Sequined dreams

Begone ye pallid skies
Here in my palm a dawn
of tremulous gold lies
Into the void ye begone

Begone ye leeches of thought
Thy breeding broods lie waste
Long has this battle been fought
Flee now lest my blade you taste

For, life's river has flooded now
flowing with her thunderous roar
Beauty runs her oaken plough
Tilling my soul's dusty core

Here she has come again
Lovely Cora to my dying Hades
Beauty my Goddess truth plain
Dressed in life's painted shades

Here she smiles in vixen trance
Casting her spell of Asian bloom
There she plunges a scarlet lance
softly dying by the Gothic tomb

Heed her pipe soft and low
Tunes of a bronzed even Ra
Leading the soul to silent glow
Charming it there in mellow awe

How she veers, with toxin lined
Spring's poison mixed with wile
Into the goblet of a roue mind
Circe bearing her bubbling guile

How she bathes in tears borne
in the moonlit pool of a broken heart
Curing her soul in ancient mourn
love that death has done to part

There she shines in forlorn eyes
of Ophelia floating white on the brook
In Shalott Lady's half sick sighs
Cleaven dreams, that fate did crook

Here I suck her crimson lip
Burning in passion's yellow fever
There I die in her violet grip
Trembling in fancy's morbid horror

Baroque notes of the undead organ
In those she bares her pearly fangs
The wretched Count, the heir of Gorgon
The Phantom genius with burning pangs

How she shines in wisdom's realm
Thoughts bound in genius' cement
Evolved grammar in reason's helm
Sans a stain sans a dent

How she burns in virtue's dais
Rising in Bharata's flaming vow
How she soars above worldly ways
In the seers' flattened brow

Softly she treads with Japanese feet
Lilting and swaying to Chinese strains
Bamboo steps printed on snowy sheet
Dreamy mountains in yawning chains

Anew a thousand times she comes alive
Spring's seed, joy's sleeping storm
Breathing life doth in her bosom thrive
Flowing with blood of dreams warm

Breathe unto me a fresh life my muse
A thousand times and then once more
My thought, your will may they fuse
A thousand times and then once more

Conversations with silence

Nigh is the afternoon sun
blazing down on earth white.
Foreheads are wet.
Throats run dry
Hunger burns a dark flame
keeping sleep just at bay.

Then she slides
into half closed eyes
wearing the garb
of morning light.
The compass of truth;
the ocean of order
Goddess silence.

In language that was
never conceived
I speak with her.

Tell me, O Goddess
What is thy form?
Is thee of light
divine and flowing?
Is thee of flame
still and austere?
Is thee of beauty
brilliant and benign?
The divine nymph
closes her eye.

Tell me, O Goddess
What are thy signs?
The throbbing unrest
is that thy coming?
The thirsting ennui
is that thy flag?
The raging desire
is that thy herald?
The serene sylph
sits cross legged.

Tell me, O Goddess
Who are thy kin?
The spoken word
is it thy child?
The divine music
is she thy sister?
The breath that is drawn
is she thy love?
The queen of present
stopped her breath.

Tell me, O Goddess
where dost thou live?
The hills that are lofty
are they thy seat?
The sea that is deep
is that thy abode?
The still moon in the lake
is that thy perch?
The woman with one eye
shimmered in space

Tell me, O Goddess
what is thy path?
Thus did I ask.

The great arms of the wind
blew the needle away.

Armoire

When you wear your dress
of sheer white
pure and spotless
I sit in silence
seeing knowledge that is great.

When you wear your dress
of dull grey
jaded and insipid
I lie in ennui
breathing death that
seems immortal.

When you wear your dress
of brilliant blue
infinite and azure
I look in awe
feeling the stretching ocean
in a single drop.

When you wear your dress
of abundant green
I stretch my soul
laying its weariness
like a dewdrop on the grass
for your sun to drink.

When you wear your dress
of glittering gold
I toil and sweat
matching my work to your
immediate glory,
beads of pearl on your shimmering dress.

When you wear your dress
of transparent crystal
I open my arms
receiving and giving
all that is forever
a flowing river.

When you wear your dress
of crimson red
Then I take my pen
dip it in your blood
Then creation kneels
in awe before the poet.

