Awakened

 

As this long day comes to an end,

I lay back on my go-to chair,

A glass of whiskey in one hand,

From the other, a cigarette sublimes into the air.

 

I am drawn back to a time in the recent past,

Where I am submerged in water,

In a moment of oneness-

A moment- where nothing else could matter.

 

My cognizable life flashes through,

A clarity on my righteousness takes over.

Life was easier stone cold;

How for the sake of some, I turned sober.

 

But this absolute stillness,

Rekindles my deep buried alter ego.

My detractors should beware,

Your existence is set for a hard blow.

 

The Sun itself, has tried burning me,

The waves tried putting me down,

But do you see? I sit here, God-like,

Unperturbed! No qualms, no frown.

 

I hope you too find strength,

In the gods chosen by you,

I don’t care if tough times last long enough,

Just know that tough Gods do.

 

 

 

 

 

Age

 

Reverting back to our youthful days,

The mind tries to find comfort.

So as we age further,

We often become more of an introvert.

 

What, after all, does the present offer?

The future- evident in people of all ages.

And so, we preserve our glory days,

In neurons; in photographs; on pages.

 

Ageing is a difficult task,

Too many strings get attached.

Should life really be so? No.

Duties and rewards must match.

 

But rewards become too few,

And too scarce, as years pass by.

As life slowly, but surely, sucks out,

Thrills that keep us really alive.

 

Love is what excites me the most,

Love- Sincere, fierce and forever.

Protected from the world,

Preserved deep in the heart somewhere.

And may be in unsuspecting sights,

And the words we speak or write.

Emanating not from lust or desire,  

But from hope- the hope of a lifetime.

.

Fellas, remember! Evenings, over the years,

Will always touch upon hope.

And hope- we must always celebrate,

With some alcohol; and maybe some smoke.

 

Cheers\m/

Beating the odds

 

Dear world, do not judge me,

For being a non-conformist.

With egos so fragile, I know,

“We” must no longer exist.

 

But often, what we have done,

Is superseded by who we have been.

Holds immense possibilities,

The future, not yet seen.

 

Who does the killer punch land on?

Only someone dearly loved.

It’s time we hold back our shots,

This is not what they deserved.

 

We all need a way to come back,

To the home picked by our hearts,

To soak some pristine love,

After, at the end of the day,

We have played our parts.

 

What sense does it make,

To portray ourselves as strangers then?

Why force the eyes to look away,

Is either of us a heathen?

 

The next time we come across,

I promise, I will rectufy the trends.

You, my long lost friend,

Will see long due amends.

Silent February

 

Words don’t sound anymore here,

Silence breeds from a distance.

Do people feel it in the air?

The stillness-

Of a magnanimous turbulence.

 

Sights can console hearts,

But the deafening silence will still choke,

These people must now seek,

New lands and make them home.

 

But if darkness does take over,

And the nights refuse to pass,

They may only wish,

They remember voices en-masse.

Water, Wishes and Wisdom

 

You were,

The physical embodiment of life,

Flowing without any qualms,

Some patches dark, some bright.

 

Life glides, like your flow,

In waves, with its ripples.

Depositing some slack-

Washing away some,

Bringing some back.

 

Like you, we create some things good,

Nourish them, savour them,

But bound as we are,

Moving forward, abandon – sometimes destroy them.

 

But like that floating ball,

That, now and then, kept kissing my knees,

All that has been created consciously,

Will be around- as memories.

 

Maybe Bruce was right,

When he asked us to be like water.

But what about the volcanoes amongst us?

Can defining characteristics be altered?

 

Irrespective of everything, I must confess,

This tryst added to my being.

I left behind a bit of me with you,

One sided- couldn’t be this fling.

 

What comes next, I care a damn.

For I know, what comes will go,

And then return, in pieces too small,

And then I know, these ruins,

Will be a part of it all.

 

I assume, we do not live in isolate phases,

Each phase makes us whole.

We need to accommodate characters,

Living or dead, as demands the role.  

 

Paris

One fine evening in Frankfurt,

I sat by the one and only Rhine,

Mesmerized, overwhelmed;

A moment inexplicably divine.

 

The gods were kind,

Sending showers of love;

While the crowd rushed indoors,

I took stand, like the one true God  from above.

While sipping wine by the Rhine,

Would have been poetic,

Chugging beer, I stayed true,

To my label trend-agnostic.

 

I know the Rhine embraced me,

Not as a guest, but as a lover,

It is not often that her magnitude,

Witnesses such pious grandeur.

 

But as we said goodbye,

She almost forced me to sail to Paris,

But she finally understood ,

Paris has been promised to someone else.

The one

 

Blessed indeed are pairs,

Who find and live their love.

But love is a tale of solemn defiance,

You choose from “one of the above”.

 

Tonight I choose you,

Over everyone else,

Irrespective of their standing or claim,

Be that in thought or in flesh.

 

When I take you over, 

Your own wishes matter little, 

All the adventures here and there, 

Matter no more, in a life so brittle.