tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-115783152024-03-09T16:11:14.006-05:00Shakespeare and CompanyA collaborative blog for the Shakespeare and Company network of writers on Ryze.pragyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395193617399860828noreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-50695499301789507622009-07-31T20:05:00.001-05:002009-07-31T20:08:21.713-05:00?<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Did I open that bottle?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">And did you break it to pieces? after it was empty of course.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">It always was empty you just didnt see</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">the reflections </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">that fell on your eyes blinding you</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Did I write last night?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Did you rip apart the pages, erase the words? after they were spoken.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">They were drowned in yesterday's loud rain </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">run over on the empty streets</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">that you drove to find me</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Did I have the same dream?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Did you sing through my reality? after the myth was shattered.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">you always knew the whispers were loud </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">the pieces too many</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">for you to fix and make whole</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Say I did it.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Say I did not.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Say I did it.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Say I did it all.</p>incognitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09260983400397006269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-27116192561398256962009-02-11T15:48:00.002-05:002009-02-11T16:04:23.969-05:00IF I WRITE THIS POEMIf I write this poem,<br />Will you wonder what it means?<br />Will you peel away layers?<br />Or read between lines,<br />Or shine the light,<br />Of what was said,<br />On what was left unsaid?<br /><br />It could be about you,<br />Or it could be a fabrication;<br />a meaningless invention.<br /><br />See, sometimes I imagine myself,<br />In a relationship,<br />In a situation,<br />In some future hell,<br /><br />(Or heaven for that matter).<br /><br />Sometimes I dream:<br />I am in love,<br />I am in hate,<br />I am in lust.<br />I am distraught.<br /><br />If I write about being distraught,<br />It could be a dark vision,<br />Or Cassandra-like thought<br />Of dire consequences;<br /><br />But would it make you-<br />Pick up the phone,<br />Call me,<br />Alarmed,<br />Concerned,<br />Hurt,<br />Angry,<br />Betrayed,<br />Confused?<br /><br />Would you believe,<br />it stems from a truant imagination,<br />that it’s nothing more than lurid fiction?<br /><br />Where the protagonist is me<br />But the antagonist is never you?pragyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395193617399860828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-12963744639779690082009-02-11T14:52:00.004-05:002009-02-11T15:07:25.657-05:00A WORD...Unfortunately the site that was hosting the images that gave our blog the elegant look that we all loved has been shut down. We are on the lookout for a better design but have chosen the one you see now for the interim.<br /><br />Pragyapragyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13395193617399860828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-12459891836139938722009-01-05T12:36:00.000-05:002009-01-05T12:38:39.967-05:00SENIOR CITIZENSYou can see them most evenings in the park,<br />Muffled and sweatered against the chill –<br />Or weathers decreed by peremptory wives.<br />The woollens, the odd walking stick mark<br />Them down as no terminal sentence will<br />As they shuffle through the tail ends of lives.<br /><br />Perched or huddled like diffident crows,<br />You’ll find them in knots of threes or fours,<br />Bound by the final unuttered fear – <br />Which, despite their squawky petulance, shows<br />In the eyes of these superannuated bores.