Beginnings

Walking back from the weary, dry and deserted hillock, I knew that for completing my unfinished story, I will have to leave. Leave the confines of self created boundaries and limitations- some real and others mostly imagined. As a stone tumbled down the path ahead of me, I could see how I too needed some tumbling, away from where I stood rooted.

Summer days are like this, they make you feel generous about your own prospects. The balmy weather, sunshine and the lightly swaying dry grass in the tropical march breeze, made me feel optimistic that winters were left behind for good. Or so I hoped.

I took many determined steps walking away, fast and quick, from the dry hillock on which I knew I had vile'd away too many years of my life. Arrogance, foolery, cowardice and lastly plain dejection, in that order, had made me sit atop the hillock, waiting for the thing to happen. It never did, and I grew older and bitter. But now was the time, the great breakaway from my prejudices and failures.

With glass eyed determination, I had set out to find my green valley and that longed for drooping tree, beneath which I would lie down to sleep each night, under the gaze of the far away shimmering stars.

I had finally set out to find love.

Unfinished

Leaning on the rails of the bridge, I could see faraway lights on the sea, probably a hundred miles away in the embracing darkness. Star like though yellow, unaware of the distant stranger contemplating them.
In the strange disquiet of that quiet evening, under the quite caress of the strengthening breeze, in the darkness of the sky and the harshness of the waves , I could neither hear the outside world nor could I hear the chatter within.
The hardening with the years and the vicissitudes of my unremarkable life, have left me cynical to the existence of epiphanies, however in that moment on that bridge, I saw a life changing one hurtling down towards me. I could have spoken aloud, for there was none to overhear, but I am not much used to verbalizing what's in my heart. So instead I write.

missing the woods for the trees

Sunray's blend with a strange brightness that makes you see the world around in a luminous yellow, as if a high wattage bulb glowing sharply in a rather small room. The objects seem to glitter and shine and reflect more than they absorb, the air is a little chilly, really an atypical late winter morning.

The stagnation of thoughts and the reduced ability of my mind to observe and assimilate seems to have increased manifold, the all permeating dullness slowly fogs my view, as if in a trance, on automatic transmission, life seems to proceed day ticking into night and then all over again.

I ask myself if this is a trend I need to intellectually interrogate and deliberate upon, the answer is usually yes. But beyond the usual yes, the single minded pursuit of this train of thoughts seems to demand more energy than I possess.

I wonder often how life slowly but surely transforms us as an individual, the singular constants such as my name and the physical body I will embody until the day I finally someday stop knowing and living in this world, notwithstanding, everything else seems to be in a perpetual churn.

Walking the streets of our past, we often realize how the world and the people in it have been changing, but very seldom does this inquisitiveness to observe and comment on change gets directed inward. How life changed me as a person internally over the years and how those changes tend to manifest themselves externally is something, quite to my surprise, I have never really postulated.

Friends, lovers, acquaintances, family all keep changing with varying degrees of abruptness and comprehensiveness, some for good, some for bad, some for neither of the two, but in my preponderance and preoccupation with their changes, I always ignore the constant churning at the epicenter of my life, me.

awakening on a sleepless night

A few years back I used to spend a lot of sleepless nights, wide awake into the crazy early morning hours,  pondering and cogitating while fidgeting all antsy and sleepless in the bed. Over time that went away and I found myself capable of salubriously dozing off at any time after ten in the night.

Then the other day, deja vu. Starting with a little fidgeting, I soon found myself afloat the ponderous river of meaningless thoughts, though empirically a major majority of these digressive expeditions have been bereft of any significant outputs, however in a digression from empirical patterns this particular digression from sleep ended bumbling and stumbling into a discovery, as I serendipitously became au courant of the fact that I am not driven by any apparent desire , small or big grandiose or plain, of late.

On the mountainous stream akin cirucitous, convoluted and undulating path that my road to self discovery has been, this sure is a new sight. No pressing desires, well this currently true fact really does border on incredulity.
For,the inventiveness of my mind, in constantly churning out new desires, material or otherwise, and my unabashed acceptance of them all, has always been a parameter on which I enscon myself on the highest level in the scales of intellectual highbrow.
Treating it as a belief, a marker, a potent indicator of my zest for life.

But here I am confronted suddenly by this vacuum left in the wake of disappeared desires. I search myself, for any post facto allergic reactions to this discovery, beyond the surprise ofcourse,  and all I encounter is an overwhelming unaffectedness. A complete lack of nervous reaction, no conveniently timed yawn to surreptiously disguise a reaction, no deep gulp for air, no twitch on the corner of a lip, not even a blink too many.

