Fading Gold-Shine

Why friendship doesn't last, if it means not that exaggerated insanity what is known as Love so evanescent when exposed to a situation where it's all hard bread without butter and meat? Why? I am really curious. I mean particularly between a man and a woman, peers of equal footings. I also mean in general. Why it's all hypocrisy at last, the shed foul sweat to be seen but started with such infatuated passion and rhetoric? Why a human heart is that myopic just planning for this life while mouthing grander ideas with the touch of spiritual sublimity?

Oh, my fellows compatriots!

So that's why, I sense, that's why a good friend is so hard to find, so so hard. Really!

“If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.”__ S.E. Hinton

And now I begin to see the treasure enshrined in the above aphorism.

Even though I am not a hero who can pirouette across a posh carpeted floor with a skilled agility, even though I lack the advertised chivalry of being brazenly proving that I have a heart of gold, even though I am not princely in bearings with curtsying way of ducking and craning like being able to pick up and hand over right away or like caring only about the two core zones, I know where I stand, what is for me and, above all, what it costs to be a hero in the cutting-edge setting or era now, to regale in that way...

I am not designed for it. Yes, dullard yet not simpleton.

A Fraying Summon

When a thousand reasons fail,

Namely discriminatory junks,

It takes a moment insight frail

Yet acutely relieving for the sunk.

When a thousand ills befall me,

Life, oh, so painful yet funny,

Taking snatching moment in thy name,

I wish thee to come as my savior sunny—

Bask me in thy sweltering tenderness

To show me a way to that depth,

I have tried to shun out of meekness,

Where I hold thee till my last breath.  

Lisper

The two bright eyes

As the pale hope teeters,

The enlivened will shudders—

The close-up demonic views

Guffaw undoing each screw

That upholds a notion so basic,

Estranged by a version eccentric.

As erratic as a charlatan’s sanctimony

The sentimental cliché what is penny!

‘You dumb fool, lost, coward.

Why you lisp and drawl, dullard?’

Yes, right, I a mere by passer

But why I lisp and falter?

It’s up to you, the estranged bubble.

Answer it for the one at his wit’s jumble.

Yes, I stutter also, laugh if you wish—

The closely networked mishmash,

The surreal within surreal matrix,

Has programmed me into such fix.

Why you just pick up those?

There even things laudable:

Those at public disposals, yes, buses—

The joy of ride marked by poses.

(I can’t stop chuckling here, sorry.)

Yes, deserted parks just as follies…

Yes, above all, the punctiliousness,

The smoothness of bureaucracy—

Thanks for those fake smiles

And sometimes sarcasms spicy

That let me inculcate more words

And self-mirror more closely, this dullard.

A Summon Yonder

Now as you demand it out of me

Or may wonder if I am an obtuse,

Uncivilized for the infernal indelicacy,

I dig within me to find a nugget.

But, alas, diffidence instead of such snippet.

Yeah, call me coward or mummified.

Holding desperately on to this defunct means,

Telepathy, the channel of those great prayers,

Like the one on the verge of being swept away into apocalypse,

I can see you, the outline of your lovely smile.

Yes, I say shine with it ever!

I just see a world yonder. 

A Strange Rain

Nogent Sur Oise, Criel in the background

The same panoramic view,

The texture now drowsy

And now resplendently new—

The providence of mother busy—,

Before the same two dull eyes

Now blood-shot, now morbidly dyed.

It’s the rain of today

Like the rare expo of mother’s skill

Languidly falling bigger drops, say

Like beaded curtain in rolling drill

But the ripples of distant tiny drops

Myriad, entangled like flurry of hopes—

To live now or stuck out there;

To value it or to be swept away

Into myriad eternity yonder,

Uncertainty flickers at murky bay.

Even so attached tomorrow

Like a formless desperate crow.

Nay I can look out there

Or have such intertwined plans.

Nay, even for a second, I dare

Think that I of such swimming clan.

Say coward. Yes, I am but dreamer

I am but so preposterous for you—

As I dream

Off the ground of flurries,

So novel yet so outrageous.

One Day

It’s only the turn of time—

This time you,

Gone yet heavier and more obsessed,

The narrow dark corridor speaks,

The shrill breezes with the drizzle wail,

The glistening yet dewy life

As brittle as an egg.

I remain,

Grossly existent yet lighter and adrift,

The flying time whispers,

The dying soul laments,

The slipping dreamy realities

As hectic as the senseless machine.

So could be seen from Sylvain’s meditative ironies,

More than usual rites of marihuana-shot reverie.

So his 13 years old son Christope’s ironic lightness,

‘He, Patrick, has gone forever,’

Followed by pointing towards the grey-dark sky

Above the silhouette of the nearby wooded ridge

That could be seen from the open window.

It was middle-aged Patrick,

The crippled ex-army,

Who had seen the world,

As per through his military posts.

His sedateness cost him,

Even during the cruel stroke?

His broken English,

The two treasured photo albums,

Told me that far about him.

He was a drummer,

His band mostly Philippines,

‘The good persons’ as he said.

With my prayers,

As I do wish,

I hope this broken piece,

Would preserve his fleeting image ever

Marked by his English,

‘How are you? Good?

I am good. Thank you.’

How his brooding plus loneliness,

Despite usual carousal with the pockmarked aged Muslim guy,

Could be detected by such as I,

Rawness plus self-search shot?

The aged Muslim guy

(Sorry I don’t know his name yet),

My next door one,

Now with more of himself:

‘On doit partir un jour,’ I tried my French.

‘C’est, c’est,voila, un jour,’ he said.

He meant to draw attention of Sylvain and Christope

Both my broken French and the gist

That regaled his searching heart at the moment.

It was he who had found out

After pounding repeatedly on the russet painted door

On that day and the previous.

More through his gesticulations

Like slicing the void at his will

I got thus,

I felt something of true self—

Bereft of any prejudices.

Now, as late Patrick was alone in this murky world,

With no one all gone as from the Muslim guy,

Who could be an ex-army as well,

The old sycamore claims,

Through how many hard seasons,

As the only one, more than the today’s full moon there,

Who still stands next by the strip of new road.

The narrow dark corridor is darker,

Pregnant with whizzing obsession

Yet still and to wade across,

The mystery of life by the death.

The Two Minds: How A Monstrous Hate Could Be Brewed

Tibetans at bazaar day on Monday at Mundgod

It was now at the end of the first year for Ngodup at the monastic administrative office. Whatever the people had talked about the recent comet with its luminous tail like a whizzing star caught still as the sign presaging something inauspicious Ngodup hadn’t taken it so. And now there were a few including Phuntsok who said the recent case of anti-Tibetan sentiments stirred by a friendly looking Indian residing on the outskirts of the monastery with a plot of land he had purchased from a local Indian as the proof. His name was Jimmy and one of those who had migrated from Kerala. It was rumored that he had procured the land on the roadside through sort of applying his smiling manipulative devices like promising big but giving little. As per his rather outgoing taste with a fixed broad smile on his fleshy face plus sweet words facilitated by his effeminate softness over the short build he had been known to many who he said as his friends ‘Mari Dhose’. He had later built a simple bungalow with a telephone booth plus travel agency. The monks had been going to him. He had had also soft drinks like Coca and Pepsi delivery deal with the monastic canteens. Like he had appeared suddenly with the same broad simile and sweet words he had taken all by surprise by going this far like he could do so as his ultimate heinous wish to drive away all the Tibetans from the settlement.

Even if it had been talked about with minimum wonder or shock, no one had thought he would go that far in procuring some leading figures behind him like the local president of Indo-Tibetan Friendship Society, the principal of the central school for Tibetans and a local businessman who was said as heavily indebted in loans. The reason of such rancor by the two first figures against the Tibetans was unknown but the local businessman had its doings with the monastic disciplinarians restricting grip that had stopped naughty novices visiting his home at nights to watch movies by paying per disk till morning. He had been able to make pretty income from such as there were times when almost thirty monks were present. And such going had been happening for more than two years. And for Jimmy it was the similar story of monks being restricted from stepping into his temporary home for making a call as per the precaution against possible case that Jimmy would run other things that were against the monastic discipline. So such hatred had been seeded into the two hearts.

