The Recital Part II

Pondering over 'Prose versus Verse'

As the participants recited AND narrated

Their feelings & experiences,

I started listening to them,

Jolting myself from the lip-synced mute

I'd imposed on their words,

As they'd read out their experiences,

I'd exult with a 'Touche!' & 'Ditto!'

Each time they'd share emotions

That I'd bumped into, rolled over, jostled with

A million times,

But faced, spoken to, never.

Emotions I'd always considered 'trivial',

Too 'trivial' to be written down.

Tug of War

While I try to figure

Which is the trigger

And which the consequence,

A battle breaks out

Externalities cave in.

Simultaneity takes on a horrid meaning.

Anticipation becomes the catalyst

Of a demon that I created

But know not how to kill.

I forget where my comfort zone lies

In the sphere of my inability

To face, to do things all these years,

Or the realm I wanted to leap to.

There's no single-leap shortcut though,

I've been crawling all the while

With my head buried in the sand.

P.S. My stubborn mind preferred the stagnant familiarity. I don't. I had to distinguish between the two till I won the war.

If Thoughts Were Audible

If Thoughts Were Audible,

Would you try to catch & make

Every fluttering thought your Bible,

In your craving

To come face to face

With that one thought

Which would have the answer

To what is the question,

That has gnawed at you since birth?

What if you bumped against

Hitherto infrasonic tremors

Of a morbid sigh or curse,

While hoping to tune into

A blessing or yearning?

Would you consider yourself

The sniper of the Panopticon

Or a prisoner of it?

Would the nail-biting curiosity

Of groping the trail

Of fragmented thoughts

From all (how many?) corners

Make you lose your own 'stream of consciousness',

                         as they would call it?

Deaf now to your own mental utterances

Would you (n)ever speak again?

[Since,

Your eavesdropping mind

Would already know

What the other has to say

As would he, about your thoughts

Before either uttered the first syllable.]

Or,

Would you start thinking

About what to think first

And what order to place those thoughts in, next,

So you could fool your mental trespasser,

Sending him off to a parallel trail of thoughts?

But of course he would be able to

Hear through your strategy

As he would also know

Of that moment

When you decided to

Guard your own thoughts.

But the question is,

Do you have any left, now? 

A numb stare is reflected

In your mental neighbour's eyes

As you both confront

The fact that

Deaf people don't have

Songs stuck in their head.

The Echo

Before you set off on a song

Strumming tunes

Of a hunky dory future that calls,

That frenzied adrenaline rush,

Bring it to a halt.

(These dreams my dear,

Should be taken with a pinch of salt.)

If you're chasing a wish,

Because the inaudible frequencies

At the back of your mind

Clash rather than merge 

With your future song's rhyme,

Then you've clipped its' wings already

For your creations,

Fantastical as they may be,

Stem from a mental hypochondriac

Stamp of injustice.

Epilogue:

‘Do you often catch the chime of reality,

Singing to you a morbid lullaby

Have you lately been crawling

To unbeknownst corners and turns (in your mind)

Only to slide down back into the pit of

Questions, angst, fears?’

Problems are meant to motivate,

Turning our thoughts to action,

Not so we become complacent 

In our mind's utopia

While reality becomes

Only a reminder of 

The mental hypochondria 

We subconsciously keep 

Seeking a right to.

Puzzled Enemy

There’s vengeance gnashing its teeth

The anger, blindfolded,  

Flagellates at my insides

Churning out a fresh helping

Of supine decay,

Feeding its crippled existence.

I shrink at the sight

Of fingers pointing at me

To then direct wobbly steps  

Of melting courage

To be able to peer at

The faces behind

The exclamations

Of accusations aimed at me.

Till I bump against a mirror,

That, I had thought to be a window.

My palms scramble for strength

Clamped on to the mirror

As I slip on to the floor

I hope the aches will

Numb me into sleep,

Till I wake up

To fidgeting arms and feet,

As the glass ceiling above shatters

To reveal in mockery

A mirrored ceiling right above,

Which I had thought to be the sky

Before I had entered the room.

 P.S. The mind is its own worst enemy. 

Before I Touch the Sky

You're welcoming the future with open arms
As you shrink from your own reflection.
Lost in creating that Utopian vision 
Of the future
Which you think is waiting to walk up to you,
When all you have done 
Is to run to the past for solace,

And away from it when you were you realised 
You'd bore enough.

Before you soar off on the flight of dreams, 

Dreams you're afraid to call your own yet,
Watch where to your thoughts sway
Amidst the sands of time.

Presence.

I am
A question mark 
Slouching, lurking behind the wall
Waiting to stretch out 
Into an exclamation mark.

Identity

They, you and I.
Are?
Interpretations, opinions, 
Fears and convictions,
Likes-dislikes,
History and anticipations,
Of life.
All, save the living of it, maybe?

A song heard months back in time
You mused over the major & minor,
I'd pondered over the rhyme.
Each of us 
As convinced about its presence.
Winter tastes different in my memory.

Epilogue: 
You must choose between
His bespectacled vision 
And my retrospective conclusion
But you must know 
Which you chose
And why.


Context: 

We live but one interpretation [actions being interpretations] of our experiences, chosen on impulse at times, shortlisted by some preset path on other occasions. Is it about the choices chosen and lived? It isn't so much about 'your' life really, that being a myth for we are constantly interacting with many other lives every day. An interaction of interpretations hence, converts to fears, beliefs, and so on. But what about our identity in essence?

