A winter's quiet

Well, have you ever stood by the shore of a frozen lake,
where an immense slab of ice blends with the horizon,
skies so dark, you can see the drift of each snowflake,
and falling crystals upon the shining stars of the Orion?

Have you ever grasped what a winter's quiet means?
the quiet silence that sparkles in the crisp winter air,
it is just a low wail of the wind upon the subtle scenes
fashioned by the pacific unanimated pearl-like mare.

True whites, dull drabs, silver, ash greys and deep blacks,
It is a spectacle made of undiluted colours like them.
First, the black sky, then upon it the silver stary tracks
and through it, the snow falls and settles on the hem.

It is prudent like an old man with wild and well-lived days
now peacefully self-assured but with a mystical reticent,
its decor so profuse yet done in just the shades of greys
unrepressed, yet it is neither ardent nor a romantic ascent

That eerie sort of silence which is not barren or hollow
That quiescence sort of still that is far from inanimate
There is no delphic elaboration yet not plain and shallow,
An eminence in the vacuity, it is like when you meditate.

There is nothing too jarring, there is not much to detail
It just is a quiet- a sweet sort of complacent harmony,
with a steady slow drift of snow, delicate, it looks frail
yet uncompromisingly rife- a solemn frosty testimony.

An Unrest

As she sits on the edge of her large square glass window
something bothers her- perhaps, a dream that is broken.
She sees a beautiful picture erased from future's shadow,
feels a void in her treasure that cruel time will have taken.

It was like the feeling you get when opening an unknown door,
like the way you would feel about a storm just before harvest,
like how you would feel watching a tempest approach the shore
like knowing that the hero falls, even as he set out on his quest

But she sits gracefully on her long settee, legs stretched out.
Well,  she is the royalty, she is the monarch, she is queen Fae.
And all those that knew her agreed on this without a doubt
that the songs of her grace did no justice to her astute way.

As Queen Fae stares through her old-fashioned glass pane,
she felt the unrest, nervously fidgeting, she twirled her hair.
Unable to decipher the signs, like from a swirling weather vane
she sat as she sensed the fracas and that the wind was unfair.

Like a war, a battle, a conflict, an incursion, a raid, a foray,
like it was ripening slowly but surely in an autumn flurry.
Mocked by her premonition - of dissonance, of disarray,
she sat, partly betrayed, partly prepared and partly in worry.

She wondered if she could defend with the power she wields,
Her realm, her people, her vision, her immaculate river Ili,
her sharp green cliffs bordering the prosperous harvest fields
and the pasture where a shepherd dog was eying a white filly.

She looked at her silver arbalest, then she unhooked it with care
and gently ran her fingers on its bends, resentful and alarmed.
She knew the cry of a dying man, a wounded horse, a bloody glare
she heaved at its foresight - men and beasts, all would be harmed 

Well, what choice did she have really, she needed it to defend
and she knew what the rolling time would bring with it soon
well, there would be destructions and shattered dreams to mend
and cinder ash would stretch far between river Ili and the moon

The victorious queen Fae

There stood a fair queen on the grand ivory bridge,
and she beamed down in pride upon her realm,
on her barbed stiff blossoming green mountain ridge,
rolling down into an opulent woodland of mighty elm.

It was a place greater than any man had ever seen.
And she stood there in splendour, in her prosperity
she kenned, all was corrected, whatever has been,
and her visions were strong again, with great clarity.

She could envision all happenings, quite unrestrained.
Nothing could go awry, the prize for her endeavour.
And she knew, it was all there, it was clear and plain
for she won it, the darkness had slept, now and forever.

Queen Fae's visions were back and gems shone bright,
as her delicate tulle gown fluttered like her wings,
the spirited queen had finally prevailed this hellish fight,
of men, of beasts, of sorcery, of the queens and kings.

River Ili now shone; it swept with a great panache
below the ridge; it will never be tarnished ever again
with the brunet smoke and cinder of the raining ash
She gasped, for it had all altered, manifest and plain.