It was towards a windy evening when an unexpected rain was inevitable from the darkening sky with those mountainous dark clouds lurching and closing in. The scraps of dry mango leaves were blown everywhere in a rampaging movement and with a hissing sound. Ngodup was at home after a day of hard work. Solidarity Committee was now carrying out a series of major people protest programs in Bombay. As Ngodup was going to learn later, the hundreds of ordained ones were staying at a major university campus. The people of India there, especially the students, were very empathetically with Tibetans through joining the protest programs and expressing solidarities despite the somber case looming here at Tibetan settlement, Mundgod. ‘We are with you’ was their motto. So, the heinous case here perpetrated by the two possessed minds was evidently not to be taken that seriously as many did this windy evening. Whispers could be heard everywhere in the monastery that a protest by the Indian people of the nearby villages was coming the next day. Phuntsok had just come back from a protest program in Pondicherry. He was sort of both thrilled and dreaded. And with the same expressions on his skinny long face he came to Ngodup.

‘What you haven’t heard about it? How you can just stay like nothing is going to happen? What and how we are to react? What those villagers would do? You know we won’t respond back in the similar way. You know about the two such cases happened in Dharamsala years back when Tibetans did nothing but fled. How the mob, mostly those poor used by the ones behind, attacked our government offices, stole whatever they got hold of and beat Tibetans. What justice was there? And the recent case there of beating two young Tibetan girls who just attempted to intervene when those taxi drivers harassed and beat a drunken Tibetan. I hate those guys called Jimmy and Japati. But I have gone not more than twice at Japati at nights to watch movies. Oof, see, now they, who know more about us, have gone that far to organizing such mass hate against us just to meet their selfish ends. I can’t bear it,’ said Phuntsok before telling about how the protest program from which he had just come back had gone.

Ngodup listened and let him fume. He wasn’t that affected as Phuntsok. He just thought, if such a protest was to come, that could be no more than a handful of people. The Tibetans hadn’t had any strife with the neighboring villages but relationship in terms of those coming to work at the monasteries from construction, dairy farms to handicraft centers. And those doing business in supplying groceries to the monastic canteens and kitchens had always been friendly. So why not those of upper levels coming to the monastic offices. And in terms of the whole settlement with nine camps and four major monastic universities the case had been bright and mutually beneficial with the respective neighbors. Even if a few cases of such conflicts had happened at the biggest Tibetan settlement, Bylakuppe and other parts in India, they were of such possible in a human society fed by attachment and hatred at personal level. So Ngodup couldn’t believe Jimmy and Japati could coax all those hardworking villagers in plunging themselves into a sort of hypnotized movement without any grounds for justice. But Phuntsok couldn’t be reasoned.

‘You know they have visited village after village with such false statements against Tibetans and monks like throwing plastic bottles filled with dirty things from a taxi when passing through villages between the monasteries and Hubli, the village lads picking them up and getting sick after drinking unknowingly. And so on. How possible such case can be? They have cheated the villagers like making them believe a village lad hasn’t eyes or is as hungry as a crazed. After giving such hate speeches they could have been able to make some come forward and sign, their weapon against Tibetans by forging false accusations and collecting signs. It is said they have been able to collect some. You know the villagers can be cheated as per their simplicity and docility like by a selfish one, who has seen more, with blind malice and sadism. That’s the case all over India in terms of human trafficking to child labor that the constitution defends against. I am worried that they would pour into in hundreds wielding sticks and stones.

And how they have made the head of our settlement, as per his foolishness and cowardice, rush here and there at different locations for negotiation. What negotiation? What are they? And he out of fear or concern for Tibetans has obeyed like a hypnotized one too. Then how they, those sadists, have laughed at him when he found no one at the said venues? What are they? Why he obeyed so? Now people are angry with him. If he is that coward, why he has chosen to be our head? Hasn’t he learned about the first bold and well read representative of our Mundgod Tibetan settlement? I think a representative these days is just a scrap. How people deride at him and a few past ones. But leave it. I am concerned about the looming case now,’ said Phuntsok almost ceaselessly.