Dusk and lust

Evening has lit up
with a copper sunlight.
Southern breeze
kisses all in an infinite mercy.
The golden glow
spreads in Man's smile.
The frenzy of day
has reached his orgasm.
Soon he shall turn over
and sleep covered in night's blanket.

Awake

Tarry no longer my heart
weary and arid is this land
arise! this is the moment to start
come now take my hand

words are but trifles
meaning too deceives
Alas how it stifles
all that the ear receives

Why in the corner we hoard
thoughts that belong to the pyre
Murky footprints that have long trod
Ashes crumbling from a dead fire

There see the morning sun
the fresh breath of life anew
Dawn has come with the sound of One
The path is shown, open and true

Obligatory post

The Eccentric City (Although, I really could not capture the weirdness.)

Loneliness

Prose on a cold dark night

I'm a poet trying to write prose
A blind eye that cannot see
I'm the lovely red rose
that knows just to be


What do you do, when your true love, the flame that burned in the solitude of your soul, goes silent? When you know all the notes that make up the most perfect music, but your mouth refuses to sing? When there is a river flowing in your heart...but she flows quietly on a soft bed of sand?

I have written, in pangs of desire, longing and sorrow. My heart was the sacrifice I offered to the idol I worshipped. In the dull light of hunger, I sat in front of her cruel form, cutting my burning heart and bleeding words to appease her. She never heard me. My thirst for love, beauty and truth grew coiled like the incense I burned. But the idol was silent.

Yet, I took a perverse joy in the whole affair. In bringing my heart to her and let it die a slow death in the light of her cold stare. I felt myself rising with each sacrifice. I felt I was somehow higher and more evolved compared to those who never saw the idol. I magnified my own dark shadows with the flickering light of my intellect and my imagination. I rejoiced as I saw them throw fantastic shapes on the walls.

And then, one day, the hot air from the plateau reached me. My heart stopped aching, and I was confused. I threw my idol in ager and shivered at the shadows on the wall. The sweltering heat fuelled my soul, making me sweat...beads of salty perspiration, pearls of truth seeping out from my very skin. I was alive. Alive but confused, like the newborn who doesn't understand that it has come to this world.

I had dreamt of this very thing all my life. To experience and to feel what I have seen reflected in the many words that I have read. To feel in my heart the light that shined in the heart of every poet and every lover. To see with my own eyes, what the eternal lover sees forever in the night sky. And yet, now that I had it in my hands, I wrote no more.

I always believed in a love that was blind. Light, the only teacher we have to help us see, is himself blind. To see like him, our eyes must seek blindness. And it is thus that my love came to me. But what I did not expect was that, truth is not seen by just blind eyes, but a blind soul.

I see now, everything, every single sensation that a man could experience in a lifetime. I'm at once happy, sad, thirsty, satiated; I'm in harmony and in chaos at once. What I see is not an overwhelming spectacle, it is a simple heart, that silences everything.

So, I bleed words lesser now. Is it because my love has been fulfilled? Is it because my muse has left me? No. It is because I do not write to impress, to tempt or to share, to bare. I do not write in the pangs of hunger nor in the joy of satiety. I put pen to paper not for you, my reader who is reading this; not for her, who makes me writes this; not even for me, who sees it all. I write with no intention of influencing. I write with no influence.

I write, because it happens. I write, when it happens. I write, like my pen - picked up when it is time and sealed when it is done. I do not imagine or create a world - they merely appear.

Like the rain cloud, I gather my nectar in silence and when it is time, I pour it all out. Like the rain cloud, I do not pour at the will of any God or man - especially mine. Like the rain cloud, I do not shower a drop of false water, even if the earth shrivels in drought.

When the idol is broken and the Goddess shines in the poet's every living moment, he speaks only truth. And most of the times, that truth is silence.

The house of words

Through the many doored house
My song walks through,
One
door
at
a
time

It knocks on an ivory door
and opens it with laughter
A word comes out of it
Pleasure.

It knocks on a silver door
and opens it with a smile
A word comes out of it
Wisdom.

It knocks on a sandalwood door
and opens it with pride
A word comes out of it
Elixir

It knocks on a golden door
and opens it with silence
A word comes out of it
Truth

It knocks on a glass door
and opens it with tears
A word comes out of it
Love

It stands in front of an open door
Laden with all the words
No word comes out
No
word

The unstrung bow

Timid thoughts, do not be afraid of me. I am a poet. - Stray Birds, Tagore

These silent thoughts,
ruffling behind my closed eyes
like pretty feet
running behind closed doors...