Is life to be described in terms of the experiences [and their interpretation] that I may have had [hence unique to me and to the world] - like the difference in reflections of convex and concave mirrors of the same object, for instance. And how those experiences molded me [or I let them!], my beliefs, and preferences, since that too is a unique cluster held together under the umbrella of a name? 

What about the infinite lurking before and after - Are we the entity or the impressions?  

The Fear of Conveying 'Thanks'

The only feeling
I am sensitive to at times
[When someone says or does something,
Making me very, very happy indeed,]
Is the spread-eagled numbness
Gagging my thoughts.
Happy thoughts of gratitude,
Weren't those meant to be?

I smile at the person
Straining my eyes, 
So as to not let them blink 
As they look on at me, with a word of love.
While I,
Stoop within endlessly 
To pull out a few thoughts,
Clearing my throat
Hoping for a sentence to follow next,
However mindless;
Eventually falling silent.
I'd like them to know 
That's not me being cynically laconic, no.

I think -
The memories,
Charred with inadvertent retrospection
Wake up from their insomniac slumber
At such moments,
Rush to claim their place,
Smearing dust on the present.

P.S. Have you ever shied away from saying a thank you to someone who made your day?
It's not shyness being discussed here, of course. It's a constricted state of mind, feeling stifled enough to stop you from thinking at all, making you restless enough, though.

The Evacuation

Skin flaking away to shreds
Breathing a fresh whiff of mockery your way, my way,
Shrouding their compliments and
My pride that turned stale
As they were uttered.

Alphabets 
Lisping out of my mouth
Numbers
Trickling out of my mind
(Not a hospitable host,
This existence of mine, they recount.)
Fears & dreams 
Going into comatose.

Clock-hands pointing at me, 
At the stroke of wakeful realization
Like arrows, yanking out and
Darting past me, in all directions
On a time-bound mission.

Sounds, gone out of tune inside of me
Screeching out of my ears
Favourite colors, smells, sights 
Now driving me nauseous
A choking cough that echoes 
(Was it not supposed to stifle it, like in movies?)
Of all of these
Crashing at me, 
Trying to weave again
That familiar path on that train
That leads to the crossroads of that maze
Of self- destructiveness 
That I seemed destined for,
No matter where I'd exit from.
("The exit is only a dead-end!", a fleeting voice quivers)
As I stagger under weightlessness
While familiarity squints into a blur 
and
Alienation burrows a happy home
Mute stares from my end lasting three nanoseconds
Angry for they still don't get it
Thrilled, breathing a sigh of relief.
For I get it, lest I should forget it,
This, where I had arrived.

Or

Was I inhaling stagnant complacency 
Slipping into the reprieve of familiarity again,
Of accursed i-dent-ity
Wait. Am I getting familiar with myself?


P.S. Things you held dear
Where are those now?
Were they yours to admire?
Or mine to own?

With Love, from Death

You've sketched & sought eternity,
Throughout the map of history 
In effulgent hues.
And what prompted it, pray?
Futile attempts at
Squirming out of 
The shell of mortality.

Of course you don't seek death.
You haven't been living life either.
What then, is it that you
Lived all these years?
Had you been living
The fear of death instead,
Lurking near?

I've been subjected to
A tirade of judgments from you  
But then you've judged life too
All along anyway.
(You've judged it more, 
And lived it less.)

P.S. (Achilles was wiser, 
Must I say.)

Word is Out

An encounter with words in life hitherto
(Brought me asking yet again a helpless -
"Now, where to?")
For company was all I had back then       
An ebbing ebb of 
Self-assuring words at times, 
To a frenzied slew 
Of words, twisted & few 
Which sapped & gnawed away 
My spirits into mute stillness.
Like no adversary had ever managed.
Then another capricious turn
To a voice of rhetoric that mocked,
At every occurring thought 
In my breathing existence
Angry at what, I knew not.
Every mono-syllable I pondered over, or dropped.
Words plundering away words 
I had uttered, memories earlier,  
Words I saw, heard, smelled, lived -
Were they ever in my favour?
Or was it a path, I ought to have taken not?

Those words had more life in them
Than I then did, let me tell you.
Now and then, a war of words with 
The consciousness of words 
They and I had created
A dialogue, now supporting, now doubting,
I had become a dilemma.

Words are all I had at all those times,
And they failed me when  
I needed them most.
They sought a different muse.
Conscious of their mistress's dormant existence
Stammering her way through life,
Were they teaching me a lesson?
To take ownership of my articulations
With courage, wisdom & tact,
That which I probably lacked

Here comes news
Within dreams, with strides taken, 
With gestures, glances, I awaken
As I cross paths again with words,
Uttered - un-uttered, 
Now knowing their worth
Breaking the slumber 
of 
Clenched fists, 
Asphyxiating knot of syllables,
Scripting now, 
Drops of ink 
That shall make a million think.

The Burden of Hope

The promise of Fate lands in your sight.
You exult, with eyes shut tight,
Arms stretched out to the sky.
Trying to grasp the future in this present moment

The veil of time binds, yet separates
The present and the anticipated future event
That you ardently await.
And you thought Knowledge always gave you strength?

In the midst of planning your life all over again,              [Some think they can.]
When memories strike, nightmares jolt you;
Where do you exist?
In the past, present, Or the cusp of perpetual pain?