<br />You sense something wrong here.<br /><br />Or at least curious. For given their ages,<br />There can’t be much more to anticipate<br />Than a quiet release of valedictory breath,<br />The desideratum of sages.<br />Yet not for these, for whom the killing weight<br />Of dread must leave little indeed for death.<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-29035958558745848692008-08-05T23:38:00.003-05:002009-02-11T15:08:06.355-05:00A DRY HOSTILE ANTAGONISTIC PLACE...Just finished reading Salman Rushdie's "The Enchantress of Florence" and towards the end this is this passage which I find very relevant to India today.<br /><br />Emperor Akbar is evacuating Fatehpur Sikhri as the lake has dried up and these words are his musings:<br /><br />The future would not be what he (Akbar) hoped for, but a dry hostile antagonistic place where people would survive as best as they could and hate their neighbours and smash their places of worship and kill one another once again in the renewed heat of the great quarrel he had sought to end for ever, the quarrel over God. In the future it was harshness, not civilization, that would rule.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219760381898565039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-24331276739993974312008-08-05T14:17:00.003-05:002009-02-11T15:08:36.803-05:00NOT SAYING ANYTHINGWhy didn't I realize that your silence<br />was not an accident but a result of my failure?<br />Words have been the cause -<br />'Cannot stay', 'no future', these once spoken<br />You took without protest. The unspoken, you used with deliberation;<br />They dripped bleeding questions<br />On gaping scars.<br /><br />It is no big deal to live without<br />warmth and hugs, even Wills and Reserva<br />Thingschangefiredieswaterfreezes<br />andspacesindistanceandwordsbecomeknives<br />That tear apart memories and make one wonder<br />if they were imagined.<br /><br />Strange to think that once addictive substances<br />are so easy to wean from, including your words<br />Once offered as promises. Easier still to think<br />All was a deception from the beginning.<br /><br />Frightening to know this pattern for what it is,<br />in others silence and my own<br /><br />Answer being a departure.incognitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09260983400397006269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-74504025381199191522008-07-11T07:10:00.001-05:002009-02-11T15:09:32.535-05:00JAHANPANAH BAHADUR SHAH ZAFAR – The Last MughalJahanpana, Sahenshah Bahadur Shah Zafar,<br />Saw dust over the Bridge of Boats, afar,<br />Standing on the ramparts of the Red Fort,<br />With wives, courtiers, and consort.<br /><br />His heart filled with despair and hope,<br />A mixed feeling he couldn’t cope,<br />His Hindustan will after all be free,<br />From the White Man’s sword, and decree.<br /><br />To feed them where will he bring money?<br />Thomas Metcalfe refuses to give him any,<br />His powers are naught and so is his court,<br />Should he fight or befriend as they cross the moat.<br /><br />No, he’s not a soldier fighting a war,<br />He’s a Sufi poet running beads of prayer,<br />Though martial blood runs in his veins,<br />For Timur’s cruelty he has much disdain.<br /><br />He squandered wealth and kingdom lost,<br />To wine, poetry, blandishments and lust,<br />Too many late nights of poetry and pretence,<br />Had left a debt he couldn’t recompense.<br /><br />Away to his chamber that night he went,<br />After a message to mutinous armies sent,<br />You are welcome if you come in peace,<br />Do not disturb our graces, or, our poetry disgrace.<br /><br />But the mutinous army being common men,<br />Looted, pillaged and set on fire, and then,<br />Said to Jahanpanah, “Where’s all your wealth,<br />For us to liberate and live in comfort and health?”<br /><br />To this Jahanpanah murmured a few words,<br />I will go to Mecca; send you to British swords,<br />I am too old and tired for this war you create,<br />Therefore to Nizamuddin shrine will I retreat.<br /><br />“Call me coward, what you will, man,<br />But I am no traitor like Asanullah Khan,<br />My wife Zinat Mahal, or, Mohammed Baqar,<br />They will rot in their graves, those gaddar.”<br /><br />“I have only done what a poet would have done,<br />Protected my people, poetry, wives, and son,<br />It’s greedy men who covet, steal, and fight,<br />I am but a bard; and poetry is my birthright.”