Yellow Sunshine, Blue Filigree

The sunshine on his neck was like the warmth of her breath. The sun played among the entangled locks of her hair - all gold and bronze and lustrous black,

He took her hand in his.

Tender. Fragile. A lotus stalk.

And ran his fingers over the back of her hand, tracing the pale blue filigree of veins that showed through the paleness of her skin.

Her eyes. Always half-dreamy. Lost somewhere in the dense foliage within herself. She wasn't smiling. Not surprized. Just dreamily waiting for each moment to drag itself into the past.

If only I could look into your past, he whispered. if your palm can hold hidden all the secrets of your future, it seems just logical that I could read your past here. Flowing timelessly through these blue rivers of your memories.

And the present? Her voice distant and dreamy.

The present? That's what we make every moment we live. That fragile line between two certainties. The fingertips of time. The touch of your hand. What we create that spills over the moment next to add to our past. Teardrops and icy glaciers which feed our rivers of memory.

Silent half-parted lips.

Half-dreamy eyes tracing the contours of some cloud.

A blue filigree.

And the warmth of sunshine on his neck.

Silent Mind and the Midday Shade

The words were always there.

Laid out

And arranged

Like the gleaming silver cutlery

On the pressed linen tablespread.

Surgically sterile

Tools to cut,

Slice,

Chop,

Tear,

Stir,

Scoop,

And dish out

Reality in more palatable

Versions of the truth.

They were blunt in their sharpness.

But they were always there.

I never thought of them.

Never repeated them

A hundred-and-twenty-two times

Each day

As I scrubbed myself down with soap.

They were always there,

Dancing,

Even before the thoughts

Remained unthought of.

Like the shadows

Dancing on the tablecloth

As the trees romanced with the midday sun.

As if that shadow play

Had started much before

I was called over for lunch.

Or maybe even before the sun even rose today.

The mist of memories

Fall down as worded raindrops

And spill ink

Into a dictionary of incoherence.

I sat in the shade

Of that redundant romance

And saw a rainbow

Staining the midday sky.

On a Green Meadow on a Misty Afternoon

The clear blue lake spread out in front of him. And beyond them, the distant blue hills paled until they merged and became one with the clouds and the pallid blue afternoon sky. The lake rippled in the breeze and the sunlight sparkled off the lapping waves.

He didnt know why he had to be here. Why now. He simply had that urge to escape. Run away from those thousand and five invisible hounds that all but clipped his heels. He was tired from running away. But it was even more tiresome staying where he was. And now as he left his body loose, stretched out on the bright green grass of that endless meadow, he felt like had left the lot behind, and maybe his body too. A feeling of transcendental bliss.

He sat up. Picked up that pebble lying next to him. This pebble too must have chosen to run away someday, and laid himself down by this lake until he became a fossil of his existence, he thought to himself. He felt its smooth cold texture on his palm, felt the weight of a thousand years that had polished him to compliance. He took a breath and launched the pebble towards the lake.

He wanted to see the pebble skim over the surface. Instead, the pebble plinked down to the bottom of the lake at the first bounce. Its ripples cut a swathe through the tepid waves that lapped the bank.

The anticipation of expectancy. That longing for perfection, of a perfectly smooth pebble skimming over the fragile surface of that dreamy blue lake, endlessly, until it disappeared over the horizon into the mist that shrouded the hills. It was not to be, for the pebble wished otherwise. It was an outcast like himself.

The frustration of a thousand shackling dreams, the bewildering anticipation of a thousand hopeful fingers that tore their way through the ground, pointing him the path they wanted him to take. And groping for his feet while he tried to trample over them. The thousand blades of grass all around all pointed skywards, that pinnacle of perfection.

His eyes were rooted far away in the distance. Across the lake where he had willed the pebble to go. Do the blades of grass point skywards there too?! Or may perhaps someone might send the stone skimming back from the far bank, through that veil of mist?

At the bottom of the lake, the fossil finally found solace among many more of its sort who didnt make it to the other bank.

Allegropolis. Episode Two. The Wholly Trinity.

I wait. Stretching myself out on one of the long wood and cast iron park benches. The bench is cold. No one usually sits and waits. Waiting is in the temporal. The past. No pauses for the future any longer. The wooden backrest bites into my back. Cold venomous reality. The electric trains are cold embodiments of ruthless efficiency. Silent as a cocked gun waiting to explode. But all i hear is an implosion of silence. The muted conundrum of bustling voices do not count. I throw my head back, and watch the sunshine pierce in like coloured spears of joy through the stained glass ceiling. City of Joy indeed.

I wonder. Had we all forgotten what joy means? Maybe it meant the same all along. Is joy satisfaction, being content with who or what you are, what you have? Life without the complaint box and the "Articles once bought need not be returned/exchanged" tag. Or does it mean anything further... is it that long forgotten sense of euphoria, that half-drugged break from reality when the stained glass ceiling seems all so brighter and soaked deeper and thicker in colour than it actually is? But then, can the ceiling get any more brighter. Its already washed in the mid-morning sunshine. Can joy actually exist in the City of Joy, where things cant get any better?!

Forgive. Forsake. Forget.

The Wholly Trinity.