Where do they go?
Whence do they come
What do they say
in their footsteps of silence?

How do they stand
and stare at the sky,
while i scratch my head
in the grind of the night

How do they dream
of dreams and sleep,
while i stroll along
listening to the street lamps

How do they run
over the hills; under the dale,
while my feet stay
grounded to the clay

How do they speed
arrows to an unknown target,
while my mind lies
an unused bow

Arrows have sped.
The bow lies on the ground.

The valley of dreams

Illusions are sometimes the most safest of refuges. A refuge which we would never move, if only reality did not pull us away, like an angry mother pulling a child away from the delicious earth. Like a play acted out behind closed curtains, they unfurl, the dreams...in different colours - red passion, white love, saffron games, violet fears. And in all those dreams, there is a single thread. The crystal thread of hope. Hope of a union, a touch, a look. Hope of you.

Perhaps these dreams are mere aching of the limbs; chemicals in the veins fuming at their inability to vent. Perhaps these dreams...are mere aching of the heart. Emotions raging through like a kid lost in the fair. Or, perhaps these dreams are mere aching of a soul. The thirst of the simple joy that one finds in the unspoken word. Perhaps, these dreams and the pain of separation can be explained. But then, the chirping of the sparrows, too could be explained.

Love is an enchanted forest. Today I have lost my way in the chasm of separation. With closed eyes I hear, the murmur of dreams, a stream not faraway. Sometimes, in these dreams, I look back. I see the distance that spans dream and reality. It is the width of an eyelid, but what a chasm lies between the two. It is two inches between the hills of hope and death, but if the valley stretches to infinity under them, would you jump?

Dedicated to JAB and the Pied Piper of Hamlin!!

Where is this chap?
Not seen him no sign
Is this what you wonder?
Then let me tell you tender

Off I'm gone
off to a wedding
And I got no cause to whine
Cause the wedding is but mine

So if you feel like it
and if you feel so good
Then what I would suggest
is that you become my guest

10th June 2007, Seshadri Mahal Coimbatore
1st July 2007, Belson Taj Hotel Coimbatore

Born again...

I was pretty young when I began this particular journey. Almost underage, for something like this. I remember almost all incidents that pushed my life in a particular direction. But this one I can never recall.

But it is this that made me write, write truly and passionately. It is this that made my life living. It is this that burned as the fire in my soul. A simple philosophy, an ideal, not entirely mine. Borrowed, a bit from Bharathiyar, a bit from Guna, a bit from here and a bit from there. But it has now become mine.

It was not easy following this path. I have never got a word of encouragement - for everything else that I tried, I have received some encouragement, but for this, there has been nothing but dissent. Friends, foes, relatives, everybody. Even from those who were once the idols in this journey.

To love a woman, to love and worship Her. To hold Her as the living Goddess, the muse who will grant the boon of immortality. To find one, who shall fulfill the prophecy in the words 'kAthal manaiviyE sakthi kaNdIr kadavuL nilai avaLal eythal vENdum'.

It seemed a simple quest - most of my close friends corroborated it. Women after all want to be a muse, want to belong to a man who has passion. But then it wasn't that easy.

My wrong decisions, failures, disappointments were many, I will say unashamedly. I've made decision that were blatantly wrong. There were some that seemed like the morning sunshine before they turned dismal. Rudeness, indifference, warm and sad denials, heartless desertions...all of it. Of course it is not like I'm some honourable martyr either. I too have for my share played with hearts, been wicked, stony. After all its a full circle.

And every time I was broken and beaten, I heard the same ideas. "Why do you keep getting hurt?" "No woman is worth so much." "Your parents will find you a nice pretty girl anyways." "Maybe you are not cut out for it..." Sometimes sympathetic, sometimes indignant, sometime angry, sometimes sinister. I never could answer any of them. I listened as if I agreed and in a few months, it was the same old story again.

And then, one day, I had to travel, to Hyderabad, a pilgrimage. Even on the eve of that day, I heard the same old lines. "You should stay away from women, you tend to get hurt invariably. I'm telling you its nothing very great...in a woman." But I walked on.

