VOW IN FETTERS

Today I chose to skip the ancient practice
That faith without love, unwanted service
The rituals, dos and donts, masters advise
It's me I know who'll now on pay the price


The burden sends me trundling in black tunnels
I struggle to seize the gray, any, heaven sent
Vowing yet that moment with vengeance
To live by knowledge alone, be the witness


Glad, the act equal to fetters binding
Poised, ground solid, sun smiling ...


Stop, I say ! 
Rejoice not, for life's surprises
The mind consents to, prepares
Lingering but under the archway


And is promptly hurled
Through series rapidly voluting
Terms, thoughts, forms and feeling
Appearances, desires and despised routine


Acts of habit, wants, flesh and money ...


Each day transient, comes vague
Nothing of worth you anticipate
Empty core, hopeless mundane


Waiting to hear and to know
That calling ... I could seize my soul !




The diseased body no longer defends
Dark acrank, generates insufficient
Stuck dead in moral marshlands
Inter galactic being, blackened


Swishing with Einstein's limiting speeds
Into cloudy bands where minds bleed
The spirit taut, struck within
Yields revelations ill fulfilling
Stubbing senses they overbrim


Truths coloured, unblessed, justice thin


The running tap unnerves me
My intellect is unsounding
Lifeless now just waiting


For start sudden, conquering ...


But the ego coiled up proudly thrusts
Thoughts aside, feelings on the lurch
In throbs peaking at my temples
Wrecked mind, acts corrupting


Wracked breathless, drained coughing
Prisoner licentious, ambitious victim ...




Clear, late morning winter delights
Mellow sun warm, live on lazy cats 
Still in bed, unsure, spent on view
Clean yet rings of discordant cues


Chasing vivid the shapely behind
Weakened body and crippled mind
Start of lust, sweet tinge remind :


" O Youth sensitive, do not possess.
  It possesses in turn, sages assess."


Strange world, its stranger ways
Mirage like, covering its ugliness
Roles, then reversed, of give n take
'Tis alley blind in which I now wait


For a burst of shine on cold dunes
Gladness, flowers and folk tunes ...


But surroundings unfamiliar divorce 
The paths I take to are not mine
The dilemma is still not my first
Of obstacles many in my stride.

THE CREMATION

Body that breathed once is now on pier
The oldest or the youngest set it afire
Flames leap up coloured, rise to the sky
You think of him, his self and all the whys 


By this river flowing, this banyan tree
Roaring and whining, peculiar breeze
Calling loud on you, hard listening
Over the heart but thoughts flow in


It's a chaos, rush now smouldering
Peace sensed near, far from being
The night wild hung, dark eerie
Men squat exiled in twos and threes


Whispering over crackling bones
Vision blurred off gazing stones
Asleep or half, dead or numb
Sad, small, worlds transient


Wait for ' flowers,' the dead man's ash
As drunk mindless, we behave and act
Self, non - self, objects live and dead
Freedoms binding, liberation mistaken


Far, far, before existence staring now
Upon facts simple, the truth be found ...

EQUANIMITY IN OLD CITY

See them crammed in dark spaces, where
Children ever vie for more than meagre
Of everything, wherever.


Impotence lords over women and kids
'Thout hope and with nothing to beat
Except laughters overloud without mirth
Men busy on cards, idle, dead serious


Waiting on dreams of worlds faraway
Bad tea, unsure rations, cheap cigarettes.




Soft voices float in a pub elite
Protean faces hold on to strange links
Cool and high in this world, cooking
Waiters dressed, sellers and iced drinks


Well attired ladies and gentlemen
Brood and converse in festive silence
Precipitate leisure and build up pines
Deep seats plush, semi dark confines


Look on through walls of tinted glass
Crowd and cars loud, the din barred
Mobbed by heat, speed, sweat n scars ...




Back home, the evening is spoiled
Over argued nothings jus' express'd
Seething needless yet regard intact
Overarching, untouched at the back


Assured, I risk a bout as she doesn't care
Thoughtlessly sings in praise of another
So we pull no punches at fierce row
Till drained, we know quick mature


In between, the smoke seems tasteless
The heart dark and drink depressed


The moon full hovers, peeps in play
She resurrects as old, all over in me ...

INFATUATION

Nature's child, she's still a girl
Blackest crows seem pure to her
Goodness sheer, no omen or belief
Stark freshness as in these lyrics


Once, she wraps a day of rapture
Piece of sugar candy in paper
Sentiments inked in fair pictures
Placed mute on sill of his window


A guest just, a paying stranger.


