An Ode to a lost limb

Yes, the hollowness shall spread soon,
The feats conquered will fade into myths,
In its place a thankless stick shall stand,
Never the ideal match for the sentiments
but certainly the painful choice.

The horizon remains bleak, like a sky
before the rise of an assuring Sun,
My walks shall cease, but my struggles
Shall continue till the day my eyes taste,
The dark and orange spectral awe.

The Bridge

A bridge waits for the assembly of her workers,
She hangs in the mind of the designer, who evoked
the mighty image of her, unperturbed, he sketch
the foundations with which she shall stand.

The designer waits for the nerves to transfer
his fleeting impulses onto his tensed mind,
Worried, he sips his morning coffee, confused
over the remarkable gift that he was granted with.

The words of the needy summons up into a plea,
From where they transfer it onto the designer’s ears,
Their troubles shall pass, the bridge shall connect
their fears to beliefs and sorrows to smiles.

The doubts are born inside the mind, classified as
people that lives inside, the mind prohibits any
action taken against the unbridged eras, there
amidst the misery a spark ignites, a revolt begins.

Memoirs

‘Life is but a collection of memories, grouped effectively before death.’
– 
A silly child, who mocked and rejected
the meaningless musings of a world
that ebbed into enduring autumns and
dark winters, came to sit beside me.
With his hands ridden in mud, but without
the roughness that life would grant it
with, he asks me to cherish the purity
of his words and the radiance of his smile.
Replacing the child is a lad whose shine
continue to whisper what the child shouted,
He hid emotions somewhere inside his eyes
which seemed to deepen into an oblivion,
Where fragile thoughts were shattered
by awkward words. With a pace that guides
his motives, he wastes no time to point
my senses onto his frank smiles and a
relentless heart.
A person who looks more like me could
be seen, experience (rather torments) of
living has smothered his eyes and haunted
his mind. His hands seem weary, legs tired
and through the long walk, his head stuffed
up by useless ideas, inflates like a balloon.
A prick made by memories finds him
bursting and swaying meaninglessly.
I see my own reflection beside,
I see him write the words with earnestness
and desire, though his legs grew stiff
and immobile, his pen masters all unfathomable
heights. He counts the faces he sees,
He asks them of their well being,
He forgets all goodbyes and struggle
onward for the rest of his life.
 I see a future (distant but sure), maybe
upon the corners of my side, where I remove
my temporary hide, and make a perpetual ride,
I see myself galloping forward in time, and
taking siestas with infinities wrapped up in
each passing moment, perhaps then I shall
write again, not for the world to see but
for me to remember!

Notes
Inspired by the Malayalam poem ‘Anyan’ written by sir O.N.V.Kurup, this was written at Ernakulam (where I spent the better parts of my childhood) on 26/12/2013.

Hamartia

Hamartia – the flaw in character which leads to the downfall of the protagonist in a tragedy

When my mind thrust all its vigor
Into the nerves of my framework,
I crunched with envy as the villain
Of the unfinished novel in my attic
Slowly brought himself on the threshold
And barked violently, I noticed how he
Looked upon with lust at the glorious
Image of her. And how as a pigeon
Watches a crumb of bread, she kept
Her gaze firmly fixed on his silhouette.
He never held her, he never promised
A life in the folds of my imagination,
He was thoughtful with each word,
Cunning with his vivid expressionism, and 
Roguish at every act of love. With
An overwhelming force of pain and wrath
I first gifted her the pangs of my torture.
She wept the whole day, while I took
My pen and disfigured the villain’s face.
Soon, she took her life away from mine,
The promise of never separating from my
Anxiousness was shattered in front
Of my realm, but to weep is not a man’s job,
The hate brewed, I made the protagonist
Desecrate the villain in more ways
Than I could hope for, in the pool of his
Wretched blood , I watched the reflection
Of my cold face genuinely portraying a smile.
The protagonist disappears into the horizon,
The seas of pain he inflicted remains in
My mind, I watch the deserted scene and
A sense of sympathy arise from within,
Before it builds further up, I dismiss
All thoughts and search for the miracle
That would pull down the novel and
Restore my blatant life.

An Act of Love

Courtesy : The Mag 197

By a sweep of unison,
They waited for her to
Take her first bite into
The offering made in
Part delight and mostly
Love.
After her humbled beaks
Quickly closed on each
Other, a sound, not
Of the crunch, but of
Waves of shared cries
Were heard striking
The bare and rocky
Shores.
Amidst those cries they
Danced wildly, encircling
The divine rendezvous
As if casting a mystic
Splendor which transcended
Slowly.
All the while her eyes
Grew moist with affection
And the hand that fed her
Swayed with the wind,
It were guided carefully in
Between.
And when they bid the hand
A final farewell, no
Words were shared, but it
Moved steadily towards
Those eyes and removed
A drop of tear. Cause after all
It was the only thing they
Cherished.

Déjà vu

‘Ocean of Dreams’
Courtesy : abstract.desktopnexus.com
Wave after wave of constant ordeal,
And it took her a dream
To let herself dissolve
Into the narrow corners
Of her surreal field,
Designed thoughts
And immersed strife.
There she met the comfort
Of sharing griefs,
Of planting love
And hanging on shoulders
When the walk became
Tedious and long.
She met a comrade,
A loving creator of her destiny,
Who danced to her appraisal,
And granted all her minimal wishes.
She felt life.
She paced to find places
Where her memories could be planted.
When her swivels cease
The only life
Worthy enough to be thought about
Is the life in her dreams.
The dreams capsized one morn,
She woke up with her mind torn,
Her laughs echoed from within,
But her lips never curled with joy,
In the world, sans the spread
Of her wishes, she struggled.
The darkness was blinding,
The silence was deafening
And the moments were stationary.
She drifted along in space,
Particles, unlike her,
Waited for the meeting,
With time, her déjà vu shall begin!

