11/27/12

Soliloquy

Too many things are lost everyday.
Important things.
Important to you and me.
And things that seem important,
but are not,
go the same ways.

We keep getting lost, 
you and me,
without a trace.
Not knowing how we should be.
But we keep coming together somehow somewhere.
And then we keep getting lost again.

Intricacy is a part of feelings.
Feelings that aren't true anymore.
Feelings that are on the verge of a sudden cliff.
Feelings seemingly familiar from such a long time ago.

There are ways to know if you care.
There are ways to make sure you don't.
Faith blinds the very road inside out.
And belief sets you free.

I don't know how long it takes
for my heart to jump
or for my feet to brake.
Seemingly straight is my mellow road.
Unseen and swaying is its wake.
I keep crossing out every option that comes my way,
with my arms stretched out forever,
as if I  have forgotten how to pray.
And through the worlds I walk thus,
Adding a drop of poison to my skin.
Each day it spreads faster than cancer
until I bend double in pain.
But you smile and I smile back.
I never did tell you the secret of my skin.
I could whisper into your ears forever
of everything that makes for nothing in the world.
And you would know at the end,
you would know everything and clutch in vain.

My thoughts aren't deep 
neither are they scarce.
But together with yours
they're bound to leave scars.

And in the end,
all the people hurt,
all the people shamed,
all the people wronged,
and all the people tamed,
they'll visit you once,
to forgive and forget.
And then you would know,
there was love all along
hiding in your heart secretly
when all you did
was stay away.

10/23/12

Encore

A little way into the past,
there's a bit of you and me.
Not the ones that you or I know of now,
but ones with the horribly bruised knees.

A togetherness that will never be,
and a kiss that says I love you without a word here and there.
Endless complaints to feel free,
never having to try too hard to care.



There we were, making promises to each other in packs,
bailing out every time someone failed to bother.
Fights and tiffs amidst love so different from eight years back,
holding on secretly to confusing fathers and mothers.




Now we have to make sure our kids don't fall,
make sure we have saved enough to last ten falls,
make sure we are there to cure our world,
whenever there is a chance to lose every bit of it all.

And then comes the part where we can't have our way,
watch out so that the cocoon of happiness doesn't constantly break,
hold on to everyone around so they don't complain
then return home with a heart as heavy as hell.



And all the promises to be there forever are broken forever,
with only a hope that tingles the heart with lies.
So when the lights in the city die out one by one,
all we can do is try to stir our heart to fight.



But when the soul is beat and the eyes so yellow,
the mind so numb and the heart so mellow,
All we can do is put the children's hearts in the little glass jars,
and lie down comfortably to stare at the stars.

10/14/12

Star Child

When times change,people don't.
So goes the law of nature that traverses time.
But every hundred years or so there's a change that is inevitable.
So much so that people forget what it was like to be old.

There comes a change in sanity and insanity alike.
Every door gushes forth a child unmistakably unbound.
And thousands rise in rebellion against the dam that had broken the earth.
Falling and rising with each wave of the hand
the masses swirl into unknown depths.
And the depths loom and loom blacker with the sun that rises everyday.
While everyone learns to know what is wrong in their right.

Suddenly the songs have no meaning
and the nation searches for a soul to write
And one day out of nowhere in obscurity emerges one warrior
fighting the publishers and the mongrels alike.
The nation finds its voice and screams out in glory,
hiding courage in their overconfident tones.
And when the time comes to prove their death to the world
they go down in history as characters of a distant past.
The future hardly pays any attention to what they did,
sacrificing what they had so that we could be.

And all we care about are diamond stars
And all we care about are fancy cars.

Nowhere do we think of the hundreds slaughtered
to excuse the whims of cowards that preach lies.
Nowhere do we write down laws
to severe the ties of inhumanity.
Never do we remain satisfied.

Somewhere,sometimes a little heart breaks.
Somewhere,sometimes a little heart is sold.
Somewhere,sometimes a little heart grows weary.
Somewhere,sometimes a little heart grows old.
Children of the star, grated by evil against the wall.
Sanity goes amiss, when asked to take the fall.
And they do because they have nowhere to go.
Only one to believe,and no one to say no.



