Thursday, October 29, 2009

Into the Night


In the gathering gloom, the mind learns of clarity
For when there is no light, the darkness survives
And only the darkest of thoughts shall thrive
For the world is nought but shades of grey
And with the rising dawn the sun chases down
All that lies hidden in the shadow of the sun
It is there that we shall find, peace from momentum
Of restless wanderings of the un-chastened mind
It is then that there will be peace in benediction
Of an everlasting light, till the orange-red of dusk
Like a warning beacon from all that is cheerful
It is time.
Darkness arises and the moon refrains from a shine
All too clear, for it is weak to decline
The power of the night, and of its children
For when we are not blinded by the gold that is foolish
We shall see by silver true natures sublime.

Sreedevi Jagannath

Ignoramus, ignoramus...



Secrets and ceremonies
Riot and Ritual
Overpower incoherency
Turning habitual
Psyche and mentality
Work in mysterious way
Manifesting as Spiritual
Causing intimate decay
The Mind is weak
The heart weaker still
Caught in superstition
Eroding the will
An anchor is needed
The soul finding none
Death eats a little more
It is deemed bygone
Too late are veils
Lifted from sights
A glimpse and forever
Devoid of light.

Sreedevi

One too many times...


The sheets are so cold now that
There is only half the warmth
And your side of the bed
Is just a little too far
Over the chasm that’s opened
Since your latest faux pas
I want to admit that it isn’t your first
And although I hope it will,
It can never be the last
No matter how alone I’ll feel
Right now; it’s got to stop.
If I want to forgive you
I don’t know whatever for
It seems it’s your illusion
That it’s entirely my fault.
So while you lie there fuming
Over nothing at all,
I have to stop my mind turning
To forgetting it all; it will stop.
You’re a nice person
But you’ve never enough
And if I look over everything
Nothing’s left to give up
Sacrifice has to have a meaning
But with you it’s too much
My patience has run thin
Stretched over with scotch
I’d forgive you if I could
But you’ve broken my heart
There’s aren’t many pieces
To make one up; it has to stop.
One day you’ll miss me
Or maybe one day you won’t
I know I won’t be here
To care if you don’t.
Now it’s gone a little over the top
And it’s stopped.

Sreedevi.

Without the Light


Slivers of moon, dancing on your skin
White as pearls and silk akin
Dark eyes watch as eyelids droop
Transported to a land unknown

In realms beyond understanding or hope
As breath is evened and consciousness lost
A sigh, content and slow
Escapes from within, a touch of frost.

Dark eyes watch as slumber takes
Yet another victim, underneath her wing
A smile of pleasure, a frown of pain
And words too soft spent uttering

A name called and a touch rendered
While tales of bards be dreamed
A crimson pool flows, encumbered
By tongues and teeth, bloodied, gleamed.

A need so raw and primal by nature
Unravels as warm poison be drained
Healing and filling, to thirsty creature
Beast or man, with such poison sustained.

A moment too long, or many too brittle
A hunger instatiable, held within reach
True havoc be unleashed upon mere mortal
If ever such wants garner release.

Mercy is found with the dawn that breaks
Streaking with colours uncertain
Gaining in strength and curious ardor
Till night comes knocking, waiting again.

Sreedevi

Sunday, September 13, 2009

An Idle Mind...

Often the mind is simply – well , Bored - and it finds the need to do something, lest it be overrun by ungainly thoughts and the sharp methodical slicing of fear, concerning events that, in most probability, may never occur.

Such is the case now, and here I sit, trying almost whole heartedly, to make some meaningful use of this blessed time of peace.

Surrounded by a chattering set of non-gifted people, who raise voices in a crass mockery of power, one often wonders why, just why?

Why do people tend to have an over-glorified sense of their selves?

Why do people take what doesn’t belong to them?

And why are they inclined to appear stupid, with each passing attempt to assuage others of their own intelligence?

I can produce no answers to such questions, and I vaguely hear my own mind mocking me in the Voice of God.

“Do not ask such questions of me, for even Miracles cannot bring you what you seek here.”

I can do little more than sigh and grace myself with a sardonic smile.

Truer words have never been spoken.

It is in such an environment, I suddenly find that for a very brief moment, my mind is thinking of nothing. Absolutely nothing; not even deigning to decipher the cacophony outside the window.

Simply hearing, not processing. Seeing and not looking.

