Friday, October 9, 2009

Ribbons

Of birds in rain and other sad fishes

Waves and purple moons dash by the window-pane

If only you knew, if only…..

What the rain means to the child

who sleeps with a serpent all coiled up

around his waist……

And those twenty one sad centuries

that have passed since the death of Jesus –

Yearning for that very same December snow

like white horses and black trains standing

silently in the mist…..

If only…….


But I know this

And I won’t lose you in the dry maze

of crossword puzzles and the snakes

and the ladders awaiting the last note of

all your symphonies that the tides have washed

away to fade beyond the hills after

a thousand and one echoes – each telling

the story of one haunted night of Arabia

where the eyelashes of Sheherzade quiver

in the whispering voices of the spirits of the desert….

She weaves a story in silence….. Till that fateful

one thousand and first night when the

bells and the mirages shall drown in their

own emptiness….


But the King never moves before the rooks

And Antonius Block shall not go to Valhalla

because he was a Christian….

(Faith matters, I guess)

But those Scandinavian castles – they stand tall

in the snow and fight the times, with their

heads held high…..

And they’ve been fighting for thousands

of years…. For history knows no faith….

And the times are faithless too……

If only you knew


If only you knew

How much I love you

And how much I don’t love you

And how much I love you


But I won’t let you know all these….

Because sad stories make the world

fall apart….

Because sadness is a poison that inebriates

our whispers……

And because time is cruel and unforgiving…..


Hence, just a blank page and nothing more

Make a paper boat and let it float away

in the brook that passes by my window ;

That’s all I want from you –

Faith, hope and love –

everything, nothing…….

4 comments:

Brainfreeze Blues said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Som...getting it off my chest!! said...

this poem flows beautifully, tireless, like a river in bright moonlight-images you associate with joy yet which somehow hides pain in a corner of its heart.

Anonymous said...

I am enjoying your words. How you write.How you make the reader (this reader)think.

Soumi said...

"who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish."