Catharsis

Audience is there inside the play

It is also there outside,

When Hamlet was cutting it out

With eyes on the gauging mother arrested from a side.

When sets don’t match,

A lookout screams for a third,

To catch the clue, and perhaps also understand

Need is to listen to the mess in the herd,

With a mind aligned, without a stand.

Amidst what is it to pound and what it is to hiss,

The flow of fear is far from near trapped to loosen catharsis.

In the gloom scattered in the room

Stage is done with pride.

Audience is there inside the play like an unwanted groom

Eating it all, with eyes outside.

stance

In the world outside, change is in the air

In the world inside, it’s the constant affair.

It's little strange

I don’t need to change;

in my garden, the same old tree

was there before my birth, will be still after me;

the same food, the same place,

same friends, the same dress;

if I remain the same,

I like who’re unlike me,

there’s nothing wrong, no shame

if I just let me be.
Like days and nights, fruits of the season I eat
Do not but repeat.

In the world outside, change is in the air

In the world inside, it’s the constant affair.

The instrument

The cream of crime

is when it doesn’t rhyme

The beauty of bliss

is when it is amiss
thinking of that or this

and sleeps, wakes up out of time!

They are so everything, in everything

Rhythm that comes from reading

Tune from the heart

words can merely part

from the most outstanding art…

For it is they we see, recite and sing!

nameless

When everything’s in fire,

unstable in the wind of ire,

it comes out of me.

When everything’s cool,

there’s a yearning owl,

It returns to me.

I see it, hold it all the time

it can sing, it can rhyme,

with the whole of me, I taste

find a place for it to nest,

it’s not for sale or hire,

There’s for it in it a desire.

trail

From the moving train a pair of eyes,

Saw a white trail running away;

From the middle of an unkempt meadow,

The grey trying to free away, from the heavy head.

Holes in the nose smell of cow dung,

Ears are full of sounds of wheels.

Body shakes and the mind flies,

It goes outside to find a way;

Clouds fall as snow as though,  

Cotton drops with words unread.

Moving to act, unseen unsung,

All at ease when it heals.

Where to build the surest den

Speakers in crowd shouting aloud;

It stops a little so we can plan,

Strangers around to comfort me,

Concealed thrills for times it went,

Of what it thought and what it meant.

Nothing’s known as I can see;

Nowhere to go, nothing to span.

My train’s name has made me proud,

Of a trail that fell on the grass again.

support

I wake up this morning to find me hanging in the sky. It has come down and the earth has gone up, now unreachable! It's hanging like the sky used to! It is so far, far away. It seems we had taken out so much from the earth that it had become too light to support human beings. All other living beings have moved up…heard later from one of my friends that she was crying while dropping us off.

Now that we are in the sky, we should be happy. Ah no! Far from it. We can’t walk, because we don’t know how to sailwalk, sailsleep, saileat and sailive, we don’t know how to make cloudcloth, cloudhouse, and cloudbed, and have cloudcrop. There is a lot of learning that needs to be done. New words are coming in, but we are still struggling hard to keep upto the tenses without a ground. We can’t sit, sleep, eat without the feeling of falling off. And guess what...we can’t even do that…simply because of lack of support...we need some support for heaven’s sake…either a wall, or a sofa, or a bed, or the kitchen island, or a ground…here there’s nothing to support, and we are perpetually falling off. Who could have ever imagined that living in the sky could be so painful.

However, the most difficult thing we are facing here is that we are unable to make boundaries. Some intelligent people have even made cloudguns. The easily offendables have not forgotten who offended who, but we can't demarcate them out, keep the likes in, and the unlikes out. How to do that without an out is the question! There is no out! The cloudpoles are of no use because they are just not staying in one place, and we learn that under the sky we have more of sky. We have other serious issues to think of, like what to do when there’s thunder, or lightening, or when there are no cloudcrops…but making boundaries seems to be more important for us at the moment.