Comes the time, he's back from work
She watches him from her far corner
For him to note, open and savour
But the gift is seen as mere clutter


Brushed off as nothing, unvalued.


She's crushed, he alone in her eye
To his form she glows, and spies
His face, she wants in expectation
Fondles, imagines his reciprocation


Blind, about him like a circling moth
Glad without cause, waits to accost
Her man, all hope, countenance flushed
Content escaping her smile mischievous.


But purity putrefies of desires misplaced
Waste unreasoned, wait on non existence
Lost in anger for self unthinkingly given


Violent, vulnerable, dreaming black
Of men, any, thoughts lying on back
Empty, purged, ununderstood shack


This mind shrunk, egotised complete
Sense addicted body, vampire queen.

LASSITUDE

A god forsaken billet
Morning begum aplomb
In a cold toilet
Oil bath with newspaper
Winter sun's grand ardour


Close shave, brunch heavy on hope
Least wish fine tuned, composed
Knowing well my wallet lovely
Has bills, scraps but no money


I loiter about aimlessly
Avenues unnecessary
Retire to a green park
Roads about, concrete


All resolves now done in
I withdraw quiet, far recede
To blue skies, drowse sweet


But the sun grows so near, on me
Like an iron gong, harsh sounding
For my discontent to rush in
With illusions, its nothings.


Images, thoughts, since turn stale
I inhale the dust, the polluted air
Tap water sludged, claustrophobic 
Eyes tired burn, sweat dripping


As deluxe automobiles pass by
And park before houses fine
Like icons, attractive but
Strange to mind, lack lustre.

THE WORLD VISCOUS

The state of calm disappears
Even before its clear glimpse


A woman lazy on adjacent terrace
Lingers to draw, seek deliberate
To come alive on the heady scents
Of forms proud, oozing 'ceptacles


Powered of memory, that being past
Forming the future, promises cast
Seeking, seeking to affirm ourself
Own unmindful, free animated


She waits, glancing for the answer
Spreading clothes, hot moons sheer
Warm sun, daybreak since oblique
Cool amok, deep, winter caprice


Two minds, viscous sweet, ready desirous
Set to game, profit, sucking own purposes
Consumed on act in delirium, as it comes
Cries escape wet, spending on skin silken


Pulsating, strained, moistened, behind
Eyes craving closed, on faraway mind
Unified in hope, heightened brink
Gasping explode, the knotted peak


Descending, divorced and tiring
Spirits still grope, grasping nothing
Another search annulled, yet again hurled 
In crudities, betrayal and doubtful world
Iterating, scientific but without redress
Philosophy, profession, freudian quest
Wide spectrum, ranges mysteriously slush
With details capital and addiction's a must


Life spread along betwixt extremes
Hues of all sorts bedizen the spirit
Bound to hopes from objects sensual
Converging, divergent, despair, fears
Moments floating to fro, past future
Impressed illusions pregnant, real


For us to want, enjoy
Waste or possess
Suffer yet again or
Conquering relinquish !

A CLEAR GLIMPSE

This ordered disorder the body serves
Fills the mind through taste and touch
To eternity in wastelands
Magically flowering stands
Drawing, engaging, engulfing
Defining, limiting, challenging.


I struggle to shake off, both
My aversions and my hope
My own ignorance though
Presents me, the world, rainbow
Separating, adding, churning constant.


Here, the self with the mind
Reduced to body, to you and I
What we mean, we how relate
Wants, our fears, use and gain
Different, differentiating differently.


Then asleep, without the mind
I am with none we here find
Indescribable hence, Bliss itself
Is, not this, consciousness pure
Eternity, Infinite, One, All alone.


Back to us, madness, myths real
Concerns live, intense, existential
A priori attached, dissipated obvious 
Sex, possessions, experiences causal
Tall effects and impressions deep
Being particularised, things many


Organs throbbing, vital experiencing.


Paths uncharted, interminable
Exasperating, ebullient, youthful
Wanting more, better, shifting references
Frustrating to and fro, engaging imbalances


But perhaps, to initiate this dialogue !

A MEASURE OF OUR MIND

Do you draft perfect volumes on the moon ?


I am just back without a single tune
Desperate, sulking, yet heaving a try
For that surge filling, lucid loci
Call impossible, forms now shy


" Dear, hope for the morrow, live life full
  Keep the zeal yet warm, the heart total."