8/29/12

Waiting

You could see the smiles on their faces
as they played on the sun.
No notion about their universe,
Or the endless black all around.

They could dive into the sun and no one would notice for a moment they were gone.
Then they could come back up again and no one would still care for a moment.

When your mother is lost and your father is gone,
When strangers knock at your door as soon as you have turned twelve,
When all you can hear are insecurities being vented out,
There's nothing to try for except hope till the end.

The rooms contract every night,
Gradually pushing them against the walls.
The windows bolt themselves shut
while the dove cries through the night.
The beads of sweat give way to anguish,
Relentless wrinkles of desperation show up in the broken shards of the mirror.

The blue mists hide whatever dreams they had ever had.
And the mountains never let the moon go out into the night.

Silver wings sprout on them and wear off every month,
Protecting them from the hunger that makes for the blanket of all the filth.
Bruised for reasons justified only by punches returned,
Saving money by not buying clothes,
Wearing the ones they already have for days on end
till each thread wears itself out loose.


Tonight is a beautiful night by the beach,
But all I keep wondering about is how they go on.
Never doing anything for themselves
but doing everything for themselves to keep moving on.
Where does the courage come from?
Where does the hope reside?
Where do they keep the strength?
Where have they locked away all their hearts?



They deserve every bit of grace,
To see life as the others do,
To unlock their hearts and fall in love,
To know what it is like to have a future,
To know that they have a chance;
One chance for a life the civil man does not look down upon
But that's where the civil man has already stooped down.

8/20/12

Stalker

No more cold lights to hold up,
we can take refuge in the dark corners of my room.
Lives will go on if not for strange reasons people may have, to look for us.

I'll keep you safe in the pages of my diary.

I'll be who you want me to be.
Play the part I play best,
and hold the door open for you,
so that you may see me on your way out when you go off into the rain.

Surrenders to the deceptions in my mind
I find comfort in the way I fool myself.
I can watch you smile for the rest of your life
and not move an inch lest my pen rests.

Try a different life where there's you and me
And music for the moments we have.
You could spend the day reading books of you choice
while I listen to my heart to make that music that plays.
On winter nights we could get drunk
and know why we are so warm in the cold.
Oceans of notions in the mind could play with the wind,
while the rumors could spin their own tales.

The last pages of my notebooks have a picture of you.
And a picture of an afternoon we shared.

I could make ten mistakes and you'd never know.
You make one and I know how many are going to follow.

Do you ever wonder who that man is?
Face half hidden behind that notebook he keeps writing in.
 So frequent on your way to and from work.
Anybody could be me,
I could be anybody to you.
But I love watching you talk to people,
and the way you smile even when everything's gone wrong.
There's a certain beauty in those grey eyes.
Almost as fragile as a baby's bones.
I couldn't touch them for fear of breaking through the mirrors.
For fear of losing the distance I've built from you.

Spirals

Listening to your heart is never a crime. There is a common misconception about the whole matter though. All your life you are taught about being honest to yourself. But when the key turns in your life arrive, you find far easier solutions in lies. And to your surprise, the same people who taught you otherwise encourage you.

Listening to your heart is being honest to yourself. And these days there aren't many who dig deeper into what their heart has to say. We all keep talking about integrity and honesty and the likes but what really exists,is an idea. A false lead, a lie that you have planted n your own head. One of these gives rise to every other until you are wrapped up in a cocoon of lies extending over years which you cannot rollback even if you wanted to.

A little but of self control is always good to be exercised. Lies surround this one heavily. Take cigarettes for example. Every addict says he/she is not addicted to it. Yes, a few may be telling the truth. But no matter what they say, ask them to quit. And there are bound to be days when the cigarette count is way ahead of what they constrained on themselves. A lie is all it takes to fool the mind which is the most intelligent machine and the dumbest one that ever exists at the same time.  Or take the foodies,trying to cut down. The french fries and the pastries are never to be eaten. But yeah certain days do make for exceptions. Except that they never do. A lie is all it takes to tell yourself, "its just one day" . And the day never comes.

