BWAIN

Karna-Katu : Staccato

2008-03-09T04:36:00.000+05:30

My wet feet made great haste to greet

The sea's sheet that swept up to meet

The leadened skies though deadened the gait

As I boarded the boat, a bard bade 'Wait!'

And he sang a song that stung to the bone

A singeing song sung in a testing tone

False Dawn

2007-06-15T01:44:00.000+05:30

A false dawn hast thou promis'd me
A score candles will no Sun make
Grant me no fleeting glimpses thee
Nor words for conversation's sake

Thy heart lies mired in yonder past
Cleft by Time's vile sickle's sway
Thy life a play of fickle cast
Strewn in cynical disarray

I face His burnished idol old
That polish'st thou with hindsight's Faith
A joust most unjust dost thou hold
Fallible flesh 'gainst Perfect wraith

This war I lost, before He won it
'n leave thee love, this four-fifth sonnet

1857

2007-05-11T23:32:00.000+05:30

The bugle was blown that fateful day
When we were in full retreat
A hundred years of the white man's sway
When our hearts were in crush'd defeat

Taunts and threats and hateful spite
They threw at us on and on
They broke our backs with guile and might
And our will was withered and worn

And then we rose in ones and twos
And we rose like ocean waves
The dam was breached, we broke the truce
We dug those whites their graves

Sepoy and peasant and journey man
Lifted their sickle and knife
Mullah or Pandit, we were all one clan
As we plunged into perilous strife

At Meerut was this fuse first lit
By the fat of pig and cow
Defiled we faced the smiling Brit
And we could not hold back now

We thundered on to Delhi then
And crowned there ourselves king
We killed and burnt and fell and died
But now Death had lost its sting

At Cawnpore we fought long and hard
Under Nana's fearless flag
We killed with utter disregard
We saw the Company's morale sag

And thus we coloured the battlefields red
And the Jamuna a crimson hue
In scores and scores were our warriors dead
But the yoke we now overthrew

A band of mad mad men we were
Our craze had set us free
They killed in swathes but we didnt despair
For their fear we could clearly see

We were caught and hung or cruelly maimed
Shot in the prison of Cawnpore
But we never once bowed, or our Motherland shamed
E'en as we licked that blood-stained floor

In the end, we lost that War
And they called it a Mutiny
T'was no new dawn, but a very bright spark
And for a moment, we called us Free

The Second Coming (WB Yeats) - an interpretation

2007-02-03T06:51:00.000+05:30

Spiralling out of control, the instrument has broken free of the wielder. Guns and weapons have taken on a life of their own. There no more exists cohesion; people no more come together , nor does identity or unity of good purpose survive. Order is lost and chaos takes over - the only law the world obeys is that of Entropy. Violence and hatred spreads, and it catches them young. Children are unceremoniously jolted out of childhood into harshness. Men and women of good intent stand around wringing their hands, while the evil advance, confident and passionate in their misguided convictions, ready to give up their lives for their neurotic causes.

Surely we have reached a tipping point? Surely the tide must turn? I imagine this world, the singular conscience of all humanity, stirring slowly awake. But this brings me no calm! What I see is grotesque - a monster with a human intellect but possessing bestial undercurrents and primal motivations. I see no human love, no generosity, but mere destructive energy. It seems righteous, but who is to know what its thoughts are moored in? There is indignation and confusion at this transformation of the psyche, but this juggernaut cannot be stopped.

The last two millenia will seem tame compared to that which we are set to see soon. Indeed, we may have had flashes of foreboding about the impending disaster. Humans are now to be transformed into beasts, who disinterestedly see violence as an unexceptionable means to any end.But who knows what exact form it will take - this new philosophy, this hardening of resolve, this deathwish that we will become hellbent upon?

Daylight Saving Time

2006-10-30T00:44:00.000+05:30

When the Morrow bodes a luckless lack
Of all that's deigned divine
E'en the clock doth scramble back
For a few more drops o' Sunshine.

