The me in me

Scrolling through the back pages
Looking for old words for the (re)new
Written I thought they were in past
When I wasn’t in need of them

Words gone missing, remaining truth
A human, mortal that I am
Even the great Achilles had heels
Look me through the prism of heart

Who would ever be blameless
When it was Plato, defended slavery
A human, mortal that I am
Born to fall and get up

In the spirit of human
The sins of times variable
Judge me for the me in me
Not the one you do see

Awaiting the rising of rainbow
Until it was per the ‘dreamers’
Till we decry sinner with the sin
Judge me for the me in me

Donna

How the winds are laughing,
they laugh with all their might.
Laugh and laugh the whole day through,
and half the autumn night.

In the village remote
just above the sight, a crow flies
Down below, the mighty land,
the mournful chicken in a coop lies

“Stop complaining!” said the owner,
“Who told you a chicken to be?
You got wings and yet you don’t fly,
like the crow so proud and free?”

Boulders tiny, stacked so light,
you could never brush aside
O my Donna, not your life
Be the crow, so smart and snide

Chicken are stopped and slaughtered,
never knowing the reason why.
But whoever treasures freedom,
like the crow, has learned to fly.

PS : Inspired from this amazingly beautiful song by the indomitable Joan Beaz

A poem on poems

It could be the manner of a moment
Or may be the word of life greatest
I do write one just on the clouds
They did prophesize Geeta in words poetic

Playwright could extract a pound flesh
Novelist great might wring Great Expectations
Story we read of Magi’s gift most beautiful
Great, nonetheless, were just the tales of us

Shruti, the treasure of hindus
Illiad, Odyssey, identity of civilisations
Dante and divine beginning
Chaucher the father with canterburry

Nobel 29% only gained for poetry
Story of literature, but never else began
Its a poem that gives you wings
Mankind’s divine tool to concieve

Burden rich of character development
Pressure of finding ending binding
The hook to move to Act next
Novel, Story, or in a Play mighty

Flight of poem needed no hook
For No One is a poem best told
For No way is a poem’s best way
For a poem may not tell you all
For a poem will vary its layers
The tale of a poem can never be told
For a poem is the one only ‘you’ live

When will I meet you?

The mornings with your sniff
The expectant wait fulfilled
Waking up in your arms
Goosebumps of your brush
All I shall cherish again
When I will meet you

The long wait burning me
You living with the forests
Missing romance of your feel
Pervading the windy winter nights
When will I meet you?

My cheeks be flushed with colour
With your magical touch
Looking to dress cool with you
Oh what hills I’d climb
The highest of joys I’d have
When I will meet you

Dreams i saw in your arms
How long shall i bear unfulfilled
This separation afar
Meets 2 in year never suffice
When will I meet you?

My betrothal my current place
All thats keeping you away
The question wringing my heart
When will i meet you for life
My darling Himalayas…

Beyond : Buddha

Long before our times he came
The Chakravartin with curly hair
Light of Asia was he called
Born to rule or liberate humanity
As would be his wont

In the life of you
Miseries of the post modern small
Looking at the light he showed
8 ways to leave your suffering
No expectations – he said
And that’s all you did

But the one question you still had
Is that, what you live for?
The samsara did have son and wife
Being the buddha was his wont
But a dead ascetic, not your middle path

Born and dead, a cycle they say
But, Go for Middle, what he said
A life of constant is deed great
Bow to him for teaching that
But, the answers blowing in the wind
Beauty greatest comes from love and pain
To be dead is kill expectations
Sinusodial of life you prefer

Casteism be not your chasm
Your pain is life and love
4,8,32 the numbers he gave
No, math didn’t stop there
You lookout for platform 9 3/4
Working to irrationalise the perfect

Honey does stay millennia 5 and half
But wisdom aged 2k might be stale
Your tale can’t be his
Its the journey of you
For you, the one who shall go, Beyond..

Beyond : Tagore

Wither not ye weary traveller of post modern
The tomes of past you knew
The shoulders you stood upon
For they, lights shining of their age
The story none told beyond him
The clarion call to “ekla cholo”
When none listens to “tor daak”

O ye weary traveller of post modern
The walk you began alone
His Metered verse shrouding you
As you reminisce journey alone
The walk solo you see nowhere
Not just the ekla walk you took
A long and Winding Road you took with few

Well ye weary traveller of post modern
You to have the strength
To start The Long Walk alone
Shall forever be the gift of bard
Its your journey that teaches
The courses to take
And folks to tag along

Now ye weary traveller of post modern
A journey can start alone
Voyage none ended alone
What you never knew
In those darkest nights
For every rock moved
You open a new light

But ye weary traveller of post modern
The journey was never done
None has yet finished the trail
Your tale can’t be his
Its the journey of you
For you, the one who shall go, Beyond…

Boy who yearned to talk

Once upon a time

With the blessings of thyme

Lived a boy who yearned to talk

Blessed octogenarian or a child small

Entertaining ’em all fell in his happy domain

 

And, if stars were aligned

He could talk a challenge or two

Emboldened by his speaking prowess

Headache once he gave, as a challenge

A friend who spent his teenage without the range

 

In the great magnetic field

Opened were the strings of time

When he travelled time, a decade apart

Gift of gab was gone with the fervour of life

Stood the Iron Man, dazed with a callous psyche

 