Old friends make for the best times. Life isn't a movie alas! Any place is the start of a new journey, new friends and new people. And hardly anything from the old life accompanies you. All you can do is reminisce and smile. With the distance, time takes the upperhand slowly and then there's nothing to talk about. Two different tangents and none close enough to each other to get an inkling of what the other is all about. Slowly and steadily, you recognize the new life as your own because of the new sense of familiarity and accept every aspect about it till it makes you smile whole-heartedly. Your laugh changes with people and soon enough it sounds the same as the old one. That's when you've blended in.



7/15/12

People

How our lives are all entwined. In every walk of life we meet people who are not even remotely related to us. But yet somehow somewhere I feel they are just the same once you get to know them. Whether they hail from Bahrain or Trinidad or even from some other part of your own country, there definitely are cultural differences but if we get to know them properly, we'll know they go through the same things we do. Schooling, colleges, bunking, movies, music, hanging out with friends, coffee, chocolates, working, companies, families, babies in the household, siblings etc are never much of a different scenario. It's just how we perceive them.
Starting work in my life was an apprehensive moment. I arrived in Pune city, all alone and put up at dad's friend's place. Such nice people. The city is just so small. It'll take a maximum of an hour and half by car from one end of the city to another. Transportation is horrible and oh-so-expensive. But I made friends at work and people are really nice. I have always wanted a n eclectc mix of cultures to work with and now I have that. I have colleagues from every corner in India and one from the center even. Everyone's pretty cool and the interaction level is just amazing. Out of the 25 in my batch, half of them are from my college so no difficulties there although I do wish things might have been shuffled and mixed a bit more. The other half include the West, North, South and the one from central India.
Getting to know them slowly, I found how we are all just the same with same responsibilities, lives, ways of doing things, but each with a different dream. Maybe these dreams are not very clear to me as of yet on the 3 weeks I have spent with them, but it is clear that everyone is looking for something, looking to climb higher, looking for their dreams to realise. We've all had similar setbacks, downfalls and our own shares of bad luck; but at the end of everything we are now all together at Tech Mahindra. Seems like a sign, does it?
With the start of office, writing s just gone outta the window, as is songwriting and playing guitar..... People keep telling me about my gifts and talent but I have no idea about where to put them to good use. Work life is a boon and a vice at the same time. On one hand its that independence, the financial independence, the freedom that we are supposed to enjoy. On the other hand we lose everything dear to us, everything we loved or had wished to continue, especially the hobbies.

6/12/12

Little Bird

It's been along time since I last wrote anything. Will probably be my last while in Calcutta. Next week I leave the City of Joy to start work at Pune. And if all goes well and I don't get kicked out, Tech Mahindra shall be my way of life for at least three four years. I'd prefer less though.
Life in Calcutta is abuzz right now. Lunches, dinners, friends, family, with the home training thrown in, all in a muddled up mess. Amidst everything, I found this little sparrow which sleeps right outside my window behind a pipe. Everyday its there, sleeping peacefully as the Havell's stand fan whirrs incessantly in my room through the night. Nothing to worry about except for food and water. But it manages somehow. But yeah, just two of them compared to the thousands of issues I have, face and have to think about? Nothing I guess. To me,it's just free.

A new start to life is around the corner. What I have always wanted. A restart button, a fresh city, fresh people, fresh experiences. But I don't feel excited at the prospect of it anymore somehow. Somewhere I seem to have aged and come to live for others but keep saying that I only live for myself. Life's taught lessons in these 23 years. Some wonderful and some not. I wish to learn from the ones that are not. And I find myself staring at this guy who is somehow 23 and doesn't want to be. Living for myself was this idea when I was young. That I'd have an awesome time, awesome friends, awesome everything. But that's hogwash, brainwash.Now that I know a little of the world and the kind of people it holds, I know all of that is just in the movies, the books and the celebrities. But the fantasy hasn't died out yet. I have taken life's decisions holding family in regard always and I have found at the end of the day, I am happy that way.I have worked hard to have good friends, to be liked and be there for all I care about. But being a sober, decent, nice person hasn't really paid off. That's exactly what keeps that old fantasy alive even though I know its not possible.