Madiba – A Tribute

“I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
 – Nelson Mandela

In life, when I faced odds, the image of this man always helped to recover my hope. Having spent most of his lifetime in jail, he never came out with vengeance. Rather he had a saga of forgiveness to be prophesied and a life filled with sacrifices to give for a struggling world.
The skies turned mild gray,
My mind remained rustled amidst,
Hopelessly I gazed at the setting Sun,
A million prostrations were paid,
As he slowly disappeared into the sea.
Just then a dove circled around,
She flapped her tender wings
With rejuvenation and grace.
I found her to be moving towards
The horizon, where the lights
Of the Sun still blazed.
From there she dived
Into my tormented mind
And showed me a vision
Her life was destined to show;
A land where lights remain, and
A path that lead towards the land.
With the bludgeonings of time,
The dove faded from my memory.
And took flight to its abode, but
The vision lasted forever in my eyes,
And the gentle flaps of her wings
Continue to reverberate in my ears.
Madiba will always be an inspiration, his walks shall never end. He will always transcend hope and shine gloriously like a light that shall guide all lives from darkness!

Revolution is Home Made

“You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming” – Pablo Neruda

 –
Tonight, my mind shall not let the torridness
Of sleep torment my senses. Keeping together
My thoughts become violently difficult, words
Like a gust of formidable vengeance pour all
Over my perpetual lethargy which until today
Shackled my intellect with visions of peace.
Tonight, my legs shall not give away to exhaustion,
For it shall march, left leg after the right, into 
The indomitable resting place of my contained
Rage. The nails of the coffin which with it
Was buried, under layers of contrived emotions,
Shall be pulled back with my bleeding teeth, and
Along with the taste of blood that shall drip,
I shall know the taste of its colors too.
Tonight, my heart shall not sink into its
Calm tedium, but seek the exasperated
Sentiment with which the revolution, that was
Planted somewhere inside my thoughts sprouted
Into a self-sustaining spring of red flowers.

Note
Inspired from the Indian (Malayalam) movie, Left Right Left which went by the motto ‘Revolution is Home Made’, as you see, I used it as the title of the poem. At this instance I pay gratitude to everyone who laid out their lives in struggle to change the existing atrocities, you may be gone, but your ideas shall live forever.
‘

Vision

Opening the doors, that spent all their life gently serving
My feeble egoism, though taking none of my gratitude.
Eyes were then training to devour the flash of light and
To define the tangled threads of a motherly nature’s love.
The light seemed offending at first, but my search for
Miracles found me hopping merrily behind the granter
Of  joy, an old lizard! As I searched the sparks of my
Vision, the moments were summed up by the words
                      I discovered myself

The Partition

I dedicate this poem to all Pakistanis. You are all as much a kin to me as Indians.
One of the many images of partition that moved me emotionally. It was also
the cover photo of  Yasmin Khan’s book, The Great Partition
 The second column of Muslims passed,
Not a soul in our side had the strength,
To shower them with our words; cursed,
Along they passed as silent as us,
Drifting with the hot and wild wind,
That very often burns our face,
As we cut through this desert; wretched.

O lovely dawn of freedom,
while you showered purple and gold,
half of us never knew what future held,
Singing and dancing beneath the relentless sun,
we hugged and kissed the conspirator’s arms.

The line drawn that sliced Punjab,
The surgical tool that dissected Bengal,
Never seemed more poignant,
Till it ripped us apart from Lahore,
And made us to savor this journey.

Guided by a false pretense of safety,
Moving onto a false notion of liberty,
Living on the narrow verge of insanity,
A humanity was displaced into sheer poverty.

O, the world we left behind,
The luxury and beauty of Lahore,
The exotic parlors, the crimson sunsets,
And vast field of wheat that stretched on and on,
All of it replaced now by the creeping bareness,
Of the Thar.

All my journey was guided by two eyes,
Eyes of a child, barely ten,
That never showed a tinge of skepticism,
While we were in spells of rue,
His eyes were curious for more.

The child’s father died last night,
Another victim in this great fight,
The column never stopped,
The child with eyes that moved me,
Were left behind all alone,
Everyone were fighting their own war.

There were no time to turn back,
The column should move on,
Cause terror echoed with the fresh gust,
The desert shall turn into a tomb of dust,
And somewhere along we will face,
The men armed with guns and swords.

A plane dropped of some food today,
One slice of bread for each stomach,
In the desert it were a piece of gold,
And in the pain it gives us hope,
Away form The Promised Land we move,
Onto an India away from us,
Mentally and physically.

The third column of Muslims passed,
They pitied us and our flight,
A word of caution and inspiration,
Someone even gave us a bottle of water,
The thought of it makes me proud,
We are brothers after all,
We will remain so forever and ever.

Nearing an India we never saw,
What we left behind could never be sought,
And what we want can never be bought,
Memories of Lahore still burns,
As we enter into a land of ruins.

God bless India, God save Pakistan,
And I even pray for that man who gave us water,
When shall the countries give each other the same?

Many of us are settled, many of us died,
Those who lived on still muse over the world,
What insanity?! What torture?!
To have brothers ripping each other apart,
And eating on the others’ heart.

Many still pray for the countries,
True we are brothers,
We are seeds that sprouted in the same field,
Yet overgrown and often alone.

Footnote
A poem I wrote some time back. Though not even my parents were alive during the 1947 partition of India, I gathered all the info though books, mainly The Great Partition by Yasmin Khan and Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. I also thank an aged friend of mine, who helped in narrating what he witnessed during those troublesome years. For any more info on the partition, here is what wiki has to say : Partition of India