Sunday, July 29, 2012

Songs of the Soul-VII


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A tear drop spawned in the eyes,
Like a sense stirred by a metaphor;
The end of words, birth of meaning,
Washing the sins of sounds,
With the silent poignancy of joy,
When you came close
To write a song on my soul.

There is a bridge that we all hope to find between every ‘you and me’ in this world. There would be words that pave the bridge. There are moments however, when each word we utter is not enough to power or to support that bridge. Then we retreat into the island of solitude and hope for a sign, either from within us or from outside, from the other side of the bridge.

In this latest series of i-poems, I wanted to talk about those signs that appear from within us, meaning and delivering a promise that the bridge between us will stand forever. These signs are the wordless sighs and soothing tears of joy.  

Dear reader, I hope you enjoyed this “silent poignancy of joy” titled “Songs of the Soul”.

A song never ends. It merely initiates the caesura. It repeats itself in the time to come and the moments past, just like it did at the time when our souls were empty in the expectation of the signs to come. 

Thank you for reading. 

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Songs of the Soul-VI

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I resisted you like the sun darkness,
Until when the needles of time came face up.
To rise at the dawn of my life,
I went inside you, deep, down, wordless.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Songs of the Soul-V


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I am land that takes flight
On a storm in the desert,
I am water that becomes rock
On the poles of the earth.
I am air in the clouds of the sky
That dreams to fill the river.
I am the shallowness that reminds depth.
I am darkness that shows light.
I am ignorance that knows itself.
I am the soul that lives eternal.
I am a bird that walks on earth.
I am an animal that can fly.
I am an insect eating the strongest.
When the closeness of your toes,
Breach the fear of distances,
I am all this, except words. 

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Songs of the Soul-IV


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I tell you my affection with the sighs,
From the caves of mortality.
Born in the past,
Filled up in the present,
Held by future as the child of meaning,
The growth of the seed of wordlessness;
It tells you that which I felt
When your soul lingered with mine.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Songs of the Soul-III


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The word for love is too short.
The word for affection, shallow.
The depth of a book, insufficient.
Since, in love I became
Too vast to measure,
Too deep to fathom,
Too alive to die;
How! I still know not,
To tell you my love. 

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Songs of the Soul-II


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II

The track of molten joy
Is etched upon my cheeks,
I fill them up.
The wind from the sea of dreams
Is hidden in my chest,
I blew them out.
The drum of eternal life
Plays beneath my ribs,
I unleash it.
Still, the miracle of your nearness
In the soil of my ecstasies,
Bears no words. 

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Songs of the Soul

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A bridge stands for a purpose between every ‘you and me’ in the world. There would be words filling the bridge, traversing from the depth of a beating heart to the delicate and receptive cup of a pure soul. I would rather say I am wordless when talking about this phenomenon, which we usually identify as “words spoken between two”.  There are terms like communication, talk, conversation, dialogue, and even monologue in order to explain this bridge. Whatever name we give it, this is the bridge that brings us together and makes us stay close with each other. But sometimes, we don’t find words to express what we feel, towards ourselves, the other, or God. These are the moments of vacant buoyancy. We float like a weightless bubble on the surface of the river of life and someone comes along in the form of a touch, a gust of breeze or like of a storm and takes us to a destination, according to who they are. We just float towards an unknown destination.

We cry, there would be no other way to express what we feel in those times; wordless times. Tears shed for someone else, could suggest a couple of things: one—that it is enough of the person in your life; two—that you could not have enough of him. When you cry in front of your God, you do it for the latter. You sing with your soul, but no words come out and you wonder why was I so naïve to think God is listening when there were no words spoken and no meaning made.

When we shed a drop of tear in love, we do it for both the reasons. We hate who we love, for being so helpless and struck with awe at the magnificence of love, standing at the other end of the bridge. We love and still we cannot tell how much. We know it, but we do not know it at all.

Here are a new series of i-poems.

They are my attempt to find out what lies in the bridge between you and me, when there are no words to serve as messengers across it.

I call them: “Songs of the soul”

Here is the first installment. Hope you would like it and your soul will rejoice in it, like you did when I wrote my other poems, too. O Muse, here I am, singing for you…
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Songs of the Soul
I
The clock pushed from the cliff of time,
Has a tick to cry back.
A joy stricken bird invades the sky,
With open wings and a song from its heart.
When your words tap the strings of my soul, though,
The sorry me; stand wordless!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Spam Luck


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Our client is looking for 100 English writers; we could pay up to $10,000/month with bonuses for writers who deliver good content on a regular basis. No experience required. Payment via Paypal, Check, or a Bank Wire.

