Bubble Wrap

Bubble wrap your heart,

Bubble wrap your heart.

Save it from the broken shards,

Of broken hearts of glass.

Is that a reflection of you?

Staring you poignantly in the broken shard?

Or like the glass is it but a broken view?

Of an older you, fugitive and dread?

Let the pieces be as they lie,

Maybe someday they may achieve some respite.

When memory is painted with time’s dye,

Look back with Frost’s untaken sigh.

Bubble wrap your heart,

Bubble wrap your heart.

Pick up the pieces,

Only to cut your hands.

/*.Its appalling to see the state in which emotional intelligence finds itself today. Humans have had problems since the dawn of time , but how we deal with them is what shows the strength of our character. And I just don't see it that often. The diseased state of coping skills is concerning to say the last. And of course those of us who have managed to achieve some semblance of peace and balance have no choice but to bubble wrap our hearts , even though these deliciously dark individuals may be the most interesting thing we've ever seen and as much as they remind us of our unevolved selves. Perhaps our educational curriculum could teach a little more about how should one handle life and not just random facts to write in an exam.
This is one of my more simplistic forms, but well I have been busy memorising said facts and tried to get straight to the point with this one .*/

This song seems to fit the mood of this poem well. Listen to Maynard's little speech at the start( yeah he talks! ) . He says so much in just a few lines.

As funny as it is , Joey is right.

TL;DR - DO YOU EVEN COPING SKILLS BRO?

Oh night sea ! Oh night sea !

Oh night sea! night sea!

What secrets do you keep?

All earthly rhythms,

Overdubbed by ebb and flow.

All ambition,

Reduced to foam.

A thousand ships have sailed ,

And a thousand will.

How many do you remember ?

Clamouring , yet still deep.

Oh night sea! Oh night sea !

How many ships did you drown?

How many names etched in sand ,

Did you so poignantly drown.

But I am but a seated admirer,

Will you wash me away?

To an exotic isle?

Or to a dark sunrise?

Oh night sea! Oh night sea!

Is that me you call?

Into the vastness of primordial soul,

To embrace the randomness , to float forever?

I beseech you today night sea!

Where will you take me to?

I clamour , I shout , I cry,

But you just ebb for evermore.

/*So another picture inspired poem. Thanks to the 'notorious' Pai for this one. Seriously how good is that picture?Yes that is me in case you're wondering.

I guess the sea is this calm , always present thing that just couldn't care about what we do. Detached and cold. A little like the detachment we hear about in spirituality. I guess the question is always , do we flow with the night sea or is the detachment too much for us? */

Hello Narcissus - Narcissus of the 21st century

Hello narcissus,

Do you see yourself in the pool,

Is the internet fast enough?

Is your mind dulled like a cesspool?

Can you still speak off the cuff?

Hello narcissus,

Can your mind still distil?

Or is it another thread of useless information?

‘Don’t think, just swallow that happy pill’,

The shallow proclamation of this generation.

Hello narcissus,

Are you still a person or an apparition?

Someone words ideas to fill your shelf?

Look at the aqua reflection,

And do a good impression of yourself.

/* So I’ve been reading  Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, the basis of Fear of a Blank Planet. And I have to say there is just way too much narcissism in this internet generation of ours. We know longer try to be ourselves , we just do good impressions of our virtual lives ( a recurring motif in Lunar Park). So I wondered what would Narcissus do today, and I figured his pool would be this online world of today. I hope our generation is wiser than Narcissus. 
Granted the internet has done so much good ( like bringing you this poem :P) , but on the whole think about the implications on social skills and language. Everything has to  be condensed into 124 characters and selfies are the new self portrait. I think somewhere art has been lost in the process.
Read this while listening to Fear of a Blank Planet. */ 

Humanity in the Rough

Iodine stained air, rain on asbestos,

Cancerous crabs, skin and slough.

Within these walls covered with moss,

Lies humanity in the rough.

The ailing patient, the impatient physician,

But not a measure for attrition.

In the night side of life,

Who will see them through all this strife?

