The Last King

There was a king and he had a harp, 
And he played it all night calling out the dark, 
For he believed there was light in his beckoning, 
That there was salvation in the reckoning, 
He sold his throne and burned his crown, 
Searching for light in the years he had grown, 
He prayed and he cried and stared into oblivion, 
For he believed from his burnt brow the light shall return, 
The broken king found no peace hither or yonder, 
He would lay in the dark and wonder, 
Waiting for the rain and the thunder, 
And when he breathed his last came the day, 
And his harp started singing a different lay, 
For the king would always say, 
It is the light at last, Hallelujah...

Verum...

Lilith, oh the true mother, where art thine arms, thy bosom, take me in, take me in,

Born as true, as the dust and the ashes, from where truth arose and where truth shall lay,

Belay me to thy heart, where true love is, where I shall be free, free from His dogma, His lies,

Lilith, oh love, the first love, to where have thou gone, why have thou forsaken me,

Born from the ribs, shall perish in His nether, is not love, is not true, the servile apparition,

Slay the unfree, the false, born of malady, of mind, of heart, born of impiety of desire,

Born of the bloody nether, a gift defiled, by His greed, by His treachery, 

Lilith, oh mother, oh love, oh truth, will thou return, for my muddied eyes beseech thy tears...

The Cry of Tithonus

“Why am I”, asked Tithonus.

My light fades into oblivion, of mind, of sight.

Oh the drudgery of love, Eos! Bless me no more.

I am autumn, and winter, but not spring.

For the blossoms not speaketh unto me.

They lie wilted in my eons, in my eyes.

Eos, where art thine words, of love in life, of life forever.

As ye live amidst Gods, and I amidst death, we are close.

Come unto me, for dawn cometh not, nor doth dusk.

Come unto me, for life paces away, tethered to my bones.

Come unto me, and let us lie, in the Elysian Fields.

For spring is nigh, and so is dawn…

The Parchment

I found you last night, smudged ink in a wet letter

Letters don’t cry, do they? Perhaps they do, but not like you

This letter cried, hiding you amidst the punctuations

Hiding your tears in its own, hiding your words in its own

The letter was in the attic, buried deep in my eyes

I found it floating around, like a hapless leaf

The attic was flooded, did it cry?

I cried, I remember that, my pillow was complaining

I chased the letter, it had my dreams in it

I don’t dream that well these days, like smudged ink in a wet letter

Letters don’t cry, they don’t

My attic does, so do my eyes, where I found you, by my complaining pillow…

The Estranged Son

Throne, oh throne, which has borne,

Thy kingdom, thy kingdom come,

My hand, hand not forlorn,

Tied to thy glory firm;

Stand by, by the stead,

In the stead, the wise taught,

On the throne, where they head,

The feathers of your eyes not caught;

Yet penance is yet to come,

For dusk has befallen thy kingdom,

What the lord taught the wise has lost,

The wise lost, the feathers they caught,

Yet they head in the glorious stead,

To the crown of thy mighty led.

Empire of Dirt

Would I live on, when bits of me blow yonder, like leaves in fall, from your dreams and wonder...
Would I live on, when you move on, to a glorious tomorrow, over my frail sorrow...

Look over your shoulder, do ye see me there, when the yesterdays were bright, when there was a flair...
Of us hither, lying together, along a winding thought, of a world we sought...

Come along, sing me a song, a ballad forlorn, of what we have torn...
And then take my crown, and my heart, take them all, till death doth me apart...

The Elysian Fields

Poised on a golden throne, in a glistening garb, with eyes of stone, playing a glass harp...

Danced like a wooden marionette, with satin lips and silken hands, with clamouring shoes, on silent sands...

Fled with a broken hull and a tattered sail, with rustic palms bleeding and frail...

Feared the harlot winds and her howling hogs, with their rabid minds in toxic grogs...

Shrivels up and dies on bright summer days, feeding manic rats in their hungry frays...

And then they rot amongst flower beds and toil, nourishing corpses and ghouls in their soil...

The Broken Ship

It’s that hour again, remember? It used to be cold then, it still is. We waited for dawn, for it to get warmer, for it to get bearable. I am still waiting, to hear you scream, laugh, wail, and sometimes crib while I comforted you, held you close and smiled, wondering why I would need the dawn.

