Time betrays
People betray
Family betrays
Life betrays
You betray yourself too
The true story
Isn’t the words said
The true story
Is never what is seen
It lies in what stays
Unsaid and unnoticed
And in life unlived!!
What betrays silence
Is the word
& what betrays the words
Is the silence
Between said and unsaid
There is a pause
A void so dense
Yet so empty
Bereft of trust and emotions
I wonder how does love fare
In the era of dating apps
Earlier love came gate crashing into our lives
Annoyingly when we least expected it
It sat as an unwanted guest
Messing up all the time lines
It waited patiently for its turn
To unleash it’s charm
And make its way into our lives
I wonder how love copes now
In the era of dating and speed dating
Has it become impatient?
Does it move along with our swipes
Swipe right you may find it
Swipe left you may lose it or vice versa
With Apps and profiles
As the ultimate gate keepers
How will it ever get to gate-crash?
Is love at first sight even a possibility?
There are always damn screen and filters
And best edited profile pictures
And then when you personally meet
With ample room for expectations
And disdain
Does love leave the table politely?
Earlier love would linger on
And maybe even stalk
And now it ghosts
Earlier there were no promises or forever
But yet love would haunt for life
I no longer know how it works
When we lay all our cards on the table
Hoping for a fair game
But then it turns out
There are no rules of the game
Love remains a situationship
Waiting for an upgrade
It is always a clean slate
No misgivings, no messiness
Light as a butterfly
Love flutters in and out of life
No surprises anymore
No confessions either
Love in the age of AI and Apps
Has turned out to be a smart love
With racing heartbeats in rings and watches
No broken hearts, no unrequited love
Nor platonic or overtly lustful
Love itself has become a need
A box to be ticked
The more you chase it, the more it eludes
That hope – the next swipe might
Bring it to your table right?
Keep at it!!!
Knowing love, it will still turn up
To upset all your plans
Staring right at you
Sweeping you in a twister storm
And then dumping you
Totally broken but warm
It will teach you to smile and sob
Only love can teach love
It is a shape shifting algorithm
Making an absolute fool of
Even the wisest one!!
Some blame it on nature
The sun’s activity cycles
Some blame it on human activities
Unprecedented cutting of trees
And encroachment of lakes and forests
So I guess Earth is playing it fair
It blows too hot, dry or humid
And just when humans start complaining
It blows hailstorms, cyclones and rains
With water water everywhere
And nowhere for it to go!!
My house help lamented the other day
That I was spending a lot on house plants
She hinted jokingly that money could help poor
Ah!! The fallacy of existence
I could only smile back and say
They were my buddies who gave me free oxygen and beautiful flowers for free
We take the oxygen we breathe much for granted
Just like the clean water we drink
And the gravity and the magnetic field
And also the sun and the moon
And of course our sole planet earth
While we spend billions to find exoplanets
With a hint of the existence of life
Perhaps, we deserve this wrath of nature
To reset our perspectives and context
Nothing is unlimited and forever
And everything follows
The law of reciprocity
Hate begets hate and Love begets love
Eye for an eye has blinded the humanity
Yet we refuse to learn
We make it all about profits and money
Climate chaos will be good for climate insurance
Rich will get richer and poor will become poorer
Except for the few who will be paraded as hope
The model examples of rags to riches tale
The dream after all needs to be sold
To keep nightmare going!!!
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
It is difficult to be optimistic
Some always see
half glass empty
Because it is empty
Emptiness is overwhelming
And it consists of suffering
And all kinds of lacks
A cruel void
But it also presents
Immense possibilities
There is a space to fill
There is a space that can change
However grim realities are
Change is always a possibility
It just happened in Hungary
Before it came to Nepal, Bangladesh
Common young people turned up
In streets and in polling booths
They did not stare at the void
And the status quo
They decided to upturn the glass
That’s the tipping point
One country at a time is reaching
Rekindling hope against all hope
For possibilities against
What seems impossible
History shows tyrants were defeated
There is an overwhelming evidence
We know the half empty glass
Can be filled with hope
And unknown possibilities
We need courage to
Keep trudging
To live with and without
To believe
And to simply show up
When possibilities emerge!!
A Noun?
A Verb?
An Adjective?
Human value?
Emotion?
Attachment?
Attraction?
Respect ?
Friendship?
Kinship?
Dopamine?
Oxytocin?
Validation?
Affection?
Admiration?
Desire?
Conditional?
Unconditional?
Affection?
Romance?
Platonic?
Narcissism ?
Passion?
Adoration?
Devotion?
Compassion?
Sympathy?
Obsession?
Lust?
Greed?
Love encompasses all, takes various forms… yet no one understands it…
PS: Have I missed something? Do add..
Every Peace treaty
Every marriage
Every relationship
Every dysfunctional family
That fails
Has a history
Of Unkept promises
Promises which did not
Pass the test of time
There should be
A proper closure
For unkept promises
Or else they turn into deep wounds
They grow like cancer
Occupying spaces
Leaving no breathing room
They are like unseen
Elephants in the room
Which are never addressed
The room where
Where adults play
The game of pretend
Lies and amnesia
While teaching their youngs
Lessons of morals, values
And promises…
That promises are meant to be kept!!
It is a good way of beginning
The ‘Cruelest Month’ of the year
A poem a day!
How else would one survive?
The daily calamities, killings
And mournings
The sense of worse times ahead
For Entropy always wins
The beautiful flower of yesterday
Is wilted, fallen and forgotten
Just realised I did see the Halley’s Comet
And then came the afterthought
I won’t ever be seeing it again!
It will come irrespective of everything
As sun beckons it every 75 years
Plants thrive on sunlight
Maybe they bloom flowers
For the Sun!!
A return gift maybe
For all the free glorious light
Plants know gratitude
While we seem to thrive
On regret, hate and revenge!
#GloPoWriMo
It takes far too long
To figure out the right from wrong
It takes far too much
To comprehend how much is too much
It takes a lifetime
To figure out life is about time
Sometimes it’s far too late
To let go what is already lost
It takes too long to figure out
There isn’t any blue print
And there isn’t much to figure out
By the time we find the puzzle pieces
It is too late
The puzzle actually is being undone
And not all pieces fit in
It takes forever
To know that silence is eloquent
Conveys more than words
It takes too many wars to know
To know what actually is at stake
And wars go on far too long
And love?
We can barely hold it for long
It slips through fingers like sand
The moment you define it
It becomes a possession
A caged bird
Which rarely returns when set free
It goes away far too far and
Far too long…
A Universe of atoms
Thinking about atoms
A Universe of thoughts
Thinking about thinking
A Universe of moments
Missing key moments
A Universe of Silence
In search of words
A Universe of words
In search of meanings
A Universe of apathy
In search of compassion
A Universe of love
In search of tenderness
Mad Decadence 