I think I cawed at the crow today

I saw a crow today, he sat

upon a dish antenna

singing to his self his melancholy,

looking hither-thither, to find

a lost comrade or may be it is

just his proclivity,

.

my eyes fixated at his actions

he never looked at me, not a single while

but I resolved myself to the spot

thinking that if I stand for long

he would glide and come sit atop

my shoulder, or may be it was

just a proclivity of my mind

.

nevertheless he took his flight

never was a flight so entrancing,

not that of a peacock, not a koel,

not even an eagle,

and I think he prided himself

in his beauty: his disparity,

and that of my own

.

Written on 3 July’2014.

Oil Painting by Vanessa van Eyk

Trespassing all the way|_|As Existence Glistens

trespassing through a body made up of

jungle leaves, water weeds, fossil prints,

I engender a whole history in me, of rock

archives of gullible paints, of guitar riffs

eternally hovering in layers of time, but

.

then I am a trespasser, just passing by

(though sometimes it seems like a very

long distance, and other times, it is

just so short, like an old pair of socks)

today I am, tomorrow someone else

who would make the skin crawl all over

once again, because cowardice is true

and nothing else, in this banana peel

that you slip over as if its your own life,

that you can hitchhike anytime, I do so

in my dreams finding the end in blood

(fearsome.. ain’t it.. what truth beseeches)

.

I crackle my pale nails of toes, of fingers

that wriggle like an alien creature but I am

as well, (remember) a trespasser,  through

life forms, through elements, so to burn

and drown, and ravaged by air, or buried

in the heart of the soil, and still existence

glistens as long as there is a color in me,

as long as I can draw lines, series of circles,

I stay forever, but never when my palette

goes dry, and then I’d whisper goodbye

.

For dVerse Meeting the Bar.

Image source

Open: A Short Story

“I am never going to be someone I am not. I don’t mind being open but I am more of a genteel person by nature,” I say mumbling.

He doesn’t reply. He has directed his entire focus towards the steering wheel, as if trying to solve the riddle that I am, in the slight hand movements he make, while coursing through this coarse traffic. I, on the other hand, have my eyes set on his lips, awaiting them to open and grant me some wisdom.

They do open but just for him to release the breath he has been holding. I am eager. He doesn’t oblige.

As my end stop does come, I slowly open the door and look at him one last time. His eyes are now determined to see through the dashboard to the mysteries of what this machine is made of.

I ponder at the colours of the car in the moon shine as he backs and takes my last view away from me.

“It was not worth talking to him.” The words reach me before the source. She comes and sits atop my shoulder, as she always does. “You can open your heart to me.” She gives me a choice. It is enticing but I would better not. And she knows that. Vanishing in smoke, she leaves me alone.

I have nowhere to go. I settle down on the rotten grass, acting as a cushion for me, from the cold gravel below. I kiss my hands, rubbing the heat of my breaths, soothing them this warm night when I am cold.

No one comes. No one ever comes on this path. And the driver would not return now. I have no strength to pick up on those tiny lights within my heart for him to feed on. But she would return. “I should give up to her. Why wait any longer?”

But she is not going to arrive just like that. I wait. She never comes. I freeze in the boiling sun the next day and the day after next, I am blown away. I have opened up my molecules and now, they return back to where they came from. I am no longer one, as I never was. I am bound. I am open.

.

Image source

I put her on a weighing scale

Berthe Morisot by Edouard Manet, 1872

reaching me in waves of familiarity, for 

my mind to pay homage, to the voices of

the pink lips and maroon, that move in

undecipherable languid curves,

accentuated by the rapidly blinking eyes,

the two orbs that I was looking for,

for so long, they kindle my heart with

a flame, and make me blind by their sheen,

I try to wave away her beams, that surround

me into an enclosure of rapture, of pain,

my hands tremble, my toes freeze by her sight,

as I know when she apprehends me curiously,

.

which I do as well, but only by coy glimpses

to determine on the weighing scale, difference

of who she was, and who she is today,

she laughs at me, she laughs with me, but

nothing could hide my gloom of understanding,

she is no more the one she was, neither am I

the one of the past, she nods, she smiles,

breaking me into pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,

“Goodbye”, she says, shaking my right hand

with her left, then right, leaving me in

search of those pieces to adjoin, and find

my picture again, without, but in her gaze

The One Who Stands Alone

Sometimes it becomes difficult for me

to know who can be a friend and who can’t be one

I thought I succeeded in making some of them

but ended up knowing I was still alone, outcasted

for the reason, that I don’t know.

I remember I have always been an outcast-

a distinct personality, a leader in himself

with neither followers nor supporters,

the person who always stood alone, that is me

Is it good for me or not to be like this,

that I don’t know but what I know is that

I won’t mind standing alone in the crowd

but I would never lose self-respect,

never will I become your tail-

I will always stand for what I find right-

friends or not, even if the courtesy of

acknowledgment you take away

from me, I won’t mind

standing alone because that is who I am-

the outcasted one, the one who stands alone.