Music – Mad Decadence

Michael

You danced & sang

And moonwalked

Your way through life

Life that wasn’t easy

Your childhood was lost

You played in gigs

While other kids went to school

You brought home animals

To talk and show love to

Because humans around you

Didn’t always show up

You lived life on your terms

You broke out of the gilded cage

Made by your father, music producers

You called out the truth and the lies

You reached heights and lows

As a black man you rose high

What a white man

could only dream of

Obviously you had to be punished

They had to make

An example out of you

So that no one else would dare

That’s how white world

Keeps things in order

And gets away with every crime

They still are vilifying you

Even after all these years

Killing you again and again

Yet they cannot dim your shine

For you were born a star

With your own stupendous

Creative energy and charm

Which no one could take away

You showed the world

Music was a universal language

That could unite and heal the planet

And just when the world

Is very badly wounded

You have made daring comeback

In your movie posthumously

To teach people to live again

To heal the planet again

To dance and moonwalk

Through tears and smiles

To the music of life!!

As Tears Go By

Marianne you sang

“As Tears Go By”

At a very tender age

And then life happened

Men took you for granted

They were seen as Bohemians

But you were labelled a slut

You went down the rabbit hole

Found yourself living on the streets

One has to hit the bottom low

To reverse the curve

Which you did brilliantly

And with much grace

You didn’t hate the men

You chose to rise above them

They sought popularity

You took refuge in literature and poetry

You forged your own solo path

And gave the world its own

Cold war anthem

“Broken English”

A complete arch of life

Beating all odds

Seeking depth and beauty

Amidst all the darkness

Your voice changed too

But your singing didn’t

The world denied you awards

Time and again

But you never cared

Life has to be lived

After all for life’s sake

Not for the sake of

Judgement and validation

Validation from whom?

And for why?

People will discover

Your “Seven Deadly Sins”

Which actually saved you!!

Oh! Marianne…

As life goes by…

Your words ring so true!!

Image courtesy: Album cover of Broken English

Magic of Books

We devour books

By different authors

About different places

With different perspectives

Diverse stories in

Written in various

Language, words and vocabulary

Idioms, metaphors and phrases

We become inhabitants of the story

A keen observer or listener or

A lizard on the wall

Watching the characters build up

The taut tension between them

and then the resolution

(Or lack of it)

The beginning and the end

The two fixed ends of any story

The story stretched out in between

Just like the tension

Of a guitar string

That creates harmonics

(And the disharmony)

It is punctuated with

Vibes, noise and silences

Books are our escape

Just like music or movies

They create an imaginary world

For us to inhabit

Even if momentarily

Till the last page of the book

The places which are real

For the writer

Become our wild imagination

Our ultimate refuge

Most blissful death

Would be perhaps

Being completely lost in a book

Imagine walking on those

Cobbled street of another time

Or in a futuristic world

And getting left behind forever

For there is no coming back!!

No rude awakenings

Morning alarms and drudgery

No looking out for your

Favourite characters or places

We will become as unreal

Or Surreal as them!!

PS: Ramblings after the monthly book club meeting

Dreams

I take long walks
In Latin quarters in Paris

I enter a random church
Someone is playing Ave Maria

I climb Sahyadri hills
Feeling free and fatigued

I walk along Marine drive
Watching rains approach

I am stranded in deluge
Waiting for a transport home

At times I am sailing
Along Tungabhadra in Hampi

Or I am listening to a stream
On some river bank in Bhutan

Or I walk and sob on a beach
Unsure of taste of salt

It could be sea
Or my tears 

At times I am trapped
In Escherisque space

Or walking on a 
Mobius strip 

I am lost and then
I am found

I reach yet
I don't reach

While Uncertainty is
The only certainty 

Waking hours 
A prolonged nightmare

My escape and freedom
Is in my dream 

Selfish it may seem
I don't want to be awake 

I don't want to talk
Of nightmares today

#covidtimes

There is a nice reference to the idea of being ‘decadent’ in Marianne Faithfull’s interview here . Its something to ponder upon…are we psychologically tuned to be decadent? But Marianne Faithfull has such a creative musical force within her that she has shown the world how not to let it destroy the mind and body, how to rise to be a witness to the universal decadence and heal the wounds that real decadent society inflicts upon our land and souls…