And it is peace, and chaos in one.

Peace because for that moment, I am one with the immobile furniture, the walls, and the very ground; of course making the arrogant assumption that they process nothing more than nothing.

Chaos because it is a state that the mind, neither the body is accustomed to being, and panic briefly ensues once the moment has passed.

I believe the panic another brief moment when the mind asks itself first, “Am I still alive?”

Pointless as this essay seems, I have to agree that something born of pointlessness is probably, just that.

Albeit, it has given good exercise in rehashing vocabulary and the opportunity to sound even vaguely philosophical; not entirely pointless, in essence.

Perhaps it is time to close this digression and attempt finding more interesting things to do, but sadly, I find that in my eyes, writing this is rather more interesting than most other things expected of me.

It often feels like employment is but a way to smother unrequited desires in choice of the same, as long as possible, to avoid the torturous resurfacing of all that “could have been.”

Indeed, it feels that way.

A storm brewing within, that can be suppressed in as much as the daytime. Nothing is guaranteed to remain repressed while the mind is otherwise unoccupied, leading to such dreams as to leave the soul thirsting, or nightmares that leave the mind unwilling to let itself drift.

In our dreams, we are never free, and I once again arrogantly assume that in that brief moment, we are as close to death as the alive can hope, without truly getting there. In our death, I think we will be free; if not of anything, of our mortal obligations, insufficiencies and things equally vile.

Therefore, in that brief moment, before the mind has to ascertain that it is still alive, we are free. It is that taste of freedom, barely at the tip of our tongues, so to speak, that leave us longing for the day we die, consciously, or unconsciously, repeatedly or sparsely, longingly or reluctantly.

We all long for death. It is only a matter of time that it will be handed to us. But in the meanwhile, we can hope to attain such peace, in elongated moments till the occasion, where can join the gratefully, living dead.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Red Wine Heart : The Fate of the Romantic




It does a romantic no good to read a wonderfully written French romance in the company of Italian Opera.

What does it take, to feel that spark to write a true romance? Of the many things, love is the one topic that no author can ever produce with merely ink and no experience.

It does a romantic no good to read a wonderfully written French romance that she has never felt, in the company of Italian Opera that she doesn’t quite understand.

For it is in the nature of Romance to cause yearning, and Opera to cause anguish, especially when one doesn’t understand either.

A longing for something unfamiliar has a strange form, a hazy shape, one that dances only inches from your fingers, so close and yet too far. It makes your chest constrict, and a burn rise in your eyes that you do not want to acknowledge.

It does a romantic no good to read a wonderfully written French Romance that she has found but lost too early, in the company of Italian opera she doesn’t understand the words as much as she does the depth of feeling accompanying the mellifluous lyric.

It makes the air colder, and the room too small and the world outside too large, with something within her that wants to perish; if only it didn’t cause her to perish with it.

It is in the nature of those who have loved and lost, to hate with a passion the age old saying, and any person who dares say it to them.

No, it is not better to have loved and lost.

Because when it is gone, you realise that it has left you incomplete, and no other piece in the world fits in just as perfectly.

It is better to have not loved at all.

It does the romantic no good to hope that they may never love; it is folly, and the knowledge of the inevitable it is far worse a torture than a broken heart itself.

With the hopelessness than drifts through the misshapen pieces than make the romantic, like sunlight through the dormers of abandoned churches, comes the unfailing need to forever wander in search of completeness; made worse by the unflinching truth that it can never be.

The strands of heart warming and cruelly beautiful music will drive one to sin while the passionate and timelessly engraved words may drive one to desperation before.

No, it does no good for a romantic to watch a freshly patched heart be torn apart by memories or longing or loss; and it causes more pain to wrap them up in the gossamer layers of fantastical and yet wanton thoughts.

For it is a role of the romantic to be lost in an eternal loop of destruction and reconstruction, till perhaps there is nothing left to destroy, and lesser still to rebuild.

Till death do us part.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

What are you thinking?



Here in the darkness
For oft the mind
Seeks inspiration
From need to unwind
It needs not flowers
Meadow or perfect dawn
Only peace and quiet
To hear itself; be drawn.
With ink or brush
Or paint or quill
Its thoughts at a rush
To be inscribed by will
And want for space
To be observed
And perhaps rephrased
To fit different canvas
And parchment anew
Adjusting by wider Point of View.

Sreedevi