<br /><br />Glossary:<br /><br />Jahanpanah - ruler of the world<br />Shahenshah – king of kings<br />Gaddar - traitor<br />Asanullah Khan – Zafar’s prime minister<br />Zinat Mahal – Zafar’s wife<br />Mohammed Baqar – chronicler and editor of Delhi Urdu AkhbarAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219760381898565039noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-79931302717528118832008-07-03T22:43:00.000-05:002008-07-03T22:44:46.889-05:00THE ASTROLOGERNot knowing what brought me here –<br />certainly no wayward vicissitude of tide –<br />and not affirming or denying<br />the course he maps with the clear<br />authority of the sibyl, I bide<br />the familiar litany of prophesying.<br /><br />Detachment comes easy to you, he says,<br />scanning the palm leaf. And age<br />will see you recede further<br />from the points of life, each phase<br />revealing the hidden stillness of the sage.<br />The final you will be someone other.<br /><br />Perhaps. Except that I’ve always been that.<br />Never quite what was required to be,<br />or knowing even that presumed state,<br />the kind that the assured point at<br />(short of sainthood) with such certainty.<br />Someone else, somewhat there, approximate.<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-76401014616176935332008-04-21T11:00:00.001-05:002008-04-21T11:04:44.876-05:00MEADOWS BARRACKSNot sure of a terminal ‘e’<br />I type it in on a whim, and there<br />It is on a wikimap, neatly boxed in a square.<br />I pan the image expectantly.<br /><br />The blanks surprise me, for the years<br />Have seemingly left those grounds<br />Untouched, all mottled greens and browns<br />Dotted with a few familiars.<br /><br />I pick them off one by one. First,<br />The garrison church. All Saints, or so<br />It says, although at five I didn’t know<br />It, being still unversed<br /><br />In such things. A vague derelict, a bit<br />Of a halfway point to school and back.<br />A blur of blotched grey and black<br />Is all I remember of it.<br /><br />East of it the Barracks, another pile.<br />Abode of one who fancied my arm<br />And left her teeth marks like a charm.<br />A fleet of summer, verandah and tile.<br /><br />Below, the dense blocks of the MH loom,<br />Slightly ominous, commanding the grid.<br />And somewhere amid<br />Other frames, beyond the mouse’s zoom<br /><br />Must lie a home, now doubtless blent<br />With ghosts and such like, and air.<br />Barely recalled or loved, but where<br />A childhood, as someone said, was ‘unspent.’ <br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-5611569500137898112008-01-23T22:48:00.000-05:002008-01-23T22:50:09.231-05:00NARCISSUSThe first time was surely enchantment –<br />or perhaps witchcraft, given the spell<br />he cast on himself. The pool stretched taut<br />in timeless stillness, as he bent<br />over the glazed perfection for which he fell.<br />That at any rate was how the myth was wrought.<br /><br />It endured, and certainly (it must be admitted)<br />longer than the subject’s startled self-love.<br />The latter was ephemeral at best,<br />an infatuation: by definition unrequited,<br />since the image could not rise above<br />the limbo of that watery palimpsest.<br /><br />Inevitably, the first wavers of doubt<br />rippled through his mind. He grew wan,<br />distrait, a shade walking through a curse,<br />given to hearing voices when he was out.<br />He sat down: a droop of brooding bone,<br />eyes sunk in holes, unseeing in mirrors. <br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-85686626967880607632007-11-24T10:43:00.000-05:002007-11-24T10:46:57.141-05:00IMPERATORIn the year of grace something or other<br />The new emperor was crowned<br />With a minimum of fuss. (A near thing,<br />For his predecessor had anointed another.)<br />As new emperors will, he looked around:<br />And saw the shambles staring<br /><br />Him in the face, the ruin he was heir to.<br />The waste and ravage of the Caligulas<br />Was comprehensive; words failed him.<br />Shaking himself, he wondered where to<br />Begin the long slog back from this pass:<br />Briefly, fears assailed him.<br /><br />Which of course was good. For it set him apart<br />From his forebears, who used the seeming<br />Infinitude of the empire’s strength<br />To plunder at will: fear played no part<br />In their relentless scheming,<br />Each milking his reign’s length.