K K Srivastava
02-20-2010, 10:58 PM
(1)
Another day on the abysmal continuum
estranged day-another estranged reflection,
not doubled nor redoubling of our consciousness
another day, with it’s schematic perceptions.
No trembling fixedness, so it seems:
blindness is notorious
we enact a different sense
quizzical looks are no answering machines,
answering no doubts
mourning a loss: still a profit.
Impossibility of the possible only possible form
we assume the posture of a imageless thought
the farther we get away, the more we are replaced
by what we never intend to represent.
We are not perplexed as yet; our fall does not perplex us,
we borrow our stories from our future, distant one
churchy darkness of the past we manage,
like all visions
invisibility a sickness or a gift.
Are we missing something today
or there is no question;
we are total slut, the truth of it is we are total slut
directing ourselves to a wrong, lousy waiting room
we know not how to cover our wounds, today is so different.
It is not tied around our neck,
we have not wrapped it
marveling at worries and wonders alike,
we make ourselves too important
we have reached that limit
we share our fascination with the vision asleep/awash.
(2)
Wizened with waiting
we stay assured we are not going
to feel this way again
the mind crackles in- unable
to silhouette the maze of false starts
and imperfect
endings---
death of present desires invents the new ones.
Light dwells upon—
our shadows look like black, gigantic
boxes on the move
we survive on our indistinguishable surface
no perfect mirror displays our imperfect expansion
the possibility of our being us a mere,
simple coincidence
coincidences have suffered multiple-changing fortunes
jumbled, fragmentary stories
bear testimony to our being alive
to such coincidences
solicitous desire to swallow troublesome
logics,
indissolubly linked, yet another impossibility.
Being human beings enigma of permanence
we rarely come upon
there in the gravest recess of our being
our lives
a sly-a combination of what seems real and
what seems elusive
a mystifying barrier to our being us.
Substance is no real phenomenon
we whirl at unreal happenings
endeavoring to uncouple the real happenings
from unreal realities
flight and escape, like irreversible time
and reversible space
the gaping holes in our thinking---
are we still oblivious of these?
(3)
The world fascinates us, perturbs us
quizzes us, mystifies us;
transporting us through the inner recesses
of splendid intensity,
we insightfully beleaguer our
uplifting intellect amid foggy
mist--uncertainties and indecisions—
a sizzling hollowness.
No looking like refolding of permanence,
no way to ascertain truth from the penumbra of untruths,
dancer from the dance not knowable
lies don’t tell lies,
There is no escape route—
distances are fatally slippery.
Everywhere the collective mind
tired of it’s lewd legacies
in our well-thought out flights of grandeur
mirrors don’t torment
the failing of our senses stays unexplored;
the hidden hands play havoc,
absurdly and self-defeatingly
onlookers smile.
(4)
Honorable and disreputable deeds-
the twins of our memorable
past, oftentimes circle around us,
at times completely, at times
partially but never unknowingly,
deeply embedded unto us,
we master the unknown the way
we exhibit these time to time.
Certain memories are mummified
not redundant but mummified,
mind the words,
we go in for sensuous indulgences,
we redeem the acute brightness
around that villa hobnobs with the acute
darkness inside that villa
but we must visit that place
once more.
We will go there, go there in a big group
plan our trips in advance,
plan the happenings there in advance
we will climb to the high
and we will not take chances
most certainly not, never, never,
we know how to look totally absurd
while never risking absurdity.
Are you brave enough to look inside you
and ask: ---- are these
antics needed now
the antics you relished in your heydays,
do you need these, you are 55 and you are 58
and you are 57 and you,
Madam, you would not reveal your age?
You people always display a pattern—
of ebbs and of lows, rudely,
old meeting young, revival of the old bonds
old faiths, old moorings,
old habits, old cycles and old circles,
everything old and rotten
we celebrate all things old and rotten;
we are too old and too rotten.
We assemble, at right time, right place
with right people around
we are funny chaps, we clasp
we laugh, we talk loudly, very loudly
we look at young admiringly
we clasp, we giggle, we laugh loudly
we clasp and then move inside ourselves
to celebrate our being us.
(5)
When we write a poem
we don’t build castles in the air, nor rocks,
we don’t kill things
nor soften our resistance
nor do we argue or disargue
nor abandon the emotions at stake
nor seek shelter,
what we simply do is nothing
but write a poem, only a poem.