Mithun Vadakkedathu signed out. But he did not forget to mark the mail he just read as spam. He had been signing up in job sites and this has become his day job.

The previous week he had gone to the Parassinikadavu temple and paid for Vellaattam, the worship dance for pleasing Muthappan, the deity of Parassinikkadavu temple, the ancient God of the commoner.

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He groped in his wallet which had holes inside and threads were coming off from its bottom. The outer layer of rexine was removed from many places by time.

Mithun took out three pieces of paper, three tickets: one red, one grey, one pale white in colour. He murmured; “O God, all my prayers, all the Vellaattam I paid for are gone without purpose. I must have done something terrible that I still do not know myself. Perhaps the beggar I didn’t help, or the old man I hadn’t offered a seat in the bus.”

He was sure, gods were deaf towards him and that his future loomed in the doorstep of a bankrupt hell. But he also had heard of the heart of Muthappan, kind, and quick to rescue in the tears of His followers.

“I have lost my job months ago! My future seems to be in dark. O God, help me!” He prayed.

He worked as a teacher until two months ago in an English medium school in Kannur city. He taught English Literature. The course demanded the course to be taught from Chaucer to Shakespeare. Mithun found it difficult to keep the attention of the students.

When he recited, “Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,” one of the students had asked, “Excuse me sir, why should we study this?”

Students in Twelfth standard are always trouble, he had consoled himself. However, he was not content with the progress he made with his teaching. So he decided to try something else. He gave the students books to read—from out of the syllabus; books that he had thought could lure the kids into reading—by Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Sidney Sheldon, William Blake, Rumi, Whitman.

The experiment had an impressive result; the kids started reading books and wanted more. Some of them even started writing their own stories and poems. The next time he told them about Ian McEwan and Don DeLillo and next T. S Eliot, then Charles Dickens and then Shakespeare. He was entering into the vast body of literary history from the front door. That was not the tradition; it had to be approached from past, from Chaucer, from back door that usually scared people away or caused them take the information in as if it’s science of geography.

In the very next Department staff meeting, Mithun stood as a convict. The Principal asked him to submit a show-cause notice for deviating in such a gross manner from the prescribed pattern of syllabus. His colleagues shot him that expressionless, pitiful look that one can usually observe in the eyes of the dead fish in the fish market.   

As night ascended and the whole family slept, Mithun slowly switched on his computer, this time he did not open his mail. Instead, he checked all his favorite porn sites one by one. When sleep knocked on his eyes, he was all ready to fall deeply into its bosom and forget the dreary day.

As sleep overpowered him he had a dream. He was not sure at first whether it was a dream at all, because it started with an echo. A droning sound hat twisted the membranes of his thoughts, leaving them confused and weary. It was like a wind howling in a distance. Then it started coming close, the voice.  

Then, he heard Bells. It sounded more like small clutter of bells intermittently, as if attached with someone’s feet. It was like someone with an anklet, walking. He was sure he did; even though in sleep, he could clearly make out the sound. This made him think if it was sleep at all.

Then he opened his eyes. There was something strange, he did not open his eyes because he wanted to, but as if someone had asked him to, it was much like an order. He heard it, like a trail of audible silence and opened his eyes.

His eyes were opened to a gleam that was light reflected from the arrows loaded in a quiver. There was a man in front of him, with a turban made of flowers and silver, his eyes covered with a pair of silver shields, and body covered in strange designs and in magnificent colours.

The man was much closer in looks to the deity he worshipped during Vellaattam.

That was Muthappan.

“O, Muthappa!” Mithun cried and joining both his hands fell to the ground in front of the god. “Forgive me my mistakes and bless me,” he said.   
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“Bless you?” Muthappan asked with a curious tone in his voice, “Why should I bless you any more? I already bestowed upon you what you needed.”
Mithun stood up startled. “What do you mean O, Muthappa?!” he asked hesitantly.

“Oh, yes, how can you! You are so obsessed with misery,” Muthappan said.  

“Me? Obsessed! I do not understand,” Mithun said baffled.
“The email you marked spam and deleted this morning was your key to success. You could have become rich. That was my blessing to you, but you ignored it thinking that such an offer is beyond normal,” Muthappan said. Mithun was saying something, but his words vanished midway as he saw no one around.

Muthappan heeds all. He never resides at one place for long, Mithun thought.

“It’s just a dream,” he said to himself.