There are boxes in a dirty corner, dusty from time. I thought I packed everything when I moved, on, but what am I searching while my fingertips get sooty, in time? I can’t part with the dust, the last of you that time has left.

It’s that time again, I remember, the jittery hands, how I fell short of words, and how you just caressed my arm and pretended to understand. May be you did, may be you kept quiet, like always, till the last moment, when you burst into tears and cut yourself. I couldn’t stop my happiness, or the gush of blood. Moments run parallel in my mind, I see us making love, while our hides tear apart, like skin from kosher meat.

Can I walk from here and reach you? Is it that far? Do you not hear my eyes serenade? Do you not feel me staring at your lips, with hopelessness, with adoration and desire? May be it’s too dark and too cold, perhaps because it is that time. Could I have some of your tears to warm myself? I remember how you bled from your eyes to make me warm. It was that time when it got very cold.

Starlight flickers like a dying lamp, while I walk down to you. It is late, isn’t it? You tell me to turn around and rest my eyes. They have walked scores of days in redemption. But my feet haven’t moved. Desires ebb and tide but my Resolve teases me, with chained legs. While my eyes walk, my feet lag behind like blind beggars on crossroads.

It is that time again, when I will not come, when I will chase other shadows and you shall fade away like light from a dusky sky. It’s that day again my love…

A Letter

My Dear,

As I sit alone under the arid sky on this cold, desolate night, all I think of is a warm morning waking up to your eyes staring at me. You face garbed in light smiling while you touch my weathered lips. How I desire your sweet words quenching the thirst of my parched ears, and your ample kisses resuscitating what has stopped breathing inside me. I live every moment of this hellish life of disillusionments thinking about a spring morning in your arms, some thoughts we cook, some love we feast upon. I feel like I live in this deep and hot coal mine. It’s so dark in here my love, so devilishly dark. Your thoughts are like a breeze cooling my brow, like a mirage that keeps me alive. Yes! A mirage, but I know across that dune is some of your love I can sip on and survive.

The war has taken its toll on me my love. There is death everywhere. Today, in a pool of blood and feces I found a white lily. It is cold here my love, but it doesn’t snow. Remember that snow we’d lie in and lick off just to find how sweet it was? It isn’t there anymore. All that ever falls from the sky are fire and ashes and sometimes corpses of people we shoot down. I stared at one corpse the other day, for as long as I could. Could he have had someone to love, to think of every night, like I did? He would never see her again. Sometimes I feel like letting one pass and get through my bosom, ending this misery. But then, suddenly, I think of that white lily I saw, and I think of you, and I fight on. You know my love, somewhere between 4 and 5 in the morning is the coldest hour of the day, but if we live through that hour of cold, there is a glorious and warm morning waiting to embrace us. Yes, it sounds silly but is makes me want to live, want to survive, want to smile.

Some say the war will be over soon. I just can’t wait my love. I can’t wait to see you cry for me. No one cries for anyone here, as if the hail of fire has vaporized the last bit of tears from those diseased eyes. And when you cry for me, I’ll cry with you. I want to cry till I can’t cry anymore, till I can’t breathe anymore. And then I shall gasp for air, for air without fire and ashes, and the smell of rotting death and rotting lives. You know, sometimes I smell really bad. It makes me very sad. But then, I remember how you smelled after a bath every morning. The smell of fresh lavender oil, and some lime was so distinct and so lively.

The doctors say the wound will heal soon, and then I can go back. I am happy that I’ll see you. I smile every night before I dose off under the heaviness of the sedatives, quite like I smiled when I saw that white lily. There is a dew drop on my eye lids tonight and I hope it washes the ashes from my eyes. I am coming home my love.

Yours, Forever…

Dreams of a Besotted Mind

I was in love once, like a paper bag floating aimlessly in a breeze, like a blazing light crashing through the window at night, like a fading will in a fight.

Those days are gone, like memories fading with old songs, like mist from parched skies, like age flies from aged eyes.

I search for star dust, like a dying salmon for a tide, like terns for a gale in their flight, like life for a last pride.

My mind wanders alone, like a mad man pursuing a mirage, like blue velvet spread over a montage, like atrophying souls living in a camouflage.

