Winter Sojourns

The winter sun had set, leaving a strong sense of longingness in its wake. The chilly breeze shook the soul to its knees and this feeling of novelty attracted something in him that had lain hidden underneath the monotony of daily living. The weakness coupled with awe overwhelmed him allowing him to shape, albeit rudimentarily, only a few of his thoughts to words. He muttered the singular thought that had shook him, "How could it be so beautiful?" Finally lifting himself up, he looked for the nearest local store to stock himself up for the next morning. He had his makeshift bedding and tent arrangement to get him through the night. He had always loved the chill, not the cold but could the two ever be far apart?

Uttarakhand (India)

Moth-Eaten And Bare

The fleeting spaces and the oppressed times
Had had a tough toll on every shallow man,
He eked out an existence based on subsistence
The thorough build up to the fall
The keenness he had once felt
Had lasted but long
Replaced by repugnance
He had carried all along.
The depth varied but shallow every man was,
With no particular exception
There ever was. 

Momentary Disquiet

He could twitch and switch in a matter of seconds
For he was covered in malice all over
Guilt took over him
Guile managed to cover
Pigmented judgement
Every hue and every tinge
Blindingly solid and unquestionably still
He stood there happy and silently musing
For the winds of change had blew
Not more, not less
He could quantify it not
He had gained, he had gained
There was no misdoubt.
Pleased and expectant
Even though contented
He stood and he waved
For the transit had begun.

Despicable Him

As it were swiftly fading away he tried making sense of the disfigured shards of the coloured glass. The heat from the flush was fusing everything in its path with itself. The transition was smooth and effortless like a nimble ballerina performing her art. The flush, the result of the eruption, was a magnificent display of the steamrolling disposition held by none other than the otherwise benign Nature.

The defenselessness in the face of it all was rip-roaringly enlightening. The end in sight and in a form desired by one and all. Death by natural causes. "Natural" was never specified, was it?
Then it struck. No, not the blazing flow but a becoming thought among the wavering hopes. He had never asked for slavish submission to His will. Slim as it were but possible still. He had jokingly mentioned once that He'd send a flood again even though knowing full well that intended lessons were never learnt from the first one.

*He could see His face with the mocking smile smeared all across it. The proportions were far too grand this time around and as warm as were the anger behind it. He valued a faceless façade more than an ugly one. One crowded by tasteless mortals with a dull sense of humour and a terrible quality of constant putrefaction was hard to bear. No salvaging Noah were born to this age. It were aimed at a thorough immaculate demolishment. 
Splashh!
The slim chances had fleeted when the thoughts were still taking form.
The ring-bearer had met its end.


*Mortal.

Dwindling Away

From being in excellent fettle once

To turning into an infirm self

This march proceeding downhill

Is an uneasy one.

This long, meandering, labyrinthine path

To be traversed by one and all

Seems as inevitable as the setting sun

This slow withering away

This muffled cry drowning away

Oh! Take hold and stop gathering dust

Break the monotony, take the reins

This vapid journey need not remain so dreary after all

This rigmarole can surely be rerouted to a riveting ride

Not a poem, but a thought

Ruffle up, Shamble not.

The Remedying Switch

The altruist had been wronged many times over. He hadn’t changed. He had vowed not to. The connections he thought existed had long reached a breaking point and had drifted apart flowing unhindered by the chains that had held them for long. Yes, the connections had turned into debilitating chains. Here he was, sitting all by himself on one of the dusty, forgotten nooks he had asked to be built. All wasn’t that bad. His long-winded debates with men of reason had left him confounded.

He was not blinking, his mind was void of thoughts and he was waiting for nothing. The time had come. He shook his head to break his idle reverie and get into that spirit as of a Phoenix rising from its ashes. He now understood he wasn’t sane when he had thought he was, entering that Ulysses pact. Things needed to be turned around. The circumstances were too engaging and the denouement was still far. His condition couldn’t be more deplorable but this dark horse was starting to gallop and had been waiting for this final dash. The futility of his previous undertakings had eventually struck him straight, and had left him wounded, the justification for his present state. He was confronted with an impasse with just one way out. The path he had always despised.

Source: talesofseasia.com

It was now guiltlessly obvious to him. ‘I’ precedes ‘They’. The supremacy of Self, the significance of living as a source for oneself and not for others became strikingly clear. There exists a potential Ubermensch in every man. All it needs is the kick to be stirred and awakened. Constant internal specere that had been going on in the back of his mind all his life had reached a conclusion. Much to his disappointment, it was in favour of what he feared and loathed. His delusions of the past had been steered to relative obscurity. He sat there completely illuminated even though the surroundings could not be more dulling.

The Derelict

The chapter he'd never closed
The leaf he'd never turned over
The array of serrated spoken words
To the wilful disruption of his course

The path he plumped for
After the tragic end to the one taken before
Was so eerily cheery
Which dazed him so
And made him go spiralling down in the same old mournful grave

How unfortunate could it get?

To have been brought to this Elysian place
But to have lost the ability to appraise
The beauty in all its magnificence
Wasted unto someone so innocently oblivious!

(8/2012)