‘It won’t be so. Don’t worry. You know the two of them. I can’t believe such nonsense.’

Phuntsok’s nervous long fingers ran over his stubble infested pointy chin to over the whole face. His eyelids were bobbing speedily as he cast glowering glances at Ngodup.

‘I think you are worried about your home, your sweet cozy home that cost Rs.90, 000.’

‘It isn’t a joke Ngodup. I don’t care about my home. I can’t stop visualizing their smiling cunning faces before me. How they dare to do so just for personal hate against us? Oh, it isn’t safe.’

‘It isn’t safe everywhere. Even if such mob comes tomorrow, the constitution of India won’t spare them. You know it. We aren’t here illegally. Now stop frowning that way to me.’

Phuntsok kept on brooding over with his twig like fingers running over his face, head and chest. Nyima was walking along his usual ramp as his voice could be heard inculcating a line from a text in his hand. Ngodup got up to prepare cups of tea for them. When he got back with two mugs, Phuntsok was still in the same pose with his head aslant revealing his narrow long profile with moving cheekbone.

An announcement from the representative office had been made all over the settlement not to resort to violence if such case was to be true. The next morning was nothing of the sort as Phuntsok had dreaded. After the early morning clanging for tea and bread to morning debate class till evening debate class not a single villager came. Yes, there was such sign like releasing a long pressed breath. Now people talked about a certain senior Himalayan monk named Sherpa had averted it. Yes, he had visited nearby villages to refute the false cases against Tibetans engineered by Jimmy and Japati. Yes, he had done great. But, even if he hadn’t done so, how people could be that gullible? But the news of the major figures behind the two flunkeys wasn’t known yet but only later when the justice was to name them and oust from their posts.

A lesson was said as learned. But how many more lessons had been learned and ignored. Such a spark was ignited by a personal hatred in the first place. So when dealing with them communication skill plus local knowledge were the foremost. But they were still at such infantile levels at large. 

A piece of French poetry by Jacques Prevert with translation in Tibetan and English by me: A part of my ongoing French Lesson

Pour faire le portrait d’un oiseau

Jacques Prevert (1900-1977)

Peindre d’abord une cage

Avec une porte ouverte

Peindre ensuite

Quelque chose de joli

Quelque chose de simple

Quelque chose de beau

Quelque chose d’utile

Pour l’oiseau

Placer ensuite la toile contre un arbre

Dans un jardin

Dans un bois

Dans une foret

Se cacher derriere l’arbre

Sans rien dire

Sans bouger…

Parfois l’oiseau arrive vite

Mais il peut aussi mettre de longues annees

Avant se decider

Ne pas se decourager

Attendre

Attendre s’il le faut pendant des annees

La vitesse ou la lenteur de l’arrivee

De l’oiseau n’ayant accun rapport

Avec la reussite du tableau

Quand l’oiseau arrive

S’il arrive

Observer le plus profond silence

Attendre que l’oiseau entre dans la cage

Et quand il est entre

Fermer doucement la porte avec le pinceau

Puis

Effacer un a un tous les barreaux

Et ayant soin de ne toucher accune des plumes

De l’oiseau

Faire ensuite le portrait de l’arbre

En choisissant la plus belle de ses brances

Pour l’oiseau

Peindre aussi le vert feuillage et la fraicheur du vent

La poussiere du soleil

Et le bruit des bêtes de l’herbe dans la chaleur de l’ete

Et puis attendre que l’oiseau se decider a chanter

Si l’oiseau ne chante pas

C’est mauvais signe

Mais s’il chante c’est bon signe

Signe que vous pouvez signer

Alors vous arrachez tout doucement

Une des plumes de l’oiseau

Et vous ecrivez votre nom dans un coin de tableau.

