Wednesday, April 27, 2011
As I stood on the far side of today,
Looking into the abyss of tomorrow;
A dread of fateful plunge imminent,
Sleep ceded eyes heavy with sorrow.
And when clock struck devil's hour,
All but I stopped dead in the track;
My ears imagined malicious footfall,
A hoary hand almost crept up my back.
My heart then skipped a beat and two,
And foreboding chill numbed my spine;
My trouble calculator was fluctuating
Betwixt threes and nine times nine.
But before figment of my imagination,
Could let puerile fear grip my sanity;
A voice shattered that silent moment,
With authority, but none of its vanity.
Cold, distant, yet kind and alleviating,
It demanded, "Why must dost thou thus;
Drag thy morns, sit thine nights glum,
Make every day of thine such a fuss!?"
Flabbergasted and rendered speechless,
I strained hard my dim wits and sight;
To map this voice to the sublime face,
And bring the kind speaker to light.
Flickering stump of my dying candle,
Couldn't even illumine the very first mile;
Yet some distant faint hope within me,
Kindled warmth of uncommonly kind smile.
Queerly appeased, yet full of nagging doubt,
I gagged 'Who? Where? What? How? Why?'
Then, bashful of mine own unintelligibility,
Almost disowned my shamed face so wry.
Benignly, it replied, "Now, hear hear,
Before thou art reduced to all fours;
Tell me thine mind my troubled child,
Don't argue whithertos and whyfores."
Brooding into emptiness, I thus began,
"No matter how hard I try to hold a day
It eludes my yearning grasp by yards,
From my hands these moments slip away.
I become dimmer and grimmer every hour
My dreams can no longer hold their sway;
Left to my demons, I sit and witness
Tenebrous carnival of my mortal decay.
Caught in tenterhooks I do my own books,
Seeking in my sealed fate some levity;
I add my blessings and subtract my sins,
Only to be left with sheer negativity.
Oft did I debate with space and self,
What if it be truth all that folklore;
If that end I dread be indeed all dead,
Which I shall bribe the ferryman for?
I unwrap gift of my present mindlessly,
And commit it to God's acre behind me;
I am my only illumination in these parts,
Not really a bright one though, I agree.
My world, thus, is a dimly-lit alley,
Pitch black all around for the rest;
To be every day is an act of faith,
And a fool's hope to survive the test."
Having embellished my plight thus far,
Gave it a well-rehearsed dramatic pause;
Some Ahs and Ah-Mes, mayhap tears,
And, if it be my lucky day, an applause.
But my theatrics tonight met their bane,
In even graver silence of my audience;
Invisible eyes rendered my soul bare,
They held me with the gaze so intense.
Unanticipatedly stage had switched courts,
And I was now trembling with anticipation;
Spectator at mercy of a bigger showman,
Severed from self by sudden deracination.
I felt measured for every inch absolute,
And surrendered to this mutual silence;
Like a low man robbed of his last lyric,
My wit abandoned all effort to make sense.
And then it spoke, still distant but kind,
"Heart deceives thee into imagining much;
A good instrument to pump life in veins,
Not for rushing head with thoughts as such.
What picture of tomorrow thou shall see,
If color and canvas be equally aphotic;
Thou art dimly-lit by thine own two hands,
Letting go hope, getting on thine own wick.
Instead of trying to hold sands of Time,
Get a hold of thyself, let go of this sorrow;
Do not lose wonderful today that be now,
To world that may or may not be tomorrow.
Peering too far into fickle future dear lad,
Is why thou see'st nothing but sheer gloom;
Now short-sighted thou'st be for change,
And see thine world's spring in full bloom."
Gentle light alighted and illumined my world,
As I, humbled, sat down to pen this rhyme;
Watching a Father figure recede in distance,
The eternally divine silhouette of Mighty Time.
As I stood on the far side of today,
Looking into the abyss of tomorrow;
A dread of fateful plunge imminent,
Sleep ceded eyes heavy with sorrow.
And when clock struck devil's hour,
All but I stopped dead in the track;
My ears imagined malicious footfall,
A hoary hand almost crept up my back.
My heart then skipped a beat and two,
And foreboding chill numbed my spine;
My trouble calculator was fluctuating
Betwixt threes and nine times nine.
But before figment of my imagination,
Could let puerile fear grip my sanity;
A voice shattered that silent moment,
With authority, but none of its vanity.
Cold, distant, yet kind and alleviating,
It demanded, "Why must dost thou thus;
Drag thy morns, sit thine nights glum,
Make every day of thine such a fuss!?"
Flabbergasted and rendered speechless,
I strained hard my dim wits and sight;
To map this voice to the sublime face,
And bring the kind speaker to light.
Flickering stump of my dying candle,
Couldn't even illumine the very first mile;
Yet some distant faint hope within me,
Kindled warmth of uncommonly kind smile.
Queerly appeased, yet full of nagging doubt,
I gagged 'Who? Where? What? How? Why?'
Then, bashful of mine own unintelligibility,
Almost disowned my shamed face so wry.
Benignly, it replied, "Now, hear hear,
Before thou art reduced to all fours;
Tell me thine mind my troubled child,
Don't argue whithertos and whyfores."
Brooding into emptiness, I thus began,
"No matter how hard I try to hold a day
It eludes my yearning grasp by yards,
From my hands these moments slip away.
I become dimmer and grimmer every hour
My dreams can no longer hold their sway;
Left to my demons, I sit and witness
Tenebrous carnival of my mortal decay.
Caught in tenterhooks I do my own books,
Seeking in my sealed fate some levity;
I add my blessings and subtract my sins,
Only to be left with sheer negativity.
Oft did I debate with space and self,
What if it be truth all that folklore;
If that end I dread be indeed all dead,
Which I shall bribe the ferryman for?
I unwrap gift of my present mindlessly,
And commit it to God's acre behind me;
I am my only illumination in these parts,
Not really a bright one though, I agree.
My world, thus, is a dimly-lit alley,
Pitch black all around for the rest;
To be every day is an act of faith,
And a fool's hope to survive the test."
Having embellished my plight thus far,
Gave it a well-rehearsed dramatic pause;
Some Ahs and Ah-Mes, mayhap tears,
And, if it be my lucky day, an applause.
But my theatrics tonight met their bane,
In even graver silence of my audience;
Invisible eyes rendered my soul bare,
They held me with the gaze so intense.
Unanticipatedly stage had switched courts,
And I was now trembling with anticipation;
Spectator at mercy of a bigger showman,
Severed from self by sudden deracination.
I felt measured for every inch absolute,
And surrendered to this mutual silence;
Like a low man robbed of his last lyric,
My wit abandoned all effort to make sense.
And then it spoke, still distant but kind,
"Heart deceives thee into imagining much;
A good instrument to pump life in veins,
Not for rushing head with thoughts as such.
What picture of tomorrow thou shall see,
If color and canvas be equally aphotic;
Thou art dimly-lit by thine own two hands,
Letting go hope, getting on thine own wick.
Instead of trying to hold sands of Time,
Get a hold of thyself, let go of this sorrow;
Do not lose wonderful today that be now,
To world that may or may not be tomorrow.
Peering too far into fickle future dear lad,
Is why thou see'st nothing but sheer gloom;
Now short-sighted thou'st be for change,
And see thine world's spring in full bloom."
Gentle light alighted and illumined my world,
As I, humbled, sat down to pen this rhyme;
Watching a Father figure recede in distance,
The eternally divine silhouette of Mighty Time.
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