Comforting? This harmonious acceptance ? Not really sure.

Lost

I call you, a one last time,
From the end of the long mile
Stumbling through the coal black night,
want to hold you just a little while

I see visions of a wonder land,
Faraway from where I stand
A twinkle here and a glimmer there,
Just illusions conjured by a tired mind

I dream of dreams so many times,
Of snow white clouds in star less skies
A little star struck and a little vile,
I seek some lies in these honest times

I watch the fluttering kites of hope,
As the empty, weary sky they grope
Asking life for another try,
Just seeking some winds to an unknown sky.

Parallel life

And I am thinking of those long past exits, on to parallel lives, of weak willed wishes, and the sinking feelings in my stomach.

On this lonely bend in the fog filled valley of my life, I refuse to find solace in despondence's arms.

Just empty hands, and a  last few ember's of my slow dying dreams. 

So many may-be's , so many sigh's, so little to show for my long winding ride.

Winter monologues

It was a flailing leave in the cold winter wind, that called me softly as I walked huddled under my clothes, 'would you mind stopping by for a word sir, you see I am all bored and cold', it said.

Encumbered by my sense of duty to all the lonely's of the world, I couldn't move my tongue to utter a no, and instead acquiesced with a little nod of my head. 

We spoke of winds and we spoke of stems, of the things that wanted us to move and the things that kept us grounded. 

We argued about the sun and its wicked ways, shining bright in sweltering heat and disappearing in the oppressing cold. 

We agreed about the constancy of love and its changing faces, and passionately argued our right to be loved by everyone.

We called each other names, comparing notes on the wisdom we had gained. I called the leave pathetically rooted and immobile, while it called me a vagabond wanderer of little use.

The leaf said something about arrogance and humility, which I did not really listen to- and it held that up as a sign of my arrogance.  Since I am the humble one, any aspersion on my humility irritates me, so pat I shot back- why do you choose to be green when the rest of the tree is brown?

And then the night it started to fall- much earlier than usual I thought, the darkening clouds and the morose wind made me want to head back home. But I found no opening to bid  a decent goodbye, so like always, I lingered more than I ever needed too.

16 Jan

Heaven is beyond that sky, beyond the blue deep color in your eye

You can call me anytime , and I will hear you each time

Instead of holding your hand,  near you I will just stand

In your moments of truth and times of defeat

I can hear you cheering , just listening to my heart

incoherent dreams of a life in throes

the throes of change pulsating across the wide divide

forever encumbered by a spell unheard

Wish the warmth could so much as hold

as life's prison slowlys turns so cold.

there are times in our lives

when the beginings of a new dawn

threaten to sprout the shoots of hope

then there are some times

when the change within

stagnates frozen on the boulders of life

I wonder when

I wonder if

the promised sun from the east

shall rise alone in the darkened skies

bringing the genesis of a better tomorrow

hidden deep within its boosom

the promise of the neverland

that one moment of belief within

the ethereal waters of a dream unseen

frozen forever in these gorges so deep

wish the winds would carry on its wings

these lifeless floats within my soul

Longing for that faraway horizon

these tales of eyes, staring brazen

skies orange and wily in shades

the forever chanting of a spell unseen

who would have thought..

A year would pass, without a rendezvous...

About the things we need and the things we chase
The life we know and the life we imagine

About sun filled dreams and the cold heartless nights
The long meaningless banters and a few heart breaking words

 About the long lost some things and so many meaningless possessions,

Love and the things we pass of as love

That an year would pass facing dejavu's

Who would have thought...

Through this dark cavern, got to keep seeking that ray of light

It is so easy to get lost in this life, so easy to forget my passions, so easy to be get isolated from my own self.

Got to start writing again.

Wisps of white

I drew a line in the thin damp air with nothing but a finger;  and as I drew,the dust it shimmered in the golden sparkling rays of sun. On those light ways of dust, I drew numerous in the sky, saw so many little dreams floating by; waving and smiling, glittering and shining, all dressed up for an evening out. Trying to hold them, wanting just one to sit here on my palm; slipping they keep, right through my fingers like the rain. How I wish there was a dream,that I could clasp in my palm and hold it close against my heart;oh how I wish there was a dream, of which I knew it would never deceive.

It ain't that

Turning around the bend, in search of the lost little something, he could no longer remember, the reason for setting out. Was it the wasted lucidity of an average mind, trying to feel its way through the dense fogs all around or was there this another bend in the road. For they all seemed the same now, these bends, the ability to appreciate any obviously differentiating views, across  the innumerable bends encountered in this long winding journey, was long lost, like many other of his eccentricities.

