Beneath glittering stars

Having realized that much of my life has been a monument to death, I can no longer ignore that death is and has been a major theme in my short life. Often at times I doubt my sanity. The sudden cravings for death reduce me to cinders. I have never had much to live for and with every passing day perhaps, I have less and less. Perhaps I should choose suicide for its specter has haunted me for than eight years now. I remember pleading with God, telling him that life was unfair.

“I did not ask to be in this world. Why should I be judged for a choice I never made? I do not want to choose between religions; choose between my natural urges and the compounding restrictions that Islam imposes.” I was too meticulous or maybe my reason had been destitute.

 

The sexual control ensnares nausea. Perhaps it is this abomination that willfully imposes albeit a subconscious desire to suck the marrow out of my own bones. Is this the manifestation of the teenage lesson: “you have no worth”?  At times I believe it is the absurdity of existence itself. I do not have answer and the absence of a single symbol to blame for my troubles gives me a host of explanations -explanations that turn out to be lifesaving although the agent is confused to what it wishes.

At times I think of her and I wish to say to say this even though the words lead you to the imitation of a cliché. To call it a love story would be to presume too much; akin to building a castle over the moving waters. The melancholic strain benefits from putting its host in settings wherein the suicidal urges can take root. My mind has been a battlefield for a number of years and rejection has not helped matters. If anything my pessimistic analysis would have me dead for “I am truly inadequate for love”

Overpowered, I take to the roof and cry out the sorrows I perceive others, circumstance and I have visited upon myself. The stars remind me of the enormity of the universe; the vastness of space. The world seems insignificant compared to the universe at large and yet the world – the specific instance of living - makes the observation possible. I may have been led to believe I am insignificant – that I am nothing – but perhaps I can find solace in the belief that this statement, when viewed against the still frame of evolutionary time is at worst true for everyone.

On the border of the realm of death and life I have pleaded to God and his wicked minions. I have assumed that they want me to live. I have assumed agency where there is none. I am not a homeless child or a psychopath though this business of thinking about everything takes me there.

 

Sleep well now, the night is young
and the cold wind shatters against the window-
intimately, the moon, the stars, combine; say:
“rest awhile, a new day starts tomorrow”
and you go back to the living.

To the dull monotony of life, which is really much more than I presume; in most instances it is not dull at all.

Narration

Feels like I am going downhill with a narration such as this.

The night they brought her to Orange Grove,
The night was dark and grey.
Hands tied behind her back,
on the muddy floor she lay.

Thunder cracked, the sky growled-
heaven enraged; the winds blew.
It was deep, dark in the woods;
fear stirred, in her heart grew.

The pale sky overcast and
the darkness in her eyes left,
a pleading look; my heart shook.
I turned away; left.

Oh the dastard – the coward;
the brave would have said.

Thence came the ministers
the jurors and the jury.
Dignitaries in black turbans
(but that wasn’t the only kind)
I could but complain in fury.

There were the ministers,
the ministers of they fate.
The temptress they pronounced
“the Earth itself must hate”

Their words were heavy,
in ominous tones announced,
the crimes she had committed
against the Holy crown. 

Their voices rose,
a man come forth said:
“You are the sick breath
of His hated enemy.
I hope this be your death.
If I ever loved you,
I hate myself for that.”

The simplistic bastard spouts -
reductionist crap?

They had prepared for her,
a special place in hell.
The dark tresses I loved
matted in the mud. Oh Tess!

Later:

Sound, fury, anger, and hate depart.
The sad music plays; the music of her heart.
Defenseless they take her to the stake.
“Burn now” They sing the hymns; praise.

The sun is better than I,
the sky overcast.
Moonlight filters in,
the fantasy departs.
The new day may rise
my sister is lost.
Her warmth has left me.
The end at last.

To you without love

A regular melancholic fit must be credited as the co-author of this piece. I have been very candid here and any allusion to artistic expression must be thought of as balderdash. This is a poem that has not been deliberated upon. It is raw just like the emotion it describes.

I am a heathen and-
like the heathen lords of old,
they shall burn me
when I am dead and cold.

It was not a question of how
rather it was a why;
that I loved you
and you didn't give it a try.
I know I cannot complain,
nor sing of beauty
when blood it rains.
The times are hard enough
and life obscure.
I wish I could have dreamt,
just to be sure.

And yet I was the wandering asteroid,
and you - the Queen Moon.
Alive in all her glory on a wintry night.
I could but look and cry for want of woe.
Were this something more, I an equal,
celebrating the good and the true.

Alas!
I am the flickering light,
ready to depart.
I wish I were more,
something more to you.

I wished that she could have loved me
but the Queen Moon was moot.
So I turned away, charred in the soot
of my naive ideas.
I had no light of my own.

It's your play Sun, I shall turn away.
You be together, I shall wither away.

The violent protester and his younger self

A first draft of a poem, fresh from the writing pad. I didn't worry about the rhythm and I think that I need to elucidate.

A world I never admired.
A place of fear and woe,
left burning amid the fire.
The wrongs of the perceived foe.

We were happy a life-time ago,
and now the carrion is calling.
In fear and anguish I bow,
lest I be burned
and my life comes down falling.

Now,
I can loot a million places.
This is the freedom I enjoy:
I can maim a million faces
Religiosity in the hearts deploy.

You must not provoke me,
my fury is great.
I shall the poison the sea,
and turn upon you the weapon-
Cold, calm fate.

So blasphemer, where shall you go ?
I will hunt you down.
I shall fight to extinguish the light,
The light - the breath of life.

Lost

"Come on", said my weary mind.
"Go back a little; rewind. "

In a field of rice, lush green
lay a patch of bare soil.
Perhaps a nightmare or a dream
of the farmer's hard work and toil.

There lay upon that patch of mud,
a withering form of clay.
And in the glaring sun it made,
a melancholic display.

The limbs were gone-
eyes were hollow sockets.
Long had its heart stopped beating,
yet some treasure lay in its pockets.

 It was paper - perhaps a letter.
Rotten as it was on this day
a hand had poured over it long ago,
it's toil lead astray.

I knew not what secrets it kept
nor harboured a feeling of pity.
But the sadness inside, long trapped
overbore, as I walked back to the city.