འདབ་ཆགས་ཤིག་གི་རི་མོ་སྐྲུན་ཆེད།

Jacques Prevert (1900-1977)

ཐོག་མར་ལྕགས་ཁྲ་ཞིག་བྲིས་ཤིག

དེའི་སྒོ་ཕྱེ་ཡོད་པ།

དེ་འཕྲོར་བྲིས་ཤིག

གང་ཞིག་མཚར་བ།

གང་ཞིག་སྤྱིར་བཏང་བ།

གང་ཞིག་མཛེས་སྡུག་ལྡན་པ།

གང་ཞིག་བཀོལ་སྤྱོད་ཡོད་པ།

བྱ་དེའི་ཆེད།

དེ་འཕྲོར་རི་མོ་དེ་ཤིང་སྡོང་ཞིག་གི་ཐད་ཏུ་འགེལ་ཞིག

ལྡུམ་རྭ་ཞིག་གི་ནང་ངམ།

སྡོང་ཚོགས་ཤིག་གི་ནང་ངམ།

ཤིང་ནགས་ཤིག་གི་ནང་སྟེ།

དེས་རྒྱབ་ཀྱི་སྡོང་པོ་དེ་སྒྲིབ་པ།

གང་ཡང་མི་སྨྲ་བར།

མ་འགུལ་བའི་ངང།

སྐབས་འགར་བྱ་དེ་འབྱོར་ཚད་མྱུར་མོད།

འོན་ཀྱང་ལོ་མང་ཡང་འགོར་སྲིད།

དེས་བློ་ཐག་མ་གཅོད་པའི་སྔོན་ཚུན།

སེམས་ཤུགས་མ་ཆག

སྒུགས་ཤིག

ལོ་དེ་དག་གི་རིང་སྒུག་དགོས་ཀྱང་རུང་།

འབྱོར་ཚད་ཀྱི་མྱུར་དལ་ནི།

འབྲེལ་མ་ཆགས་ཏེ།

རི་མོའི་སྤུས་ཚད་དང་།

བྱ་དེ་འབྱོར་སྐབས།

གལ་ཏེ་དེ་འབྱོར་ན།

ཁྱད་འཕགས་ཀྱི་ལྷིང་འཇགས་མཛོད།

དེ་ལྕགས་ཁྲ་དེའི་ནང་མ་འཛུལ་བར་སྒུགས།

དེ་འཛུལ་ཟིན་པའི་སྐབས།

སྨྲ་འགུལ་མེད་པར་པིར་གྱིས་ཁྲ་སྒོ་དེ་ཆོད།

དེ་ནས།

གཅིག་གཅིག་བྱས་ནས་ཁྲའི་ལྕགས་དག་སུབས།

ཆེས་གཟབ་གཟབ་ངང་སྤུ་སྒྲོར་མ་རེག་ཆེད།

བྱ་དེའི།

དེ་འཕྲོར་ལྗོན་པའི་རི་མོ་ཞིག་གྱིས།

ཡལ་ག་དག་གང་མཛེས་འདེམས་ཐོག

བྱ་དེའི་ཆེད།

ལོ་ལྗང་དང་བསེར་བུའི་དྭངས་ཆ་ཡང་གྱིས།

ཉི་མའི་འོད་ཟེར།

དབྱར་དྲོད་ནང་རྩྭ་གསེབ་འབུ་སྲིན་གྱི་སྒྲ་ཚོགས་བཅས་ཀྱང་།

དེ་ནས་བྱ་དེས་གསུང་སྙན་འབྱིན་མིན་ཐག་གཅོད་བཅུག་ཆེད་སྒུགས།

གལ་ཏེ་བྱ་དེས་གསུང་སྙན་མ་འབྱིན་ན།

དེ་མི་ལེགས་པའི་མཚན་མ་ཞིག་རེད།

གལ་ཏེ་དེས་འབྱིན་ན། ལེགས་པའི་མཚན་མ་ཞིག་རེད།

ཁྱེད་ཀྱི་མཚན་རྟགས་འགོད་ཆོག་པའི་མཚན་མ།

དེས་ན། ཆེས་ལྷིང་བའི་ངང་ཐོགས་ཤིག

བྱ་དེའི་སྤུ་སྒྲོ་ཞིག

དེ་ནས། དེས་རི་མོའི་ཟུར་གྲུ་ཞིག་ཏུ་ཁྱེད་ཀྱི་མིང་བྲིས།

For making the portrait of a bird

Jacques Prevert (1900-1977)

Paint first a cage

With the door open,

Paint later

Something lovely,

Something simple,

Something beautiful,

Something useful

For the bird.