The Choice

2006-07-25T00:26:00.000+05:30

They lay together, side by side, he and she, their lips inches away, full and rosy with young life, her hand on her shoulder, inevitably protective. Their eyes were closed, though entirely aware of each other, their lips now gently curled as if enjoying a private joke, a dream they were both in.

They stood together, side by side, he and she, her hands clasped in his, she looking at them, he looking at her, the same thoughts swirling through both, the same question, the same guilt, the same helplessness, the same sharp heart stopping pain.

"Are you sure about who gets the common heart?" asked the chief surgeon. They nodded, he signed the form, she didn't stray her gaze from them. As the surgeon walked away, they stayed on next to them, the four Hobsons, for tomorrow, there would only be three.

What did King Richard III 's wife.....

2006-04-20T10:39:00.000+05:30

....shout when she couldn't find her underwear?
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A hose! A hose! My kingdom for a pantyhose! :-\

Ambition

2006-02-22T15:52:00.000+05:30

The wind in your hair
that playfully tangles your tresses
The sighs that my heart issues
when i slyly steal your glimpses

The breeze that brings to me
the scent of you, my love
The breeze that tickles your cheeks
and turns them pink-and how!

Are nt they all just one
like the tornado you mention
Arent they all just one
mere still air in motion?

The wind that bears pollen-
Nature's caressing hand
Is but the child of the storm-
God's stern reprimand

You can be a storm and a breeze too
Your ambition moulds you, you see
For a tornado is but a zephyr
that knew what it wanted to be!

{this was once a response, when one cared more and thought less}

A Couple of geeky I-Bank limericks

2006-01-31T22:00:00.000+05:30

Once a forex dealer in Lehman
Made a market in Japanese yen
But his deal came a cropper
For his bid was greater than his offer
Last heard he now works in Goldman.

There was a bond trader from Merrill Lynch
Who thought going long was a cinch
But soon enough it happen'd
The yield curve got flatten'd
And his bonus started feeling the pinch.

Deliverance

2006-01-27T17:42:00.000+05:30

Every traveller on this path to glory
Has his own tale, her own story

Friends of flesh and blood I had
Who held my hand, who made me glad

But this path did wind on and on
Through thorns and thickets overgrown

Till I needed both hands to fend
off the scythes, to slash and rend

My trail they just could not follow
Leaving me amidst these men so hollow

They come and go, so shallow in essence
Friendship, a marriage of convenience

This road seems to lead to a grassy glen
But will I just find there, more hollow men ?

Bloodlust

2006-01-02T03:29:00.000+05:30

Smile not on me so guilelessly
laugh not at me so loud
mock me not so heartlessly
for i am but one of the crowd

there are no sweet sweet memories
there was no love to live by
there was my raging hatred
for you when i bid goodbye

when your life was signing its death deed
and death was raging tall
i threw my heart at your feet
to you i bequeth'd my all

i slayed the monster i slayed him
in your joy i joyfully cried
but ingrate! in your selfishness
my heart it shrivelled and died

So smile not at me o medusa
wilt not i shall to your guile
slash my jugular with a knife instead
i will bleed to death in a while

The prince who didn't kiss Snow-white

2005-12-27T21:58:00.000+05:30

He did stand there out of fear
But the fear of rousing his peaceful dear

The soulful smile that sealed her lips
His mind it holds, his mind it grips

The world was too wretched a place
For her virtuous glow, her sinless grace

His love was pure, purest by far
For he kiss'd not her, he kiss'd her altar

For he like me, didn't doubt at all
He loved her and let her be, that's all!

The simplest solution

2005-11-25T02:57:00.000+05:30

His blood trickled out in a tiny rivulet down his wrist to the fingers, and then on to the cold floor beneath where it made a slowly expanding pool of sorrow. His grip on the smooth metal loosened and the razor fell with a clatter. As he saw his troubles ooze away, William Occam managed a wry smile.

Is there anyone out there?

2004-06-05T09:51:00.000+05:30

What hath God wrought ?