Why Poetry?

When someone asked me – Why do people write poems? Why do we need poems? I do not read any? I read lots of novels. I listen to music, songs, hip hop, rock, even rap. But never a poem. The last time was during my early school days when I was taught a few.

I told him – Sane enough. Poetry is never meant to be read in any case. It is written as a means of expressing one’s own deep feelings of love, of hatred, of victory, of failure, of elation, of depression, of betrayal, of fear. Poetry is a private affair. It is a love between the creator and the medium of recording. They make love and out of that wedlock emerges a creation. For some it is music, for some prose, for a few others poetry. They remain sometimes as timeless pebbles underneath the ocean, sometimes discovered, shone light, to bloom and on its flowers the bees sit, sing and get drunk, carry a few pollen along with them spreading the song, new plants are sown and new flowers are born, by when the one which bloomed first might have wilted and gone, the fragrance still linger on the stone, only to be washed away by an angry river, later picked up again by a curious kid in another land, in another era, to be felt, smelt and reborn. Its …

He interrupted- You are mad!

I guess I am. But, wait, mister, I had not finished…!

A muted whimper

I found him canned,
Ashes collected from a burning pan
Of once a bold body tanned
Memories hang by of his clan.

Spent years,
Wasted time,
In a wasting body,
End thus quietly.

Eyes dry,
With no more tears to cry.
Lingering moments,
With no more lovely presents.

~ Trilok ~

Fractured mind

A million dreams
In a zillion worlds
Fragmented
Demented
I am.

Give me a hand
Hold me back
For I am a fraction away
From the world of no return.

I can’t let go
My fears and the pain
Wounded
Wrecked
I am.

It’s but all deep in my mind.
~Trilok~

In my imagination

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I’ve been so lonely forever,
I feel this pain so deep, for how long, I am not so sure,
The winds rustle on the empty branches of autumn,
As I walk on the deserted road that leads me no where.

I remember you, driving into my heart
Guarded tight by a red light,
Love was just a sweet accident,
Victims, we were of that winter incident.

Months later, we were just recovering,
For those were welcome wounds,
We never wanted to heal from,
Pain for us was a blissful serum.

Seasons moved on before us without reasons,
Breaking the  trance we were in.
Moments clung on hopelessly like raindrops on windshield
Until a winter saw us drifting far apart.

Left are just fragments of memories
Suspended in a broken mind,
Replayed endlessly behind closed eyes;
A figment of my imagination, it was, maybe!

~Trilok~

From an Election Diary

Dedicated to this Election

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Now that all is over, I mean this election
Isn’t it time for some patient reflection?
Queued is a frustrated India waiting for a hopeful resurrection,
In an election fought hard and bad with words filled with objection.

Some leaders you disliked and many you worshiped; they all fed on your affection,
When rallies traveled to far-off places of voter action
Moods fluctuated, colors changed and glamour waned when warned of inaction.
A silent reminder, it was, of the power in that voting button selection.

Oil and water were people they claimed and split in to bar charts on television,
Would never mix these elements claimed experts of misdirection.
Will the experts stand in front of people’s jury for introspection?
Ha, they were showmen raking TRPs like casino-goers doing point collection.

Those empty stomachs and quiet wails without a vision,
Will benefit from our proud selection,
Is but a dream waiting to be real for years in collection!
This is but another chance waiting for course correction.

Now that all is over, I mean this election,
What will I eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with no spice on TV for selection,
Curd rice in canteen now goes back to that stale plate of infection,
and with colleagues, I wonder, what will be my common point of discussion!

Now that all is over, I mean this election,
Can I go back to work and strive for that promising promotion?

 

  ~Trilok~

Soliloquy of a Stillborn Life

Soon I shall be gone

Will there be anyone to mourn?

There will be nothing but a stone

Resting on the bones of a life, stillborn.

 

The pages of my torn book,

The manuscript that no one would look,

Would litter the boneyard

Like leaves swept by a solemn wind, southward.

 

Time would stand muted, holding the empty end

Of a broken kite-string that it failed to mend.

The destiny, the dream, both wounded from a life-long fist fight

Would sing the requiem of a life’s plight.

 

The meaning of my work, hard to know

When I am alive and shouting now

Would in the end,  dawn on this world

When beneath the earth, silently I curled.

 

~Trilok~