The Songs Of The Dead

The songs of the Dead
Are the hardest ones to hear,
They resonate with the voices
Of the unseen and the unsaid.
They carry the timbre of futures not lived,
They are heavy with the baritones
Of memories not made.
The songs of the Dead
Are sorrowful to hear,
They are burdened by secrets unknown
and are weighed by words left unspoken.
They are riddled with puzzles not unravelled
And with hopes never fulfilled.
The songs of the Dead
Are the cruellest ones to hear,
They are embittered by hard circumstances,
And are forced by events unforeseen,
They are played to the tunes of injustice,
And are written by the hands of the undeserving.
The songs of the Dead
Are melancholic to hear,
They reverberate with the aspirations
Of men no more.
They speak of lost love, of lost hearts,
Of lost lives.
The songs of the Dead
Hurt the most,
For they remind
Of what has been lost
Forevermore.

(Thoughts after the June 12, 2016 Orlando Shooting.)

Mock Not A Woman

Mock not the pride of a woman,
For she struggled hard to claim it.
Mock not her meekness,
For she always had the courage to stand with, and against, man.
Mock not the serenity of a woman,
For it bore her company, where men failed.
Mock not her confidence,
For it was the only commodity that she could afford.
Mock not a woman's weakness,
For her resilience lent her strength.
Mock not her determination,
For it gave her hope when times were bleak.
Mock not a woman's embellishments,
For she was seldom credited for her wit.
Mock not her emotions,
For words were never hers to speak.
Mock not a woman's silence,
For it was society that robbed her of speech.
Mock not her willingness to fight,
For equality was never hers for the bidding.

A Clockwork World

PART 1

The World once ran on clockwork,

Each human akin to a toy,

Which, when its key was wound,

Would begin its daily ploy.

Each day was perfection,

Each morning crowned by the same dewy glory,

Each night a starry calm,

With nary a long face, or a sad story.

Every life was the same,

The same routine,

There was the security of a life of repetition,

The safety of monotony.

The sun was just as bright each day,

as it was the day before.

The clouds merely repeated,

Their dull encounters from afore.

The people found comfort within it,

For they knew what was in store

Beforehand. After all,

Each day was merely

A mirror of yesterday,

And an image of tomorrow.

PART 2

Until one dawn,

Hours before the clockwork day,

A mischievous child,

Stole out, and away,

And pocketed the shiny little key,

That ordained the smooth functioning,

Of the puppet-like world.

The town awoke, to a certain missing something,

The sun was bright, ayy,

But it wasn’t quite as lustrous as the day before,

And the cloud, quite abnormal,

Darkened and murmured low grumbles and rumbles,

And everything was quite, quite awry.

The folk were clearly surprised,

Puzzled and bewildered and befuddled.

Never in a thousand years could the have surmised,

That their picture perfect land,

Could stumble, and teeter, and crumble.

There was panic, there was chaos,

Their was uncertainty amidst the worries and fumbles.

The kid, meanwhile, welcomed the change,

He skipped along to the brook nearby,

And while he whiled away the hours,

The golden key mumbled its farewell and goodbye,

And slipped into the bubbling stream,

Where by and by, it was searched for,

But never found, much to the people’s disappointment.

It had far to travel, to meet the golden shore.

PART 3

Months passed, yet the key was lost forever,

The world was upside down,

The weather, the day, the sun,

Unpredictable, And many a frown,

Dampened the world, those few months,

And many a conflicts,

Shattered hearts across.

Yet, one day the sun dawned bright,

Brighter than it had ever before,

Awe stuck the citizens, was their golden land,

To return again, so that they could relive,

The harmony from before?

However, there at least, they were met with disappointment,

For the sun shone, not on a bygone time,

But on the future that lay ahead. 

There was violence, perhaps, there was disquiet,

Yet there was a break from monotony,

From the repetition.

There was independence, freedom,

The lustrous glory of adventures,

A land of unpredictability.

And while, the men and women alike,

Mourned the loss of the security of the clockwork world,

They rejoiced

In the uncertainty, and the opportunity,

Of their reformed little world.

And so, once upon a time,

A naughty kid lost a golden key,

And reformed the world,

To a land of mystery.

