Confessions of a Traveler: Final Verse

VI

The Geometry of Loneliness

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You are the sand-

At the end of the desert-

On my tiring feet.

You are the teardrop,

At the end of a days’ journey

In my eyes.

The plateau of self-realization,

Followed your fragrance,

Into the womb of memories.

And then…

Without the sensation of the sand,

Without the dampness in the eyes,

The journey I undertook,

Seemed at a loss for sense. 

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The Geometry of Loneliness continues

V

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Your anxiety was

Always funny.

I knew always

Better than you did.

I traveled.

I knew the world.

I brought its gifts

Into your world.

I was the dreamer.

The Alchemist.

I had the smile.

When you kept

The curves of pain

On your lips;

Until that day,

When my path was full shadows,

And the light to fight darkness,

Was forgotten at home. 

[To be continued]

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The Next Confession of a Traveler

IV

The Geometry of Loneliness

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The lost star traveler,

Gazed, blinded.

The stars he thought would guide him,

Were invisible now.

No one had told him,

That he shouldn’t shed tears,

While in his quest,

Marking his way,

Gazing up at the stars.

But he cried,

Thinking of the one-

He’d left behind.

For you, my dear one. You are such a tremendous inspiration to me. You deserve this and much more.  

[To be continued] 

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Confessions of a Traveler

III

The Geometry of Loneliness

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The geometry of a naïve,

Shapes with squares, triangles, hexagons,

Rectangles, half made, half broken,

Half born.

All red,

With liquid blood,

Still trying to thump hard,

As it always has been—

The shattered heart.

I stood near it,

With the candle of ignorance,

Lost on my way to those dreams

In which I thought I could see-

You, up close.  

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I-Poems Continue

II

The Geometry of Loneliness

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In the sleepless eyelids,

I found the first tear drop,

In remembrance

Of the tree

At the end of the long road;

Of the rain,

At the peak of summer;

Of the moonlight,

In the dark;

Of the fragrance of flowers,

Of the smell of the soil,

Of the pain of love,

Of the joy of dreams,

Of the love for life,

Of the truth in lies,

And of the lies I slept with,

All my days,

Seeking you. 

[To be continued]

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New series of i-poems

The Geometry of Loneliness

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I

When your reminiscence arrived at me,

Like the fire on the bushes,

Like the cloud of protection,

Like the wall inside the sea,

Like the word on baked clay,

I melted and waited;

As the shadow of a bird,

In the heart of the altitude,

Moving, but static- still;

For the obtuse angle to be acute angle,

To move closer in degrees,

To your flesh and blood,

And embrace the Resurrection-

Of your closeness again.  

[To be continued]

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Losing the Way

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The world has become so narrow that one group of people now have to keep a day for themselves, in order not risk a whole lifetime. Happy Women's Day!

A faint glow I see,

In the path in front of me.

I find the glow attractive,

Pleased by it, I move closer,

Use it to see farther, further.

I take a turn in the path,

Find everything there drab and used.

The rupture of hope from reality,

Leaves me stunned to feel

A strange poignancy,

In the depth my heart conceals,

Inside its walls within my bodily barriers.

The pain tells me it’s time,

To realize what I saw was just the glow,

Or what the glow wanted me to see.

The unique language to decipher,

The signs of the path I took,

Were imprinted in the walls of my heart,

Hidden behind the bars of my ribs,

I followed the glow to be what I am,

Leaving what I hoped, dreamed, coveted to be,

Alone, unattended, uncared for, unloved,

Just to die and rot in the desolation of ignorance.

I pray, let me be.

I search for the pain, to show me the way,

Where I could find the world of renewal,

Birth and rejuvenation. I close my eyes,

To see in darkness,

To see what is left of me,

In the glowing distraction

Of routines and role plays.

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The Werewolf

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He lurked in the night,

Under the moon’s gleaming face.

He hid himself not, though,

Instead came out in the moonlight.

The signifier of unknown terror,

Fierce and virile,

His chest rising and falling like a drum,

Belly flat like drum,

Eyes made of amber and ruby serum.

His life once was human,

Then his blood took offence with nature,

In the wild it ran freely,

And his body took its turn surely,

Fangs, fur and his head too,

Grew into a wolf’s.

