Katru veliyidai... An ode

It’s the stillness that I have practiced all my life,

Emanating expressionless emotions,

Silent when it’s not my turn to profess,

Silent when it is.

In our fictitious past, 

You had ruffled it with pebbles,

In an attempt to wrinkle the placid lake,

Into patterns you yearned for.

Pebbles I could easily follow the wake of,

And detach.

And resume nonchalance.

In my smug, detached, still, innocent, perfect, present tarn,

What could I do,

When a soft breeze hushes a quiet ripple,

Sends a wave of life and gloom?

Until the next reminiscent bout,

I wait.    

I am not sure whether it is longing or dread.

-->

I never was.

From the bag...

In the bag of could-have-beens,

Tucked away in a corner of life,

There is always one that beckons to be opened,

Every now and then,

To be disconnected from the bag and the life around,

Into virtual existence,

A form that nothing else could take,

Perhaps it takes place in the mind, or sub-conscience or an intentional dream.

It leaves you surprised by its mere existence,

The announcement of its existence,

The interpretation of the announcement,

The vainness of the interpretation,

The beauty of the vainness.

And when the dream dissolves, and unwraps into the present,

Life goes on.

No regrets, no guilt, no compunction,

Yet another stretch of an unadulterated journey,

Until the next power nap of reminiscence.

A Void..

A void I have known,

befriended, loved, 

A void that filled my blog, gave me fodder for words,

A void unique in its existence, and creation,

that did not form from loss of mass,

that never housed anything before,

but formed by itself, some day, 

and traveled with me , until now.

A void I would never give up, 

A void that walked with me during my solitary strolls,

A void that I tripped over in pursuits of love,

A void that I went home to,

From any relationship.

A void that stares at me today,

In its half filled state,

In all its jealousy, 

When you walk next to me,

When your text pops up,

When I am smiling alone in the hospital corridor,

A void fills.

...

There is a pain,

Lurking inside,

Awakening now and then,

To lines of a favorite song,

Sentences of a treasured book,

Glimpses of a beautiful weather,

Bouts of trying situations, 

Moments of blank staring phases,

A pain that has lasted long enough,

That it’s a part of me,

A pain that I have begun to welcome,

That makes me smile with acknowledgement,

A pain that defies its definition,

That’s sometimes my only comprehending companion,

A pain that is you,

And a you that I have not yet defined completely.

...

The night continues,

till it could not get any darker,

and then begins greying, 

ready to break into another inconsequential day.

Something continues along,

through the beaming darkness,

sometimes scuttled,

and sometimes relaxed,

to break into another significant silence…

There is a sweetness in conversations,

that accompany the night’s journey,

in the initial hurry to keep pace with the night,

and the deliberate dragging to postpone the dawn,

in the childlike quandary,

whether to conclude in the morning, or pretend it never came,

in the thousand splendid smiles,

that hid behind the inky air,

in the few that caught the eyes,

with the darkness acquired vision…

There is a sense of high in conversations,

that accompany the night’s journey,

in the knowledge that sleep does osculate the other's eyes,

in their apparent attempt to not draw the brakes, 

in the shared longing,

for the rendezvous to last… 

In the battle with (for) life,

You toss a million things at(into) it,

And life has an answer,

Every single time.

Throw dreams,

Ambitions,

Love,

Passion,

Tribulation,

Doubts,

Adventure,

Anything from your end…

And life lashes back at you,

Every single time,

Not with defeats,

Or failures,

Or ruins,

Or disasters,

Not with twists in the tale,

Or hairpin bends,

Or rainbow rains,

But with something as insipid,

Invisible,

Indolent,

Incessant,

As Mediocrity….

...

A pyramid of cards

I built,

Stacking one card after another,

In a precise pact…

It took a hundred of them,

Carefully aligned,

To rise the structure,

It took, but just one skewed card,

To bring it all down.

Its like everything we build,

Trust,

Love,
Success,

Life.

Hope makes sure,

We start rebuilding,

All over again,

Time makes sure,

It plays its part,

And very well at that….

Just Like That

What is it with

Pouring rain and looking up

When you know they cant happen in concurrence

When you know that the indiscernible drops

Would blur your vision anyway?

What is it with

Open eyes and vision

When you know they cant happen in concurrence.

When you know that reason and the lack of it,

Would alter your sight anyway?

The Picture

As I followed the outline of the portrait,

Letting my eyes traverse every curve, every bend,

Every graphite residue

That pushed it away from the vastness of the paper,

Every one of the million points,

That conferred its shape,

Every stroke of brush and fate,

That escorted its evolution to a form,

Every detail and deviation,

That gave life to the figure....

The rest of the chart glared back at me,

Screaming a statement,

That it belonged in the picture

By staying away,

That it created the structure

By its non contribution,

That its conspicuous in the image

By its absence…

The frame is but life,

Carved by events,

That occurred,

And that did nt.