<br /><br />But it’s bad for a ruler to be frightened<br />Into inaction; so he set about trying<br />To rebuild what wasn’t destroyed<br />In a day by decreeing a heightened<br />Sense of purpose for the dead and dying –<br />Which, as an entertainment, they enjoyed.<br /><br />The dumb multitudes soon set him at ease,<br />And a pliant Senate endorsed his vision –<br />There were no Ciceros (long exiled<br />To the obscurity of the lesser colonies)<br />To question the mechanics of the mission.<br />And those that did were reconciled<br /><br />To despairing silence: there was just<br />So much after all that they could do.<br />The deafness of centuries befell<br />Him. History moved in. Ages thence, his bust<br />Joined the marbled others. The face was true:<br />The eyes a dreamer’s, you could tell.<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-65275652685368636582007-10-31T14:21:00.000-05:002007-10-31T14:22:51.028-05:00INCIDENTALIt is natural that you should cross my mind.<br />After all, by cosmic timelines, it isn’t<br />Very long since we said – or didn’t –<br />Our mixed goodbyes. You left behind<br /><br />Bits of baggage, as I’m sure I did, even if<br />No more than shredded labels – places<br />Extinct as only pasts can be, with traces<br />Blotching a scroll or two, an occasional whiff<br /><br />Now and then on my now settled course.<br />I don’t dwell, but register the fact<br />As a watch would at sea, a mechanical act,<br />Incurious about its source.<br /><br />And consign the event to the morgue,<br />Unremarked: a laconic entry in a log.<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-57534146354454703462007-09-28T00:09:00.000-05:002007-09-28T00:11:46.169-05:00POETRY PRIMER“I wandered lonely as a cloud…”<br />Hmmm…one squirms a bit,<br />though perhaps kosher for its time.<br />And that “crowd”<br />(line three), while we’re still at it<br />makes for rather awkward rhyme.<br /><br />The oded nightingale and autumn<br />fare slightly better, though not<br />much. “My heart aches, and a drowsy…”<br />Well, so does ours: they’re tiresome,<br />laboured, overwrought.<br />One stops short of lousy.<br /><br />The romantic died hard in fact.<br />Shelley unbeknownst, leapt<br />an age when he met<br />his traveller from that antique tract:<br />cool, Olympian, adept,<br />as spare as you could get.<br /><br />Still, far removed from sweeping<br />winds, the sear of green to brown,<br />and arid acres that would kill<br />or mute the song of hearts leaping –<br />lovers woken up to drown,<br />and the distant lilac-breeding April.<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-42065979178012176812007-09-23T03:06:00.001-05:002009-02-11T15:10:06.466-05:00A FUCKING ABSENCE OFI<br />Words.<br />Too many words, too many,<br />This is an addiction,<br />To spill the wrong words<br />Cupped in your hand<br />And let it baptize sinners<br />When all they needed<br />Was a fucking bath.<br /><br />II<br />Drugs and alcohol.<br />Never too much, too little maybe,<br />All in the wrong veins<br />Like the legs and hands<br />Leaving blank pages<br />And empty roads<br />When all you wanted<br />Was to give your mind a break.<br /><br />III<br />You.<br />Never enough, or too much<br />In my head and body,<br />Always flitting about<br />In these sanitized words,<br />Wine and substances, ingested<br />And rejected and now inflicted<br />On the general population who need a laugh.incognitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09260983400397006269noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-87433278289654633572007-09-09T03:37:00.000-05:002007-09-09T03:39:04.565-05:00LESSONAnd then there is death. Always.<br />Some of you have contemplated<br />It, in the active or the abstract.<br />On some the fear of it preys<br />Like a worm, unstated.<br />The flutter of the final act.<br /><br />Unnecessary really, its terror<br />Made more of than it deserves:<br />The dark needs but light<br />To expose the error<br />Which ignorance serves –<br />Dawn to the louring dread of night.<br /><br />One could be pragmatic about it:<br />See perhaps in its inner<br />Vacuity the blown up myth,<br />And with cold reason rout it.<br />As routine a chore as dinner:<br />Something to be got over with.<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-44336743914942780502007-09-03T11:13:00.002-05:002009-02-11T15:10:33.006-05:00QUICKSILVER NIRVANAQuicksilver nirvana<br /><br />I've come to a place<br />That's green and misty<br />Where joy is a pimple-ripe fruit<br />In a garden<br />That's taller than me.