Tag: decadence

Random Musings

Yet another new year
Is back with the old baggage
Of fears and cautions
Prejudices and bigotry
Lurking shadows of
Diseases and death

They tell us
To hang on
To seek hope in
Science and prayers
Look for silver linings
And healings
Lost love
And musings

While prejudice kills peace,
And pride our compassion
While hate spreads
Like wildfire
Our comforts get
Traded and sold

While we lose our voice
And rights
Like Jesus
Or phoenix
Maybe they will rise
Just like balloons
Filled with their breath

Those little street urchins
They bear testimony of
Our collective failures,
Our naked emperors
Maybe their balloons display
Everyone’s lost smiles!!

#2022

Best not Taken

Thud – will that how it will sound?
Breaking lazy monotony
Of a rainy evening
Ensuing a chaos

Miraculously
Things will be taken care of
Strangers will curse,
blame and pity
And so will
family, friends and colleagues

People who never paused
To listen or understand
Will dissect your being
For hours

Gaslighting the departed
Absolving themselves of guilt
Everyone will move on

Within a day or two or years
Presence of a life will be erased
Unloved life would be lost in vain

Is that all there is?

Pause and look up
Behold the bird
Soaring in the sky
Flying into the setting sun

Birth is never a choice
But when death seems at times
The trick definitely is to
Keep breathing

Wait for the moment to pass
Look beyond
Outside your window
There is a life that awaits
That wants you to live

Take the pain in stride
And marinate your life with it
The last desperate step
Will definitely be
The best not taken!!

Disbelief

We stare in disbelief
At life that slips away
Who knew just a breath
All that it takes to be alive

We stare in disbelief
At all the lives
Washed ashore 
Becoming nation's memories

We close our eyes in disbelief
When we cannot take it anymore
Confined in our safe homes
We turn into living ghosts 

We stare in disbelief 
As humanity fades away
We who love wars and winners
Are the tired vanquished lot 

We stare in disbelief
As leaders trade away our lives
And our deaths 
To build their empire of glory






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

Just Like a Driftwood

Don't behold me 
With contempt
Because I floated in
Just like a driftwood

I had a name
Born to someone
Isn't it enough
To qualify as a human?

Do not fear me
Do not hate my folks
Simply they couldn't afford
 - love, pyre or a grave 

They probably thought
Water should be my grave
Instead of fire or earth

River being the river
Did what it does best
Buoyed me back
Just like a driftwood  

I had love to give 
But there were no takers
In the land of hate 

River could have set me free
But it returned me to you
As a nameless corpse
To be counted among
The countless 

River will remember me
Even if you don't
This beloved river is
Our memorial!

#CovidDeaths

If Dead Could Speak

If dead could speak
I wonder what would they say
To every
'Rest in Peace' 

They gasped for breath
They waited for beds
They trusted
They hoped

They left behind
Mounting sorrows
And bills 
And plans
And dreams 

They simply got erased
Without farewells
They got dumped
They got duped 

Don't ever think
They are 
Resting in Peace

If dead could rise
From the ashes
And graves
And rivers
They would certainly
Rise in rage