And yet, the birds do fly

Can he, wonders he, the man

Lit a room with a laugh boisterous

Or a saunter through an afternoon siesta

Mauled where the sleepiest be, with token of fun

 

And so, decade anew comes

Tidings shall turn as passes time

Brooding philosopher with a dog and books

Or be he, man of world, dancing in a room on top

He’ll do it, read and dance, and in the course, future decide

Surrender Not Bannerjee

The pages of History which I go through
One of the biggest gain I find
The joy of marvel, the awe of being humbled
When I get to meet the giants of past

One such super cool, Bearded Suave Rockstar
One whose speeches India first heard
Was our dear old Surendranath Bannerjee
Or as I like to call him, SNB

Raja Rammohan Roy,the first modern Indian
Nehru might after all be the first independent one
But, my dear friends, talk of the Indian who was first free
The one who stood as Indian, our SNB was the one

Surrender Not Banerjee was what the British would call him
A fan of Mazzini, Garibaldi, the first Indian ICS
This was the man who scared Hume
And thus we got our own Congress

He was the one who started mutinies and won them too
Fought and won the post of ICS once
Until they couldn’t but dismiss on whim
And thus was born the first radical

Buried in the pages of Moderatism
The free Indian got blown by Tilak
The Rashtraguru faded into oblivion
But not before he had made the mark

Years countless have passed since your birth
Almost a century since your death
And yet this one son of your nation
And a lover of your extremism

Shall always remember you
The one with poise but too the swag to push it up
The one who started it all for us..
The one great grandfather we all forgot

Il Risorgimento

Lets talk of a unification great
Of an empire that once was supreme
Lay sprawling in the dust
The nation of Italians which once was foremost

A king sagacious, A statesman peerless
A dreamy Revolutionary and A hero of two worlds
Emmanuel , Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi
Four names I hope Italians still do adore

Sardinia was to be the core of it all
State of Emmanuel with the guile of Cavour
Became the shining light of Italy
A leader to all, the guiding force

Napolean,the other one came to the rescue
Nationalist at heart,a carbonari he once was
Melted away at the plight of a nation old
At Plombiers he vowed, To deliver the birth

Won the war Napolean did for Italy
But stopped short of the desired victory
Lombardy they got from the clutches of tyrants
But the fratello Venetian lay still under the foreign yoke.

Parma, Modena, Bologna, Tuscany then
People all stood up in the name of their nation great
The British bulldog came to Cavours help
Keeping Austrians at the bay and Napolean could just watch and wonder

Turn of the two Sicilies it was next
Up in arms they stood against the Bourbon French
Cavour, hand tied due to the Catholic effect
Brought along the sword of Italy to fight the battle rest

Expedition of the Thousand rode across the kingdoms
Garibaldi and the Red Shirts won the piece missing
The kingdom of Italy thence was made
Emmanuel the King, through a republican sword.

Rome still with the Pope, Austria lorded the Venice
Bismarck,the Champion provided opportunities two great
Snatched Venice from the enemy Austrian
Drove Napolean’s armies away from Rome

King Emmanuel never the fool
Death of Cavour couldn’t deter
Fall of 70 he made Rome his own
When Cadorna crossed the Papal frontiers

Garibaldi tending his field in Caprera, Cavour in his grave gone
Mazzini the scholar lost, King Emmanuel who wore the crown
Four men who made the Italy
Could finally that day, have taken rest

Nero’s Remorse

(Famous painting, Remorse of Nero by John William Waterhouse, which got me into writing this)

She was the Empress, She was Augusta
She was my mother, She gave me birth
I am the Caesar, I’m the will
And it was her blood that law demanded

She had to be killed
She was the treacherous
She looked to usurp the Caesar
That bloody woman shall never be calm

Claudius, she killed with, The Food of God
My turn could have come again
Britannicus was her next cog in wheel
The cat could never be tamed

I wanted it a peaceful tale
I arranged for her to go the Gods
If only she could have sunk in the Nemi lake
I had it all arranged nice and calm

She the treacherous, still ran away
Dare again she disobey the Caesar great
Had no choice, no words left
I had to kill her, by the hand

For never shall a citizen be above empire
Never shall a conspirator be left alive
No eyes that look at throne shall ever be spared
For above you all, lies the Caesar

She were to be executed as the order decried
She was my mother, who gave me birth
Yet all along in front of court, cried the ungainly wretch
“Smite my womb, that produced the son abominable”

As the dagger, struck the wound
In front of these eyes, her gift divine
As the woman most strong lay down in dust
She the woman most beautiful, bore it with a sigh

Years dozen have come and gone
Since that fateful night in Rome.
Justice was served,the treacherous was killed
Justice was served,a mother was lost

I could never kill the empress
How could I banish the woman great
The arm of justice had it made and done
For above you all, lies the Caesar

[Background]

My (almost correct) historically retelling of the remorse of Roman Emperor, Nero on his act of getting his mother, Agrippina killed. Agrippina is one of the devious n famous women in Roman history described as ‘ruthless, ambitious, violent and domineering’ by various historians. She had incestuous relations with her brother (who was Emperor Caligula) gaining almost empirical powers during his reign, married her uncle Emperor Claudius, whom she then killed to bring her son, Nero to power. Only to be plotting against him as well, as he started drifting off from her influence and trying to supplant him with Britannicus, son of Claudius.

As wiki lists out, her list of victims is not too small. And yet getting her killed for his own safety, was an event her son, rued all his life.