We now have tattered pieces of poems, parts like this
From them, we build the lies and truth of Queen Fae's life
of her valiant wars, her dainty beauty and her loving kiss
of her glory, of her requital, of her grace and her strife

It's just a story

It's just a book, it's just a story, it's just another fantasy
Really? Is it 'just' a any of these? And could it ever be?
Would you say then it's just white powder or dried leaves
as your head talks to you in unrehearsed recitatives?
When it draws you in into a world of its own fine making
that leaves traces, colours your world in all your waking?

Really? Would you really dare to use 'just' in front of it?
Even when it dictates most of whatever wit you see fit?
Come on, there are good trips and there are bad ones
and sure, maybe not all of them might move you by tons.
But still, 'just' can just not be an adjective for any story.
'just' is just too lazy a word to fit its everlasting glory

The narratives might change and their powers might vary;
it could whisk you to a violent hell or to lands of the faery;
might leave a lasting burn or dab of tears in your eyes;
could give you the power to listen to all the unheard cries;
might bring you a placid peace in your ever-churning mind;
it could colour your judgements and then leave you blind;

Well, the point is, it is too powerful, don't offend it with "just",
for, it can inflict anywhere from sincere guilt to playful lust,
can take you from peaceful meadows to churning storms,
and show you sense in gullible rituals to university dorms,
It can paint an epic battle - of fire, of death and of fiery beasts
or on a milder note, bring you to dance in some merry feasts

It weaves complex realities from the surreal abstractions --
of love, of conflicts, of anticipations, of grief, of abductions,
of crimes, of benevolence, of power, of ego, of surrenders,
of science, of magic and several worlds of varied wonders.
It can stir up agony, apathy, anguish, adversity and acrimony
or caress you timidly to a vivid, blossoming blissful harmony

It can softly melt the boundary between truth and deception,
and blurs the borders separating growth from depreciation,
and smooths the contrast between the black and white,
and it can even obscure the disparity amid love and fight.
Such are the endowments of that 'just' yet another tale
well, maybe, it is 'just' that little gale you need on your sail.

The beauty of the Asmilin hills 

The wise old minstrel now hummed this ancient lore,
on the beauty of Asmilin's rolling hills and lakeshore.
And songs on that realm were sung in the time before
and but the wise old minstrel, now sung it once more.

The white rolling hill of Asmilin stretched out wide,
embracing a pristine sparkling lakeshore at its heart.
Here, the magical creatures raced fiercely in their glide,
scaring the grey sky, a soft and graceful empty assart;

Here the snow glistened, the frozen lake gleamed bright,
 and the leafless trees danced to the trumpet of the gale,
Painting and poems were written for glories of this sight,
yet lost is most, and we know just this part of the tale.

They say the old wise ravens held their congress here;
Like specks of black margarites lined on the winter trees
There they perched and forged the future, far and near,
and they let their memories flow in the winter's breeze.

The good noble phoenixes with their fiery wings soared up,
casting kindled light beacons on the snow-filled glade.
They burned golden on the livid sky, like fire's buttercup,
they fluttered brilliantly like a blazing fire, as they played.

The emerald larks, the bards of Asmilin, they softly sang,
their magic heaved the snow so very tenderly, into a dance
and, in the crispy placidity, their luscious melody rang
through the leafless woodland lancing the snowy expanse.

A hyperbolic letter to winter....

It is time again to calm the garish light of the day and roll the noon softly but swiftly into twilight. It is time again the flocks of starlings animate in an every changing patterns of black dots against a perfectly placid grey sky. It is time again to wake up and see the beautiful contrast of brown groud separated from the olive shoots of grass by a murky layer of white mist. And it is time again when the ruffling of the leaves play in the foreground on a low crescendo of the cold wind. Winter, you have arrived finally. It is time to gaze out of the window into the misty ambience with a cup of hot chocolate in mittened hands and watch the stream make abstract motifs- ever so dainty and ever so shifting like flowing white charcoal patterns blended on a grey canvas. And at night the street lamps have begun casting their copper glow on the misty crisp air, glistering like pearls ringed with a soft corona around them. The streets below are often wet these days and answer the street lamps with their flickering distorted reflection, almost as if playfully taunting their light. Streets are becoming emptier and hushed, and only occasionally are the sounds of distinct footsteps breaking the calm ambience - almost like a mischievous twist to the peaceful harmony of the wind. By the street side, toasted chestnuts are being sold in paper cones and the woody smell of their burning shells scent the brittle air.  It almost smells festive. Oh, winter you are so beautiful, each year, just as you come.

