Hames

you  reposed-

contoured in a shape

 

          formed ridges,

          dividing horizon.

 

          my fingers were

clothespins.

 

my legs were

propping

 

while you stretched

receiving weight

 

some wet linen

hung, to dry

Idealism is one glorious

iridescent flame-

a magnet to young blood

swathe in innocence. How

with our simplicity,

our winged resistance-

singed and burned. Died

 

until our ashes will mix

in the wick, obliterated

by mediocrity and irrelevance.

Our lives wasted and fading

to wisps of smoke-

in a country where poverty is

a usual sight. Everyday

 

like cockroaches,

we swarmed the sewers of society

and its livid pavement. Of placards-

waving vituperatives.

Flaunting invectives for a change

we vaguely understand. We

 

solicit publicity.

We paraded wearing black

signifying protest. While

those frigid walls, we painted red

in grafitti seeking sympathy-

disguising under the mask

by being a pro-masses. A peasant.

A proletariat. Civil

 

disobedience. We clasped

our fist imitating Che.

We lined up first against

tear gases and waterbombs,

provoking a phalanx

of uniformed men.

Maximum tolerance.  How

 

dangerous, how close

we have trodden

by knowing so little.

We advertise poverty

as a face to a cause,

bannering struggle for

autonomy, sugar-coated

manifesto of national democracy.

A sovereign common rule. Blindly

 

we morph

into mouthpieces. And fronted

as cynical puppets,

high decibeled in echolalia-

against powers in the high places.

Contending reasons

constricted within the bounds  

of our manufactured rhetoric

on utopia. We are

pre-conditioned

 

to see the world

as our oyster. We read

in our books a twisted history

of our beginnings. Taking

a stand by that rostrum

endlessly kvetching

the capitalists.

We became subservient,

as willing subjects to-

 

a coward. Who

shielded himself in

the backdrop of its

Nordic friends.

An ailing lion,

such an imperialist-

remotely controlling

his serfdom, extending

influence. Like a poison

to the minds of the horde

of pseudo intellectual-

moth as we are.

Mystery unravels tonight,

strange a landscape-

since you left. The room is

a parched valley of sheets

as I lay naked, bathe

in the lunar light.

 

Sans the gravity

of your satellite. It orbits

without the ocean’s rage

of high tides luminating

passion, as I grope

within the walled corners

of the stark midnight.

 

Sadness falls

like rockets ebbing

the bed. Its trajectory

creating pockmarks

and craters

of a dormant volcano.

I tip-toed.

 

To our dreams-

pinnacled fortresses pierced

with shrapnels of regret.

Ripping pillows

until blood-tinged feathers

hover the vacuum,

shatter into belt

of asteroids and clods

of moondust.

Today, he waits

at the station, searching through

the window panes. And soon

he’ll run along, chasing

shadows to his past.

 

The train became a home

to a lover. A wanderer of days-

exiled to traveling distances.

An evacuee amidst

the maze of constant strangers.

 

A thought, he is keeping-

of a woman he lost.

That last glimpse returning,

as she boarded a train-

happily blew him a kiss.

 

But she never came back.

He hopes while staring into the horizon

daydreaming. As life pulling apart

the images of her face.

He never rest.                        

 

Recording the miles-

a solitary journey, he keeps

a knapsack filled

with tear-drenched tickets

by his side.

 

Tomorrow, is a beginning

of another lonely day,

running along with trains.

And pay for a small token-

sojourning memories.

The earth became

a lacerated vision

of shallow heaven,

after the rain. T’was

a parting time,

a moment lost

when the big sky

agonizes over

the summer sun.

 

And how the  bamboo trees

sadly waving goodbye.

And the monsoon winds

blew gently,

creating ripples,

mirrored patches

and misty glimpses.

A sea of blue.

 

It was all-

in the photograph

capturing puddles

reflecting clouds

travelling by.

It was all-

that I keep

as a remembrance,

of a big sky

hoping for the sun.

I came from the east

And you from the west.

 

The space between us

is an empty canvas.

 

Our footsteps were

unsure scribbling of lines.

 

Our lives were

charcoal grey sketches.

 

Our beings were

liquid pigments, pressed

out of  tube-like existence.

 

Paint the words

written by fate.

Our union pre-destined.

 

Our spirits would soon

penetrate this world,

transforming our bond

from this obscure surface.

 

Like criss-crossing layers

of texture and dimension.

 

Your blood. And my blood.

A  miscegeny of colors

gradually  revealing

order and balance,

forms and figures,

sizes and shapes.

 

Blending fragiled fibers

of our soul, framed into

a work of art.

I left the world as it is

Not a tear has been shed,

Only the mist forming

faint breath of dying-

wisps of memory

of the world when

I first found it.

The womb of the earth

gave birth, a wound won’t heal.

A fading montage

I watched. I witnessed.

A cycle of suffering.

A continuous decay.

People lying lifeless

of hunger, alienation,

war and hate.

Dog eats dog, surviving 

like savages

inflicting pain.  Aimless

generation killing

one another.

Of bombs and guns.

I left the world as it is.

No heroes funeral.

I exited, unnoticed

in blood and death. 

Father, I remember-

waiting for you

on my birthday

And they say,

you’ll bring home

a present like

what other boys have.

I wish of a little toy

I will ride along

in the neighborhood.

And try to belong.

 

Father, I forgot

how long-

I have chased

the speed of days,

counting roosters

that have crowed

at dawn break.

All the hope

that have died

and buried inside. I forgot

the tears that have dried.

 

Father, quite still-

there are images

of trees I forgot to climb.

Of kites I did not flown.

Of baseball gloves

I did not put on.

Of the nursery rhymes,

left unsung. I slept-

as the world turns

of bedtime stories

unheard. I have grown.

 

Father, see me now-

how everyday, I wake up.

And struggle to balance

like a weighing scale.

The drudgery

of riding big toys

through the alleyway

of this wild world.

As I left skid marks,

deeply scarred

the innocence of this boy.

 

Two nights ago, I tossed left and right in my bed , restless and not knowing what I have been missing these past few days.  Isolation takes a toll and there are days that I can’t bear  the reclusivity.  Those were the days when I felt that I don’t differ to the things you can find in my room. A regular fixture, as if I am resembling to some  breathing machine with a pair of eyes traveling the whiteness of the ceiling.  I imagine the freedom of my mortal being mixing in the crowd around the city.  A stranger with an imaginary wall, like the others.

A study says that there is a silent epidemic  affecting millions of people, slowly killing and obliterates their very existence.  A persistent loneliness, that leads to severe depression due to non-interaction as a result of a person’s self-imposed isolation.  

People need inter-personal relationship with others.  In the world with the advancement of science and technology and the quick fix of web-based communication, people are making way to get connected, through multiple virtual identities impersonally.  Social networking groups in the Internet replaces actual person to person interaction and thus making the present generation  accustomed to getting glued to their computer screens, 24/7.

I admit that if I will not take steps to get out and mingle with others, I might succumb to the ill effects of my being passive and recluse.  That is why, it was a blessing that I have brought home something new in my life.  A living thing, but not a pet, since the landlord would not approve of any pets in the house.  It was a plant given to me by a friend, which has a life, and could share my space and can introduce me to first steps of rejuvenation.

If I can be able to take care for the plant and make it grow through constant watering, nourishment and exposure to sun and wind,  it can become a litmus test.  Wherein each new leaf that might sprang out of it signifies the measure of the heart ready to forge new meaningful relationship with people. A confidence that I can be able to nurture worthy life connection with them, in love and compassion.

The plant, will ever be a constant reminder, that people are not just things. People are people, who is capable of loving and be loved in return.