Like a cloud
Poetry
Rains compassion and joy subtle
appeals to mind and soul glocal.
A poem stirs
or slips and dies like a baby
in the bore well of silence.
***
The memory of a lay man dead
Momentary like
An eagle’s flight over Dolphin’s nose .
The art of Dostoyevsky churns your heart
Kafka’s novels show mysterious officialdom
And common man’s trials
Neruda’s commitment lifts your spirit
True art touches you
Across time and space
like letters on a stone tablet
etched on the mind of unknown reader.
etched on the mind of unknown reader.
***
Now wars are real, not cold
Violence spoiled the souls young and old.
Apathy covers the earth
Like a total soar eclipse
Beasts and birds puzzled at brutality,
Wars , injustice perpetrated by humanity.
The eye of the hungry super power
Hunts for territory and technology
Small nations are its ‘punching bags’
To hit and knockout rival nations.
“Lofty ideals” invoke the hatred of the hell
It sees nuclear power as its sole right
Death wish mushrooms over Hiroshimas!
***
Many reasons for violence
Like motor bikes on city roads
Running at breakneck speed
Peace frightened like poor pedestrians
The sane voice of Sen for health and education
Drowned in deafening cries of narrow identities.
***
In this age of rat race
What is there to write about?
Broken hopes, hopeful breaks,
Lost memories, memorable losses
Wild promises, mild performances
Goalless efforts, effortless goals
Mental conflicts and conflicting minds
Malnourished bodies and cynical souls
History erased, humanity eroded
Tales concealed, truths revealed
In this age of rat race
what is there to write about?
***
If you want to write, do it now
“Ideal” conditions are a pie in the sky
Remember Michael Phelps
Go on swimming in stories ceaselessly
When strife was there, you were restless
When peace reigns, You are complacent
Writing is as essential as eating and mating
Live in the present
Forget the regrets futile past and future?
Is it vital to grasp the past
Either your own or that of your country?
A lover of history turns skeptic
As questions change in the course of time
***
Consumerism gobbled up the globe
She sells sea shells on the seashore
He sells samosas in the shopping malls
“Market is an evil” sermonized some
who lived and died under its regime
Market fundamentalists marveled at Marxists
Despite revolutions halted.
A hungry dog in a remote corner
A poor soul in need of job
A passionate heart in search of justice
Would still swear by Marxism .
Don’t we need bread as well as freedom?
Don’t we need quality and equality?
***
Need the servants of Mammon
Migrate to the moon to cause cosmic pollution?
Can we sustain this earth?
Can we regain our mirth?
In our penchant for the projects
What about the tribals of Papi hills?
the evacuees of Narmada Dam?
Have we become deaf to their cries?
Have we poured Lead into our ears?
***
We turned like Narakasura or Antaeus
Who died alienated from the mother earth
Causing global warming continuous.
The rich countries better share their wealth
Not their enmity towards nature
Better to wage peace but not war
And stop blaming one another
to face the posterity with moral authority
Lest we jumped over the cliff
And die Like Gadarene’s swine.
***
The rebellious we thought Shakespeare was not for people
Not dwelling on why Marx read him time and again
the initial difficulties disappeared
After Shakespearean language became familiar
He touched the strings of harp of human heart
We also thought why should not he be called “Kalidasa of England
Antony’s oration, Othello’s fall due to the green-eyed monster
Hamlet’s dilemma and Macbeth’s ambition
Are memorable tales of the bard of Avon .
Converted by dialectical materialism
We showed contempt towards ‘bourgeois’ artists
Art was an indulgence, politics was human essence
forgetting that the artist influences subtly but deeply
As memories are clouded
The “heroic” deeds of the past seem quixotic
Commitment seems distraction
Social Concern seems paucity of career consciousness
But no need to whip oneself
Quixotic acts were testing of one’s limitations
Concern for change was the sign of the ideal youth
Age brings understanding
That change one must
Before demanding it in others
Deep changes take decades
Let people learn through the school of suffering
***
Freedom and Equality are Siamese twins
People hunger for bread as well as freedom
They prefer love, life and soul to materialistic comforts
Poverty challenges humanity
Technology must serve the people
Terrorism needs to understand its folly
State terror must cease its assault on democracy
Country must learn discipline and the value of time and cleanliness
***
As a youth
I felt volcanic emotions
Frustration born of dire poverty
Caused ennui, anger , a rebellion of mind
I spurned academics and ate all kinds of books
I roamed pasting posters, waging struggles, collecting funds
All those ‘significant’ acts now appear naive
A few years passed energetically
Asthma made me writhe in spasms of pain many days and nights
I began thinking, “Who will cry when I die”?