<br />Where purple fish fly peacefully<br />Across a yellow moon<br /><br />That disrobes its light<br />Into an enchanted pool<br />Where I see a bright green lizard.<br />Its eyes bigger than the fingernail moon<br />Its smile cleaving its arrow face,<br />And beckoning me to step in.<br /><br />I refuse.<br /><br />I am in place<br />Where joy drizzles like salt crystals<br />In slow motion<br />Or perhaps snowflakes through a microscope<br />I can't really say.<br /><br />Still smiling, the lizard<br />Comes undone, fading deep into<br />The starry blue pond<br />Leaving strains of a hopeful melody.<br /><br />And for just an instant<br />In the circular echo of the pool<br />I see all I want from life<br />Written in picture-script<br />A little like Chinese.<br /><br />A quick breath<br />And they disappear slower than they came<br />As the fading lizard drags away with it<br />All that I think I ought to know<br />In this life and others.<br /><br />Sandhya<br />September 07Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-31564936876999639462007-09-01T05:01:00.000-05:002007-09-01T05:02:56.916-05:00OH WELL...“Does it mean nothing to you?? Fame<br />I mean, accolades…adoring women…stature<br />Of a god, you know…Does all of that<br />Leave you cold? Why, it is in the nature<br />Of poets to hunger for a pretty pat<br />Or two, the heady wine of acclaim!”<br /><br />The incredulous tones of a fellow-poet<br />Who’s known and seen it all, now dismayed<br />By my cheerful obscurity. Who knew,<br />Such indifference argued a shade<br />Of something other perhaps… A hue<br />Of conceit for those who’d know it.<br /><br />But sloth – for such it is – has no lines<br />To read between, and inertia’s bland<br />Of meaning: both enough to keep me grounded<br />In my unfamous state. Hard to understand<br />No doubt, but reasons well-founded.<br />Poets? I suppose it takes all kinds…<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-41491058606272006212007-07-30T08:30:00.001-05:002007-07-30T08:30:33.383-05:00Is This What We Have Come to?It’s raining black rivers from the skies tonight,<br />Incessant angry rivers of our sorrows,<br />We shiver, cold and wet like drowning rats,<br />In our warren holes, cracks, and burrows.<br /><br />Is this what we have come to?<br />Then how far is it to perdition?<br /><br />Around us the rhythmic Bollywood dancers,<br />Shake their legs; thrust their hips in motion,<br />We are like amorous dogs baying in the night,<br />For a touch of the idols we see on television.<br /><br />Is this what we have come to?<br />Then how far is it to perdition?<br /><br />Why do we live in constant, unfounded fears,<br />Of credit we have used, and loans unpaid,<br />To buy the follies that rot at home from disuse,<br />When Warren Buffet lives in a two-bedroom pad?<br /><br />Is this what we have come to?<br />Then how far is it to perdition?<br /><br />Have we broken our errant promises,<br />To our brothers who till the soil, grow grains,<br />Not to decimate forests and mine the hills,<br />So they don’t twist and turn nightly, for rains?<br /><br />Is this what we have come to?<br />Then how far is it to perdition?<br /><br />Instead we celebrate our borrowed money,<br />Indulging ring tones and crass downloads on the net,<br />Then we huddle and cry when the skies open up,<br />And nature weeps the black rain of regret.<br /><br />Is this what we have come to?<br />Then how far is it to perdition?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219760381898565039noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-48967824992244218312007-07-16T05:51:00.001-05:002007-07-16T05:51:45.087-05:00The PlatformOn the platform the hiss of steel,<br />Is like hiss of snake; the clang of wheels,<br />It’s the 8.30 a.m. local arriving,<br />And, the 8.31 a.m. local departing.<br /><br />Travelers, their faces expectant,<br />Thoughts of home and contentment,<br />Faces staring at the far horizon,<br />For trains to arrive to their destination.<br /><br />The announcer’s trained voice,<br />Impersonal in its insouciance,<br />There are voices humming,<br />Insistent shouts and hurried running.<br /><br />Tired-, haggard-looking men,<br />And sweet-, spent-looking women,<br />They walk, shuffle legs, and shift,<br />Churning; regimented mass of three shifts.