Wrapped In A Dream

The rancid realization clings to life,
that most of it is predefined by things
way beyond its own mere grasp, like the borders
of its origin and inheritance!

  

What can a life do about whence it came?
This life that responds to a certain name,
with certain aspirations held inside
a thick shell of skin with eyes, ears and limbs
and the face of a wanderer was born
with nothing, in nowhere, to oblivion!

   

Could it have settled down accepting the accepted norms?
But it’s way too late to wonder what could have been,
this river in spate has almost run its due course,
let this spent life pass its remaining hours wrapped in a dream!

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O Night, Tender Night

O Night, tender night, I miss the darkness
of your silent hours, when the society
is dead asleep! Introspection that shreds
myself to pieces in search of the light
demands prolonged hours of darkness in solitude!

   

Now I too must surrender to the whims
and wishes of my frail limbs, the pinnacle
of evolution, one step in front of the chimps!

   

Pity for my empty dreams I have through the night
like the rest, of belonging to a higher step
the next day; higher not ahead on a stairway
built on the whispering wind and vague promises
of a better day, at the cost of one’s neighbors’ demise!

    

As the dawn spreads across the horizon,
a darkness grows inside despite the rising sun.
Soon the forged manacle of time with its tick-tocking,
incessant, pushes me over the edge of sanity.

   

And though I know, absolute freedom too is disastrous,
amid so many shining abattoirs
on every walk of life, I am neither cruel
nor fat enough to take either roles, so I pray –
O Night, tender night, I miss growing mad the other way!

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So What: The Prologue of a Dream

So what, if no one is
paying heed to our unequivocal words,
in solitude we have
a chance to listen to the universe!
And trust me I swear, it is
a far more skilled partner in dialogue,
despite what we have been taught
or customs that might have come in vogue
of late, with well patronized galas,
awards and ceremonies,
often so many that
certain ignorance rather tastes like bliss!

But we wage war instead and fight
against the received social norms
to overthrow the tyranny
of tribalism’s established ways!

Yes we know, change too often comes,
riding on the meaninglessness
of shed human blood and too many lives
and revolutions, too often as well,
end up flattened beneath a guillotine.

Still, if we don’t suffer and grow
to be its fearless harbingers,
like a Winter is of the Spring,
the children of Eve and Adam,
cave dwellers for eternity,
will not see what it truly means
to become a human being first.

Until all men become half woman and
all women, half man, we cannot
and nor will we ever relent
from our pursuit of equal rights!
So what, if we are dreaming big,
human dreams ain’t supposed to be like rats’!

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The Illusion of Knowing

Who can guarantee, we are not blind?
All the stars that are dying now, if they are
a billion light years away, their demise
we’d know after a billion years!
Till then, astronomers would map the light
as forlorn poets across the world would pledge
their love with poems, penned through the night!

    

And still you’d say, we are not blind!
Neither deaf, nor numb till we feel or hear
the lights from the act or sounds from the scene!
Still you’d insist that we can know,
despite our existence in a superior dream!

     

Last night’s sweet residue of a tender happiness
though palpably spread across the length of my skin,
with my long history of waking up to find,
the joyful surrender was only a mere dream,
I hope this is not one of those times! If it is,
let me sleep as I don’t want to wake up again!

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In Praise of Love

I have a dream that I will be
on the sandy shore of Carthage one day,
to reimburse the Punic collateral
taken unlawfully by a cruel Mars!

The vast blue oceans that keep me away,
will be my ride when the time comes
but when? I too have often asked myself the same.
When did Hannibal brave the Alpine chill?

I do not think Lord has plucked me
or may be, for I burn nevertheless
to right the wrongs and write some songs
in praise of an all encompassing love!

Love is how the earth lets a seedling grow
or how the clouds empty their vaults
after flying for weeks in the wind’s flow
or how the moon dogs an ever fleeting sun!

Perhaps I shall arrive at the shore of my dream
or perhaps I shall drown and be
another Phlebas for eternity!

But if I reach my home I have found in your eyes,
I shall humbly ask for your hands and say,
I have come my Love, now please make me thine!

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