And I never looked back. Today I can stand here, from this blog and say to each one of my friends, who with whatever intentions dissuaded me and to the few who are still skeptical - "I believed and was rewarded. and I shall be rewarded even more." Even as the bhattar's words were made true by Abhirami the night She threw Her ear-ring into the skies, my own faith shines true as the full moon on a new moon night. Defying logic and convention. Even as the rules were bent that day because of Her infinite love, so they are bent today.

For what I hold in my heart today is not a precious gem, but a pure and simple drop of the rain, the smell of the fresh earth, the life of the wild breeze, the light of a brazen sun. A single drop of life, fashioned by chance, crafted by time into a fire that burns in me, keeping me alive. What I hold in my heart today is not the stony, stiff, fixed idols that now lie broken in their false temples, but the Goddess of dust and sand and rain and life. A true Goddess, who does not sit in Her high throne, but instead dances and plays and sings and frolics. A Goddess who has no false bearing or grace but laughs at Her own faults and creates a new world of shimmering joy everyday.

Now I bow to you, my Goddess, my love. I offer to you all my thoughts, my heart, my life, my soul and blood in a single kiss that shall stretch from the beginning of time to eternity. I offer to you all that I have in this single simple kiss that is pure as a dew and is filled with nothing but the sunshine of your love. I seek no more knowledge, no more wisdom. I do not seek words or art or the ways of the wise. I seek no more absolution, no teacher, no path, no truth. For I have gained you now and here...and I shall gain you with every living moment of mine.

Life

Tiny plant in pot
Has two new yellow flowers
And dead leaves below.

P.S. First post from Hyderabad! :)

Varali

Dark convoluted locks reaching out like night's fingers. That is how she first appears. Utterly dark, dark like the shadow of a moonless night. Only hair, copious waves of it. They screech against the void like dark nails against a darker board. At the same time, the cascade of locks echoes the melody of a violent sea...noiselessly.

And then, a gentle hum, a drone of the bee - the kind of bee that occupied the imagination of Appar[1] and the Lord Sundareshwarar Himself [2]. A gentle hum, of a bee that is seeking the honey.

And then in a flash, the locks fall back and her face breaks out like a thousand suns. Its the face of a queen, a regal face with a royal nose. Her smile is like twin serpents - coiled in mercy and contempt at the same time. The forehead bears a mark, a dark crimson circle. It’s a spiral, the dark locks, then the refulgent face and then the dark kungumam. She mesmerizes, not by her living features but by the dead signs.

The hum again. Here the bee is a queen drinking from the divine lotus; there a dancer giving life to an imaginary bee with her hands and eyes. The hum dances wildly, one feet grounded in reality, the other raised to illusion. And yet, the grounded feet seem to hover and the raised feet firmly ensconced in the sky.

The lips now come to the center stage. They shine in the hypnotizing red of a bride's hand with too much marudhAni. Look now, they are repulsive, repulsive because of the desire that is worn ostentatiously. Now shut and open your eyes, they draw you, with their regal command to do their bidding.

The bee rises now, the queen bee. The queen of the honey bees, the dark ill-tempered blackbee. Say it now, slowly, roll your tongue over the words - karuvaNdu, ka-ru-vaNdu, an involuntary quiver just as you say vaNdu. That is how the queen rises, from the eyes of the brilliant face with a quiver when you least expect it.

She flutters near the eyelashes, takes a fancy to the dark locks and merges with them before being enticed by the dark lips. There is a quiver again, this time the quiver of desire, a tremble as the blood rushes through her body. In one flutter, before you could blink your eyes, she lands on the lip.

Then there is a gentle sigh, a sigh of relief, of satisfaction. And then, after she has been satiated, she unfurls her thin proboscis to drink the nectar. The queen bee drinking nectar from the lips of the queen... reality filling its void with illusion.

She can be seen here.

(Corrected after Viji's comment)

She can be seen here.

[1] - mAsil vInaiyum mAlai mathiyamum/vIsu thenRalum vInggiLavEnilum/mUsu vaNdaRaip poigaiyum pOnRathE/Isan enththai iNaiyadi nizalE - Appar's thEvAram
[2] - konggu thEr vAzkkai anciRaith thumbi - 1st song in kuRunthogai written by iRaiyanAr or God Himself.