In memory of a beautiful winter storm in Syracuse, New York

But, I remember the last winter-- I saw you younger- more dramatic, more impassioned, cloaked in the glamour of the icy diamonds. You oftentimes heaped the dust of shimmering snowflakes on the ground, flawlessly contrasting a matt dusky sky, seldom intervened by darker cloudy trims. Your wind used to bellow jubilant trumpets in polyphony like a mystical coral, pronounced yet agile as if filled with a myriad of mummers, in a much crispier air. Now the fallen leaves just rattle against the floor and you don't swing their colours in dynamic arcs amidst the vertical swirls of snow anymore. Neither have you come embellished with the black ravens perched on the ash-grey barks of those slender leafless trees, standing tall in the wilderness of rolling white hills. Grounds no longer reflect the pale light of the moon and glow a soft shade of pink with exiguous glimmering patches - like embedded opals in white fur - where the snow froze to ice. And the rooftops are bare and un-curtained with laces of icicles. You were then fierce and enchanting, yet incredibly harmonious and serene. This year I see you much tamer, much mellower and calmer like you have grown older- bringing forth a completely changed and aged essence. And yet, I must admit, while I miss your older pluvial style beyond what I can ever pen on papers, you still are graceful and dactylic, even as you wear your milder vogue.  

A month in Rome


Often time when I go to a modern art gallery, I enjoy scribbling down the feelings that it evokes. It might have nothing to do with the reality of what the painter intends to express, but simply how the work expresses itself to me without its real context; what it makes me think in the first few moments of staring at it. Now, it has been exactly a month since I moved to Rome: a city that I have wanted to indulge myself in for as long as I can remember. So this is an attempt to record my first feelings, the very first thoughts of this experience as if 'a month in Rome' was a piece of art in itself.

The first and most powerful idea that hits you in this experience is that you realise that you are a continuation of human history. The past has left behind a grand abundance for this generation to enjoy; the current generation is gracefully imbibing it while treading forward in their modernity. You see, I come from India; a country that also has a long history, but we don't really live "with" our past as the Romans do. We preseve our past in museums and in temples and in palaces. They are places where we go and pay a visit to our days of yore and cherish them; it somewhat reminds me of the same essence as the concept of paying a visit to the grave of a fond relative has. It is well apprehended but yet well separated from the current reality.

Whereas in Rome, you walk down to Piazza Venezia and you will see the whole agility of a truly modern city perfectly in harmony with the early 90s exuberance of  Altare della Patria that leads on to the heart of ancient Foro Romano. You see the normality of modern life amidst the ancient ruins and the grand baroque structures- women with tall Stilettos racing past the street musicians with shopping bags hanging all over them, groups of youngsters sitting on the corner or on the stairways to chitchat over some pile of what looks like school homework, a bunch of old men having their evening smoke under a 'lollipop' tree (they call it 'pino' here), a herd of countless people hurridly moving towards the metro station and all that jazz of the big city life perfectly performing on a stage set by layers of history.  The baroque grandness is not a past, here you still live in the grandiosity that the history has bequeathed.  If you try to cross the crazy traffic on Piazza della Repubblica or Piazza Barberini, you can die getting distracted by the exquisitely carved grand sculptures that reroutes the traffic and act as a roundabout for the roads. It's a peculiar feeling; of having all that you wanted to live in but a bit too much to take in at once. It feels so out of place that sometimes it makes me emphasise deeply with the protagonist of the story 'Pygmalion'.  I even sense it in the language here; there is a constant presence of the past even in their language. You can feel that it belongs to an era where people had all the time in the world to cherish and relish everything like 'luce di sole' or 'Piazza della Republica', where English would have lost her patience and cut it all down to 'sunlight' and 'Republican square'.