The Window

The room was hers, hers to paint.
It was all for herself, each wall, each shelf,
Was hers, and hers alone.
She lit it with her own sunshine,
She stuffed it with her own joys.
It was a medley, but it was full of her, 
Of who she was.
Each smile was a trophy within it,
Each tear, a crack in its toughened walls.
The ceiling was a riot of colors,
Each hue a representation,
Of what lay within her heart.
The walls were embroidered
By the grubby prints of muddy hands,
With the mindless squiggles of an artistic hand.
They were the canvas
Of her vibrant memories.
She was satisfied within her room,
Within the littered floor of a childhood
Spent dreaming of the sun and the stars.
She was satisfied within her room,
Within the ornaments of her mind.
She was satisfied, until
Her eyes landed on the little ray of sunshine
That peeked through the curtains.
It unsettled her, it piqued her,
It made her wish to look afar.
It scared her, it intimidated her,
For she could not imagine
Pulling the curtains apart.
The outside was scary,
She was safer within her chambers.
Yet curiosity, curiosity beckoned her
Until, she found herself fingering
The hems of the smooth fabric
That separated her from what was on
The other side.
She pulled it back at last.
What lay behind, left her agape.
At first, it seemed but a mere reflection,
Of her own little haven full of fantasies,
Yet, the more she looked, the more she saw,
The little touches, the subtleties, that made it
Far, far more dearer to see.
The window showed her, not just
Yet another room,
But rather, yet another part of her.
She had found a room to share,
And a person, to share it with.

Not Just The Former President

In a time when all causes felt lost,
He was a beacon of inspiration.
A fire, a powerhouse, a man with a mission,
A man with a vision, a man of action.
He was a father to millions,
A dependable, reliable personality.
A workaholic, a role model, a man of research,
A man who'd always stick to his word.
Innovative and creative, he was the perfect leader,
Frail, yet bursting with energy,
He was a man of humility.
A man, who deserved immortality.

RIP APJ Abdul Kalam. You'll always be remembered.

Woolgathering

It's like we're running endlessly.
Moving across a loop, moving,
But getting nowhere.
Wondering out aloud, chit-chatting with our conscience,
Talking, yet not speaking, breathlessly.
Hearing but not listening,
Connected to reality, but oh so vaguely.
Chasing after thoughts, rambling
Through the meadows of our ideas,
Living in our own mind,
In a world of our own making.
Thinking, but not registering, endlessly
Moving, just moving,
On a path called nothing,
To a place called nowhere.
Perhaps, we're just woolgathering.

Mother

Her hands caress,
Her hands soothe,
Her hands heal,
Every wound.
Her hands guide,
Her hands fight
Every battle of mine.
Her hands shape,
Her hands mold,
Her hands hold me close.
her hands have calluses,
Yet they are soft.
Her hands are ever so gentle,
As they help me grow.

When my heart takes the pen.

Biting my lips, I try scribbling furiously,

Searching, seeking, the right words.

Emotions weigh me down, but not my pen.

It finds no words to write.

Tearing yet another sheet,

I scramble towards the next in the pile,

I see blankness again.

No words, this time either.

Slowly, I let my pen drop,

And hide my face within my cupped hands.

Defeated.

The paper conquers over the writer.

I look up when the numbness in my body 

Overwhelms me.

Another cold night without fire.

And yet I waste these pages, with words

Unwritten, untold.

It's as if the paper taunts me, 

So I pick the pen up again,

Grimace, at the blot of ink, now adorning the carpet.

The page before me stares rudely,

In answer, I stare back.

For a second, only.

I assault the paper this time.

Hours later, I finally eye the rectangular sheet,

And marvel, for I won this time.

I understand now,

The page remains wordless when I search my head,

But words flow freely,

When my heart takes the pen.

A Fire

A spark, it fascinated me,
Zest -the zest for something bigger,
Burnt within it.
It was a start, a beginning.
A prologue to something brighter.
A flame.
It intrigued me. It was a rebel,
From crimson hues to deep blues,
It burnt. It enveloped. It grew.
But something changed.
It consumed now,
It hissed and it spat,
It devastated.
It became something worse. Fire.
It burnt me. Within.

What if?

Imagine if you were given a choice,
To read the story of your life.
Every detail, every inevitable circumstance,
With the condition that you can't change your fate.
Would you read it, and know how life will be for you,
Would you face the monotony?
Imagine if you knew the day you'll die,
And couldn't change it, too.
Would you rather enact your life,
The way written on your chapters,
Or would you let fate decide,
And follow blindly onwards.
Would you let each moment speak for itself,
Or would you live in a predicted future?
Would you rather live in the fear of predicted death,
Or would you be glad for another day to live?

