Friday, September 20, 2013

Photographs


Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality...One can't possess reality, one can possess images--one can't possess the present but one can possess the past.
~ Susan Sontag, On Photography 


A woman of not more than fifty, did everything what women used to do
full of drama, vigor and shades, like some character of an epic she was
tales with in tales in her discourse, but calm and composed was her visage
one day a panhandler roamed around, long he roamed and came to her place
after smelling the decorum and grandiose exterior of her well kept space
with parched throat he started asking for water, food and some old regalia
she was a woman of charitable and kind heart, gave food  at that instant
up she moved in the room  less touched, stocked with old materials and stuff
opened one by one the kind of suitcases and trunks that are no longer used
full of old-fashioned robes and garbs, so many still packed and unused
picked few up from a stack of such and gave the man away easily enough
she came back to the room again, a journey to the memory lane began.

Trunks crawling with dust, so much dust, and fragments of time gone by
her heart raced so fast when on bundles of photographs she laid her eyes
one after another and another she emptied them all, decanted all the relics
souvenirs of failures and successes, of puerile naughtiness and tricks
meetings and separations, constructions and deductions brick by brick 
layers and layers of memories uncapped, elated as if a gift she just unwrapped
so old and fragile, some torn monochrome pictures of her mum and dad
she's sitting in the mid, unaware of all that's to come, with  a baby face
girl she grew up with, and the next door boy with whom she always fought
class photographs and the pictures of every prize and gift she won and got
snapshots of gone realities still imprisoned here, reminiscing so profuse
tears were rolling out her eyes, gates of dam just opened, tears on loose.

An envelope was sitting there waiting to be opened by her teary hands
on a little touch, from it fell down an old portrait picture of her husband
one which was sent to her when they were to married, good old ways
the grin on her face, it was to remain on her face through out the day
thinking of times when they used to forget there lives a world around
and then the baby pictures, suddenly she could hear their crying sounds
snippets of times when they first talked, crawled around and walked
whole of her life lying in front of her, in these bits and pieces of papers 
upon closing her eyes she thought of what was she, what became, what now ?
sighed, sighed again, she smiled, of all the choices she ever made, how ?
for every choice, she had a face in mind, a lesson she learned and passed down
for time runs so swift so rapid, its restless pinions witness generations passed.

Her photographs, frozen retentions of all that happened so sudden and fast
happened but forgotten, happened but ignored, happened quick and passed
those times were never erased, all etched deep and preserved with paper and ink
past is worth clinging to, to remind us how far we've come in life and living.

A photograph can be an instant of life captured for eternity that will never cease looking back at you ― Brigitte Bardot

Friday, September 13, 2013

Personal Concerns


What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective?
 ~Joseph Brodsky


You and I are same in so many ways. We are happy but at the same time in a little deplorable state. Have so many wishes yet to be fulfilled and so many concerns of everyday life that eats up almost half of our times. Usually, not always, when I feel low or distracted I write it all down and then tear it away. Purge out all the emotions or feelings on some useless paper, on blog, on Facebook and what not. Yes that does sound little awkward when said out loud but almost everyone I know have his/her own coping mechanisms. Other times I just scare the hell out of people, specially my mum,  and blither out everything right on their faces. This process of writing or speaking out maintains an equipoise and it keeps me from flattening out. But something smutty happens when I do neither..
 
Something keeps bugging me
personal concerns is what people call
bugs I can't put my finger on
it rattles so sharp and render me insane
I scribble them all down, simmering pain
it never actually die, not instantly
as soon as I finished my scribble
roaring flame caged and hog-tied
stinging still bothers me but it subsides

On some random days
I pick some words out
out of my  mind's own word-hoard
and holler them out loud
words sounded much heavier
when  my voice was added to its core
awful clumsiness that fogged me
didn't melt away, vision little clearer
than it was a while before

When I can't write a single word
with so much ink that I hold
sound that I made was so mumbling
and bedimmed, better if I left it untold
even my torrid eyes crashed
all bottled up inside, I acted out rash
actions so reckless, I confess
slipshodness felt so bad, wished
I'd have done something else instead.

Out of all that vexes me
my inaction and indecision
what concerns me more
I have my own ghosts to fight
ghosts that are seen by none
none but me and that's alright
I have my own armada to rely on
as much as I love to look back
I must move ahead and carry on..

Friday, September 6, 2013

I've Just Seen a Face


When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.
― John Green, Paper Towns 

One fine day, an ordinary day it was
expecting nothing more than usual chores
my room bathed with mild sunshine 
sight that I routinely adored
chirping birds and the cool breeze
swinging all around at ease

Daytime is pleasant 
not as much as  mornings are 
I rode out for college
when my watch crossed 12th hour 
I got stuck in a jam , a heavy one
on top of my head a scorching sun 

More misery on the way to tell
honking cars and sweaty smell
it was more like a road to hell
all over the place, people, people
always people making  sorry face
self-inflicting what I call stress

Just ahead of me there was a bike 
in seat of two seated were three
I spotted two eyes peeping right at me 
unsettling it was and I chose  not to pay heed
she looked like some teenage girl  to me
but, by the looks of her she was married 

I turned up my head to look far ahead 
and I saw those eyes scanning me yet again 
ohh she was stuck and I was dazed 
kept staring my bag pack and  bike unfazed
when her eyes met mine, she just shied away
Curious me, am I dressed in some funny way

I checked myself two times 
traffic crawled and frustration so high
struggling men to move ahead in line
I caught her again, yes again
when she was gazing at the tee that I wore
now things were beyond my ignore

I signaled her- is something wrong ?
she again sighed away in response 
I observed her from head to toe
her countenance, man she was with 
donned in a shimmery saree 
her pallid face lacked in glow

I bet she was younger than me 
and I sensed somber in her eyes
she was shouldering something heavy
her discontented face said it all 
somehow, now I knew 
why she was enthralled

For her I was like that fancy painting on a wall
placed at such a height that outgrew her
and she was never so tall.
Guess I was a free bird for her 
though she wasn't hooked or restrained
some handcuffs are never in view, but sensed

I was so close to inquiring about her
she was an enigma to me, that mysterious girl
I came back home and looked up in sky
peeved by her nonplussed look and gaping eyes
for that girl, poor thing,  my heart ached
how she fancied for things she never had 

Sometimes I feel so discontent and distraught 
her suspired face forced in me a second thought.

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
― Henry Miller

Monday, September 2, 2013

An Age of Confusions


"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."
~ Jack Kerouac

Here I stand confused feeling like there's two poles inside my head and like a blind man at cross-road I think that somebody will come up to me and help. But, sometimes there's no one to help and blind man has no option but to tap his stick on the ground to assess and tread.
   


It's so confusing sometimes
unwanted rage, conflicting desires
in this age so prime
what is it that I want ?
what is it that I aspire ?
ohh, these crooked desires..

Ahead, two boulevards for me to take  
picking one is what I dread
do not want an imprint of mistake 
fear failure and it's lash-like taste 
what if ? I doctored one instead
affecting all of what's waiting ahead 

Push and pull hurts me most 
uncalled for reproach and abuse
beginning of the feeling like I lost
dropping dead on some random spot 
what if ? all this is just a ruse 
just to complex the confuse  

They say listen to your heart 
and silence all that ails
sever all that thwarts  
but how would I know 
which train to derail ?
 or which one's  a favorable sail ?

It's so confusing sometimes  
there are no such complications
like confusions of a simple mind.


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