I hope Pune bears luck in the guise of mental satisfaction for me. That's one thing the last few years of 23 didn't feel like giving me. Made me feel hopeless, helpless, hapless, pointless, worthless and all the "less"'s there could ever be.

4/30/12

Stuck is what you are when you are scared of heights but keep looking down from the overbridge.

So I was standing there. Looking down at the cars whizzing past below and enjoying the pleasant dancing wind in the middle of the sultry evening. With a cigarette in my hand. This overbridge is five minutes from my house where I come over to stare at the lights and the cars and the people rushing about in pandemonium. Gives me a feeling of "elevated-ness", supreme to all those below me in a mad rush. Sure, there are others spending time like I am on the same bridge. But who cares? My imaginarium after all. 

So anyway, I am scared of heights and this is one of them which should not be entertained one bit by people such as me. First of all there is the damn elevation, add the thundering cars and buses below it that shake the bridge every now and then.Makes for a Frightful thought. But somehow I feel like standing there, exactly at that place where I am supposed to feel scared. I guess all of us go through stuff like this everyday, doing things that we are scared of, sometimes out of stubbornness, sometimes out of  no choice, sometimes out of boredom, sometimes out of anger, but rarely because we want to. I go through a combination of stubbornness and want regarding the overbridge situation. 

I like the place, I like looking at the lights surrounding me, I like thinking about my life standing there and smoking away, I like the chaos beneath me, I like the fact that I am separated from it, I like the fact that I am part of all that chaos, I like the fact that I can escape from it by climbing a few steps, but I hate the fact that I have to keep going back to it. Like us, like everything else, like 1230AM,1st May, the little bit of  freedom is temporary.
I am stuck. badly. All my life, I have wanted a life that would be my own, where I would be king of me. I wanted to move out, see the world, know new people, learn different cultures. I don't know if my time has come yet, but I sure feel it has and that it's slipping by. Once I start my corporate career, a bit of financial independence would make life a little more easier than what it is now(hopefully). But it never seems to start. The joining date gets delayed and delayed. Plus, my share of luck hasn't been working hard at getting through other jobs even. It's  become a dreary, sludgy process, dragging it out day by day with nothingness attached and more of it to look forward to the next day. And the heat seems to bum it all the more. Calcutta is soon going to be very uninhabitable.
I don't know why I keep going to the overbridge. I think it gives me a little more hope so that I can pull through and face another day of uneasiness, fright and joblessness. And anytime it gets a little too claustrophobic, I know I can always find my freedom by those railings.

4/25/12

One more chance


Hear when the bee flies its last course on its road
Hear when the clouds stop gliding in their silent boats.
Hear when the oceans trickle the last drop onto the shore.
Hear when the wind howls the last time it sweeps around the globe.
See where the pearl moon beams dance on their way in the night
See where you have stopped still when anything had gone right.
See the broken masts of the ships that you had made to fly
Nowhere could you ever go, consumed by your selfish sight.

 

Come when the earth has eaten away at every one of us,
nothing left of the life that had created such a fuss.
Come when the morning star disappears gently into the cold
nowhere to go but the blackness where our story began to unfold.
Come where the last of the candles flickers out its light
from thereon you shall see the way through the darkness of the night.
Come where the rain pounds its many drops, wet upon the floor
there u shall wash away all your desires evermore. 

4/22/12

Transitions

I realize the changes in me sometimes. The realizations sometimes comes out of self-introspection but most of the time, I realize the changes because of what people say about me. The latest one is a dangerous one. Very recently, quite a number of people have told me that I seem more robust and talkative over chat and other media. But I don't talk much when I have met them. Meaning, I have started to accept the Internet as my media to open up and be myself and not actually be myself in front of people. My virtual self has started to take over me. Which shouldn't be the case.

4/9/12

Change,anyone?

I think we are all the same, yearning for childhood the same way sloths yearn to sleep. Sometimes its almost overpowering. Almost scary later on. Makes us rebellious in some ways I think. We get stuck in loops,never wanting to change certain things. It's almost comical from a certain angle. I saw this elderly man while on the bus, still wearing the same huge glasses that were in fashion during the 70's, wearing worn out leather shoes, carrying a small sling bag that women used to carry when we were kids, wearing his trousers way up, stretching his legs one by one at intervals.