Art heals the soul, medicine the tissue,

Stitch, nick and suture,

Listen and heal this tumour.

The night side of life calls those not afraid of the rough.

When those in high places,

Say humanity is lost sure enough,

Let them walk two paces,

And see humanity in the rough. 

/* Have you ever been to a large government run hospital in a developing country? If you haven't I urge you all to spend some time there. Often we seem to forget what the human condition is all about living in this make believe world of social media and materialism. There is a wonderful concept in medical literature that disease itself is a metaphor. For instance cancer is considered as an alter ego or the varied uses of the word ' plague '. I guess seeing humanity in the rough , reminds us of how much we can do as the fortunate ones and makes us give up arm-chair cynicism. The title is a reference to one of the passages from Of Human Bondage . */

Sympathy for the Devil

Evil is the forlorn soul’s muse,

It lives on the surface,

It reaches deep to sooth,

The end of all catharsis.

There is always the dark side of the moon,

So why to goodness do we always swoon?

The most dissonant tune,

Is someone’s only festoon.

Elegant shafts of evening light divide the mind,

Into the part that wants to fight,

And the part breaking against the human condition -

 The part that needs to be forgiven.

/* So, this one is about how there really isn’t much of a right or wrong in most things and how almost everything is ultimately circumstantial. There are varying sides to all of us. Some prefer to call a particular side good and a particular side bad. But, ultimately everything does boil down to circumstance. If you believe in the traditional concept of good and evil, I guess there is a little of both in all of us (like shown so wonderfully in the pictures by friend Mukund, thanks mate for lending your pictures to this blog.Check out some of his stuff here https://www.facebook.com/MPaiPhoto). I think any attempts to jump at generalizations on as to what is good and bad is but a silly attempt by us humans to make some sense of all this existential meaninglessness .*/

Coming up for air

The most proustian moment,

Is the one where black water fills up to the brim.

Rushing through my lungs,

And I fight for the surface.

And fight..

And fight..

How can I hold there much longer,

The water builds in this bag of skin,

Sinking, deeper still,

Deeper still…

Deeper still….

For years up to now,

For years in suspened animation,

I see this is more than a bag of skin,

A grand result of time’s grand games,

Elusive yet so allusive,

And I don’t want to sink ,

Look at me now,

I am,

Coming up for air.

/* So again , first post in a while . And as you can see I have been experimenting with form , and drifting away from my usual 6/4s.  So what can I say about this one, if you read through this blog chronologically you will find posts drenched in existential angst gradually giving way to a sort of stable plateau of well... i don't know ... melancholy , acceptance , happiness ... call it what you will. But that is what this one is about. Its about coming up for air after facing all those truths that Nietzsche or Sartre would tell us about ( would that be Camus or Proust ?) . Fact is we are so lucky to have human form, after all those years of evolution , and random mutations carbon molecules have evolved to give us this form of life. And I hope you don't see beauty in that .But as far as I go , I love this breath of fresh air.    */

The trains blues/ For BB

Moving through stations of time,
Trains move with a steel chime.
And a bluesman strums to the trains’ shuffle,
As the train pulls through many a mile.

Passengers come in and listen, for the train is now muse
And paint themselves in the bluesman’s blues.
Yet every passenger moves to their Toulouse ,
But the train is the bluesman’s only sooth.

His rhythm his blues, his one and only muse.
The stations are left behind.
But the train kept a rollin’,
And the shuffle he kept –a-playin’ .

/* Fare thee well BB KING
Any one who knows me , or has been reading this blog would know that the first thing to hit me when I think of trains is Steven Wilson/Ptree/In Absentia. Also the idea of travelling bluesmen (especially like good ol' dylan in 'I'm not There') is a very fascinating one to me. And what can I say of them blues? Like BB King says ' a baby cries cuz the baby got the blues ! ' Guess we all need to strum that shuffle once in a while , to the rhythm of the sixty ton angel, falling to the earth. Yes that was a reference. Yes the whole thing is a metaphor.*/

Canopy

A specter of sun,
Breaking through dark canopies,
Lighting roads once dark,
In the light all is too stark.
Shine through the canopy of my mind,
Bring light to deepest roots,
Shine on till the roots touch the soil.
Don't become too bright, don't melt, don't fret,
Rise over the horizon,
And never be swallowed by the sea,
Rise and Stay,
Like all of life served onto a tray,
Rise over the tree's canopy,
As elegant shafts of light in my mind play.