<br /><br />The bhel-puri is tangy and sweet,<br />Mixed with the vendor’s own sweat,<br />Eat we must, spit, and drink,<br />Of civic sense, we must not think.<br /><br />Births, this platform has seen,<br />Deaths, when the lights turn green,<br />As bogeys trundle in in the night,<br />There are many a curse and a fight.<br /><br />There are aimless people here,<br />Embarking, disembarking to nowhere,<br />The weak lights cast shadows everywhere,<br />The neon light’s glow is so bizarre.<br /><br />Some faces tragic, some faces sad,<br />Some are bored, some are mad,<br />Some long to rest their weary heads,<br />On the soft comfort of their beds.<br /><br />The platform is now empty,<br />And, now, full of girls pretty,<br />Their talk and walk fills one with hope,<br />But, age has caught up, you dope.<br /><br />The stoic platform in the early dawn,<br />Look, how it reposes in the sunny morn,<br />It bakes in the relentless heat of noon,<br />And, at night it sleeps in the glow of moon.<br /><br />J<br /><br />-----------------<br />I work very close to a railway station, in fact, I can stare right into a platform from my office. So, I have been working on this poem and hope it works for you.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219760381898565039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-63233590803250161762007-06-16T13:29:00.000-05:002007-06-16T13:32:00.689-05:00MINXHaving dispensed with the honorific<br />in two days flat, she supplanted a softened<br />first name to take the edge off the former.<br />Still, it wasn’t strictly his own: all too often<br />he’d weighed against that hated misnomer.<br />The bloody thing was not even chic.<br /><br />His given of course was no less detested –<br />(his kind being happiest without one) –<br />buried, save for the odd wifely exhumation<br />now and then. So what was begun<br />as a gentle jibe at their age equation<br />(a lifetime separating luscious and grey-crested)<br /><br />suddenly sprouted, grew a soul and throve<br />as love’s surprising spur. The doldrums stirred,<br />her sighs bussed a sail or two<br />to life, a tentative swell answered.<br />Supremely assured, knowing what she must do<br />she added wile to wind and drove<br /><br />him out of his wits: she was out to kill.<br />While he, long becalmed in inert seas<br />was unused to storms. Taken pleasurably<br />aback he marvelled at the unwonted breeze,<br />before being swept aloft inexorably<br />in the typhoon, gale, blizzard, what you will.<br /><br /> ***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-10096829852742322222007-06-06T23:44:00.001-05:002007-06-06T23:44:27.069-05:00The First Rain SaudadeFirst Rain Saudade<br /><br />The first showers fall,<br />Syncopated percussions,<br />Like memory of first love.<br /><br />It wets eyelids,<br />Brings out a drawn sibilant breath.<br />The rain paints sky with a gray brush,<br />Satiates the earth,<br />Slakes desire, like an absent lover’s kiss.<br /><br />Slowly memory unravels,<br />Oh! How the nymphs came and went,<br />Spilling the air<br />With moist yearning.<br />Isn’t love<br />The desire of something one can’t have?<br /><br />The upended trees, buildings,<br />Reflected in recent clouds,<br />And the skin erupting with goose bumps,<br />The wetness clinging,<br />As memory to soul:<br />A feeling of saudade.<br /><br />She went away,<br />Forsaking love,<br />The memory lingers,<br />As first showers.<br />The smell of wet earth,<br />Brings back her musky spoor,<br />Wish she were here,<br />To hug and to hold.<br /><br />The clouds make love to thunder,<br />The skies pour forth anguish,<br />It would be enough,<br />To know that somewhere in the world,<br />She is alive,<br />And watching a similar rain.<br /><br />The first showers fall,<br />Syncopated percussions,<br />Like the memory of first love.<br /><br />J<br /><br />------------------------------<br /><br />Saudade, according to wikipedia (http://wikipedia.com) is a Portuguese word for a feeling of longing for something that one is fond of, which is gone, but might return in a distant future. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might really never return. (Thanks “?!” for introducing me to the word.)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12219760381898565039noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-64856437794417018292007-04-30T20:47:00.001-05:002007-04-30T20:47:32.396-05:00TRAVEL SNAPSHOT: TENT CITYShe stood there watching, intent,<br />for hours, or so it seemed,<br />on a high rise balcony,<br />sipping the golden nectar of a<br />fruit from this land.