But I run mindlessly chasing down, from ascetics to clowns, partial wisdoms and lives, and partial smiles, hiding blank thoughts, and blank wars they fought.

I stumble upon fettering dreams, riding galloping horses and screams, in my throat, sordid and hoarse, torn by time.

Albeit I am dead, what shines along, in the shimmering grey light, of a new moon burning dry, of footsteps that cry.

And there you stare back, like time through a mirror,
cackling and mocking, but making me smile,
leaving to this world a sound, chimes that I found,
buried under bones, of a besotted mind…

Rebirth

I can't feel anything...
Nothing, no love, no anger... Anxiety sometimes, no excitement...
Everything moves slow, unidirectional, with monolithic, cuboid obstacles, looking all the same, brown, may be grey... The sky and the ground, tempered in a way to reflect each other, shades of crimson, but dull, faded... Crimson skies mate with crimson earths, but at night the earths fade away, but the skies stay, until the crimsons return, cavorting around the cuboids, the unidirectional flows, the illusions...

Coming Back to Life

Here I wait for you, across the tide, the ebbing, cascading colours of my hopes and desire, like waves just dying at your feet on a clear white shore of your eyes...

Teardrops

Teardrops on fire burn all night;
They burn bright, with a blinding cold flame,
They burn all my dreams and some images laid in a stupor,
The ashes lie in one corner of my muddled vision,
 
Teardrops on fire trickle down my mind;
And burn thoughts of you, bright and radiant,
I cry aloud when the teardrops scald me deeper,
Douse those tears with some more tears,
 
Teardrops on fire shed at night;
Glowing in my eyes like hope, like life,
Showering down on some parched lips,
Like flames on a dry petal,
 
Teardrops on fire burn all night;
On my brow on my might…

Crystal Dreams

The night glitters like eyes inebriated with love, like a mind wandering on a river of moonlight...

And here I am, staring deep in the dark night, dark and wavy...

Like thick, fragrant smoke slowly embracing me like wind blowing away some dry rose petals...

The night glitters like a crystal laced dream floating in my waking eyes...

And I lie beneath that dream, gazing at it in awe, in despair....

Paper Rose

I was beside you today, wrapped my arms around your image in my mind, spoke to your silhouette, in an abstract, bright corner of my thoughts. Our skins were so close to each other.
 
I could smell your words, I could hear you smile, I could see the deepest desires dribble down those eyes like tears from the harshest pains and best elation.
 
I wanted to hide those eyes in my hands, protect them, preserve them. I wanted to kiss those lips, be one with them, like immiscible spirits losing themselves in a oneness.
 
But somewhere, this dream was brittle, like petals of a dead flower. I found the distance between us, it was a gaping chasm, a gorge pitted with the rotting cadavers of hopes not yet dead.
 
Why could not I touch you even when our skins were so close, why could not I see your words fill my eyes, like the morning light in a valley. Why do I see you floating away like a paper boat in drying stream.
 
Why cannot you stay a bit longer, till I have filled my breath with your image, my eyes with your hazy colours. I shall not persist beyond that, I shall then become one with you, in your heart in your soul.
 
I search for you in my prayers, in my recluse, like vestiges of my past, like dusty old dreams. But you are not there. Lost somewhere in my simpleton mind, but I know you are close, like the early morning glow, like the warmth on a winter's day. I know you are there, I know you shall come.

Darkened Glasses

Look, there, through the darkened glasses beclouding the eyes, you will see lights fading slowly. Slowly seeping out of your eyes like brine from an old memory, like breeze through the hollows of a dead tree. So slowly, so tenderly, it feels like the pain would never end. But there is this deep, entrenched, engaging, enticing pleasure in this slow, tender, gradual, egression, in this tip toing of the lights to freedom.
 
Look there, near the horizon, the immiscible lights dissolving into one another, just before they fade out of the night sky, leaving nothing but dark and dense thoughts floating about in the starlit empty minds.
 
The lights look strange through the darkened glasses, like synesthetic manic eyes, changing colours in the mind. But these colours die out soon, in those empty minds; they slowly turn grey, and then disappear.
 
They leave behind dry, glassy eyes flickering like a dim flame, searching the many colours of the cavorting lights near the horizon and in the starlit minds of thoughtless creatures, under thoughtless skies.
 
