20080328

Elec Nite

Here's to walking out halfway through an adieu party .
Here's to remembrances. To people who half-exist. Who drive you out of your own. Drive you towards a cup of coffee. Toward a lonely evening with a table lamp.
Here's to running away from freedom.
Here's to 'You're the closest to heaven that I've ever been. And I don't want to miss you right now'.
Here's to incorrect lyrics that sound better than the correct.
Here's to running into yourself. Again and again.
Here's to being struck. Being sleepless. Being used. Being unused.
Here's to wanting. Here's to not getting. Here's to nowhere and no how.
Here's to council from the deads and the fools. To the warmth in their company. To the reassurance in their wretchedness.

Here's to all that. And to silences broken by tch-tchs from a keyboard.

20080319

Ourselves

' Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds ... '
Redemption Song by Bob the Hippie Rasta.

The song is supposed to carry with it airs of political rebellion. Of unrest. Of a strong desire to be free. And those airs it does carry, faithfully and in abundance. But today, fighting with myself I realised - behind those melancholy staccato strums, behind the sad heart breaking recital lies a simple plan. A simple lesson. As much personal as political. The plan called action. And yet, at his point of time, this simple plan is a blow to my very concept of freedom. For me freedom stood for free fall. Letting go.
But for the simple minded rasta freedom lies in strife. In effort. First, for the attainment, and then for sustenance. And it is not the pot, but this freedom that I gratefully accept from you, brother.
I am scared of the impending strife. I am not good at it. But I must accept it. Must find a way to feel one with it. Because after all, it is my freedom.

Credits: Staccato. TB(oO) and Vane.

20080312

façade

Today I realised that saying 'Hello' out loud is not mandatory. People have already warned me umpteen times against this horribly anti-social habit. They say that a smile is a much better alternative. Less messy, low on calories and high covertness. In other words, I said, a very effective façade. I was furious, almost to the point of being pitiful. The sham, the artifice!
But today, walking back from breakfast I came across this guy I don't know too well, and have no desire to either. Mostly because of his/my smugness. Automatically, without the slightest thought or provocation - out came a smile. A less messy, low calorie, highly covert smile. And at that very precise moment, I took back every Hello I have ever said. The sham, the artifice!

Over the past few days I have also realised my mind is not free in its musings. There is a dark cloud of logic gathered above my skies. It filters every soulward ray emanating from my atomic brain, so that all that reaches my shivering core is a faint smudge. There is no warmth. I think too much before I think. In zeros and ones. I have an OCD, whence every sentece must be spic and span. Perfectly ordered. Blacks and whites, clubs and spades.
Yesterday I read Heaney. Listened to Van Morrison. I realised how ordered my life is. How free their art is. How free I am. Only I refuse to accept it. I refuse to work towards it. And therein lies the issue. The arid monster. So, today, I want to be inkorect. Polætically offtrackened. Ethicaly chällenged. Erothik eve! And so, I presen to yuo, the most wvile of ऑल human kreationß, I presenn to यू, a meop ...
not to be deflected
the arrow, puffed up
speeding busily
straight to its
targjx
- an excerpt from 'Interferences: a sequence of nine poems' by Edwin Morgan

20080305

pablo

Every once in a while, I have these days. Of utter nothings. I am sure you have them too.
They are not necessarily Sundays or Saturdays. And they definitely don't start at a comfortable five in the evening. They are normal full-fledged working days which begin as soon as you unsleep for the first time in the day.
Yesterday was one such Day of Utter Nothing.
It hit me. Smack in the middle of an average hectic undergraduate week. Left me so so off balance. Tottering. And as always - suicidal, but for the memory of.
I awoke. And then awoke. And was finally awake at noon. Then the nothings. One after the other. You can't help it. It is worse than sleepwalking. Because you are perfectly conscious. Skipped lunch. Avoided company. Sent people away. Stared at the wall. Read something about an ubearable lightness or so. Let the phone ring.
Basically left one day of my life blank. Maybe it is a space, between two chapters. Maybe it is only a space between two words. Deliberately streched out into a vast void. The book, is only written once. Maybe. Maybe I am too tired of writing.
But in all probabilities I am just writing a lot of fancy lies to cover up my chronic dumbass laziness. I have a thing for masks and self destruction.
Sometimes I wish I were not so stranded. These strands never intertwine. Each one stretching out, like an infinite arm of the sun. With me in the center. Alone, unarmed. And burning.
There is no one to blame. Maybe.