The walk

She began her life with a cry,
She had a long way to go.
There was a path waiting to be threaded on,
That bore her name.
She started off, toddling on it,
Before she was 18 months old.
She found it special, for it had its thrill,
And an unknown destination.
The lovely child, that treaded on her little feet,
Was walking on the path of life, my dear.
There was no end, just a series of beginnings.
Sometimes she went slow, in dread or joy,
Either she savored the moment,
Or let it pass by.
Sometimes she had to run,
Sometimes they were narrow escapes,
Sometimes she faltered,
Sometimes she lost her way.
But all the time, she walked on time,
She walked through her life.
Youth turned to senility,
And her steps grew infirm.
And though she knew not where she headed,
She had to walk along.
Maybe there was an end, a destination,
But her journey ended before,
And somewhere in the middle,
She rested forever more.
It was before her final step,
It was before her final breath,
That she was given the satisfaction of knowing,
That the path itself was her goal,
That the walk she savored, the walk she dreaded,
Was what was meant for her.
She realized, that this was special, unique,
The path that bore her name.
This path that had been crossed by many more,
Was her very own, never to be treaded on again.

Together Again

Remember the day,
When we travelled in metaphors?
Others were speechless,
We were not.
We babbled stupidly for them, 
But we knew the truth inside.
Understanding, we call it now,
But for us it was a magical power,
Through which we read each others' meanings.
We were kids with childish thoughts,
And expressed ourselves irrationally,
But, our expressions weren't false,
They were simply metaphors,
Only we knew the truth inside.
Let's travel back in Time,
Let's travel through the metaphors again,
We'll unravel the truths again,
But this time, we'll do it together.

This Can't Be Goodbye

I walked the dusty road that led to the cottage,
It seemed like a decade had passed since I'd seen the place,
Yet truly it was but yesterday.
Still, yesterday seemed so distant,
And I tell of it, before my hazy gaze,
Shall fall when I last met him.
Near dusk, a trudging traveller,
Had come home at last to a cheery fire.
She had come to visit her grandpapa,
Who she'd longed to see many times before.
And there at dusk he sat with pipe in hand,
A soft whistle, a welcome sign was all that was heard.
He got up when she drew into sight, though he had grown feeble,
He hobbled on his feet with difficulty,
To meet the child he'd longed to see.
He knew he was not to live, life was counting its last days,
But love, dear love! Was what brought him to his feet,
And sent him blundering forth.
She caught his hand, held it firm,
And gave a cheery smile,
How dear he was! How could she ever say goodbye?
He trembled as they sat together
and talked into the growing dark.
She was light in his humble dwellings,
She was a breath of fresh air.
She talked with determination and hope,
And she thought a lot more,
So dear was her sweet grandfather,
She'd stay by his side forevermore.
Was fate playing a petty trick, or was it some noble blessing,
That his soul shall finally rest,
Amidst the trembling and quivering.
And now, Farewell! Oh Dearest soul!
Rest in Peace, you deserve it!
Bless you for your kindness,
You have left me forever indebted.
Take care, take care, in the angelic world you dreamt of,
Be happy as you always were.
Grandfather, this farewell, is all
You'll remain in hearts, so I shan't say Goodbye, after all.

A True Devotee

I could say that I believe in Shiva, Allah, Jesus,

And I dare say that saying so will not create a fuss,
Yet will I be right in doing so?
Till I haven't controlled my anger,
Till I don't stop being in a temper,
Till I don't feel humble in my heart,
Till the silliness of discrimination, I don't outsmart,
Till I don't follow and believe in equality,
Till I don't adopt serenity,
I cannot be believing in Shiva, Allah or Jesus,
And that may create a fuss,
But doing is believing, and devotion is believing,
And until I don't fulfil the cries of humanity,
I won't be believing.

The Last Day

The Earth shook and shivered,

The lands trembled and quivered,

Earthquakes were common these days,

Just as the old prophecy says,

And whispers spread-the Earth dies,

Dies right in front of our eyes.

Grumbling, muttering clouds roll in the sky,

Even the Sun seems to be saying goodbye,

Shades of dark melancholy, enveloping everything,

And as the prophets had always been thinking,

And truly so-the Earth dies,

Dies right in front of our eyes.

Silence and dread of the nearing end prevail,

Every being sickly and pale,

And death, death only is in sight,

As the Earth fights its final fight.

And whispers spread- the Earth dies,

Dies right in front of our eyes.