Rest made me think of an alternative path
Turned me into a journalist for a while
Soon my zeal turned into restlessness
I felt that there was much to read and do
The lonely and long nights spent on the terrace
Increased my agony
I took French leave
And later resigned the job
Then passed one and half year of anxious period
My attempts to restore law or journalism failed
After a painful gap I rejoined another university
That helped me regain my academic interests
Reading a book is a fashion old
The joy of meeting an intellect bold
has become as rare as sparrow
utility alone justifies it now.
An English teacher in an age prosaic
A Beethoven amidst noisy bees
Caught in love- duty contradiction
Of Robert Frost or novelist Narain.
Think and act creatively
Know that interpretation makes
or mars an experience
Science Fiction and Technology show future
Values were not just ingrained in the past
They are for now as well as for tomorrow
* **
Some times I wonder
Can one decide one’s time and context?
Plunge into the pacific depths
To fish out ideas submerged
To turn them into pinpricks
To rouse the minds numb
Give up your illusion of greatness
As a squirrel that builds its nest in patience
Give into goddess of art in practice
Know that values are pearls perennial .
***
The blade of grass that swings to air is a dancer
The wayside forest fire that arrests your feet is a painter
The cloud- capped hills capture your heart
The twittering of birds ask the night to part
The smiling flowers on grass in dew drops holy on the morn
The dogs which bear their pain in isolation
Teach you the art of life and faith core of your spirit
Art also lies in the routine not just in acts calamitous.
***
Who moved your cheese?
Is it changed times or outworn ideals?
Why reluctance to leave the melting ground ?
My mind enjoys the zone of comfort
Has the joy of learning has yielded to
the drudgery of earning?
***
Years slipped
In tuning to harmonious notes
Like polar bears which failed
in search of ground on melting snow .
No need to praise dark sky of hate
Since love appears rarely like Halley’s comet !
Tolstoy tells
War vicious and peace precious
shattered with a shot are dreams victorious
The soldier wounded on the battlefield
staring at the azure knows
War means Mutually Assured Destruction.
***
Outside the market
Human feels worthless
Do other creatures
Measure their worth in rupees?
A Mahatma Gandhi or a Mother Theresa
Come and teach love and peace to us!
An Ambedkar or A Martin Luther King Junior
Come and teach how to fight for fairness
We need trail blazers not once in a blue moon
But often
Since we acquired immuno- deficiency
to memory historical and integrity intellectual.
***
When human acts like a super human
He may turn into a hunted animal like Saddam
When super power shuns superior reason
When people submit to savagery
When they lose the respect for life
Civilization and barbarianism are synonyms
Should India become a super power like uncle Sam
in enslaving the hapless nations?
It should show super spirit of peace and nonviolence
Nuclear nightmare is no substitute to the sweet dream of life
***
The villages are freezing
The cities are bursting at seams
Jobs are white crows
Will kalam’s vision be (ethe)real?
Cars are plenty, buses less
Monster is Metropolis
Highways are gateways to heaven or hell
Cars plenty, buses less
Rice scarce, vice copious
Jobs rare as white crows.
Why should boys and girls of tender age
Jump from terrace to court death
In the name of education myth?
Do we need cut-throat competition ?
***
Why should a small girl
Jump from the terrace
For the sake of education
That promises rosy job?
Why stress, distress and depression
In the name of corporate education?
No other creature dies
For want of well-to-do life
Is it the privilege of corporate creature?
***
Our attitudes earthworms
Our aspirations eagles
Our culture for risk less
But sooner or latter
The youngistan can revive the nation
The youth can bring smiles of prosperity
on the face of our country
Time and Synergy are theirs
They can rewrite our priorities
They can fortify the weak social fiber
They are heroes of the present
who need encouragement
***
Love for life will win
Desire for death will bow its head
The spirit of man will and shall rise
The earth and the compassionate universe would outlive
The foolish man who plays God and
The Scientists must show restraint
and investigate into the death of compassion
***
Conditions draw our boundaries
Your life energy flows in bounds
You feel freedom only in thoughts
The irrationality of life stares at you
A budding technologist becomes a victim
To a mysterious force in the land of promise
Violence explodes in markets hotels houses
What is the meaning of life?
What is the meaning of my life?
***
Breathe till you live
work till you rest
Live your life but not your job
the notorious history eats one and all
who miss the meaning of experience
crisis means an opportunity / calamity
Be a wave in the sea of happiness
And cease to see duality between life and you
A wave that breaks away from the sea
batters its head on a boulder
***
Nature and you are inseparable
A wave divided from the sea
batters its head on a rock.
Drive Bhasmasura from your being
The divine element lives in man and creature tiny
Never send a missile against your inner sky.
The death of a single ant is tragic
Your death , a trifle to nature
Can we say “no” to warmongers ?
Can we see, listen and think with our hearts?
Can we sustain fertile imagination?
Can we reject nuclear winter
And welcome cheerful spring?
***
We are in the eleventh hour
Needn’t we reject
Extravagance for prudence
Mediocrity for excellence
Corruption for honesty?
____
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