Not knowing, and knowingly not knowing, are all subtle arts you learn on such twisting and turning roads, navigating the obviously endless journey pretending to be looking for destinations.

As he drank handfuls of water from the stream, water as if trying to get away from him quickly; greedily splashing and swooping, pretending as if, the thirst inside did need any quenching.
A knowing smile, playing on the corner of his lips, as his mind tried, for the umpteenth time, to pretend it knew not what was in that heart.

These small wild flowers and those green young leaves, those rays of sun shimmering like diamond pebbles on the drenched world all around, wouldn't any journey find its destination at a place like this? he pretended to ponder. Another something turns evanescent before it neared, stony eyed he watched, and then suddenly pretended to be distracted by the itch, in his many days old stubble.

Walking long and lonesome, weed ridden paths in the midst of waltzing pines, shivering from the breeze in the luke warm sun, knowing all along, but pretending, may be, turning around the coming bend will lead to the something long seek'd? for he reasoned, every journey must have a reason, why would a sane man wander so else?
Knowing, but pretending, not to see, the wanderlust twinkling, in the browns of his betraying eyes, staring and mocking , as he waded through another rolling stream, searching for those rounded stones that tumble along the river bed.

Turning again ah another bend, on the seldom trodden, forgotten and winding little road, yet pretending as if  in search of a lost little something, knowing well, he could no longer remember the reason for setting out.

This heart, that mind,
eyes and mirage of a destination,
a little hungry and a little too full,
a little lost and somewhat knowing,
a little believing and a little agnostic,
a little eager and a little scared,
a little enamored and a little unsure,
I stare at the door in the middle of the forest,
trying to guess if an exit or an entrance,
and find myself rooting for an entrance.

Finally

One step at a time, the old man said, but that will take an eternity to climb, the young man said. And so they stared into each others eyes, one full of defiance, secure in the infallibility of self, the other wizened, mildly amused but poignant at the callousness of youth.

And so this story began, only to repeat itself, over and over, and over again, till with time both their eyes they reflected exasperation. The young man's stemming from an endless inability to reach the next plus one and the old man's at other's reluctance to give up and take it one at a time.

Days lost themselves in the crowds of weeks and the weeks they lost themselves in the teaming crowds of the years. The sun would shine bored through its days and the moon would spread an indifferent silver in its nights, the wind it wouldn't flutter a single leave and the sullen trees they drooped all the way to the ground. But the duel of youth and age, raged endless, the youth realizing, every now and then, that the youth was passing and the age realizing, long before I aged, I was youth.

And so this battle, it rages, though sometimes I see the truth, youth and age, the twain is  irreversibly heading to meet the another.

Just a flag post for one step at a time, gonna make it two the next time around (ah the eternal youth)!

so long, so little

Worn out thin sling, of a dusty old bag,
around the shoulder of the weather beaten weary man,
a traveler, a seeker, a vagabond maybe

youth, all dusted over, by the quiet falling of his passing years;

he remembered how he kept all memories sweet & sour like pebbles in its deep creases;

as he walked down, on the long winding road;

it had read 'life' and 'one way' on that street sign where this journey began,
and what a long one way did it turn out,
sometimes dusty, sometimes green,
somedays cloudy, somedays bright
somedays lonely and nights long
sometimes lost and many times sure;

and the pebbles they piled,
the bag got heavy with every mile
and he felt more wise with every added ounce;

'I must catch up on my memory treasure, need to feel some pride on my journey yet' he thought
drowsy fingers dug deep into the dusty worn bag,

digging for treasures unknown in its creases,
like an expectant child reaching into a may be not empty cookie jar;

'ah what will I find in the sweet memory bag?'

nothing! alas its only empty fingers that came back
why he exclaimed!, and before the question could leave his parched lips,
a knowing smile played on those very lips,
for sometimes there are answers we know, which do not reveal  themselves until the right question is asked.

the memory bag is empty, cause though we feel, we keep them memories like pebbles,
to be possessed forever, a general's epaulette as if,  shimmering with medals,
but all we have and all we carry is only their weight.

rekindling desires, that road

Something nudged me towards a path long forgotten
hidden behind so many leaves of long entwined webs of undisturbed branches
dew drops strewn on the ankle high grass
a few little wild flowers with a sympathetic, all knowing smile on their lips
the white mist hanging, heavy with sweet smells of lingering hopes

I gather my soul on a leash lest it gambol down blind along the path, mesmerized and expectant;
the path forsaken, forgotten, dark green, deep, un-trodden, untrue;
ah it beckons me so,  tugs- my heart, my mind,
to trample, with tender tentative steps, the green beds of grass,
to walk in search and to walk to the endless end,
the end I have never known , but have desired ,ever since desire I have known;
leaving behind my cross of indecision, the scars of the unrequited and dread of loosing much and finding none in the unforgiving woods;
oh how my soul coos, to walk for once,tender and pure, guileless and true
that untrodden road, that path of the blessed

this morning

Couldn't find a reason to spring out of bed this morning,

couldn't hear the chirping of birds calling out another new dawn;

couldn't see through the window blinds, the nubile rays of the morning sun shine,

couldn't feel the sleep drugged mind, letting out its playful sigh at my soul's smile;

Woke up to find the winter closing all around, the morning chill in the air, much like the one within.

