The New Gods

The other day, 
I caught myself thinking, 
Wondering whether the old Gods, 
Still walk this earth. 

Do they anymore dwell,
In the din,
Of our shuddering cities? 
Or is the fuel for the fires,
The flames in our engines, 
All that remains,
Of their lifeblood we drained?

In the dust, ash and grime,
It is hard to find, 
Marks of the divine, 
When these desolate lands, 
Like the bent broken backs,
Shells of their bodies, 
That still stand. 

Maybe the old Gods are lost to us, 
We've been left abandoned, 
To perish by the torments, 
Of our own devices.

Yet we need to hold on, 
To hope,
That hiding in the breeze, 
And the shades of trees, 
In the gurgle of a cool stream, 
Are the new Gods, 
Gods who will rise to reclaim this earth, 
Gods who will heal the creation we've hurt, 
They who will lead us to rebirth. 

Prayer

Born as humans,
We've been given so much,
Like spoilt children though,
We still keep asking for more. 

Bent, bowed and begging,
Praying to the Gods, 
Craving, for just a little bit more, 
But forgetting,
What we offer in return,
Is all their making, 
It's all their own.

Perhaps,
We would be wiser,
To cease the beseeching,
Look at all that we've been given,
And start seeking,
To become worthy. 

Worthy of being human,
Worthy of speaking to the Gods,
To look them eye to eye,
To never have to stoop, 
Wouldn't that be a greater tribute ?

Revive

It's been a while, 
Since I've written some poetry,
And I think I know why,
That words now elude me.

Over the years, poetry,
Had become for me, 
A way to survive,
    The hell inside,
A silent scream for help, 
Words that hoped to be heard,
All the cries that they held.

I had learnt those words so well,
Words of sadness and pain, 
That when you arrived, and the hurt ebbed, 
I  was left unprepared and ill-equipped, 
Stranded with phrases that didn't fit. 

Can you tell,
That I am trying to write something happy?
That I am once again learning to smile?
And I am looking for words anew, 
That let me show you, 
The light and the joy,
That inside me rises once more.

I am in love, 
I have the strength,
To not drown in the deep, 
In the sea of darkness that I've let,
Lap on the edges of my soul.

I am happy, 
And I am alive, 
Maybe now I will find words that glow,
Write a little poetry,
With lines that flow,
To honor what you've made me see,
That I am revived, 
At a place where we can thrive.

A Broken World

When last I wrote,
I thought I could break through,
Stir something in you, 
Find the depths of apathy,
But maybe there's still some ways to go, 
Until I find the collective limit. 

Would it be more sad, or less?
If the other reason, 
Is that all of you are now just numb, 
To the pain,
That there's just too many words around,
Too much of the same,
And if that's the case,
I don't know what to say.

But that doesn't make the pain,
Any less real, does it? 
And those who can write about it, 
Perhaps they're the ones speaking,
For the rest of you. 

Tell me, we're all so angry now, 
All the time, aren't we? 
Pretending to care for others,
Acting as if we can feel,
Their hurt and agony,
Yet all the while, 
Unable to care for even our own selves,
All of us are in grief, 
Just beneath the veneer of peace,
There's so much hostility,
But surprisingly,
I find myself simultaneously,
Incapable of violence.

I think we're an angry people,
Living in a broken world,
A world of rising seas and burning forests,
Of tyranny and failing democracies,
And I think that you need to wake up,
Wake up to the fractured society,
Wake up and let yourself feel,
Because words are failing now,
Falling on tired eyes and frozen hearts,
Words are no more enough now, 
It's time we rose, it's time to move,

So what are we going to do?

Would Kafka Be Proud?

A little every day,
I inch towards certain death,
A worm eats its way,
A gaping hole through my head. 

Defenceless, I bear witness, to the hurt,
And the cold, cruel, unfeeling,
Hearts of the new world,
From which to flee,
I dream, 
        Of either my own dying,
Or I scream,
For destruction, 
The unravelling at the seams,
Of the world around me.

This darkness that I carry, 
                             I would shed gladly, 
This wall of words, 
                           I'd let crumble freely, 
If I was held today, 
Cradled by gentle hands,
Caressed, 
By a solitary sign of being wanted,
Onto the scraps, I would hold, 
                               Shreds of desire,
Swinging from the pegs of hope,
I could rest my shield, 
                                Quench the fire,
I would finally yield,
Walk away,
                  From the blazing pyre.

Alas, this earth is tired, 
Over us all a dismal, desolate shroud, 
If he knew, of the depths of my despair, 
Would Kafka be proud?

A Pile of Lines

At every hint of hurt,
And every sign of pain,
I've turned to poetry,
Turned myself into poetry,
Bleeding words, in meaning sparse,
Over and over, until a pile of lines,
Is the only thing sheltering me.

I haven't been feeling much of late,
The silence of my heart has been,
Disconcerting,
Shallow, dreary days, and the burden of fate,
Had me thinking,
There was no more to bleed. 

But I need the words,
I need the verses,
Today, I need every letter,
That I can muster,
To stem the torrent,
That threatens to flow,
From under the scabs on my heart,
Stirs raw, uncontained,
Grief from long ago,
Stains the links of the fetter,
That I so urgently strain against.