It is not the law of gravitation, it is the support we are missing here. We look up with frustration. Those green meadows, rocky mountains, tireless rivers, and the blue blue seas and oceans had supported us all through the years to help us make boundaries, dams, walls, and even procreate. The sky for heavens doesn't support.

Homeland

Seated by the window of a plane… waiting to take off. 

Ground reality is my homeland. My house I can’t see, but I know it’s there somewhere.  Everything I can see is so real. Looking up. Clouds are adding on to the weight of the sky. The plane is preparing to take us there. It takes off. In some moments, through our stone deaf ears, my eyes realise we are up in the sky. Looking down. Can’t make out which is a hut and which a sky rise. All are dots now. The clouds are real. They have started melting onto the earth now. It has become lighter, clearer, cleaner, brighter. It is space. Is there conflict here? Well, earth is also space, and so is the space between the earth and the sky. We have one sky, one earth. The plane is moving I know, but I can’t feel it. Not at all. Just as I don’t realise when the earth moves. It appears as not real. That which is flat is round, and that which is still is moving, and space which is thick with things is also space. So what is real? Is the conflict I see real? Is the killing I see real? The sky which was not real from the ground, and the ground which does not seem real from the sky! Both are real or nothing is? So is it the distance that’s causing the shift from the real into something it is not? So will the conflict seem unreal with distance I wonder. It’s worth making the effort then.

The plane landed. People speak, eat, dress, and even think differently. The language I use in my land is not real here. Nothing is real and constant. I see conflict here too. What causes this conflict in a place where nothing is real. I am away from my home, away from my food, away from my familiar smell. But I see conflict here too just as I see in the land where my home is. I feel at peace here. Nobody understands what I speak, so I am in conflict with none. I find this strange when people here want to know about my land and go there. They say they are tired of conflicts, and that people are bad there. Strange, because I have seen people saying the same thing in my land too!

Like this I move from land to land. And everywhere I find that people are tired of conflicts, of their own people, and they want to travel to be at peace with themselves. So it is the distance may be! Not sure, there is a may be. Or is it the way of looking at your people as if they are not yours, to be able to imagine that you don’t belong to the land where your home is makes all the difference.

I am on the plane again. I am in the sky. I am seated in an aisle now. This is my home… this space is my home. I have imagined similar roads, tea shops where I drink tea with friends in the sky. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there somewhere.

My plane has arrived in my homeland now… can’t wait to reach home. I see me telling myself that this is not my home...it is elsewhere, in a space where there is infinite peace. With this I reach my homeland and I see my people running into me to say hello.

O Kalidasa

O Kalidasa, the king of metaphor!

We are still doing what you did years before

How could you finally transform

If you share with us, so we can also reform.

The transformed ‘you’ is respected by us, though

The fool ‘you’ is followed through and through

And it is not confined to our land alone

All over the world it is on the throne.

People are fighting everywhere in the world,

Mountains and rivers are not saying a word.

Issue is our cause, and cause is our issue

All are right, correct, even the wrong seems true.

The branch you sat on is the one whole tree

We live in one space we so disagree.

Nothing seems good enough to have any effect,

Tell us how like you, we could resurrect.

You fell off just once and to you came the sense!

We’re failing all the time yet no intelligence?

Tell us how this cutting will be away from the whole,

Peace to be the password, the only clever parole.


Note:
The poem stands on the story of Kalidasa. The legend says that Kalidasa, one of the greatest poets that ever lived in Indian soil, was a fool cutting the branch of a tree he was sitting on with an ax. When he fell on the ground, Saraswati, the Goddess of learning, came to his rescue and gave him a boon,, which eventually resurrected him into a poet with an outstanding talent. However, there are many versions of this story. Later, he came to be known as the master of roopak (metaphor) and had authored brilliant novels including Meghadootam, Shakuntalam.

yeux anciens

Je suis libre.

Je n‘attends rien du tout.

L’approbation c’est un déséquilibre,

Un atout qui dévorait de partout.

Je suis disponsable,

Mais disponible dans les situations qui m’entourent,

Entre le mal et le bien ma sébile

Est présente dans son alentour.