Prelude: Dew drops and dreams

As the man with a scar on the left side of his face, looked back down the dark alley, a salute more to habit than fear of any dark shadows following, he could no longer remember if that was a summer of love or a summer of hate. Not that under the bright shining sun the answer mattered any more, but the man never seemed to run out of amazement at another umpteenth realization that his opinions, interpretations and most of all his character had changed a little every time he checked back.

With a smirk playing on corners of his lips, the man turned his back to the alley and faced the sun; in the manner that he did this simple thing, there seemed to be a certain finality, a certain irreversible end.

The sun rays burned down the scar and rays seemed to jump all around reflecting from the jagged edges. As was his wont, the man ran the index of his right hand slowly down  the edge of his scar, the simple act seemed to enlarge the smirk on his lips. 

There is a certain magnetism, that has its genesis, in paying the dues for one's karma; the anonymous man seemed to possess plenty of it. Most men get worn out by the burden of this magnetism but not him or maybe the facade was too real to fool most casual onlookers.

The man sat down on the small parapet by the road, looking far into the hidden ends of the shimmering lake, his poise would have suggested a man deep in meditation with eyes glassed and fixed on a certain unknown hidden somewhere far beyond. 

Sitting by the shimmering lake, the man knew that it was time to begin, not necessarily at the beginning, but begin he must; to recount the tales, of the faraway lands, of forbidden canyons in his mind and the endless green meadows in his heart. 

To tell the tales of adventure and long boredom, of valor and abject surrender, of faith and betrayal, of hope and despair, of the things he knew and the things he thought he knew, of the things he  forgot and the things he wished he could forget.

Sitting motionless on that sunlit morning, as the wind picked up across the surface of the lake and tousled his hair, he knew that even though his journey had ended, a voyage had just begun, a voyage of self acknowledgement, of pearls found while rolling over nasty waves, a voyage of dreams, some fulfilled, some unfulfilled, some just standing by a corner with a smile on their lips, happy that there time was about to come.

Alice: Now, Kitty, let's consider who it was that dreamed it all

It was just another day, the kind of days we come across often but can still recall very seldom. The sun had begun its daily struggle of traversing the muggy cloud filled skies, only to get time and again eclipsed by the very clouds it was so hoping to avoid. 

Sweat was making its slow but sure journey to percolate and form a dark patch on the back; while twisting inside my clothes to escape the  sticky wetness; in a blink of an eye, I found myself  lost in the byzantine memory lanes of dreams.

A stranger in an unforgiving, sweltering, sun beaten town; walking down the anonymous stone cobbled pathways . His skin long turned the color of mud, baked & etched layer on layer on his face, the stranger looked tired and haggled; only the vitality of his eyes betrayed the exuberance of his spirit trapped in an exhausted, beaten and emaciated body.

A kind heart gave the weary traveler some water; ' and what makes you wander so?' he asked.

The stranger, glass eyes fixed on a faraway horizon, replied in only half a whisper

a something that hides sometimes in my eyes,

a something that I can only see from the corner of my eyes,

a something that runs and hides each time  it's seeked,

a something that makes me dream all night long,

a something I have never known,

a something that tantalizes me onto an endless quest,

a something abstruse, taciturn and unwilling to reveal,

unbeknownst to self I chase, 

a fading yet clear, distant yet near,

a chimera maybe or maybe a mirage,

destination unknown and thirst unquenched,

like a piper's mouse I chase, deep shadow's of my soul

conjurer

And I pick up a pen, on reflex, grab a sheet and there we go. Incredulous, as the sheer stupidity returns. Second to none in building chimera's for my own consumption, I can build an image of utter nonchalance, of sheer bravado, of disappointment, of dejected solitude, of exhilarating joy, of magical love and in a matter of minutes or sometimes hours I start mirroring the chimera and living in it.

across the white flake vapors of the clouds

a weightless soul was floating

agape wide eyed at the bright sunlight

the clear blue skies melting

a little child encumbered forever in a grown man's cloak