A song rose from his heart, at times,

In blood’s significant rhythm,

And there was in his eyes,

A gleam and a shadow.

The gleam was love,

The shadow was a woman.

Her hairs floated in the night air,

Penetrating the chill of solemn despair.

The werewolf howled;

Jumped in front of her.

He neither touched her,

Nor his fangs tore her skin.

His eyes gleamed more,

Shading the full moon in the cold.

She looked at him in the eyes.

Her eyes too shared the golden gleam,

And he growled again,

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“I am a werewolf, you must run away,

Or your life’s road

Will take the hell’s way.

I beseech you.”

“I now you and you know me.

My heart’s strings sing for you in glee.

I am yours, give me hell,

If that price could buy peace for me.”

The woman’s words rang in the air,

With the blinking stars’ above,

And the fate so near.

The werewolf moved closer,

His arms bound around her hip.

In a tragic love’s final desire,

He kissed her on her lips,

And his fangs tore into her neck,

With the heat of her blood in his mouth,

And the shiver of her flesh in his arms,

He howled at the moon,

The cruel observer in the heavens.

Deathless the night witnessed,

Hopeless the heavens observed,

The deathless werewolf groaning in pain,

And the stars of his tears-

Glowing in hell.

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The Orphan

Thepromises of a festive season are always many. We nourish the festival and its myth in hope that it will bring into our lives some of those finest moments that we long so  much to have in the present life, as the many people in the stories from past had. When some events take place that shakes us up from the conscious sleep we conveniently choose for ourselves, we say it’s bad. I thought about saying the same when I was asked to help some of my friends to provide groceries and other goods to a home for the disabled. It was under a charity organization run by one of the Christian sects. There were poor and disabled, physically and mentally. There were kids too. One of them had lost his mother just a month back. This poem, perhaps, was inspired from my visit to that home. I would like to add some value to this poem by dedicating it to those children and homeless adults.   

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The Orphan

The intimacy of your tears

With the loneliness of my days

Cannot comprehend why

I am alone in a city of crowds.

The kindness of your words

Cannot mean why my ears go shut

At the music of laughter and

The harmony of gatherings.

The smile of your empathy

Cannot bridge the rupture

Of my redemption and someone else’s

Legacy.

This poem has also been published in Poem Hunter.com

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Woman

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Sometimes, we find ourselves so aligned with the rhythm of the cosmos that the fluttering wings of a distant butterfly can have its share in helping us experience some of the indelible moments.

Woman’s Equality Day is commemorated each year by the people of the United States of America, on August 26^th. I published this poem on Poem Hunter.com without knowing this specific detail. One of my friends in Facebook told me about this. That was the moment I realized I was attuned with the cosmic music and that my thoughts crossed those living on the other side of the planet, unknowingly.

I would like to publish the comment of my Facebook friend Sabine Schonwalder from Italy at the end of this post. The poem is here for you all to enjoy.

Woman

My long sari,

An overlapping image with my body,

Floats in front of your eyes,

In a luring sensation above and below nakedness,

As if I belong to the world of mathematics,

Always shown for something else:

Suppose X is Y and A is B,

I am a woman and my soul is free.

I dedicate this poem to all women, everywhere in the world. 

Comment:

Sabine Schonwalder: Very nice title for International Women's Equality Day :-)  It creates an image in front of my eyes, so... well done :-)

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Songs of the Soul-VII

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A tear drop spawned in the eyes,

Like a sense stirred by a metaphor;

The end of words, birth of meaning,

Washing the sins of sounds,

With the silent poignancy of joy,

When you came close

To write a song on my soul.

There is a bridge that we all hope to find between every ‘you and me’ in this world. There would be words that pave the bridge. There are moments however, when each word we utter is not enough to power or to support that bridge. Then we retreat into the island of solitude and hope for a sign, either from within us or from outside, from the other side of the bridge.

In this latest series of i-poems, I wanted to talk about those signs that appear from within us, meaning and delivering a promise that the bridge between us will stand forever. These signs are the wordless sighs and soothing tears of joy.  

Dear reader, I hope you enjoyed this “silent poignancy of joy” titled “Songs of the Soul”.

A song never ends. It merely initiates the caesura. It repeats itself in the time to come and the moments past, just like it did at the time when our souls were empty in the expectation of the signs to come. 