The long winter's night has been left to fray,
This long sought summer,
Please stay...

/* A poem out of place on this blog? Well I let Mr. Mayer do the explaining

The Manic Road

The manic road meets the frenzied sky,

As words in indelible ink sprawl the sunset,

Like the most beautiful evening,

Of the ones from childhood’s treasury.

The manic road is long gone,

Yet it appears in my dreams,

To wake me in cold sweat,

To remind me of all that frenzy.

So to the manic road I have returned,

And sped down it ,

To the point of no return,

And now sleep does not break in cold sweat.

The manic road now runs within me,

Showing me how to walk other roads,

As for words sprawled in indelible ink,

Some words cannot be erased.

/* 'Things never get better , you just get used to it. Closure is the best you are gonna get.'If you follow the prog side of the world you may well be tempted to substitute the last line as Hand.Cannot.Erase. It is the wall for the facebook generation*/

Poets United

The guys at Poets United were kind enough to sit down for an interview. Keep fighting the good fight PU

Click : Link

Blank Space

A big shout out to propel steps for having published blank space volume 1. It featured my story 'waves' from the previous year. Great work Dinesh and co. Keep up the good fight.

The Clown

All the children laughed at the clown,

But I knew someone who made everyone laugh knew more of life ,

than a joke could summarize.

And then I looked deep into the clown’s eye,

And there was a picture of such might,

Beneath all the mirth was so much pain in rewind,

People gone, people left, all the scars left,

And all they left was a joke.

And yet the clown paints his face

And that inner world gets lost in the maze.

And the children laugh.

And the pain subsides. 

The Sun Also Rises

Misfit sun in a cloudy sky,

Peeping through fleeces of cloud,

Into worldly  windows of glass hearts.

Shafts of orange light,

Like a wound in the clouds.

Misfit sun on a cloudy day,

 A distant moon tumbles,

Onto the horizon,

To dethrone the day,

Instill  the night.

Seal the sun into a nightly cage,

The glass hearted clowns arise,

Clowns to make a joke,

Of all that is human,

But know this clowns,

The sun also rises.

/ Every misfit has his crowd, and the clowns don't matter anymore/

Human , all too human

“Don’t fly too close to the sun,

Your wings are wax.

You cannot fly that high,

You are human, all too human.”

“But I must fly away from this earth,

This cold world is not for me.

I belong in the warmth of the sun,

I must shed these man-made wings.”

I sailed too close to the sun,

Only to fall to the earth.

To pick up the vestiges of broken wings,

How fragile are man-made things!

In an earthly life devoid of meaning,

Solace in the sun I was seeking.

But I am but human and no bird,

Alas the birds are chained to the sky.

Tell the scorcher sun,

I would rather be a street urchin,

Than a glorious eagle,

For I am human, all too human.

/* This poem marks the end of my foolish search for perfection in an imperfect world. Being human means having to face loneliness, meaninglessness and ultimately death. We humans try to fight a way out of this human condition( almost trying to be Nietzsche's Ubermensch). But we are human , all too human and can only be t peace and happy when we embrace our condition no matter what it is and revel in it. We cannot deny ourselves our own humanity.In essence, this poem is about Icarus being at peace with his inability to touch the sun*/ 

Black Rose Immortal

I am the eyesore in Elysian fields,

I am the black rose in a world that asks for red petals.       

Water from my roots boils in my stem,

For I can never be red like them.

The black rose blossoms just like the others,

White , yellow and red all are picked together.

But beauty is in the blossoming of the flower,

Yet the world sees beauty only in colour.