There is another alien feeling that has frequented me in the last one month. This is the feeling you get when you enter one of the baroque churches that stands imposingly in almost every other street of this city. While a major part of you is occupied in revering and apotheosizing the masterpieces of Baroque art, a small part of you remembers Karl Marx and the Protestant movements. In the tall halls gritted with gold and bronze, embellished with marble inlays and adorned with painted stain glass windows, these churches house intricately carved sculptures. In these statues, you can see each muscle fibre that is flexed, strands of hair flying of across their polished foreheads, veins on their foot delicately adding complexity to the smoothness of marble, folds of the silk garment fluttering in an unfelt wind and sometimes, even the cracks of the toenails. These artists almost created perfect humans and just fell short of breathing life into them, probably out of their respect for the divine.  While a part of you admires the abstract concept of what a human passion can lead to and the other is too occupied in struggling to imbibe all the beauty your eye isn't trained to hold. It is an exasperating feeling, the one that leaves you feeling humble even as you stand in the probably the least humble of ambience you could ever imagine. If you have even doubted the phrase "too much beauty, you have to visit Rome to understand it.

Of that which is not

Twisting and turning, in the chicanery of a phantom distress
like a prisoner enslaved in imaginary chains, none the less;
I carry this afflictive weight of failure but of a surreal quest.
It is a hallucinatory turmoil impelling a fervent false unrest
and yet this covetous specter that invades me feels quite true.
And I know, it's a seraphic potent poison, that I myself brew
to which there is no veracity, no more than that in fantasies; 

it's a mythical story from depths of my own mind's mysteries.
Yet, even as my logical intellect is trying to fight this illusion,
I have well mastered this art of making an intoxicating vision,
that's invincible, that's is untrue and yet beatific and too clear.
To keep alive what does not exist I bicker, for its death, I fear;
I stop the dreams of tranquil sleep, to envisage reverie, dear.
A yearning lust for that which lives not in any but just in me
and yet it is too luscious to forsake, it's too seductive to be.
In actuality, the apotheosis of this dream, afar from what is
helps bloom a beguiling toxin, as crisp as a springtime breeze.
A frictional torment, that I powerlessly brawl to see the truth,
is blossoming as a merry tree, yet from which there is no fruit.
I wish for it to fade away, in my vision and from my dreams
and yet, even more, I wish it all be true, just like how it seems.
Though ashamed to feed the fire and to grow that which is not
I still bear this shame with grace, just for relishing its thought.
This phantom agony, this chimaera- seraphic mirage of dreams

holds the illusion so vivid, so sweet even in just its mere gleam.
Yet even in the abundance of the fact proving its non-existence
what if there is a little truth, a part of me argues in its defence!

Description of an odd beast

A malady they say, probably, they know the name to this odd beast,
but I know what this discord is and what it is proficient at, atleast.
A race with no well-set endpoint, a race that only you can perceive,
like a phantasm, an illusion, a mirage, a chimaera that you weave
of laces so inscrutable that you lose yourself in its grand conception;
undoing the truth from the deceitful forms moulded by this delusion.
A projection of the future that is distinct from today you love, but why?
Cast by obsessions, fascinations, fears, distrust -a sophisticated lie
but so genuine that you savour those obscure feeling before they arrive
Ironically you apprehend it all, and yet the parable gets the best of you
cluttered and ruffled up, escalating an effort to sort out what is true.
Like abiding anxiously to approach a climax, you sketch an allegory,
artistic though, does it not look too much sweat on an imaginary story?

To a winter storms I miss...

It clads my window with a velvety white valance, laced with the crystalline icicles, 

some rounded, dusted with the puffy flakes, but others pointing sharply like sickles 

And I sit on my bed, by the window, and watch the cars in the parking lot get iced

as the winter storm caressingly drops the plush pristine blankets, all perfectly sized 

putting the mighty four-wheeled beasts to sleep, with a rather sharp raffling lullaby 

with a clarinet played by the whomping winds and the baritone humming a soft sigh.