Place later the canvas against a tree

In a garden,

In a wood,

In a forest,

That hides the tree behind

Without saying anything

Without moving…

Sometimes the bird arrives soon

But it can also take long years

Before it decides.

Don’t get discouraged!

Wait!

Wait if should during the years.

The speed and slowness of the arrival

Of the bird doesn’t have any connections

With the success of the painting.

When the bird arrives,

If it arrives,

Observe profound silence.

Wait till it enters the cage.

And when it has entered,

Silently close the door with the paintbrush.

Then

Efface one by one those bars

And with care don’t touch the feathers

Of the bird.

Do later the picture of a tree

By choosing so lovely of its branches

For the bird.

Paint also green foliage and the freshness of wind,

The rays of the sun

And the noises of insects of grass in the warmth of summer

And then wait to let the bird decide to sing.

If the bird doesn’t sing,

It’s a bad sign

But if it sings, it’s a good sign.

Sign that you can mark.

Well, very silently, pull out

One of the feathers of the bird

And write your name at one corner of the painting.

Uniqueness

In the yonder realm of tranquility

Heat waves weave the ripples of a lost world,

The motifs of utopia in the forms of oddities

As sharp as a paroxysm but meaningless to bare eyes.

In this bustling realm of forms

Self-love flares as viral as secondly bigotry,

Pique and chagrin just unleashed reactions

As crude as preached sanctimonies—

As fastidious as secondly updates,

As assiduous as automated functions.

Then perfectionist’s search for the best,

The yonder romanticism as false as Shangrila here.

But search on with thy mountain paranoia!

But search on saying ‘life is short.’

But search on saying the opposite!

But search on to the end of the world!

Nay prevaricate but better face it,

When thou encounter just oddity at last,

For it’s what it’s—what solidity attrition-proofed?

But, bravo, the secret lies in mere tuning it.

Tune it to set those countless odds as incentives;

Tune it to skim over rather than shove against;

Tune it to enlighten on ever;

Tune it for friendlier coloration.

And to be able to tune in and ask:

‘When one-sightedness betrays,

When physical stimuli is mere glazed over,

Shouldn’t I accept the uniqueness yet?’

Ambivalence

Through the emotional nuances,

Now Dickensian and now of paradise settings—

Those dark stone steps with the sheen of hands labor

Leading up to arched walk-bridge over stolid clear water

Skimmed by the tendrils of bloomed cherries around;

The steep gabled roofs of dark slates, Kyoto in the late 1920s,

The yonder metropolis amid Depression off the peripheral Yoroido

With its Tipsy House perched on a rocky cliff off the rocking sea waves below—,

As spontaneously poetic as how the innocence of a little girl of 12,

Chiyo-Chan’s figurative way of giving those speaking analogies,

The admiring heart finds a solace in the poetic narration,

Mingled with elegies as black and blue as folds of adversity;

As fiery as how her longing heart sees her dying mother

Hardly sinking into the feathery soft futon in the dark room;

As cold as the mute obtuse father’s selling his two daughters

While busying himself with his coarse hands tangled into a fishing net;

As treacherous as how the betrayal of first guise of grace.

And mingled with odes for every snippet of beauty presented

Adorned with her poetic analogies as melodious as twanging of her shamisen

Plucked by her ice-water numbed little fingers.