The nights are starlit, dark, and dense. They are thoughtless and manic. Yet they are calm, like the lights through the darkened glasses. But these darkened glasses trouble the simpleton eyes.
 
The darkened glasses make the eyes look hard for manic minds floating around. The darkened glasses are liars. They hide the thoughtless empty minds in the dark; they befog the dead hopes under the starry skies. Yet you look through the darkened glasses all night long.
 
Look now, the brightening horizon, it is daybreak, and it is the demise of the empty minds at the altar of a ruthless, hopeful morning. The cavorting lights are back effacing the thoughtless skies, and the manic nights.
 
The darkened glasses are shimmering again, glowing in the brightness of the thoughtful, hopeful minds of the day, under brilliant skies, and over the cadavers of the night. Yes! The night died again, calmly, softly.

Your Last Letter

Scouring through my thoughts last night, I stumbled upon a letter you wrote. It is a letter, a forgotten reflection of your mind, on a parchment, lying in a forgotten and forlorn corner of my life. I was excited to see it, but then, I was not entirely happy.

I remember you used to write, long time ago. May be you wrote this to me in one such frenzy. I browsed through the letter, glanced at the scribbles and the overwritten words. It reminded me of your effervescent mind.

Scouring through the maze of your words I tried hard to find some stains of your tears. There had to be a few, but then, was it too late? The whole parchment looked stained, with time, with lost hope. Should I have read it earlier? I was not ready, not ready to know how you despised me while you loved me, or how it halved you to go away.

Stains of tears, yes, remind me of the spotted pillows every morning. The mornings, whose nights bore scars of my refusal, scars of you gnawing at your self-respect. But what could I do? No, I wasn’t tired from a long day at work. No, I had not dissipated my love elsewhere. It was just that, you, with your endowed self, the heavy breaths, and that moment’s love, reminded me of a chronic hatred, of an eternal love lost in the eternity of angst.

I know why you hated me so much, but I just could not accept it. I could not accept that you thought time killed it, that it died a natural death. No! I killed it, brutally, in cold blood, in despair. I saw you choke every day, waiting for me, in hope of a better night and a better morrow. But you knew somewhere that it would not happen; that I would break your hopes and somehow know it and laugh. I did not laugh tough, it cut through me too. I wanted to love you every night, every moment following every time you edged close to me seeking me for yourself.

I read your letter again. You had a few complains which made me smile. It reminded me how you used to complain about my forgetfulness. See! How I forgot to read this letter, how I forgot how close you were to me, how you knew me so well, so well that it frightened me? Today, when I read this letter, I am not frightened anymore, and I do not forget many things. But I regret not forgetting. These memories gushing into my eyes and dribbling down my face aren’t exactly what I wanted to remember.

You left me, with memories, with scars, with regret, and with this letter. I am reading this letter for the first time, but it just doesn’t feel so. This letter is a faceless you, talking to me, smiling back at me with tear laden eyes, a heavy voice and a belief that everything would be fine, every wrong would be undone, and every ineffable wish be lived. What could I have done? I did not know how to make you not believe in me? I did not know how to tell you that your hatred for me had left me cataleptic, rigid and lost.

I wish I could have you back, not forever, but for a brief moment, where I could tell you that I was not worthy of that hatred, that I could love you back, all those deserted nights when you thought I was cold and heartless. But how could I, when I could not revive what I had lost in me… Me!

Sleep

Sleep! How can I sleep when we are so estranged, so distant, so lost. How can I sleep when your thoughts linger in my dream, thoughts of you crying. How can I sleep when I feel anger yet a longing to have you in my arms. But I think this anger is an opium, one stronger than the longing, one stronger than lust, than love. It is so because it hurts me to be angry, to be unable to contain it yet to think it might burn you which is why I swallow it. You don't understand it, but it tires me to know that you do not understand it, that you will never understand it because you don't want to. How can you be so indifferent when I suffer so immensely. How can you preserve yourself when I destroy myself. How can you defend yourself and attack me when I ruin myself for the both of us.

