The Road

The dust. On the Path.

Traversed many a times

Over past eons.

The sun shines overhead.

Sometimes, the moon smiles.

And on dark days and cold nights

The rain lashes on pedestrians

And the Road.

I walk the Road now.

It's scarred bosom- the ravages of time

Tell of days passed by- centuries, millenia

My journey so significant, so insignificant

Is there any rhyme or reason to this universe?

A few people walk around me. Their company

give delusions of purpose. Makes me want to go on.

My friends. Brothers.

The rush of blood

Pumping into my head

Makes me feel good.

The scratching grows

on the stupid marks

on the wall

Until they start to grow red

from the blood oozing out

of the frayed end of my fingers.

I throw a laugh

A shrill, empty one

at generally nothing

I know soon I'll cry

and then the steak knife

will curve the mark

at a place still uncorrupted

with the scar tissue

from previous wounds.

My pills all lie

mixed with my weed

In a corner of my bed

Where Megan Fox often sits

smoking a Marlboro

And sipping my Johnny Walker

The one I used

To wash down the sleeping pills

Two months ago.

The shadow never goes

and the sleep never comes

Even as the nightmares drag on;

I have a wash basin

Filled with tissues

Soaked in my blood

That I burn every midnight

Am I alive? Am I dead?

Am I the undead? Am I Insane?

DATED: 14th Feb

(From the diary of a rebel)

It's valentine's day, my sweetheart
Know I not any romantic poetry, any romantic songs
Write I can't any love-letters, because
My fingers forgot to hold a pen long ago
They pull only triggers and pins of grenades.

No more do I smell, the fragrance of sweet flowers,
The smell of rain-drops, upon a sun-scorched earth;
Hear the chirping of birds, hum a tune:
My nostrils smell only gunpowder and stinking corpses,
My ears, full of chatterings of machine-guns.

No more do I think of love, not because
I've forgotten you; but because my mind nowadays
is full of ambush plans and grief for my dead comrades
and thoughts of revenge; I don't like anymore-
Red roses; I'd rather prefer the blood of my enemies

I saw our womenfolk getting raped; I don't know
Whether you were among them or not;
They set my house on fire; I can still hear
the cries of my father as they dragged him, he was
on his back attached to their tank by a cord around his ankle

Destined to die in the Genocide,I escaped-
Miraculously; Joined the rebels- the hand that
Wrote poetry- learned to brandish a gun- the mind that
thought of love and beauty- learned to hate- and learned to
kill,torture, rape,maim- forsake mercy.

On this day, what can I gift you- except bullets?
My only possessions- neatly in my backpack
And my rifle in my hand- they belong
not to me; My only truely private possessions
being the skulls of my enemies whom I felled.

This letter, destined never to reach you;
my last piece of poetry, remains with me
in my bookpocket- to remind me
of you and the poet that was me
in my last moments
When I take the bullet in my heart.

THE VOYAGE

The Fog over the Ocean.

The Twinkling Sun.

The Blurred Horizon.

The Silence.

Slowly the boat advances
Towards no destination.

(I consider this as one of my best poems till date)

Solitary

The silent night
Stares down on me;
The stars twinkle.
No moonlight
To show me my path.
No breeze
Blowing across my face.
A single leaf falls down
As I look upon
The solitary tombstone.
Mine

(This poem won me a poet of the year award at college)

Overwhelmed

I try, with all my strength

(As my helpless eyes watch on)

To pull free- to no avail

The fiery red cloud above

Mocks at me with his cruel laughter.

I struggle, to free the chains

that bind me to the rocky ground

I succed only in spilling my own blood

That trickle onto the undead earth below

As the thunder lashes out: The scrouge of evil!

Incapacitated, I watch on, in despair:

Unable to heal the past or protect the present

Or to save the future

Even as the storm, merciless like all in this world

Proceeds to ravage some more innocence.

Life@BITS

(This is a poem I wrote on my last months stay in college)

Morning:

The sunlight through my window

Reaches out to my dreamy eyes:

Time to start afresh.

Full of hope, I get up

And walk to the door

Ready to face the day.

(What does it have in store for me?)

Noon:

The heat sears through my body and soul

Tired and weary, I drag myself on

Hopes tormented, desires crushed

This is not what I had asked for in the morning.

Still I push on, more from Instinct than from reason;

Just another drop in this madly insane ocean!

(Will this noon ever end?)

Evening:

I sit on my couch, tired and yet content

Not a worry in the world, I enjoy my well-deserved rest

Many a face pass by: some known, some unknown

The wind blows away the dry leaves, like it will all of us

I shoot empty gazes at the twilight, the last reminder of the day;

This had been a good life, and I don't regret it.

(Soon, it'll be time.)

Independence Day 2

(This is actually a sequel to one of my very first poems that got published in the college wall magazine)

This morning there was a great fight
A battle, no less-
But the battle was not for liberty
or equality, or democracy
Nor was it for some great patriotic reason
Not being a war (I'm afraid)
For lofty causes,
The battle, unique, was for survival.
A child and a stray dog
the brave combatants
were fighting over the possible nutritious content
In a heap of rubbish.
The dog won the war.
The child went away to scavenge elsewhere
And the great man in my television explained
How great our country is.