A scourge of mosquitoes
formed a clean Bombay circus
above the head.
Lunar legs
teased the dew
of grasses.
The hands, as if they’re cursed
yet tranquil
were telescoping the currents of the earth.
The mind
which was in “Hmm” mood
briskly went to
“Emoji” way.
While the middle-class ants
were too cautious
in treading the pheromones filled paths.
— Drunken Bench.
I sat down
with a shaved pencil or
a pilot pen, I don’t remember much.
Tried Ancient music
medieval notes and
modern melodies
to spark my creativity.
yeah, I even scratched the
dried paint on the wall
like a mad scientist or
failed philosopher.
The celebrated weather
did not cooperate with me
neither the scrambled eggs.
words flowed like a
slow fingernail or a snail
between the magnetic north
of productivity
and the magnetic south
of procrastination.
I took some antibiotics
to cure the lazy infection
and some soybeans, with some,
coffee beans.
finally, I painted the A-6 book
but it was like that flavourless mint
and savoury dark chocolate.
faced with a temporary setback
I watched the starry night
and the cosmic juice stirring up
through a telescope.
and yeah, even the bald eagle is
preying on earthly worms across the street.
I crossed the calendar date
and took the rusted sharpener
to shave the pencil again
but the blanket crawled up
and put me into sleep
with its cotton-silky-woolly touch.
thus, the end came upon me
on that Monday.
Forest silences
of the dimly lit skies
and the undeveloped silence
of the craters on the moon
define the fevered winds
of the icy night here.
The coldly metabolism
raise some orphaned moods and
half-real drowsiness.
The monotonous
starry nights and lights of Vincent Van Gogh
and the caffeine fjords along with
snow of silentium define
the muteness of glaciers.
Ancient nights and adolescent mornings
take a turn in a cruel rhythm
like a cold roulette wheel of the casino.
The nothingness of socialist nights
is really something to watch.
So much of stubbornness and
solitude.
— Drunken star.
Difference-less streets
and
all-round walkers
crossed me on the road.
The Monsoon potholes,
family scooters,
stilled trees,
tangoed to the rain.
Fat breezes
woke up the tadpoles
and the souls
dulled by the dusty fates.
None
there
to give
a kind shade
to my Samsung
and my young lungs.
So many
flammable stirrings
all
yearning
a mystical dance
under the 4G clouds.
— Drunken drops.
Cricket on the granite steps
in
a Yoga asana
or a Kung fu move
hard to stop
in the spy-movie lights.
Folk music and dog barks
in the cosmic background
as the lizard near the light
is interrogating and shadowing
the migration of insects
like Sherlock along with its Watson.
Chinese clothes on the nylon rope
suspicious of getting dried
in the dark-American winds.
One crazy cat has loosened its fur anarchy
onto the world with night king eyes
and convicted paws.
The ice-chipped
winds and the shadows
of unknown lights
erect silent goosebumps
on deforested body
as the legs pass the stanzas
of concrete.
All scholarly tongues are silent,
And all the well-read pass the buck
if asked to define India.
Cultures are made anew every morning
Religions redefined again in the afternoon
And spirituality altered for every new moon.
Every street has a fresh social norm
and it’s own intricacies.
Every bystander a philosopher.
And every cow is holy in some sense.
Rivers, trees, stones,
snakes, eagles, dogs,
earth, water, soil, air
all worshipped and none left
in this land.
Snowy Himalayas try to offer truth,
Monasteries, a bit of solitude
and a Gandhi statue non-violence
amidst a billion-plus population.
Modern men and women
carry ancient tags of caste
and millennial identities
in the same bodies.
The threads of
Past, present and the future
bind together
to create a land of no time.
Fate aligned to karma.
Justice tied to power.
and liberty hand in glove
with money.
Politics performing sorcery.
Economy doing yoga.
Science flirting with customs.
Technology with Jugaad.
Administration to connections.
And sports — running between the wickets.
but this is just
one India,
in so many other Indias
in India.
A forever plural nation.
The
What-ness
Why-ness
Where-ness
How-ness
of it all
is breathtakingly
unusual.
The sun asked the little petals
to surrender.
Winds were ready
to write the obituary column.
Roots too tired
to venture in the desert soils.
Rain —
it’s been 3 years.
Fellow pals
gave up a long time.
The sky and the earth thought
another day, another death.
there’s little hope
in the bony stem
if you ask me.
Yet
the lad
was laughing.
and taught me
more than any wise book
or the enlightened mystic.
When the rain
finally fell,
the plant
cried in silence
and told the flower —
I knew it.
Definitely not. Being a Dostoevskyian is sick and saddening. Why should any suffering have meaning at all? And we never search for meaning while we are happy. Is it to accept the helplessness and then seek some pride in it?
Friedrich Nietzsche says that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. But suffering rarely made any men stronger. Either they get used to it or become egotistical to accept that they too are weak and can weep.
Even after the Nth time, pain cripples us but humanity and so-called self-advertised strong men find it hard to swallow it.
This has a negative consequence—No one is seeking out help and is crushing their lives simply in the name of being stoic. This is a disease and a plague for us all.
They are dumping the waste into the subconscious and growing their Jungian “shadows” and society is raising sociopaths in the name of strong Spartans.
Acknowledging this can heal the sore souls and spoiled spirits. It’s time to stop searching for meaning in martyrdom and affection in affliction.
Thy Vox