Flattering Little Surprise & A Lesson Well Learnt

I don't what compels me to do it but every once in a while I log on to google, type my own name in the search field and look for how many entries come up on the search results page under my name. I've been doing this for a couple of years now since the first time I was published I guess. Anyways, so last night was sitting late in office because the deilivery of yet another project was due and after I completed my QA and handed over the report to the developer I was aimlessly surfing the net when even without a conscious thought I searched for myself yet again through google.

Now as you are reading this you are probably wondering what's so great about this narcissitic little activity that I need to blog about it. Well it so happens that last night I was in for a very flattering surprise, after the usual search results of all my articles published in various places etc came out, there was one entry under my name on a blog posted by someone.

Now I am a firm believer in being absolutely curious about everything, so I clicked on the url which led me to a post on myspace.com. Actually the POST was a part of a story written by this blogger and he had used one of my very early poems in his story.

The page opens with my poetry, which is being read by one of the two central charaters of his story. The enderaing part is that I am credited for it in the story itself (the blog: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=69367774&blogID=293245088&indicate=1).

Any writer will tell you how important it is for them to have been read/ seen/ published. The very act is a validation of that piece of work. Not that being published is the raison d'etre or justification of that piece of writing/ poetry to be in existence, but more like a confirmation of everything you have seen and felt while writing it.

The 'Sun Poems' is a series of poems I had written when I was all of eighteen as a part of 'Colours of India' an inter-cultural project undertaken by IIT Bombay, when I was working there.

I do not have any of those poems with me today becasue I guess I didn't value my work then. A lesson well learnt today.

The Poem used by Paul Breach is below:

A ray of light
Gently touches my face
I look up
At a vast expanse of cosmic fires
A feeling of hope pulsates through my soul
I feel now, I am whole

I Know You

I know you as the fragile fragrance
arising from my body.

I know you as the drops of rain
knocking on my window pane.

I know you as the slivers of sunbeams
squinting at me through the branches.

I breathe you
I taste you
I feel the heat of you
Yet I know not your name.

Pure Nonsense Pure Wisdom

They were not voices
Not words, nor silence.

Soft unintelligible whispers
Pure nonsense, pure wisdom

I know not within my clenched soul
what I hold.

But feeling them so close
something started within
ravaging hunger,
unquenchable thirst,
a piece of the sun
and stories untold
need to unfold.

I have lost this twilight too,
But with me still is the darkest blue night

By the fire burning its own being
shooting crimson arrows at the sky,

A little longer must wait my bed
there are many things left unsaid…

A tale of sorts

If I could write today
I'd write of a friend.
About his sobbing soul
and his heart wrenching in pain.

A soul that thirsts for unconditional love
and a heart that searches for peace.
and a mind that mostly feel incomplete
without the treasure he seeks.

If I could Write today
I would tell you the tale of a man,
who fought and won,
who lived for the game
and made money
at every turn.

A man who sits alone
when the hour of the day has past.
A man who is blessed with silence
but cannot stand being alone in the dark.

I would speak of his fortune
the blessings he has
and the irony that he has now,
all he wanted to possess.
Yet he misses the golden hour of dawn
the sizzling streak of purple gold at sunset.

But today of all days
I seem to have lost
the will to weave a tale
of these words and thoughts.

So today this story must be told
as straightforwardly as it is felt,
without the cruches of beautiful words
or any embellishments,
for today the heart of an old friend
has lost his way again.

Dreaming

Am I alive or is this a dream?
The darkness invades my mystical musing.

Will I never wake, forever will I scream?
I feel its vice like grip tighten on my being.

The mind says but mine eyes won't see,
the battle is being fought on a plane unseen.

My soul wanders alike a flowerless bee;
it strays from its path, for the light is the key.

Each step I take amongst the endless waste,
the valley of silence I must embrace.

Minefields of loss, regret and haste;
tears shed by the moon tonight are waste.

Every moment, the hurt will gain,
unless the shawdow ends its reign
and sleep won't ever lessen the pain
until I dream the dance of the gods again.

This is my version of how I see the words woven for these thoughts.
It is my response to the original poem.

The original thought & poem has been written by Saurin Desai and it is below:

Am I alive or is this a dream?
Will I never wake, forever will I scream?
The mind says but mine eyes won't see,
my soul wanders alike a flowerless bee;
Each step I take amongst the endless waste,
minefields of loss, regret and haste;
Every moment, the hurt will gain,
and sleep won't ever lessen the pain.

Your Name Lingers

Your name lingers upon my lips.
A deep dangerous fever.

I crave to claw away our separateness
With bare-naked fingers.

Gripped in shock, trembling in fear
At the love blasting out of me.

Has madness finally descended
Or am I possessed by poetry.

I Cannot Love You

I cannot love you
Like the earth loves the sky.

I cannot love you
Without complexities or pride

I cannot love you
like I don’t exist

I cannot love you
Straightforwardly
Unconditionally.

But I love you selfishly
Like the thieves love the night.
Love you like the violent fires love
the timber they bite.

Love you like the grass loves
morning dew.

And you
Even my selfish love
Is enough for you.

Beauty & Love

When Beauty and love finally did collide
hand in hand they walked no more.

Tearing up worlds of faith
because together they broke the lore
and so each walked the earth
in search of either beauty or love.

Beauty glided on the wings of joy
bringing peace to all who saw,
while love flew into the hearts of men
and lit up lives with hope.

The land beauty gazed upon
paradise it became
the ocean, earth, fire and air
grew in magnificience and strenght.

While nature smiled
laughed mankind
for supreme love reigned.
Yet love from beauty
and beauty from love
apart still remained.

So man saw nature with love in his heart
and nature saw the beauty of man,
but neither found the rhythm divine
to unite and be one again.

Legends and myths
were born no more
for from Beauty and Love
they grow.

The history of magic
ceased to be
for magical creatures
could not lure.

A thousand years they walked alone
and beauty without love grew cold.
While love without beauty
saw only suffering and pain
feeling the loss of being whole.

Both heard together the impatient sigh
of a young poet completing her ode
so quietly they slipped
into the pages of her book
and in poetry found their soul.