall….
Loser loser ho ho ho !
You’re the only friend I know
Loser loser ho ho ho !
Blow with the wind o blow blow blow !!
Loser loser ho ho ho !
Take my arrow and take my bow
Loser loser ho ho ho !
Take my dreams and off we go !
Loser loser ho ho ho !
Stick to me through high and low
Loser loser ho ho ho !
Fight the yes and fight the no
Loser loser ho ho ho !
Lose to them but strike them a blow
Loser loser ho ho ho !
Flow with me o flow flow flow…….
Loser loser hee hee hee !
One two one two one two three
Loser loser hee hee hee !
I worship worship worship thee
Loser loser hee hee hee !
Love me, love me, please love me
Loser loser hee hee hee !
You and me in a jamboree !!
Loser loser hee hee hee !
Take my faith and make me free
Loser loser hee hee hee !
Sit by my side and tell me a story
Loser loser hee hee hee !
Let's twist and shout in morning glory
Loser loser hee hee hee !
Dance dance dance dance dance in gleeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And now, the point I’m trying to make
I love my bread, I love my cake
I love gambling with my life at stake
But it’s that defeat for defeat’s sake
That’s the only shit I take……
Don’t seek for morals in those stories untold
Don’t seek for sighs when true sorrows unfold
Read to me from your pages, read me all thy dreams
Sing to me the song of sleep, though of love it seems
And those raindrops – oh, they refused to learn
To worship that lake where all your sonatas yearn....
But the river and the forest – they’ll never forget
Those ancient songs of love, that sad and silent sunset
And in that empty field they stand in rows and rows
Like soldiers frozen in love, a million timeless scarecrows
The sullen eastern breeze, it carries their unsung song –
Far beyond those skies, where their souls belong
The desert stands empty as the moon bathes the sands
The moonlight is like wine, but it's water he demands
Oh, he’s tired, thirsty and dying – fall on him as rain,
For Ithaca seeks her green for Ulysses to cry again !
And I’m that hopeless soldier who’s lost all his wars
My armour hides my wounds, my helmet hides my scars
Seventeen miles from here, my epitaph you shall see
In a blank piece of stone, I’ve preserved it all for thee…..
Duniyadariir khyala bondhu
Ekhono chintey baki
Chintey parley bolbi rey bhai
Sholo ana i phNaki
Erporey aar thoi nai rey
Nouka boye jaye
Shomoy nodiir e’kul-o’kul
Osrujoley naye
Sakin gyachhe, naam o gyachhey
Rother myalaey bhhir
Ratirkaaler bhhishon jhhorey
Bhanglo shadher niir
Emni para kyemni dhara
Bhulaye ocheton
KhhNachar bhitor ochiin pakhii
Uraye dey rey mon……
Mon paboner dokhhina gang e
Ektarakhan khNuji
Kothaye geli nayontaara
Hariye gechhish bujhhi ?
The Buddhist Analogy of the Eightfold Path
P.S. Buddha didn’t say how to define right and wrong. He spoke of the conscience (Atmadeepa Bhava : Light the Lamp of Thy Conscience, as he said to one of his disciples on his deathbed. But I wasn’t there. Hence I plead ignorance)…..
Maybe he meant those pre-existing norms, mores, customs and such other didactic bla bla s that shape the human conscience, but the times have changed. Anyway, that’s enough I guess
P.P.S. One reason as for why I’m posting this crap:
Samadrita has threatened me with dire consequences if I don’t tag her in a post. And going by her recent blog entries, she’s getting freakier every day, and she might just end up actualizing her threat! Here I tag you, dearest friend. Have mercy on this meek soul. Amen.
Last night she came to me
Like a crazy rainkissed epiphany
Like the clouds that seem to be
Like the dreams I dream to see
Just the tides to roll along
With the window that sings my song
Like the moon when she’s sad
Like the tempest when he’s mad
And the clouds covering through
The night so empty, the night so blue
Creeping down my window-pane
The sad and sullen autumn rain
All those pains and all those sighs
All those rains and all those skies
All those wounds – they dry up, and then
The sadness comes back again and again
The streets are empty – bitter and cold
No lips to kiss, no hands to hold
Yet the vision – it comes and goes
Like the river that flows and flows
Lost my sword, lost my shield
Fleeing from the battlefield
I toss and turn and then I feel
But for myself, I’ve none to kill
And the fairy – there she goes
I’ve given her my plastic rose
She smelt it once, she smelt it twice
Her hair had clouds, her eyes had ice
Fire dancing atop the waves
Dancing atop the moaning graves
Dancing with the restless souls
Dancing towards the endless goals
Last night she came to me
From the other side of the sea
She tied me up with the cherry tree
She whipped me and she made me free
Felt the flames but not the pain
Felt the water but not the rain
Felt the wound but not the blood
Felt the river but not the flood
I seek my laurels to rest upon
When I’m dead when I’m gone
Write nothing on my grave
Save the fact that I was a slave
Waiting for the stars to fade
Waiting, sleepless, on my bed
Waiting for the love that died
Waiting by the riverside
The river’s deeper than my dream
Never had the guts to swim
But someday it’ll come back, I know
Until then, the rain and the snow ….