It’s just the beginning of meeting her second grace,

Her thousand handed God of Mercy, the Chairman,

Whose accidental tenderness to beget her immutable love

Like a limp life-tree touched by the providence of Mother Nature

As providential as how she is to spend the remaining feeding coins,

With the single force as strong as motherly love, for the same prayers.

It’s just the beginning.

But the admiring heart, now absorbed off from rawness,

Can’t wait to shed thus…

Lo, the old tree wrapped afresh with lushness,

The providence to be admired.

Hark, the din of traffic on the highway just over there,

The endless reasons to be there.

Then behold, an emaciated one lying

With limp skin as charred as rusted,

Yellow-shot eyes speaking the single hope…,

Another live drama of longing for but snatching away secondly—

The oddity as huge as a strong one’s dreamy eternity

As licentious as taken for granted till then.

Our eyes met.

I fidgeted, albeit I tried my best to hold back,

Like betraying my saintly words.

And the stony handshake,

The odd sense of touch,

I tried as my best gesture

As the others shirk like venom.

Freedom

Courtesy: web source

The busy feet in a jerky gait,

Raw nerves now propel and now stultify…

Whatever for livelihood or for tomorrow

The movement is put into such run,

A collateral function of the system.

As the day time drags on till 9.pm,

As the fleecy feathery petals of dandelions,

In their eddying magical shadowy levitation,

Glide before eyes, rest on eyebrow or shoulder

Or sneak inside to skim over crisp papers on the table
(Pale frost like yet fluffily air-riding moonscape ambience),
The shadowy figure in scarecrow silhouette,

Bloated yet heavy, fights against the gravity—

The complete freedom, as in its fancy,

Is to be free off the ground of flurries.

Off the ground of flurries,

Off the ground of flurries

That dwarf even oceanic mountainous tides.

Off the ground of flurries

That slit it like a thunderbolt tearing a fat trunked tree into two.

Off the ground of flurries

Learning, enlightening yet numbing now.

Life: Two Parts

Hope

Thy paleness is macabre,

Draining into spiraling snare.

Thy richness is crooning,

As melodious as spring.

You

As the two fat grey pigeons, fated couple, make love—

The swiftness, the fluttering wings, twice, thrice—

On the mossy twig surrounded by the seasonal start,

(Lush lawns studded with white and yellow dandelions;

Recovering trees adorned with whites and pinks;

The roadside poplar with those tiny reddish cone-buds)

As the male falters thereafter like fallen in brooding

With its tiny beak poking into the open air ahead like dreaming

And its bloodshot eyes still burning as to incinerate itself,

As the female, meek yet restive, tries to get closer

In side steps while the male sidles two steps away

And the former repeats the same till the latter hops off,

The sudden dream I have just had flashes back:

There, exhaustive as I have really encountered,

The curves, the things of yours like of a crank,

Or as per my own projections that you could be.

I was there, seeming familiar yet strange place,

The top floor, the single room decked out in your own way—

It was like a glimpse of your nature, the enigma of being.

Those things with the touch of tantric air,

Those hung early clothes of yours like relics

Stared at me. I could feel your strong presence only.

It was like in a hermitage, strange.

I waited and you came at last,

Not in strange robe but in tight faded blue jeans,

The starry eyes, fixed upon me, mute but demanding.

Tattoos, piercing—I have no idea about,

But, for me, like further enigmas.

‘Is it you?’ I asked like awoken after a moment trance,

The trick of a dream-numbness like tethered feet.

‘Yes,’ you said and moved away amid jeers from around.

You didn’t care about them. I felt proud.

But I found you much younger than in your selfies.

Within dream I struggled to prove myself,

I reasoned myself thy coming as per my confidence,

Or for such lucidity as I haven’t seen you ever,

Was conditioned by my pale hope and long thinking about you

Like a lost child hankering for home.

But, yes, it is dream. The reality is ‘impossibility’

As I am no longer visible, valid and there.

But thanks for coming,

It was, for me, coming to give me a push,

A breath to set me free for a second

Before plunging down again…

Yes, it was like coming to save me

At the nick of time like during clear light moment.

Now I am a vagrant soul

Hovering around you without a stir.