Words, fickle words,
To soften the blow,
I turn to poetry again,
To keep myself from going insane.

Grace

Someone asked me,
What are you looking for?
How do you want, 
Your lover to be?

I couldn't say anything then,
But I've been thinking,
The woman from my dream,
Who is she?

Here's my answer. 
Fanciful, perhaps,
Presumptuous, probably,
But this is a draft,
A very rough draft,
Of how I want my partner to be. 

I want her to be someone who understands,
not just art, but the importance of art,
the necessity of creation,
Someone whose life is art. 

The woman I love, 
I wish her to be attuned to the Earth,
Respectful of the natural way,
Who seeks to unite the knowledge of the ancient people,
Despite the modern life far-removed from the roots.

I would like her to be invested in the history of humankind,
The stories of our ancestors,
Because in those lies the wisdom,
That illuminates the coming days,
The right path, the good path. 

The partner I choose,
To be by my side till the end of our time,
Must have a conception of,
The greater purposes if being alive,
A woman who, for all the regular successes,
Understands that life should be lived to be fulfilled,
A person who seeks adventure easily,
And each day is,
Without regret,
Without boundaries,
Without compulsions,
Someone who prizes freedom,
One who is mindful of,
The indispensable liberty of the individual. 

I want to be with a woman,
Who has a touch of the insane,
For her to look at the world, 
And see it with a vision of her own, 
Wild, 
Divergent,
Unrestrained.

And most of all, 
I want her to have grace. 

Silence

I don't feel very good today.

The skies are overcast, 
But the clouds,
Aren't as dark as I'd like them to be. 

There's a breeze but,
It's undecided.
Much like me,
It isn't sure which way to go.

I feel a little sad today.
There are some,
Who I'd like to reach out to,
Some, I wish would text me hello.

I have been silent,
Trying to listen,
But if my heart's grown quiet too,
Who'll talk me through?

When I am lost, 
Like I am today, 
Who can I turn to?

When my silent heart, and an empty room,
Tell me in so many ways,
That I am afraid today.

I feel unsteady,
My thoughts all over the place,
Like the weather,
I'm not sure who I am anymore.

The Stranger

I have no poetry for what I want to write now. The feeling is at once out of place and familiar, and rhymes will just hold me back. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, and while listening to music that takes me away to a peaceful place, I understood what’s been bothering me, what eats at me.

I have understood, that I am a stranger in my own land, that the places that speak my name aren’t here. The books I’ve read, the songs I’ve heard, all of that has taken me away from the places I’ve lived in, and away from the people around me. It has put a distance that I have been unable to find a bridge to. The gap between me and them, has grown much in the recent years. The more I’ve found my true calling, the more that I’ve found the depths inside myself; the more I find myself distanced in my heart and mind from the ones around me.

It is no wonder then, that I have felt so abandoned and lonely for so long a time. Not just in my search for a romantic relation, but in even in other aspects too, there is hardly anyone who complements me in the breadth and depth of my thoughts; someone who resonates with my beliefs and the values I live by.

So, I am left a stranger in my everyday life. What I see in my mind’s eye, I have met none who share the vision. It’s as if I am unseen and unheard by anyone I talk to. The language I speak in, it’s not of the here and now, the life I live is not of this place or time. I am the stranger to everyone I know. Never understood, never accepted. I have never belonged, but everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve felt that I’ve been there before.

In my heart, I pray to the Gods that have looked upon us through time, that I soon find my people. People who are not of this time, but of some age in the past when humans were one with the Earth, when honour and morality wasn’t so alien, so hard to grasp; when the words we spoke was truthful till every last syllable. Misfits now, we belong to places where the divine isn’t lost, and we walked with the Gods. A way of life where the children never lost their way, and we found wisdom from the ancestors, where nature was respected and feared, and legacy was of values, not material. I hope to be with those people, who love with all their hearts, and live with all their souls. People who are not afraid of the old ways. Companionship that speaks through time, in the language of the universe. Human beings who understand that we’re meant for so much more.

The Kingdom of the Clouds

When you look at towering clouds,
Rising in thick spires,
High into the heavens,
The rolling ramparts of white,
Shifting, growing, ascending,
What do you see?

When the dark clouds move towards you,
Heavy and slow,
Silent and vast,
Carrying in them the weight of,
An unending love that,
The divine holds for the Earth,
What do you think?

In overcast skies I have seen, 
A kingdom,
The kingdom of the clouds,
Of white and gray, 
A realm in a field of blue,
Where they live, the tribe of air, 
The beings of the wind.

It is a forbidden world,
To us earthly mortals,
Soaring, unattainable ,
Always moving, 
Conjured on a whim, 
A dominion of light and shadow,
Suspended over our vanilla cities.

The eagles and the kites,
Guard the parapets of that kingdom,
And we can only watch and wonder,
Or from an aircraft, 
Peek into the valleys,
Hidden to our eyes,
Unreachable in their dizzying height,
Always washed by the bright sunlight.