The fallen flakes of snow would rise to dance to this tune, forming powdery motifs,

one moment they reel fiercely, then the next, they lie as calmly as the farm sheafs

Sometimes, it just feels like another chapter of 'My Life' has been turned too soon,

I would love a few more episodes of the bright snow shining at the midnight moon, 

of watching that fat brown deer dig a tiny dried piece of grass, buried safe and cold, 

and the groundhogs; those look like little-rolling branches, delicately brittle to hold,

Of the wind that howls like summoned by a powerful enchantress of the far Nord, 

blowing as if there is an earnest urgency- like there is a  mysterious flame to sooth, 

It blows like it wants to apologize- 'you know, I am gentle, but you must understand'  

passing hastily, even those subtle frangible snow feels like the coarse prickly sand

Sometimes, I candidly wonder if the piling flakes of puffy snow have a healing verve

as I watch the snowflakes perch the undressed branches, on their sunburned curve

swaddling its wounds with a cool tranquillizing frost, pressing on their sky-ward side, 

while probably blocking the doors to the little wood-holes where the squirrels go hide 

perhaps the howling wind daunts the little brown and black Rabelaisian nut pixies, 

for occasionally, they do attempt to leave footprints on the impeccable snow carpet,

serine but unrest, calming yet fierce, delicate snowflakes yet harsh with wind-lashes

Oh, you northern storm, come as often as you can, with your soft white snow splash 

A Conflict

It was just another routine holiday morning,

she had just risen up from a lengthy sleep

nothing planned, just ingenious and boring 

she realizes this is just one more day to sweep

Yet at another time when she thinks it through

she knows there are concepts that matter to her

appreciated that vision of her in the dreamy cue

where she is thinking sharply even through a blur

One time motivated with vigour and intensity

like all mysteries of the world are her's to know

As she watches the hazy fogged large window 

with great clarity, she reflects with curiosity  

And yet at another time, she is fully detached 

from the pleasures of life, lost with no aim

the point of existence was almost fully crashed

felt like an undefined scoring system in a game

Along with these two polar stages of survival, 

there is third, a state that is more offensive to wit

it is the fear of landing on a sad number on the dial

and an anxious and stressful attempt to avoid it

Made a colossal effort to erect the faith that shook 
with the well-fabricated justification of her existence,

showing dreams of perfection, a well-written book

and the brown packages of that cute untold suspense

  

Maybe a special day?

What shall I brew my life with, she wonders each passing night,

At each morning's wake, she asks, what would she want of it today
Merry memories, funny jokes, dark secrets or just a pretty sight?
And then she decides she will live today in yet another special way

She walks through the woods silently, in the November's cold wind
She watches the morning sun and the dance of red autumn leaves
And a grey squirrel nibbling a nut on the dislodged Sycamore rind,
She hears the blue birds sing sharp songs, and then quietly she leaves

Then she spots a little brown fawn, that looks in her eye astound,
through the dried blades of what were once the lilac blazing stars,
ruffles his leg through yellow leaves, revealing the soiled ground,
In her mind she paints this sight, in an impressionist style of Degas

Then she hears the wheezing weeds, as the wind roars its charm,
She watches the fawn prance by into the glorious yellow aspen fall
She leaves this sight humming a song, how beauty is soft and warm,
it beautifully is, just what it is, she thinks, and nothing more at all

At each morning's wake, she asks, what would she want of it today,
And bravely decides, she will zealously try to make it a special one,
And at each dusk's dawn she says, this was just another special day,
And over and over this repeats, like a jesting comrades for clocks run

Each day like today, she walk through the colors of the wood,
Each day like today, she admires the alluring sights that come by,
And each night those stars arching across a majestic dark hood,
beautiful it is, yet, each day she lives just to watch the time fly by

She slowly smiles as she pensively sits down, on the radiant leaf bed,
as she watches the sight of ravens glide gracefully in a dance of rave,
And she feels the howling gush and fleeing specks of yellow and red,
And then sees the autumn leaves flow and takes their lead to the grave