Telepathy is long gone,

The medium is defunct now, sadly.

A Fleeting Introspection

Taken by me from where I am but during the past summer

Like the brush-like stripped sycamore partly clothed by the verdure of muffling ivy

A lonely figure with raw nerves stares at the same tree that sighs, ‘Free me!’

Oh, yes, it is mere farce to find thee thus in the muffling care.

The ghost like figure hastens to respond back, ‘Thou hath opened my eyes!’

Can it be the shadow cast by the unseen, the unseen in its two words?

So from the scintillating selfie after selfie in such disguise of joviality.

Yes, I can now see the hues, nuances—more than mere shadows.

And a frozen like sculpture thy piercing selfie’s steady frigid stare speaks,

‘Can’t thou see how pathetic thou art?’ The ghostly figure guffawed and wailed,

‘Thou poke right there to jolt me into a mad cemetery dance. Here I go.

But can’t thou see it’s, too, the shadow cast by the unseen?

For how long my complexity could be dictated by the makeshift system now?’

As the shredded golden-dark clouds at the far horizon turn into Chinese art pattern,

As the lonely bright star adorns the vast turquoise void amid collapsing twilight,

As the spiky top of the brush-like sycamore points me into the great void,

I, with the help of the great book I have read, see for the first time thy greatness.

I mean thou, the great turquoise void, our canopy taken for granted.

I mean thou as thou art not mere shadow. Thou art thyself.

And thus I see the lonely full moon as the one like myself so dull today.

The Fate of Socialism

Where the loving mother reigns now is truly in her far progressed phase, but can't be said at her apotheosis yet, typically through more interdependently including interactive means. It proves loyalty to her unique way of progress rather than initial infatuated frenzies plus tryst giving way to impatience and extortion to such gaffe of falling in love with what is pointed out as 'decadent' 'profligate'. But it's up to the reign of the Party in the end that matters all the way along the course of its brutal history. Adopting the version once fervently derided through 'struggle session' to 're-education session' is, as you see, by no means as eloquent as its Open Door Policy's mantra of freer air but the mere means of silencing the mass. It's to let them enjoy what they earn and what they desire as far as such doesn't affect the Party's power. Why 'not' Falun Gong? Why 'yes' faiths? Why 'not' mass gathering of spiritual significance as in Tibet? 

'I don't love my government. But I trust my government,' an English speaking young Chinese artist could be found saying so. What does it mean? 

'Progress is to keep up with the time, not to be stuck in the past.' This sounds more reasonable than the former, if it doesn't mean to efface it. 

'What would you choose between Mercedes car and Environment? Why not choose Mercedes car. Wealth is the first issue; environment the second,' a seemingly high-ranking Chinese official could be found saying so, which is both sincere and pathetic.

Nerd’s Gibberish

Taken by me, this evening scene

Creating, Oof, creating thus afar,

A teetering word after another,

A venture both racking and wrenching

With a will now faltering and now nudging—

Who are you? Yes, who am I?

An inspiration, a touch of feeling,

A tender spontaneous smile,

Improvised movements by my side—

Should I need them? The distance I have

And so the space… The will to roll on,

To be enlivened.

Oh, lassitude, the creeping devil!

Oh, beguiling conceit known as

As thou art ‘the devil’,

The dark veil stifling the light,

The innocent feelings,

The free flow of creativity.

Deflated pride like a limp balloon,

Inflated will like spring verdure

I would venture on ever…

Nay, I need a nerd’s gibberish—

Rhetoric to highfalutin bereft of truthfulness

But as they are, pale yet resplendent to a small mind.

I can roll it on and on…

I can trust it,

The intuition as speckles as the azure sky

Or the diamonds-studded turquoise canopy.

That matters only.

Nay, I need your gibberish.

Nay, arts for fame, wealth and to be doffed at,

Nay casuistry can take thee afar

But there, self-hypnotized—

Ha, ha, the worst form of lunacy.

But I need an inspiration second by second

I need thy warmth,

The crystal clear intuition
Or the basic disposition.