Pain

Harbouring feelings is not an easy task

You cannot hide them behind a mask

Depression, remorse, nostalgia and pain

Can all make you stand in front of a rushing train.

When the skies do not open for years

The water accumulates as a farmer’s tears

‘No harvest oh God!’ He cries…'please let loose the rain!'

Not a drop….that is pain.

The yearn for a child

Soon after the bond of marriage

The fall from the steps

The blood-stain

‘Sorry ma’m, it is a miscarriage’

9 months of ecstasy turns to pain.

The Russian summer of 1991

At the bottle of vodka everyone gets a turn

One day it snows out of season

The fall of communism

No more money, cash or shares

Alas, no more grain

‘Sorry son, no bread today’

Thought the father….that is pain!

The killer brown hair

Made them stare

The curvaceous waist

Took the form of haste

How could they refrain?

‘Rape, rape!’ she cried……that is pain.

Wife in waiting

She prepared his favourite dish,

Lemon rice and honey-glazed fish.

They saw it go over the Atlantic....

Carried 300 people

In man’s greatest invention

‘I love you’ was his last mention

Twins of New York killed…devastation

The food went cold

Life mercilessly slain

Terrorism….that is pain!

Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal, Thriller and Earth

Your laughter and your innocent mirth

The gloved hand and silver jacket

All now adorned in a golden casket.

No familiar ‘God Bless You’

No moonwalk

Gone is the voice with the beautiful strain

Rest in Peace MJ….now that is pain!

When I saw the lion in all its glory

I didn’t want this story

To stop

But someone reached earlier

Gunshot

Blood, bones and paws but no grizzly mane

The King is poached….jungle silent

That….that is pain!

From the tears of a farmer

To the cry of a mother

The fall of communism

The end of the King of Pop but not his rhythm,

Poaching and terrorism

To virginity shattered in a single scream across the quiet lane.

Forgive me for documenting all this in words

I hope you will not let your feelings for me wane

Because that….that would also be Pain.

The Alpha-male

We have to understand

That as the most advanced race

We were bound to differ

And thus the contrast between male and female face.

The Alpha-male,

A bag full of self-esteem

According to him, his thoughts never stale

Alone in his world he wants to gleam.

The suppressed female,

Giving in to demands of the Alpha

Leaves behind a luscious trail

Whether naked or from behind a burqa.

The problem arises in its ultimate stage

When one or the other traits mix

And in a fit of rage

You explode into life’s perennial fix!

I will not deter from what I here say

That the succulent female body

Cannot house the Adam’s ego

Just like the whites could never accommodate the negro.

Similarly today’s dominant male

Or yesterday’s commanding chains

Confused as to who holds the reins

Knowing that a single female trait he cannot contain.

Unless the fairer sex will not give in

The relentless male will continue to dig in

Eat away the selfless female soul

Continue to make mountains out of the mole.

I say rise o rise, you beautiful maid

Fight the tyranny, don’t let him raid

Bring the alpha down to Beta grade

Don’t think the male can never fade.

But don’t try to house it o lovely

The male ego can be deadly

Avoid its sting

Its endless whim

I know the doom it can bring….

Because I, I am HIM!!

Fire and Ice

To Veeral on his 20th:

When I first saw him,

Slim, trim, glasses with a plastic rim.

Eleven we were,

In that camp during summer.

When we parted, it was brief

We would rejoin in school mischief.

When I then saw him,

Not much of a change,

Silence, less talk

Not overly confident, but not a dork.

This was just the beginning

Of a companionship so thrilling.

Excuse me, but I’m going to talk about myself

In glowing lines which brings out my best.

Short compared to the tall,

Talkative compared to the listener,

Impatient compared to the patient.

Interested to the not-so.

They say two must compliment each other

To tether

For a lifetime these memories will suffice,

I hope you liked the first few lines of Fire and Ice.

I write, he reads

I speak, he heeds

I fight, he only might

I always told him to stand up, speak up

But he never really reacted much!

Then so be it I said,

Dropped the idea, that everyone is made

Like me, for me

There are some who are there just so

As I come to this world and go

To be.

I always wondered, why do we never fight?

When was it last?

I’m sure it was quite in the past

How many times?

Once, no maybe twice

How could we? I was fire, and he ice.

I hope he learnt how to crackle like the fire,

Cause I tried to gather like ice.

I hope he learnt how to be noticed from distance

Cause I try to keep myself from resistance

I hope he learnt how to face the world

Cause I try to stay calm, not to let the anger unfurl

I hope he learnt to manage

Because I try to envisage

I hope he received some of my linguistics

I must admit, I never got his mathematics.

I hope the world he does entice

I hope we always remain like Fire and Ice.

There are times when I think

What if it would end…this link.

I know we’ll try our best

To beat time’s test.

I know we will

After eighty more years still

Be friends until all our wishes we fulfill

And the dawn no more we wish to see and this world we want to flee

All our virtues intact, and forgotten vice,

And we shall depart as Fire and Ice.

Caramel Breath

As I walk down the streets

A normal stroll

Speculating whether i'll fall

Across an acquaintance, who rarely meets.

Then it comes with a jolt

I can feel the warmth

Suddenly i'm filled with unwavering faith

Courtesy that caramel breath.

