Half Stub - variously interpreted

the early poems - pre-sutta phase...

THE SILHOUETTE

The dark path under a moonless sky
A silhouette walks along, shadowless
The rain hasn't lost its bite with the journey
It stings the flesh but the silhouette is unperturbed

It has lost its mind
Lost its heart
Lost its face
It moves without a sound
It is but a silhouette

Onlookers stay faraway
For though it maybe a friend
It might even be a foe
Or a robber who'll strip them off their possessions

It walks on, head hung down
Lost in thought, or can it even think?
No one knows, and no one dare find
For the silhouette carries a cloud of misery

All of a sudden it disappears
A sigh of relief is emitted
But curious voices ask... where has it gone?
A splash in the lake gives them the answer...

(12/02/2004)

ANOTHER PHOENIX

All around me

The world is a burnt-out ruin

A memoir of man’s seduction

By the seven deadly sins

I come across death, destruction

This land, irrigated with blood

Now gives a rich harvest

Guns, bombs, arsonists alike

I now lie mortally wounded

A new addition to the growing list

I have been left alone in death

This is the only place I find peace

The eerie silence is music to my ears

I have been know to destroy

And to self destruct

Yet I always return

Never my lesson do I learn

Burn myself in one hell or another

No one seems to mind

For that is my designated job

Only this time

I shall not rise

For there are no ashes

Only a little bullet in my head

But the supreme confidence I have in my kind

Someone shall take my place

Someone from the burnt-out ruin

Shall rise from the ashes, again

Another Phoenix…

(21/04/2004)

redemption reprise

Half stub
The reprise
Torn in the confusion
Pacing the distance between the horns of dilemma
Burning in the cathartic fire
Waiting for redemption
Prufrock's procrastination
Is a natural way for me
Not by choice, but chance
Approaching a fork in the road
No clue where to go
The foreknowledge haunts
For this is purgatory
All roads lead the same way
Humble Polonius
Pictured at the fork
Waiting...
Reignition...
Half stub

(21/09/2006)

reflecting on my past life...

yet another boring sunday has almost passed. but there's something about this inactivity that makes my brain work, atleast blog-wise. was just sitting n browsing thru a few profiles on orkut and hit upon gautam's, which contained a few photos from school.

ah don bosco! my alma-mater... i miss those days. not a care in the world, no emotional complications whatsoever... just going everyday, enjoying life with the bhailogs, talking trash about "hot" teachers... not doing any kind of serious work, getting 43% marks in Class XI 1st term... never once was there any blot (except the marks probably) on the mind...

and now, not a day goes by without thinking about various career matters, emotional matters (read: women-created troubles) etc... how i hope one day i could go back to those days...

BOSCONIAN FOREVER...

something i wrote last year

two poems written three days apart -


(I)

The half stub sticks out of the box

Sticks out even though it is the smallest

Humbled I stand today

The flight is over

Was good while it lasted

Recognition

Over-recognition

Familiarity

Contempt

Who wants to sit next to me?

Reflection

The past blurs by

The future flies past

Violent enmity

Scoots beneath the surface

Absurd

Totally absurd

What are we doing?

Waiting

One of the thieves was saved

Fifty percent redemption

Half stub.

(II)

Caught in the inferno

The hypochondriac stands

Oblivious to the fire

That envelops his existence

The charred remains; and

The charring, remains

Yet the realization

Fails to appear

Trapped he stands

Procrastinating the inevitable

Till the flame

Burns his inflammable self

The half lived life

Half stub.

redemption

picked up my guitar again today after almost a 1 1/2 month hiatus. played lonely nights by scorpions, at the behest of shadow, then tried to cover possibly the greatest self-tribute ever - the show must go on. freddie mercury, dying of aids, sang the toughest song in queen's difficult-to-sing repertoire, and then died a few months later.

what is life but a long, painful wait for death (or redemption for the optimistic-minded)? we're all waiting for something or the other in life... D's waiting for deliverance from her emotional tumult, shadows is waiting for the 2 years to get over and im waiting for... what?

the answer wouldve been simple 3 weeks ago, but now, im not so sure. maybe one thing or maybe the other. or maybe im just making excuses for extending this half-lived life...

Der Weltmeister Verborgen.. Auf Wiedersen!

(German for 'The World Champion has Retired... Goodbye!')

just saw on tv that Michael Schumacher announced his retirement from F1. the greatest (statistical) champion of all time in F1 has decided to hang up his helmet. and throughout the world (well, orkut communities anyway...) there's a great wave of depression n sadness.

come on guys, he is 37, has been racing at the top for 16 years. give him a break. and lets celebrate his success, not mourn his retirement. he has broken every record there is to break in the sport, and the new records will be virtually unchallenged. let us, his fans, cheer him all the way to his 8th title this season and celebrate his unrivalled success...

just thought i wud show u folks what i look like...
this is me, holding a silver glass full of beer on christmas eve in 2004...
so much for the holy sacrament...

ennui /on-wee/ n. extreme boredom

sunday afternoon and i write this post while reeling under the effect of the above noun. it has inspired poetry in the past, and i am waiting for a similar kind of poetic inspiration to hit me. or maybe im just hoping to be the next thomas stearns eliot -

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet...

In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse...

or maybe its just one of those things that crop up in a dull, heat-oppressed brain on a boring sunday afternoon, waiting for redemption, which shall come in the form of an F1 race at 1630 hrs.

Ennui was keeping me exiled. Ennui that came from everything.
So...

the first post

some days leave an indelible mark on one's existence. today was the first time i believed that one can make a difference, albeit at a personal level, to other people's lives. seventeen hours is all it took for me to realise the (cliche alert) power of human expression...

thanks D for giving my number to shadows. And thanks shadows, for finally forcing me to start my own blog, late though it might be...