P.S. I couldn't find a picture to go with this post...maybe I can get a sketch done someday, of a dark bee sitting on a darker lip.

Ever seen a prettier sight?

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இது ஒரு புது விடியல்!

A tamil BLOG upon Parvati's suggestion! Please update your links and give some publicity! :-)

கல்லொன்று தடுத்து காரிகையின் சாபம் கொன்று
வில்லொன்று ஒடித்து வைதேகி காதல்கரம் வென்று - மீட்டும்
வில்லொன்று ஒடித்து வன்முனிவன் தவம் வென்று - தந்தை
சொல்லொன்று எடுத்து சுடுகொடுங்காடு சென்றானே கதிநமக்குு

ஒன்றே சொல்லாகும் ஓடிவல்லவன் உயிர்குடிக்கும் அம்பும்
ஒன்றே வாசமலர் கொண்ட மார்பில் தான்கொண்ட அன்பும்
ஒன்றே அவன் பெயர் ஒன்றே அது இராம இராம இராம
என்றே சொன்னால் எழுபிறப்பும் அன்றே அற்றதே

Spiral

Gentle night comes in
Songs awaken from my desk
I write some silence

And then...

Morning walks through doors
Shadows sleep shrouded in light
My pen smiles dryly

And then...

Gentle night comes in
Songs awaken from my desk
I write some silence...

Life, Colour and Woman

******************
Dedicated to J.A.B.
******************

Have you noticed how some ideas pop up at you when you least expect them, like a hunter jumping at his game from the bushes? This is one such idea. It jumped at me yesterday night, when I was snuggling in between the sheets reading a Mark Twain story - 'The diary of Adam and Eve'. It just shot at me out of the sheets like a cork out of a pop gun.

This idea gave me the queer suggestion that colour came into existence only after women were created. Maybe the world was colourful before women came in here, but noone could recognize that without a woman. So the world was as good as colourless, the idea suggested. It slowly unfurled itself, the idea, spiralling and turning in my mind's eye before it had me in its thrall completely. Not one objection could I find to the suggestion. No woman, no colour! The world must have not even been black and white, just colourless like water. The idea began to charm me. I trusted it.

How could man have possibly recognized colour ever? How could he even create it? It takes a woman's coyness to paint the evening sky in shades of crimson. It takes her dark tresses to daub the entire world with the shades of night.

How would spring burst forth in all her splendour if woman did not laugh her silvery cascade? How would fall bring out her rich shades if no woman lay curled in crumpled sleep? Where would the raging forest fire dance if not for a woman's passionate kiss?

The deep oceans, don't tell me they with their teasing waves can get their blue hue if no woman lit her eyes with the light of love. Where would the cascade get her silvery sheen if not from a woman's tears? The lush green fields would not shine so if no woman became a mother. The rainbow! We would have no rainbow if a single woman did not clip her nails and cast them away.

The idea went on thus. It twirled and twisted into coils, coils that enchanted the mind into trust. It spoke the truth. Woman brought colour into this world. Just like she brought magic into life.

And life...life has its own colour as well. A colour that is different for each life. A colour that is not seen by eyes. A woman gives life that colour.

The name of my life's colour is that of a new-born calf. A calf that has a new colour everytime it is born.

So what colour has a woman brought into your life?

Completely Wrong

I wonder what is wrong with me...besides me of course. That there was something wrong with me...no, not the first wrong with me about which I was wondering but the second one, that is the actual me that is wrong I mean...oh well, figure it out for yourselves, let me get back. That there was something wrong with me being me was known to me for long. I knew this when I choose the fool's day to be born. That would mean I knew I was wrong before I was born and further mean that I was conscious before I was born. That would of course mean that I was born before I was born. There is something definitely wrong with me.

Getting back to what I was trying to say, I feel that there is something wrong with me now otuside what is usually wrong with me. Now that is unsually wrong. I don't mind what is usually wrong with me, but unusually wrong needs to be looked into. The idea here is that, if you are usually wrong, then over time it becomes right to you and then only the part that becomes unusually wrong becomes actually wrong.