The Poem

"That's creative" said the elitists, at my birth

 inspected me and judged me for my worth

Sad scars that made me were romanticized

and my melancholic beauty was dignified 

"Oh how novel, how beautiful!" they all said

tenderly recited me, over and over I was read

"I am so privileged " for a moment I thought,

but with just another thought, it all fell apart

More often than not, I know, this is not my fate, 

many a times, my life is as sad as I was made

for I am burnt or hidden, concealed in a casket

This indeed, has been my life's recurrent facet

Once she trusted me, and poured out her heart 

That once I was dear to her, now all is a wrath 

Unjustly glorified, I am a wretch born of sorrow, 

more often, I do not see the light from morrow

I think, I make her ashamed by my presence  

like a evil hoodlum, in her peaceful existence 

betraying secrecy, proclaiming her weakness

embodying her confused emotions and sadness 

I am the poem that she lovingly writes,

I am the poem whose presence she spites,

I am the poem that expresses concealed unsaid

The poem whose feelings sadly stays unexpressed 

I am the poem who is trusted with dark and deep

emotions and fears, many secrets I should keep

The poem that feeds on sorrow and feasts on fear

I am the poem, that you would never read, Oh dear! 

A rage on conformity

They did call me an imprudent insolent, brassy renegade
when I defied to join the cobweb this society has made.
I shalt sing this to those destitute meek men who concede
to the burden of social dignity, status, how lame, dolt indeed!

They build their bon ton and then sell themselves to it,
they slay the perk of their heart, just so that they can fit.
In that vacuous inane insane world that they forged around
in the pretext of society, they can't hear their own sound.

They once told me " you need to learn to live in this world,
Follow the codes of conduct, you must look good to the crowd"
I wish I could jeer on their thoughts or burn it in flame
Oh logic, oh rationalism! Where are you? this mocking Shame!

Now tell me, what kind of men have hearts that don’t sing
And their minds that does not want to dance and swing?
They live like breathing corpses, just existing, without life
hath no choice, no judgment, just too quail to face the strife.

Their eyes hath no ardour, just passionate in aping the throng
with neither a confident elan nor precept of right and wrong.
And their thought don’t flow free like a downstream meander
It is stagnated! Consciously marred, left with no ability to ponder.

Oh, Irony! Alas, your art so fine, I always hear them preach -
how to live, but they need to learn it, before they try to teach.
And when, you defied to entangle in the cobweb they have made
Aye! they will call you an imprudent insolent, brassy renegade!

Oh, judgement!  judge the priorities of my life with your thought,
a vision through your own eyes, heed to what is your own sought.
Recreant girl, it might seem, but it is a maverick's way to wade!
So be it then, for dreams are not to be entombed and let to fade.

-Swetha

Inglorious Autumn grace

Autumn chill, aye! it does whip too cold
ripples of yellow leaves, dance in rolling fold
Beautiful scene that the spring had weaved
is crumpled to dry, all juice now wry and sieved
Oh Keats! hast thou ever felt the extreme bourn
of deplore that autumn would grimly mourn
to witness his exulting castle of hope melt
and to bear that enormously afflictive welt
just a pretty sight and now its gone away
lots of melodies humming,now no word to say
he saw those green leaves, and now they shed
cold and withered,his pains,voicelessly unsaid
All good was there then, and now all is gone
priced pleasure perished,as the autumn was born
his ill-starred fate, relentlessly cursed by all
in those chill whips of wind,yet he stands tall
year after year he comes,as an unwelcome'd hermit
inglorious grace,no gleaming glamor does befit
Oh thou!misconstrued, Oh recluse! anchorite
standing cold and solitary,in the withered white
when all the melodies just lament to the dead
and no blooming blossoms, all beauties behead
if I could, I shalt surely sing, thee lore
with my best wishes, truly from my core