But when I follow the smell, follow the sound

You are nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be found.

 

When I have nothing to do

I usually think of you like very few.

In those moments of pride

Just like the unstoppable lips of a guide

It comes with a jolt

And with certainty I can tell

The smell of warm caramel.

I follow the heavy smell, the heart's sound

But you are nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be found.

 

When I have the ball at my feet

I try my passes tidy and neat

I try my footwork that is often so sweet.

When I lock my target and pull the trigger

It comes with a jolt and I can see that compelling figure.

And I follow the crest, follow the swell

Oh! Let me see the source of this caramel.

All I can do is thump my tattoo

To search I am bound

But you are nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be found.

 

When I don the stage

Killing opponents in a rage

Holding the trophies hostage.

My eyes skirt the audience

Looking for your emergence

I have already felt the smell

Its depth an unending well

Of the so familiar warm caramel.

 

When I write

I need no extra might

The words just flow

The pens just slide

As the number of lines grow

The thoughts just glide.

After I respect your inspiration

And read the work to myself

In rhymes I see your reflection.

I look for you near and far

And there you are

Piercing my heart with brown eyes

Standing out like a citadel

And spreading the aroma of caramel.

 

 

The Drunken Bard

Are you so far that I cannot touch you

Or is that I just want to

Is it the desire that robs me of the power of my brain?

Or is it the paranoia or the unbearable pain?

Baby oh baby

My mind searches for words to describe your beauty

And the way in which you walk and your gaiety

As the clock runs down, so does my vocabulary.

Don’t think that I have consumed the golden drink

That always makes me madly think

Madly think that you are a Chinese mink.

How could I ever doubt that everyone will fall in love

It’s getting warm

 Still I don’t feel like removing my glove

I’m with my love, in my lair

Who when walks out into the open air

Oh I swear

That heart-piercing stare

That pair

Of legs

Which only I can dare

To touch

But only that much.

Do not think I’m inebriated thus rating you only physically

But these are the thoughts overrated by the devil mentally.

The anticlimax

The climax

Are unseen as ever before

As your love comes to the fore

But if I would be drunk

You would not be one but four

My god you know how well I can write

If I sit tight

And think right, but I am failing,

Or is it my sight?

Maybe I am a little high

Sigh! I feel so light I could fly

Oh God give me the strength

To keep those men at arm’s length

From this lass who

Makes me love her as much as you!!

Only one more bottle I can see

Just saw four, but that was quite before

There are people who cannot afford

This curvy being, with a golden filling

Hell! How those men must feel ill-fated

Let me see….am I intoxicated?

Photographs

We all imagine of remembrance forever

A talent none of us can have ever

But all of us can dream together

 

We all imagine how moments could be captured forever

An imagination which none of us could turn into reality

But this time it was not going to be never

Because someone out of us found out a way

To make something out of our mind’s unprecedented tray

 

A small print etched in black and white forever

It was not long before someone gave it colour

 

The photograph was born

It was made so that man’s memory would not be torn

The small print was slowly a revolution

It started becoming a steady evolution

 

We needed to call the device a name

We needed to keep the result in a frame

And the click was found and the shutter was given the weight of trapping time

The picture captured forever in a colourful plethora

We simply called it a camera

 

As man always finds a new way

He found one for another desire

He decided he wants movement to stay

To stop, to pause, rewind and to play

We already listened to music on the stereo

This phenomenon of kidnapped movement

Was simply called video

 

As I look back today at my own pictures and videos

I try to recollect what I was thinking

But alas, time can be captured, thoughts not

It is a fact that cannot be changed, so do not be distraught

 

I remember how we posed

How we were tricked into having our picture taken when dosed

Friends arm in arms, hands over shoulders

Piggy back at times and resting over boulders

Sleeping in green grass, sipping coke from each other’s glass

Munching on our favourite food

A smile at times, occasionally a brood

Caught in expressions we never see in a mirror

Looking at the results with some apprehension and fear

Am I looking good? Should I have sat or should I have stood?

How is the smile? How is the pout?

Am I that tall, am I that stout?

 

The fun, the frolic is caught forever

Times which will never come back

Let us look at the good times while brewing hot tea on a burner

For other problems, I hope we invent a time turner.

The Unpredictable Shore

It was a roadside of a big city

Beautiful but none the less dirty.

Sitting on the stone were four

looking toward the calm shore.

We wondered how the moon

Can pull water so soon

And each and every wave

Was Moon's gravity crave.

We thought how such calm can suddenly erupt

And all this peace it can disrupt.

The moon listened to this

how we questioned its fame

And hid behind a cloud in shame.

The breaze russled our hair

As we felt the cool sea air.

Doubts were cast

On how the tsunami can take lives so fast.

Listening to all this it thought

It should vanish now better than not.

Our brains thought about swimming

When it saw the water- silver and shimmering.

As the world allowed us a glimpse of nature

I could see it was tricking us

As the background was filled with buildings of tall stature.

Was all hope lost

As we saw the water's edges being tossed?

Waiting for something we four

Sat on this dirty but quiet shore.

Who knows what the sea is cooking

Maybe we might be its next ingredient in picking?