Looking at him, I had a funny thought: if this man and some others like him are stuck where they were in their younger days, what will some of us from this generation look like when older? Imagine old people wearing trousers all the way down from their buttocks, wearing bracelets, playboy bunny earrings and bandanas, converse shoes, and glasses that cover every color possible. Its funny to think about.


But the point is, we're constantly yearning. Some of us express it, some of us don't. We all like certain things and wish they existed forever. And we try to hold on to them however much the world around us changes. I shall keep watching episodes of FullHouse and FRIENDS because there will never be shows like them on television, because television isn't the same anymore,because they remind me of the simplicity that childhood was, because I could relate my life to the characters on the shows, because I learned a lot about life from them. I still love reading Enid Blyton because of the way she wove her words,so intricate and beautiful yet so simple and easy to grasp. These are things to cherish forever and I would never want to change these. But reality is, we hardly get time to go back these days. We always want to move fast, have friends all over, stay connected via social networking sites etc. That's the priority now.

How do we accept change when we aren't ready to do it? Its just something we have to force upon ourselves. And most of us hate having stuff forced on us. But there isn't a way out is there? Cuz once we're out there, we're trapped before we can say "Shit! Boobytrap!!"

3/26/12

Father

Summers gone and now the rain
comes to fill the open sky.
When you're looking back u know
the best of u stands by.
You'll never know what you've missed today
but you've had the best of times.
Circling birds silhouette
dreams where u can fly.


You're left riddled by the void in you.
Luck wasn't fair to you at all.
But She'll make sure She comes back for you.
So you can go ahead and make your father proud.


I see the shadow of a man by you
and I tell u he isn't love.
The hand you're holding is just an illusion,
the hand you want is far off.
You're scared at first but you hold on still
with sliver of hope in your eyes.
But it's time to let go and you do it at peace,
while u watch the darkening sky.

3/17/12

Love Ain't There

Today I have a show for under-privileged children in the city. I guess we are lucky we have so much to do and so many things in life. Yet we never pause to think about them and never realize what they really mean. What we do is complain and whine in spite of everything.

I wrote this song last year about the children who have no place to call home, who are used and abused by the society we have built for ourselves, who are lost and are without love. I pray for their souls to be happy and pray that we change. I am going to sing this tomorrow without any expectations of criticisms or compliments. I hope people understand a little of it and change a little bit at least. Those bits can sum up to an extraordinary amount in the future.....

P.S.: CLICK ON THIS LINE TO LISTEN TO THE SONG.

I close my eyes,
surrounded by the talking rain.
I lift my hands and I,
I cry for you and I pray.

I wait for no one.
I wait for everything to be alright.
But I keep waiting,
waiting for a star to come out shine.

Before its too late I want to make a wish.
A wish for good to come and try to coexist.
Love ain't there, there's so many things to lose.
Don't lose faith or you won't know what to do.



I'm now alone,
surrounded by the unknown despair.
But I'm hopeful,
that my world is gonna change.


I'll wait for no one.
I'll wait for everything to be alright.
And I'll keep waiting,
waiting for my star to come out shine.

Before its too late I want to make a wish.
A wish for good to come n try to coexist.
Love ain't there, there's so many things to lose.
Don't lose yourself or you won't know what to do.

3/12/12

"Heal The World"

www.facebook.com/sftimetochange - This one's for a contest.

"Time to change" encompasses almost every little detail that we have to offer as the human race. After millions of years of inhabiting the planet, we've made serious errors and gone ways that are so wrong as only conceivable in the very devil's mind himself. While there have been people who have tried to spread the message of bringing about change through protests, their music, poems, stories, the media, the success obtained hardly passes for anything that's worth boasting about.

"What we've got here is failure to communicate,Some men you just can't reach, So, you get what we had here
last week,Which is the way he wants it!Well, he gets it!N' I don't like it any more than you men."