-- Swetha Bhagwat

Rocking College Life

When I was a kid, I always used to wonder
whether the guys in college were all in blunder
used to think how cheap it would seem
to sit in the class and have a day dream
how jobless could they be to hang around
and to hoot and shout, like a noisy hound
but today when I have worn thoses shoes
and have rectified all my dont's and do's
not anymore do they seem all that crude
coz I too am in college now,come on dude!
So cool it feels now, to break the rules
and to gossip about people and their drools
All insanity suddnely are appealingly sane
ya! you do need to stop wasting your brain
on million equations and their constraints
pointless vectors and geometry of planes
and on nature and phase of standing wave
or clumsy details of how proteins behave
mixing twenty chemicals will yeild twentyfirst
hey, are'nt these enough to make life worst
when lectures bounce off, leaving no hint and clue
why sit in there, there are better thing to do
canteen has coffee waiting, hot and strong
when choice is such, bunking cant be wrong
unless you get caught as we sometimes do
its all good, we can take it on a move

-- Swetha Bhagwat

November Sunset

To that finale gleam of November sunset, I bow
as I watched that brilliant redness sinking low
the sky turning from allaying azure to gory red
darkness ascended just as the brightness shed
immortal beautiful last day of this dusking month
had marked the time for this flawless life's shunt
and yellow bird were singing coda of evening cries
in the background of the buzz of sparkling fireflies
above those swaying grass blades, in yellow shade
and the resplendent glow of limitless zenith did fade
gleam of glow supplanted by deep and empty black
replenishing the darkness, annul,nihility and lack
I watched those final rays of mighty Apollo avaunt
I watched each golden beam, as they palled, daunt
and The light has dusked, the darkness has dawned
majestic multitude of dusk, to dimness they flawed
yet I stood there, immobilized, with a fading smile
Oh! I knew, thing would change drastically in a while
many thing grew dim, with that last November rays
and lots of difference, life changes in diverging ways
those blades of yellows grass were chopped apart
and that deep void black did flush through the heart
that shimmer of fireflies were never seen again
those nests of yellow bird were abandoned and vain
and no goodbye they bid before they flew afar
they just left, gone for ever, leaving it all sour
Those songs left unsung and eyes left unfulfilled
some of those feeling were never yet unsealed
Oh! thou departure! Oh my beloved thee
is unacceptable truth, how do I convince me?
Just with memories to immortal those pretty trace
commemorated, remembered yet gone, its a truth to face
Yet life moves on and on! How strange yet true!
have learnt to seek for star, when sky is not blue

-Swetha Bhagwat
13th Jan 2011

Indeed! My stranger friends are strange..

In my quest to seek "stranger friends"
look what I found!some unusual trends!

I met a stranger, who happen to pass by me
An elegant creature, from what I could see
looked more like a prince of the battle field
slender but yet built, he looked well heeled
and alone he stood, on those rocky sea side
seemed to be lost in thought,but yet he smiled
hence, then I took the chance to speak to him
he spoke cryptically deep, as if pained by grim
awestruck, at his effeciency to speak in riddle
tried best, yet could'nt get a word as I twiddle
Wierd, I thought! How strange could it be?
And these were the words he spoke to me
“ Look my dear, thoses waves are so calm
yet beautiful breeze, does all the harm
in peaceful existance, now, terbulance invoke”
“true” I said, yet didnt know why he spoke
so obvious truth! yet could sense some deepth
and blue sea below, more waves had swept
“the evilest of sinner is the prettiest of things
for which you wreck yourself, taking all swings”
“True” I said, I too had realized it, afterall
try to reach unreachable hight,that's when we fall
Atlast I spoke,“Whats that prettiest sinner
that stoppest thee from being a winner?”
his clear eyes, light brown,of hazzelnut hue
suddenly turned away, looked at the ocean's blue
On his face, I could see his fake smile arched
Oh! I could only compare him to a monarch!
Finally he said, “No use dear, fire burns the hell
belive me, its not worth to hear, else i would tell”
I deserted my effort, to read this stranger's mind
would i ever meet him again, again would i find?
This is the strangest of strangers, I have ever met
beyond questions, I would have my life for bet
a ideal completeness, strange and abnormally apart
but looked deep at thought, about his ripped heart

-- Swetha Bhagwat
Date: 5th June