So I started by checking my head. I reached up and was mortified when I realised my head was not where it was supposed to be. My head for one might not look decent or respectable but it is a decent and respectable part when you see that it has been staying where it must stay (I guess it is over the neck, though sometimes I also feel it might be under the spine.). Decent and respectable heads don't walk off your neck just like that saying "OK pal, I'm tired of doing all the thinking at least whatever was there to be done now you try doing it!" It took me 15 minutes to realise that my hand was searching for my head about 5 inches higher than where it actually was (the head, I mean). The problem was I did not have my spectacles on. My hands are blind without the spectacles. With the spectacles they are still blind, but they don't see it then (see that they are blind).

The landing of the hands on my head was not exactly pleasant. This is due to the fact that my hair had at that moment got into a rather heterogenous composition of quite a variety of variegated stuff like hmmm...stuff. Listen, in simple words, my hair had the sort of stuff that Calvin would look at and say "Eww" before applying it all over him and grossing out his mother. Having thus confirmed that my hair was wrong as usual and not unusually wrong, I proceeded to face (rather hand) the face.

My face is something that has been very much wrong for an unusually wrong time. But that doesn't make it unusually wrong, in fact it makes it most usually wrong, if you can look at it the way I do. I have wasted a good deal of shaving razors, foam, water, keratin, blood and the other things that usually go wrong while shaving in an attempt to make it right, but it usually went unusually wrong so often that it ended up being most usually wrong. I reached upto my eyes and realized that they had suddenly turned into glass eyes. Then I read the previous paragraphs and realized that I had realized I did not have my spectacles on and so wore them and so I now have them on. I removed the spectacles and poked my eyes gently. I let out a small whimper and tears flowed (Why should the past tense of flow be flowed? I would have asked for flew.) from my eyes to my mouth tasting salty (the tears tasted salty, my mouth tastes...I digress). So, sight, touch and taste OK.

I reached upto my nose, up if you look at it from my point of view. The nose if it had a point of view (I don't mean a point from where you can view the nose), would possibly have an entirely different point of view about this whole business. When my fingers were about 30 cms away from my nose, my nose sent a panicky message to the brain saying "MayDay! Mayday! Make this bloody nitwit wash his fingers once a year." My fingers on the other hand (other hand in the metaphorical sense) sent this message to my brain "Paralyze me so that I don't have to enter into a mucus pit." In other words, the mucus was mutual!! But somehow I managed to check my nose through a set of complicated (pronounced obscene) procedures and made sure it was OK (usually wrong, that is).

Then came my ears...actually, my ears came long ago, almost about the time when I came, but they came now in a figurative sense. Messages similar to those with the nose ensued between the ear and the fingers. The ears however gave in sooner (actually it was the fingers that gave and went in) because they could not smell. It is a different issue that both the ears and the fingers smelt (rather stinked), but they could not smell. At first I could not hear anything. At first nobody heard anything (till somebody got tired and made the Big Bang), but this was not that very first...I mean the first in which I started checking my ears. Then I pulled my fingers from my ears and was able to hear. I put them in my ears (the fingers that is - I think I am suffering from a rather profound pronoun problem here.) and found that I could not hear again. I did this four times and was satisifed.

I then proceeded so on and so forth to check every other part - armpits (smelly and wet), back (smelly, wet and dirty), chest (goes in when I breathe out and goes out when I breathe in, very interesting) and bottom (position not changed with head as of now). I realised nothing was wrong with my physical self, unusually that is. I then started thinking if there could be something wrong with my mental self then. I thought for about 30 minutes with absolute concentration and concluded that it is possible for me to have a mental self. In fact, it is very much possible for me to have a mental self so mental that it might imagine a physical self. Now this got me thinking further. If my mental self was simply imagining my physical self, then my physical self might just be a mental self. This might mean that my physical self which is now a mental self has been imagining a mental self which was the original mental self which imagined the physical self which is now a mental self. To present the same idea in a brief fashion, I am now physically mental and mentally physical. I believe this is one of those metaphysical states, but you can never be sure.

And so here I am in a totally mental state which I mentally believe to be physical wondering what can be wrong with me unusually. Then I realise it - what is wrong with me unusually is that there is nothing wrong with me unusually. All that is wrong with me is usual at least as far as I am concerned. They might be unusual for some Tom, Dick or Harry, but I am not Tom, Dick or Harry and so it is usual for me. Now this is a very unusual thing for me. Unusual outside the usually unusual of course. Ah well, I guess it is just like me, as usual unusual!!!

P.S. Yes, I've completely lost it!