Communication and acceptance together form the greatest tool that we could ever use to treat the epidemic that are our own wrong doings. We do have communication in our society as well as acceptance. But these exist very rarely together. The key to find
ing a solution to change the world around us is ourselves. The moment we change ourselves, we change the world. But each one of us is so busy trying to find a place for ourselves among this maddening crowd, trying to get the better of one another, trying to lead the others, that we forget the initial objective we had. It's time people made promises to themselves and kept it. It's time they took a good look at themselves before believing in anybody else. It's time that people stopped killing in the name of the same God, in whose name others preach peace. If God to people is the omniscient being who brings peace and harmony and love among humankind, where does the killing come in? Love and peace can only step in when we have respect for each other. If we want peace to step in, we must respect every man,woman and child around us. And if we do respect them, why kill them? Isn't it against the very logic that God helps bring peace unto ourselves?
I wonder how many people sleep fitfully at night in today's world. We are all worried about where our lives are going and what the future holds for us. We continuously refuse to see the bigger picture or help contribute to it. We think we are in our own individual ways but we are not. Attending a protest rally, donating some money towards people working to bring the change doesn't make a difference. The heart needs to be in the right place, to believe in something and not budge one inch. That's where we go wrong. We are fickle and swayed easily. Acceptance of cultures, religions, nations among others is a key step on the larger scale. But before any of that happens, acceptance of the same within the nations themselves is what is needed. 
 
For years down the line, almost all nations and their people have aimed to bring about peace to their land. It started out with the caveman himself, and Darwin fortified the same generalizing it as ‘survival of the fittest’, underlining the fact that each creature will eliminate any possible threats to his territory in order to maintain peace for his own self. The concept broadened, changed structures & morphed into various forms down the time line.
Today we still fight for peace against each other. We claim to be the most advanced animal that has ever walked yet we still have not found a key to nurturing peace. We point out differences between every other men, inculcate in our children to develop the same wrong ideals we ourselves have. If you put an African elephant and an Indian elephant in a cage, both would just see each other as elephants. Why is it that we point out differences? It is time, don’t you think? Time we found a solution to the bother. Every day the video and the print media report blasts, shootouts, accidents, fights, robberies. All of it has become so common that people hardly take any notice nowadays. How many of us remember every tragedy that has shaken the very roots of our world? The numbers are so great that remembering has become an impossible feat to accomplish. What if everyone lived in harmony, without the urge to nose around? The world would most definitely see a lot less lives lost and a lot less families grieving.
“With great power comes great responsibility”.
We all nodded our heads in assent to it when Uncle Ben told Peter Parker in Spiderman. What did we do about it? Did we at least take a look in the mirror to see if we even respected ourselves enough to be responsible? No. Because we are afraid we will let out the truth we hide from ourselves even. The mask must be kept on. Without realizing so even.
The word here is “WE”, not “I”. WE must act together as a whole to prevent the world falling to pieces at our own hands. The future belongs to us and our children. Let us strive to remove quarrels, trifles, wars in the name of religion, caste, creed, religion that threaten every bond we have among ourselves. Let us teach our children the same values-there is no difference. We are all humans. If we do not have a solution to peace, let us not start anything that breaks peace where it exists. For the world is not ours alone.
As the deceased has rightly said:
“Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me”
~Michael Jackson.
"Once there was a way to get back home"


2/24/12

Sun in the doorway

It got cold for a while
when winter came to stay.
We couldn't wait for it to end
so spring would come our way.

Every year with the turn of the sun
our house would smell so very different.
The rooms would brighten up even at night
and for once mother wouldn't have to worry bout the rent.

At the end of February
we all kept watch on our mother's room.
The sunshine that never glanced that way in the cold
started creeping slowly through the doorway.

The first sign of gold
would set off a shriek from little Mona.
She would run down the stairs in delight
to clutch at mother's skirt.
And she didn't need to say a word,
mother knew what she was excited about.
A tear would roll down her cheek
as she hurriedly offered a prayer.

Within a day or five
we knew we'd change
the way we laughed and cried.
We would lead a different life
through thunderstorms
and the humid nights.


For it was the season
when father came home
after a tiring winter night.
For it was the season
we'd sing of hope
and father not returning to fight.

Little Mona would be the first
father scooped up in his arms,
as she hurtled out of the door
when his car pulled up by the ferns.
Mother would cry silently
humming a little hymn of gratitude.
A hug and a smile was all they shared
after six months of solitude.