Je ne cherche point des amis, ni ennemis,

Ni des retrouvailles, ni bonheurs,

Ni un mot juste qui fait chanter mon corps,

Ni des chaleurs, ni mesquineries.

Plus le monde se divise,

Plus que j’unirai;

Plus le monde s’étend dans sa valise,

Je prétends le tout admirer.

Je suis ici dans la balle

Je m’amuse dans ma petite île

Avec des gens, suis-je noyé dans le bien et mal

Sais pas si c’est agité ou tranquille.

Liberté, c’est la liberté de tout pouvoir,

Trop leger pour censer la misère ou la gloire,

La guerre, guerre, guerre dans ce monde civilisé,

La seule réalisation, c’est quand elle sera du passé.

Des personnes dans ce monde 

Sont tous des êtres humains,

La terre n'est qu'une petite ronde,

Le regard neuf dans les yeux anciens.

Prisoners

For ages they are in prisons,

Chained with flowers, candle sticks,

We worship them inside lifeless bricks,

For days and nights, months and seasons.

They are so high above the ground,

We can’t reach them when the world makes a sound,

It’s time to do things anew,

We just need to free ourselves, walk a step or two.

They’d now like to be free,

Be with us, think and play,

Work in us in every minute of the day,

We need to let them do this you see.

How strange is the mind,

Those who empower us to be wealthy and kind,

To keep them so far from the land,

Not to bring them down;
and let them be with the earth and the sand?

Let us now keep the destroyers and killers there,

It's hard on the mind;
But let's worship them with love, respect and care,

We’d never apply them in our lives again,

Like we never did those prisoners’ prayer.

I am responsible

I am responsible for the wars around me

For inside there’s horror that I get to see

With all my love I will kill those wars

Until the time I clear my scars

I have wars battling inside me

Will heal them all let the world to be

I am responsible for Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanisthan

I am responsible for Kashmir and Pakistan

I am responsible for the world in this state

I love to fight and I love to hate

I have wars battling inside me

Will heal them all let the world to be

I am responsible for Uttarakhand

Responsible for the exploitation that’s running there

Will not blame those who are doing this mess

For I also do the same to people in stress

I have wars battling inside me

Will heal them all let the world to be

I look at the world lying inside

It’s full with pain, anger, jealousy, hatred and greed

I promise I’ll clean without fear and pride

Wars will be gone with all its need



Inspired by many spiritual leaders

scarcity

Two-third is water.

It is full of vibration.

Everywhere flows light, air is free,

Endless lands to plough.

True is false and false is true
Facts attack with figures not so new

Water is scarce,

Light is still not for all,

The earth we say is incapable

Of producing good enough food without fertilizers!

True is false and false is true
Facts attack with figures not so new

There are no lines, no range,

What differs is the weather so strange,

In the foolproof whole where we stay

Is unsafe still without borders, like yesterday.

True is false and false is true
Facts attack with figures not so new

How prosaic is the Intelligent mind?

That mistrusts all, so not to find

In the round, a ground for us to rock and roll?

Has flattened with the hammer for a hole!

Scarce we’d like to show and see

Has become our lone destiny!

True is false and false is true
Facts attack with figures not so new

We want us all in the game.

Be a bit of a fool to see.

Scarcity is nowhere in the frame.
The mind clicks and we set it free.

All or none

For as long as we have lived so far,

There has been no dearth of anger and war.

Strategies chalked out has the intelligent mind,

To outwit the enemies of any kind.

Now for the years we are here to live,

Come up with a strategy for peace for a change;

War has been so clever and alive,

Peace would seem a little strange.

We spent gallons of oil and kilos of gold,

We let it win and become so bold;

Let’s spend some time to think of peace,

Let’s see how clever we can be on this.

Let’s not blame the days now gone,

Of sadness and hatred that were reborn,

Boring it was, now play a different game,

To see that war is but a little name.

In the borders where people fear

Standing with arms aiming at the sky

Doves be there from close and near

We’d hear them clap see them fly