*

I now need to pursue a career

Tags, money, identity regular

Put on hold my vocation true

Ignore deliberate, pass severe

Sway and waver but forefend

The heart's raging purpose

Rule out the simple consents

Ill digested, apple accursed

Know not, for what impossible mean

The self perfect wreaks havoc on me

I twice review if it's a blessing

If all's well, even my malady ?

" Allow me," it seems to say

" I alone must you attain."

But without reason, it is beyond reach

Heart wrenched I am, the same at sea

Faith revisited pure, yet again I heave

Waiting, insisting, unfailing.

DEATH EVERYDAY

A mansion large with ageing facade
Parts assets from opulent past
To keep afloat of needs and shame
As men pray daily on tarot cards


Brothers estranged age, on liquor
Ghosted fortune, reflex nervous


A growing daughter, virgin beauty
Dreams on 'thout their airs morbid 
Expends rebelliously, tasting
Her sexuality sensuous, emerging


Her elder brother is a vegetable, but
Unhappy, stressed, violent enough
To face his father and confront
Snatch the bottle from his clutch


The mother looks on with sunken eyes
Death daily, repressed, her polar night.

DRAPED IN LIGHTENING

A moment delved in expands
In grey unbound, near and far
The pen is still, suspended
For clear view, relief in sharp
Like earth draped in a flash 
Of lightening 'n bright sky


Or, of a baby kicking away in rhyme
Of kindergarten, my first, my cries
And mates laughing at the tutelage


Of ideas I have had of self
Roles and feelings different
Places, deeds and forms
Knowledge involved, evolved


To one witness inscrutable
Without a second, variable
In diverse, fictitious garbs


Just the self unfathomed
What may I do, to know ?

SHADOW OF SHAME

One city avenue

When the sun is set

A class war is on

Mini, intense


Colonial lamp quaint emits

Light yellow, dim limits

Late traffic, punctuating

Fierce screams in local din

High drama mystifying ...

A man chest bare, in pajamas

Tensed brows, furrows deep

Thunders, to knuckle dust proper

" The bitches" and " the thieves "

Pounding the ground, back and forth

As anger would his heart seize

At two women, dwellers of the pavement

With kids half clad, trembling, defiant ...

He rambles, lunges, cane in hand

Old parents apprehensively look on

Teen brother behind, lost and tame

Uneasy, rooted in his shadow of shame

The women shriek, hit the onlookers' blood

Thrust upfront two girls, little, naked

Sad, pouting, downcast looks

Crowd mute, glass eyed, attentively books

The younger one rushes to " strip the monster "

Accusing finger, arm sweep, brilliant of her

Spits fire from close, steps back timely

Pleads innocence, queries the mob in jury ...

Insinuations dart from stares latent

Verdict clear, quiet, listening intense

The aggressor halts, ebbs his confidence

Now afraid, buttons up in bewilderment

Terror writ large on his brother's face

Pulling, tugging at him, hinting escape

The man's coiled up anguish shows

As he steals retreat, incredulous

Humiliated, chafing, tapered

Pausing once to make clear

But the destitute go for the kill

Flaunt their rags, belly caved in

Pinch hearts, crying convincing

Run the foe aground, will done in.

The parents shrink enough to call

" Damn the wrenches, filth they are "

Right misplaced, manner small

Black faced, dignified false 

Recede heavy with numb steps

Sense laden and ears plugged

Bellowing mind unrepentant

Frame slouched but eyes up

Soon, chatter fills the mansion

Rum shores feudal pretensions

Ego nursed under the influence

To power, its will and violence

Yells and bawls, on the loose

In unreason, falling on those

Innocent with questions unformed

Matters peripheral, minor, unborn

Strife loud, unjust, avoidable

Evil self wrought, unbearable.

                    *

Outside, the unscathed ' dwellers ' chirp

Victory stagy, content people disperse

The regained abode is open on three sides

Rooms imagined, tattered mats, utensils

The older one sweeps the ground

The pot on fire boiling

Dented, deformed

Exhorting the kids sleepy : 

' Up, up, girls !'

' Boiled rice in its warm whey
And a pinch of salt ...  hey ...'

Encore : 

' Boiled rice in its warm whey

And a pinch of salt ...  hey ...'

Monotony come alive

Like a playing record stuck ...

The younger one sighs and spits

Head in two palms, low stool to sit

Staring straight into this vacuum

Then, heaves up her boobs sudden

Her body, the breasts, to livelihood due

Goddess, verily,  to one awaiting her cue.