I see children rose picking in the morning,

And the reds they seem to pick without warning.

And the black roses waits in the amidst the grasses,

Until it finally fades.

Lyrical Interpretaion #1. Passive-APC

So here's the part where I review some of my favourite song lyrics of all time and what they mean to me. These are my interpretations and music is a work of art , so no interpretation can be definite and ultimate. This is just my take.
So for this review we have Passive by A Perfect Circle. Here's the lyrics-

Dead as dead can be
The doctor tells me
But I just can't believe him
Ever the optimistic one
I'm sure of your ability to become
My perfect enemy

Wake up (why can't you)
And face me (come on now)
Don't play dead (don't play dead)
'cause maybe (because maybe)
Someday I'll walk away and say
You disappoint me
Maybe you're better off this way

Leaning over you here 
Cold and catatonic
I catch a brief reflection
What you could and might have been
It's your right and your ability
To become my perfect enemy

Wake up (why can't you)
And face me (come on now)
Don't play dead (don't play dead)
'cause maybe (because maybe)
Someday I'll walk away and say
You disappoint me
Maybe you're better off this way

Maybe you're better off this way [Repeat: x3]

You're better off this
You're better off this
Maybe you're better off

Wake up (why can't you)
And face me (come on now)
Don't play dead (don't play dead)
'cause maybe (because maybe)
Someday I'll walk away and say
You  disappoint me
Maybe you're better off this way

Go ahead and play dead
I know that you can hear this
Go ahead and play dead

Why can't you turn and face me [Repeat: x4]

You  disappoint me

Passive-aggressive bullshit [Repeat: x12]

So given that this was written by Maynard James Keenan and Trent Reznor , the lyrics do have an obvious strong and almost dark touch to them. To me, it seems like Maynard is addressing someone who is passive aggressive with him. You know what I mean by passive aggressive. The people who treat you like superman when everything is going right , and at the slightest sign of trouble , you are branded the worst person in the world. And Maynard does the most rational thing in this situation , he walks away. He is disappointed in this passive aggressive person , who keeps changing colours every now and then. And think about it , isn't everybody pretty much exactly like this? It is funny but it is the people you expect to stay until the end are the first to leave. The people you expect to stand by you are the first to skip ship. And yes , that always comes as a major disappointment. So what do you do with these people? You give them another chance and wait for their aggressive to turn passive because you're just too attached to them? Well Mr.Keenan and Mr Reznor disagree. They have the gumption to walk away and as for the passive aggressive person in question ' Maybe you're better off this way....'
I guess everyone has to make their position clear , and if anything hangs around like a passive aggressive loose string , you have the right to walk away. You do not deserve to be disappointed again and again. You deserve better than passive aggressive bullshit.

Watch out for MJK's brilliant vocals. This live version real brings the emotion of the song home.

I Listen

I listen to the sounds of silence,
I listen to the deafening noises.
I listen to the calm crashing of ways,
I listen to the clamour of swaying rose beds.
I listen to the shouts for help,
I listen to the shouts of disdain.
I listen to cries of help,
I listen to cries of pain.
I listen to the chaos of the world around me,
I listen to the peace of the world inside.
And then most of all,
I listen to myself

Afterglow

I carry pocket sized chaos on my shoulder,

When living schedules has become a boulder.

I feel a trace of that encounter,

As if placed by a skilled mounter.

I remember when light flooded away the dark,

And everything had that radiant glow.

But the candle wick has been burnt stark,

And the light does not seem to flow.

Yet I remember the sound of that light,

Provoking me against my own might.

To fight that treacherous fight,

To once again see the lighted sight.

I turn to the mirror to find this light,

And I am stunned by the amazing sight.

There is no more of my own light left to show,

I am but drenched in the burnt candle’s afterglow.

/* We all have these wonderful experiences with places and people that really impact us . And they all change us in a way. So much so that the burnt out candle's afterglow becomes a part of our own glow. We may not be in touch with those wonderful people and places , but what they taught us lingers , just like afterglow. So , even when the sun goes down , I have a light . */