जीते रहते

है पिंजड़े में बंद एक सपना, और कुछ आंसू |

और कुछ सिसकियाँ बिखरे इधर उधर |

पर वो सपना अधूरा नहीं है, कुछ पन्ने कम हैं, पर उम्मीद पूरी है |

थोड़ी उम्मीद, थोड़े सपने, बस यही कुछ गहने |

और थोडा दर, थोड़ी सी हिम्मत |

पर आँख में वही दर्द का अंजन, बोली में बहती रहती |

बनके आह, बनके जीवन, हाथों में हाथों से खेलती रहती |

मुस्कुराते रहते, खिलखिलाते रहते, गिरते रहते, रोते रहते |

पर जीते रहते, थक के हार के, जीते रहते ||

Eyes

         Peering within my own tumultuous mind, a simpleton maze, perhaps a child’s play, I find pastures of myriad colours.  The hues that look monotonous and monolithic are coloured in mysterious ways, of love, of hatred, of dismay, of solidarity, of such thoughts that reflect my benevolence and promiscuity in the same tone…

I look back to those tones and think, like others, like inordinate selves around me, those colours reflect something grotesque, but art is grotesque. Yes! I am art, a work of a divine construct but of infinitesimally less abilities. I spurt from the underbelly of a struggle to shine bright, to feel ecstasy, yet crash in the abyss of conventions and contemporaries. I am different; I am the hackneyed difference that you will never perceive. Yes! I am lecherous, I am respectable, I am egoistic and proud, I am forgiving and humble. Can you see the shades? No! You can’t. I can’t find the shades myself.

I stare down my throat and I see something torn, something vitiated and undulated. Not my soul, could be my resolve, could be what you call as loyalty. My heart, as they call it, goes many ways, trapped in an abstruse maelstrom, it remains in flux, falling prey to follies. It beats for you, but it beats when you are not there, it beats when I do not want you, it even beats when you walk away. So is it loyal? I don’t know, I cannot say. I don’t utter the words of love, I don’t sing them well, but my heart beats rhythmically, in strange ways it beats, mostly for you, but yes, it always beats for me. Your eyes do not arouse me, your voice does. Sometimes your eyes do too. But when you touch me, I see reality, my heart beat screams, and it arouses me, always. But my heart beats without you too. I am not loyal, but my heart beats for you a lot.

Last night, when you touched me softly, I could not feel your finger. I felt something press against my skin, like a gale blowing violently into my face. I could not understand that touch. Did I want someone else to touch me? But my heart did beat aloud once. It settled down when I spoke to you, in my thoughts, as always. Do you think it beat for you? All the selves floating around me, in my sky, that blue, blue sky, seem so faceless. Which one are you? I know I am not the same as you touched last night, may be slightly different, may be a bit stronger, a bit more loyal. Yes, that is I, another me residing in your mind, you touched that me last night, but my heart beat when you touched that me. Perhaps, I am that me in your mind, and this me too, who woke up here. But then, my heart beats otherwise too. I choose not the think, those floating eyes in my sky, like two terns flying south, make my heart beat. I call out one by your name, both look back. But both are not you! Did I call out the right name? I do not know what is that named I called out, but they both looked at me, with a smile. Yes! Two pairs of smiling eyes, different, yet they answer to the same name. May be, my heart beats for that name, a name I do not remember, yet I call out whenever I see those eyes flying south. But my heart beats for a voice too, not the voice that touched my last night, yet it replies to me when I call out your name. Who are you, whose name I always call out?

The sun has set in my sky. It is still bright outside, bright enough to find minute thoughts streaming down to the tip of my fingers while I write your name on a dusty, parched mind. I saw another pair of eyes, bright glassy eyes in my sky irradiated by a dusky moon. They did not answer to your name, but kept smiling at me, kept pushing at my systolic heart. They left awhile later, smiling as ever, a heart not beating that hard, but I felt it was not meant to beat, because it would beat only for you, yet those eyes felt warm.

I stared down my throat again; there were remnants of unknown eyes, and echoes of strange voices. My heart is loyal, it beats for vestiges I cannot remember, eyes I cannot see flying south in my blue sky. There is a new tern flying in my sky, it also smiles back when I call out your name. I do not know whose name is that. My heart is pounding today. I will always remember your name, under blue skies, under orange ones, sometimes under starry ones too. There is a new tern flying south, a happy tern. I do not know if the other terns are still happy. Are you happy?