<br /><br />The sun beat down<br />and a child’s skin glistened<br />brown - the lather slithering<br />down - under mugs full of water,<br />extracted from a tiny<br />plastic bucket by his mom.<br /><br />Her father soon joined her<br />for the engrossing balcony view,<br />and innocent, questioning eyes.<br /><br />“Where do they live Dad?<br />The bathing child and his mom?”<br />For there wasn’t a ‘home’ in sight.<br /><br />He pointed to the patch<br />of filthy plastic blue<br />sheltering a four-post home,<br />and a few others scattered<br />in the distance.<br /><br />He christened it “Tent City”.<br /><br />The cows on the road<br />didn’t shock or surprise,<br />the stray dogs were friends,<br />and a walk to the beach -<br />just a time to meet Sana -<br />a Tent City friend<br />now clutching a Barbie prize.<br /><br />PragyaPragyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10108317267020057415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-1175449398449411282007-04-01T12:40:00.000-05:002007-04-01T12:43:18.466-05:00JERUSALEM<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">Written for Palm Sunday.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style: italic;">***</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">No victor’s entry this. And one must bide</p> <p class="MsoNormal">one’s mount I suppose: it might have been worse.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At least the fellow’s uncomplaining, and a horse</p> <p class="MsoNormal">would have been seen as pride.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The throngs gratify, though what understanding</p> <p class="MsoNormal">they have must be left to conjecture or the ages:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">do they know what this coming presages?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Six days to a crucifixion, palms notwithstanding. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <span style=""></span>***</p>SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-1173683238889282892007-03-12T03:03:00.000-05:002007-03-12T03:07:18.906-05:00Ambivalence<p>Not crazy enough to run from street to street naked and stuttering just to be heard, not poetic enough to fill reams amidst drifting smoke, contemplate divorce, walk into a river with pockets full of shiny, round pebbles</p> <p>Not louche enough to agree heartily or prudish enough to frown disapproval unequivocally and beyond doubt, not stymied enough to win the approval of fat-fingered, balding men who approve whole-heartedly of women who smile a lot and say nothing</p> <p>Not stupid enough to give without taking, not clever enough to hold out the carrots one by one and hide the sticks away, just beyond the reach of the unsuspecting, the forgettable, the dispensable </p> <p>Not pretty enough for fame, not ugly enough to incite ridicule the way the village idiot does from small, innocent children who never know any better</p> <p>Not wronged enough for lawyers to hoist their trusty swords and ride into battle for the fated million or social workers to throng the streets wearing white, not entirely happy either.<br /></p><br />Copyright Anindita Sengupta<br />http://niseng.blogspot.com<br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11578315.post-1172937140452968322007-03-03T10:51:00.000-05:002007-03-03T10:52:21.086-05:00MATUTINALMornings are refracted, a Nicol prism<br />shadow land, death overstaying its nightly<br />berth. The paling sky nudges it out,<br />in crumpled bedclothes, unsightly,<br />as it hurriedly gathers them about –<br />the start of another diurnal catechism.<br /><br />Sleep layers the kitchen pane, grey<br />and pallid, a maid rudely shook awake.<br />It’ll be a while before its baleful stare<br />loses its blear, becomes less opaque<br />with the lightening air,<br />readies for the white implacable day.<br /><br />I put the kettle on, mulling ghosts loath<br />to leave, bleak litany of a life’s course.<br />A flight departs for somewhere, cutting<br />briefly through the fog; till tea restores<br />routine, the familiar stir shutting<br />out debris, wrecks, ruins of youth.<br /><br />***SPECKLED_BANDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15991619951752551400noreply@blogger.com0