Thank you for reading. 

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Songs of the Soul-VI

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Iresisted you like the sun darkness,

Until when the needles of time came face up.

To rise at the dawn of my life,

I went inside you, deep, down, wordless.

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Songs of the Soul-V

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I am land that takes flight

On a storm in the desert,

I am water that becomes rock

On the poles of the earth.

I am air in the clouds of the sky

That dreams to fill the river.

I am the shallowness that reminds depth.

I am darkness that shows light.

I am ignorance that knows itself.

I am the soul that lives eternal.

I am a bird that walks on earth.

I am an animal that can fly.

I am an insect eating the strongest.

When the closeness of your toes,

Breach the fear of distances,

I am all this, except words. 

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Songs of the Soul-IV

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I tell you my affection with the sighs,

From the caves of mortality.

Born in the past,

Filled up in the present,

Held by future as the child of meaning,

The growth of the seed of wordlessness;

It tells you that which I felt

When your soul lingered with mine.

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Songs of the Soul-III

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The word for love is too short.

The word for affection, shallow.

The depth of a book, insufficient.

Since, in love I became

Too vast to measure,

Too deep to fathom,

Too alive to die;

How! I still know not,

To tell you my love. 

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Songs of the Soul-II

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II

The track of molten joy

Is etched upon my cheeks,

I fill them up.

The wind from the sea of dreams

Is hidden in my chest,

I blew them out.

The drum of eternal life

Plays beneath my ribs,

I unleash it.

Still, the miracle of your nearness

In the soil of my ecstasies,

Bears no words. 

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Songs of the Soul

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A bridge stands for a purpose between every ‘you and me’ in the world. There would be words filling the bridge, traversing from the depth of a beating heart to the delicate and receptive cup of a pure soul. I would rather say I am wordless when talking about this phenomenon, which we usually identify as “words spoken between two”.  There are terms like communication, talk, conversation, dialogue, and even monologue in order to explain this bridge. Whatever name we give it, this is the bridge that brings us together and makes us stay close with each other. But sometimes, we don’t find words to express what we feel, towards ourselves, the other, or God. These are the moments of vacant buoyancy. We float like a weightless bubble on the surface of the river of life and someone comes along in the form of a touch, a gust of breeze or like of a storm and takes us to a destination, according to who they are. We just float towards an unknown destination.

We cry, there would be no other way to express what we feel in those times; wordless times. Tears shed for someone else, could suggest a couple of things: one—that it is enough of the person in your life; two—that you could not have enough of him. When you cry in front of your God, you do it for the latter. You sing with your soul, but no words come out and you wonder why was I so naïve to think God is listening when there were no words spoken and no meaning made.

When we shed a drop of tear in love, we do it for both the reasons. We hate who we love, for being so helpless and struck with awe at the magnificence of love, standing at the other end of the bridge. We love and still we cannot tell how much. We know it, but we do not know it at all.

Here are a new series of i-poems.

They are my attempt to find out what lies in the bridge between you and me, when there are no words to serve as messengers across it.

I call them: “Songs of the soul”

Here is the first installment. Hope you would like it and your soul will rejoice in it, like you did when I wrote my other poems, too. O Muse, here I am, singing for you…

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Songs of the Soul

I

The clock pushed from the cliff of time,

Has a tick to cry back.

A joy stricken bird invades the sky,

With open wings and a song from its heart.

When your words tap the strings of my soul, though,

The sorry me; stand wordless!

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Goodness and Faith

For Rishik-V

Rishik
Courtesy: Aanchal Sharma

I learned,

The urgency of goodness,

From your flickering smile;

The power of faith,

From your delicate hold.

You teach me,

What I lost inside.


Once again, all the best to Rishik. This poem marks the end of this series of i-poems. 
Blessings! 

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Pain

For Rishik-IV

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When I see you look at me,

I become a word that mean,

Depth, love, and life.

But when I cause your eyes blur,

With tears, I fade,

In a saline testimony-

Of meaninglessness.

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Peace

For Rishik-III

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When I see the kingdom you rule,

The peak of the ensign,

The voices you mutter,

When I see you sleep;

I want to be conquered too,

By you and your kingdom of peace. 

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