THE AWAKENING RAIN

Those icy trinkets in the dark

   Here they come to cleave me

       Of my earthly presence!

 Those bolts of lightning

     Like a silvery snake

         Seek to assuage my cloven destiny!

And it is against this ashen pale

     Horizon that one falls into gloom

         Over that sob spot of my absence.

 It’s that lightning then, or

     Rather the raindrops still

          That swarms into a silent mutiny.

 For they seek revolt, not

      Seek liberty in their effort

           To be of use to mankind’s whims.

But, hey, how have we used them-

       Lowering ourselves in their midst

            To arrest their brutal retort and soundless screams!

A POLEMICAL DIGRESSION (On regrets and wasted time)

Wasted conscience- without a modicum

Of prevarication lying rotten

In the doldrums of a silent

But maddening caricature.

With the deadening leaves that shed

Twilight upon a field cast aside by

The glowering stars of midnight.

The sight loses itself for want

Of a kindred spirit and the rebel

Inside one wakes as if in an

Aftermath of internal counsel-

In the utter ignonimity

Of its private absurdity.

Nonchalant, - he reigns supreme- that

Sole abdicator of his own happiness;

And he relinquishes every desire

In one pursuit of an ephemeral strangeness.

It was his bold will that led him on,

And on and on he went, until

He came across the sneer of the commonplace

That restored him without any dying trace

Of the spirit of self-discovery that had seized

Him, and often had led him to dire straits.

That was the infernal hegemony of words,

And the paradigm and rhetoric of spoken speech

In the nifty odour of syntactical calisthenics

That had seized him then, and in his vanity

He had sped away like a million dollar merchant

Blindly egging himself on to speak like a talking tree

Rooted in the egos of a linguistic corpus.

The halt came in its trail leading with it

A plentitude of regrets, and of mislaid pathos

Grumbling in that agony of remonstrance

And wounded egos, and indeed that was

The fount of creative freedom that had

Lain dormant, indeed, in the lair

Of that damned individual

Reeking and rotting in self-doubt,

And self-discovery of the form and

Nuances in the rhyme of his own panegyric.

HEARTBREAK CANDY

Heartbreak sonata, heartbreaking rhyme

In the midst of a maze of unlit streets;

The head whirls in mute amazement

At the wonders of that fleeting moment.

She was there for one moment as she

Had always been, casting that sidelong glance

In wide apprehension at my insecure tidings

Of self-approbation and extravagance.

There was something that intrigues me

Now, as then, when she opened her eyes

With that selfsame gesture of silent report

As if from some inner sorrow she needed

But to complain of in mute bonding and dread.

A moment later she left me brooding

At the crossroads of mortification and self-doubt;

And as to the penurious existence which

I now led there were prospects ill to contemplate

For they are but gloomy specters tough to disintegrate.

                      But there would be time yet for remedy.

Sitting then tied to my writing desk I figure out

Clandestinely, with my powers to the hilt,                                             

Of the one note of discord that had arose

And transfixed both us in a spirit of rancor;

Then there was the sadistic appeal (or chime?),

Or even the cursory signal of a godforsaken whine.

For it lit my place, and submerged it in an aura

Of provincial carousal, anticipating almost the arousal

Sudden, of my musical buds sentenced to sulk

For a temporary period of hopeless fear.

 It was time for heartbreak candy

                   But there would be time yet for remedy.

The notes tripped and fell, as did the chimes

Of some wanton choir boy seeking to outdo

The vain antics of a fellow comrade in qualms

Of deepest longing for the sweetheart they both do.

Along with it did my destiny that had, a moment ago

Been tied and betrothed to the curly strands on her

Shoulders, in an agony of self betrayal lying against

Her milky white breasts, curled in infinite tether.

For the moment next there was this feeling, abysmal

In the situation pertinent to my betrayal

Of her confidence and love- a feeling so sublime

At one moment, while being at others so mundane.

And when our lips met at moment of infinite solace

It carried forth in succession to my time of penance

That had been lying wistfully, in some desolate corner

Of my aching heart, like the sacred haunt of a desecrated mourner.

That shade of auburn in a glimpse so serene, did I see it

Then as some unthinkable chasm between me and

My love, seeking to engulf me in the affection of another

Far too winsome and tempting to resist.

But here in this moment of heartache

                       There would be time yet for remedy.

SELF-INDUCED PSYCHOSIS

There will come soft rains, one day

When the traces of our forefathers

Leave us behind soaked in its glories.

Now in these days of the locusts

And mechanical automatons the chimes

Of their stories find place in manifold ways;

While the chill of a November gust

Curves up my legs in the anguish of

My daily living and the tattle tale rhyme

Of mockery and untold devices must

Unfold before the eyes of a nonchalant being.

I am the silent sufferer, it is me

That chose to digress further to those unworldly

Voices, bringing with it a tide of dubious meanings.

It was self-doubt in a way that chose

To degrade me and question my means of living;

But of a sanguine evening when all was quiet

I found that the road to self-discovery

Was more apathy than self-annihilation,

While the rest was being alive and making merry.

I wait for that day when the droplets

Of sanguine memory seek to engulf me,

Berating me for my lost conscience

And to carry along in their vein

This untenable story of psychosis and me.