The regal parade continues to march on.
Many who exist in silent, will reach the end.
Few Spirited ones will depart near the next turn.
Corpses will be shoved by the strapping boots.
Blood stains will rust up on the parched land.
The glorious spectacle is a site to behold.
The regal parade continues to march on.
Disguised in the
hollow curves of
your eloquent words,
do I hear a vicious
hissing ; whispers of
a conniving heart?
Why do I visualize
a serpentine on the rock?
I’m not beguiled by
your deceptive talks.
By the tinkering of your
silver coins.
For I’ve on my hump back
burden of enough winters
to mark a
Devil in a sea of Men.
PB Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The sacred sounds of thousand conch shells
piercing through the eerie silences of deafening
decades, a mammoth Himalayan cloud bursted
in the Northern horizons over the legendary
kingdom of Ayodhya on the banks of
fabled Sarayu River.
The thundering clouds wrestled, the wombs
of giant Earth quivered, the regal blue-eyed
peahens ruffled their gilded
ruby feathers;
The sunken plants sprouted, oozing out their
heads to catch a glimpse of the exquisite face
of Sita with a silken complexion of molten-lava
daughter of king Janka of Mithila whose
whose beauty launched thousand
battle-ships…
Adorned in the victory lap of the majestic
embellished golden elephants, swimming
across the seas far-far away from the
ghostly dark dungeons of decadent
Ravana’s sinful Lanka.
After slaying Ravana’s ten monstrous
heads for the atrocious sins of holding,
his young queen captive.
Crowned prince Rama step a foot on the lush
lands of Ayodhya, where gilded golden domes
erected bowed to salute his triumphant
arrivals, after the exiles of the fourteen
extensive summers and winters.
Ancient gulmohar trees lowered their laden
branches and fluttered leaves like bells of
mythical sun temples;
A tear swelled up in the eyes of Rama
looking at the solar dynasty of his fore-fathers
banished by his own kin, reduced to
dwell in sinister dense woods chosen
for menial chores.
Rama knew the challenges that lie ahead,
sufferings he must withstand, answers he
must offer, the paths he must trod while
keeping his ideals supreme.
( congrats to all the devotees of Sri Ram, on the laying of foundation stone in Ayodhya, what a great day)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
A sorcerer once looked
at my palm and held my
arm to enthrone destiny
in the deep criss-cross lines.
For I was young with crimson
blood , momentary bubble
bursted at my insolence.
The sneaky destiny flew out
of my palm and sat on a
very high wall.
“ Now what?” I asked
The sorcerer took my
destiny in his shack.
Resolute I never showed
a palm or counted stars
for Mars or Venus,
nothing is ever sealed
in gold.
Standing in the land of the great Apaches
Midst blooming wild poppies
and the mammoth elephant grasses,
thinking of the dream that once Martin Luther had.
May be the days of chivalric Camelot are over,
as I heaved reclining on the grand arm chair;
vicious winds from the North gushed
echoing footsteps of a massive feet
opening a narrow pass for the
grim shadow of Lincoln to flicker by,
leaving behind trails of the Fallen Soldiers
on the path once trodden by the
fierce Indian Tribes.
Adorning the scarlet crown of thorns
he graced the parched sands of
ancient Bethlehem with legendary
bounties of those infinite compassions.
A messiah took birth in the shanty
dwellings of the humblest shepherds,
A shooting star sighted somewhere,
It was the first tremors,those calm
whispers and silent tears.
He silently trudged on those impotent
lands leaving in every-footprint a gushing
fountain brimming with divine mercy
Brought down the mighty
Roman Empire not with a saddle or sword
but with a single drop of his blood
And when the lighting struck
the barren lands, he humbly took upon
himself the sins of all those around,
resurrecting from his humanly abode
It was the first coming, the most
anticipated one.
(Merry Christmas to all my Christian Friends, it’s my humble take on the spirit of Christmas and the legendary story Of Christ)
Started at 3 pm to look for morality,
Hours minutes pass by,
Walking waiting sleeping
But road to morality seemed long
On the curvy path few are busy,
Some in slumber, some don’t
really care…
My guardian angel texted ” do not disturb”
Keep on marching, keep on trudging
Perhaps one must ask what is the way
Met a wasted drunkard
Stretching on the cracked pavement
Taste this nectar from the gods
You will find what you seek
I too was once like you
Follow the direction of the wandering wind
Swaying, dancing, howling
It knows what you look.
Seven days and seven nights,
Chased the promiscuous wind from coast to coast.
Shrieking, screeching it leap up to me
With a licentious laughter…
Here you come finally like many,
Did you know ,I was cursed long ago.
To screech and sing in darkness,
For my promiscuity banished long ,
To consummate with hollow vacuums
To make love to woods in the dark,
For my crime, as she said
Two casual tears trickled down her gaunt cheeks
I dared to love thunder under the nose of clouds.
For which exiled to perpetual nothingness,
Fornication is a blasphemy in the book of creator.
While I yell, cry in empty voids,
Thunder is gracing the blue sky.
Morality is the privilege of very few
It’s the luxury of those who dwell in sky
As final words were said, thunder growled in the sky ,
Lighting struck on the nearby tree,
Scared and naked she vanished into woods.
Tanya Shukla
In the murkiest corner of my
house, behind vintage armarium
lingers shadowy smoke of a
lone candle lite once.
The flame long extinguished
leaving behind a sooty smog
that hovers an abandoned cloud
Reminiscence of days when
arrogant flicker competed
with the mighty rays of Sun.
Callously it turned its head
towards the scorching beam
In exhilaration of youth before
time melted away.
The satin wax of exotic bees
deliquesced and fell apart like
the fall of Icarus leaving a dark
cloud on the walls…