And sooner than enough
mother would be smiling again,
the bubble of fright in her heart
would deflate to almost nothing.

But with the nearing of the cold
the bubble would come alive again
silently tearing through her soul
making her wonder who was to blame.
But she was brave and her smile she faked
as screams and canons beat on her eardrums.
We said nothing but Mona cried her eyes red
knowing no reason behind the hymns her mother hummed.

2/4/12

Red

The days have been shaping up through the window.
The shadows of the bars twist everyday on the wall.
The pane turns frosty as soon as its midnight,
not caring if its winter, summer or the fall.

And she sits still and quiet by the curtain
The rose withered in her hand,
trying in vain to keep ahead of its time.
Her feet twitch when the sunlight hits her toes,
glinting a dark stained red that she had never painted on her nails.
She watches the birds hopping on the building far off
who come to visit her sometimes in the afternoon.
She never makes an effort to reach out to them
however shrill their calls start to get.
All she knows is a pain unknown to us.
A pain we never imagined her to know.
But who knew she was chosen to walk that path?We've called out to her a hundred many times
but she's never turned her head to us.
All we see is a drop of water or two,
sometimes around her feet or on her red stained palms.
The wall she's leaned on through the years
has turned red in patches beneath her hair.
The flowers have stirred their heads to face her
asking a thousand many times to forgive
and join their sisterhood.
A tiny nod I had noticed from her one day and all at once
it seemed the flowers drooped their heads and leaves.

She'd alone faced her lover
never knowing of the wrath he hid.
She'd screamed in vain all day and all night long
Praying that someone would hear her bleed.
We had taught her forgiveness when she was young,
but there was no way now
that we would even ask her to listen to us
or remember what we had taught her.
We were far apart I understood
but a fluttering breeze seemed unfamiliar always,
sometimes parting the fringes she kept covered her face with.
But she had promised never to show her face again,
and kept her head bowed on her knee
as she crouched up tighter, cold and closer
yet more distant with the passing trees.

1/31/12

Two Days

Marching down into the dawn of red,
Spies running ahead to uncover the nests.

The colors of the nation hanging by the rope

Would eight hundred suffice to resist the test?


Soon enough the vulture's eye

would be stabbed with a sword and ripped from within.

But whose vulture will be throttled first?

The common man or the relentless king?

An uprising not too late in time

rising from an exploited mime,

Where the shovel is silent and the daggers scream,

The time had come to recover the dreams.


The dogs start howling at the very sight

frantic in anticipation of the impending fight.
The children all crouch hiding in the dark,

Sheltering their lives to be torn apart.


The last gaze of the moon falters and hides.
The stars whimper away with the night.


As the ground shakes with sheer strength of force,

As the men keep shouting themselves hoarse.

As the sun blinks its weary eye,

As the jackals shriek and cower in fright.

As the fires burn in raging silence,

As the swords glint with a hint of violence.
As the hope clashes with the fearsome past,

As the fist rises in a struggling mass.


The next two days will determine their fate

Stories untold will lay to waste.

History will only unfold the face

of the sunshine that might arrive just too late.

1/22/12

Through the window

Cry because you want to
smile because you care

there are no restrains
binding you down
except ones you care to make.

It's all pandemonium

never resting still in one place.
It's always a vagabond want

that seems to be chasing us away.

the sky changes colour
sometimes
but forever stays right up there

the roads below them go on for miles

without winds to brush their dust away.


Faith breaks down losing sight of hope

The lights glow dim as we ponder
thinking has led us to solutions wise

and the same has led to thunder.

we reside in our own memories
fighting battles that are always our own
on the outside we keep fighting for each other overlooking what is already known.

with each day we are surer still
of what we can do from our window sill

but with each passing day we step further away
further away from our window sill.


we've grown old watching fellowmen pass
and we've lost count of days gone by so fast

we've learnt much from our journeys through the window
now we've started stepping back to places that we know.

Scared and Safe

 It seems like I go through these sine waves of anxiety and determination. I ride out the waves differently of course. It seems like the anx...