The three incinerating truths etched on the scratch-proof grazed steel walls of every alley, penthouse and ghetto in Allegropolis.

Forgive for you wish to be forgotten.

Forsake 'cause thyself is all that is real.

Forget... well... forget 'cause the past never exists, nor existed.

We are all unfettered creatures soaking in the warm sunshine and strained colours of unalleviating joy, caught in a limbo of satisfied imperfection. Here lies the precursor to perfection, taking pride in being what you are. Perfect becomes what you are. And it cant cant get better than this.

The park bench is warm now. I lift myself up. My face is stained in myriad of streaming colours as i smile. Allegropolis, there is something about the city that makes me smile. And i am the last cynic left in the world.

Soft

I walked through the rubble
And pick up a feather.
Light, soft, fragile -
An instrument of flight dropped.
It seems misplaced.
Lying gingerly, half-willingly,
Waiting to float away
With the slightest of persuasion,
While all around it
My world lies in static destruction.
The feather is too white
In the middle of the grey
As the sun shines down on it
Painfully.
I ma standing on
Crumbled walls,
Reinforced concrete blown to powder
By explosions whiter than the sun,
Charred bricks,
Splintered window frames,
Bent girders, Twisted ambitions,
Broken dreams.
I stand atop vanity
And vainly, I hold
The vane and ponder:
How the feather stayed so light
Unburdened by longings
And desires.
How it stayed so soft
When it had been dropped behind
So ignobly, so ungratefully.
How it stayed so fragile
When around it
Metal and stone blew as dust.
Dust.
But the feather is
Lying on its back.
No dust blows into its eyes.
Its eyes are turned up,
And all it sees
Is a clear blue sky
Caressed by smooth white clouds.

One for the sake of it...

Yeah.. My blogs going dead. And i cant let that happen. So heres one for the sake of it. An adrenaline shot straight to the heart. Come outta the OD, you bluddy junkie!!

So what do i tell you now??

Overcast skies.

The Earth closes its eyes.

Refuses to see.

The warmth.

Its cold.

My fingernails pain.

Tap my foot.

Rhythm goes wrong.

Its cold.

Subcutaneous sweat.

AIR RAID AIR RAID!!

Silence.

Painful.

Wasn't so.

Tries to speak.

Whimper.

Plead.

I hear my own voice in the silence.

No reply.

All lines are busy. Please call again later.

Click.

The Sun still shines.

Stupid Sun.

Wise Sun.

Wait, says the Sun,

Wait for the wind.

Crazy Diamond

Thats the name of the yellow kite that hangs gaudily from the wall in my hostel room. Nice and yellow and warm and happy. It smiles at me everyday, makes me warm. I hung it there for that very reason.

Why I left my footsteps on the sand....

The footsteps still remain. Though no one cared to ask why they do. Why they were left there in the first place. Ontology... such a nice brutish sounding word... The science of existence. Lemme explain.
The footprints remain 'cause there is no wind to blow it away and cover it with fine silt.
They remain 'cause there are not many who care to walk barefoot and walk on sand, and wipe away mine.
I left my footprints 'cause i forgot to take them away with me, and they were too innocent, unlike memories, to cling onto me.
My footprints exist 'cause i pressed my existence upon this earth, and the sand wielded.
My footprints remain 'cause i wish to be remembered, though not for the person that i am, but for the mere fact that i did walk and leave it there.
My footprints remain because, at times, flesh is tougher than million fragmented crystals of silica that bend down in supplication; 'cause sand worships life.
And i left my footprints 'cause i hoped, someday someone could place theirs in mine and walk to the same far horizon that swallowed up my lonely figure.
They remain... waiting... and remembering...

Words on a String

This might as well have been the title of my blog. Some randomness tied together with the flagrant hope of bringing out some amount of cohesion and comprehension. Trying to make sense out of this petty madness we all live and call life. Funky shite, i tell you...
So here goes my first post!! Major achievement, if you ask me... And this one's all about why i love living through this madness. Why i love trying to make sense and failing time and again and yet hopefully going for another try.
I love life because its beautiful. Its got that poignant beauty of thinks that wont last for long, like snowflakes and mayflies... Things that melt away or disappear, like a whiff of fancy.
I love life because we alone can live ours. How much ever people try to take it away from us, we can still hold it within our little hands and hold it out to the sun. Warm it up a bit. Or hide it in our mitts when it gets cold and wintry.
I love life, most of all, because every moment in it is unique. Every moment you live belongs to yourself 'cause you gave birth to it. And it would certainly not have existed without you, or outside of you. Life and all its moments stay with you and within you. Prolly its the only thing that very truly belongs to you.
I love life because i can still feel, touch, hear, taste, see and live all that is around me.
I love life 'cause i can smile, laugh, cry, hide my tears, and whisper my fears.
I love life because it hold a promise. A promise you can work out by yourself. I love life 'cause it has a past, a present and a future.
I love life because i try time and again to make sense outta it and never succeed.
So every once in a while, lean back. Take in a breath of air. Breathe in... Breathe out... Lick your lips and taste the air... Its a beautiful world, and every inch and every moment of it belongs to you...
The Semi-Charmed kind of Life we lead... Its funny... It sad... Its happy... Its mad... and above all its always worth living and loving...