Enchanting echoes of the past
the days we have heard of, not seen
remain uninitiated echoes only
our movement amid these echoes,
restrained movements
successful irrelevance of contemplation,
a historically mighty technique at work
to determine our being us.
Another day on the abysmal continuum
estranged day-another estranged reflection,
not doubled nor redoubling of our consciousness
another day, with it’s schematic perceptions.
No trembling fixedness, so it seems:
blindness is notorious
we enact a different sense
quizzical looks are no answering machines,
answering no doubts
mourning a loss: still a profit.
Impossibility of the possible only possible form
we assume the posture of a imageless thought
the farther we get away, the more we are replaced
by what we never intend to represent.
We are not perplexed as yet; our fall does not perplex us,
we borrow our stories from our future, distant one
churchy darkness of the past we manage,
like all visions
invisibility a sickness or a gift.
Are we missing something today
or there is no question;
we are total slut, the truth of it is we are total slut
directing ourselves to a wrong, lousy waiting room
we know not how to cover our wounds, today is so different.
It is not tied around our neck,
we have not wrapped it
marveling at worries and wonders alike,
we make ourselves too important
we have reached that limit
we share our fascination with the vision asleep/awash.
(2)
Wizened with waiting
we stay assured we are not going
to feel this way again
the mind crackles in- unable
to silhouette the maze of false starts
and imperfect
endings---
death of present desires invents the new ones.
Light dwells upon—
our shadows look like black, gigantic
boxes on the move
we survive on our indistinguishable surface
no perfect mirror displays our imperfect expansion
the possibility of our being us a mere,
simple coincidence
coincidences have suffered multiple-changing fortunes
jumbled, fragmentary stories
bear testimony to our being alive
to such coincidences
solicitous desire to swallow troublesome
logics,
indissolubly linked, yet another impossibility.
Being human beings enigma of permanence
we rarely come upon
there in the gravest recess of our being
our lives
a sly-a combination of what seems real and
what seems elusive
a mystifying barrier to our being us.
Substance is no real phenomenon
we whirl at unreal happenings
endeavoring to uncouple the real happenings
from unreal realities
flight and escape, like irreversible time
and reversible space
the gaping holes in our thinking---
are we still oblivious of these?
(3)
The world fascinates us, perturbs us
quizzes us, mystifies us;
transporting us through the inner recesses
of splendid intensity,
we insightfully beleaguer our
uplifting intellect amid foggy
mist--uncertainties and indecisions—
a sizzling hollowness.
No looking like refolding of permanence,
no way to ascertain truth from the penumbra of untruths,
dancer from the dance not knowable
lies don’t tell lies,
There is no escape route—
distances are fatally slippery.
Everywhere the collective mind
tired of it’s lewd legacies
in our well-thought out flights of grandeur
mirrors don’t torment
the failing of our senses stays unexplored;
the hidden hands play havoc,
absurdly and self-defeatingly
onlookers smile.
(4)
Honorable and disreputable deeds-
the twins of our memorable
past, oftentimes circle around us,
at times completely, at times
partially but never unknowingly,
deeply embedded unto us,
we master the unknown the way
we exhibit these time to time.
Certain memories are mummified
not redundant but mummified,
mind the words,
we go in for sensuous indulgences,
we redeem the acute brightness
around that villa hobnobs with the acute
darkness inside that villa
but we must visit that place
once more.
We will go there, go there in a big group
plan our trips in advance,
plan the happenings there in advance
we will climb to the high
and we will not take chances
most certainly not, never, never,
we know how to look totally absurd
while never risking absurdity.
Are you brave enough to look inside you
and ask: ---- are these
antics needed now
the antics you relished in your heydays,
do you need these, you are 55 and you are 58
and you are 57 and you,
Madam, you would not reveal your age?
You people always display a pattern—
of ebbs and of lows, rudely,
old meeting young, revival of the old bonds
old faiths, old moorings,
old habits, old cycles and old circles,
everything old and rotten
we celebrate all things old and rotten;
we are too old and too rotten.
We assemble, at right time, right place
with right people around
we are funny chaps, we clasp
we laugh, we talk loudly, very loudly
we look at young admiringly
we clasp, we giggle, we laugh loudly
we clasp and then move inside ourselves
to celebrate our being us.
(5)
When we write a poem
we don’t build castles in the air, nor rocks,
we don’t kill things
nor soften our resistance
nor do we argue or disargue
nor abandon the emotions at stake
nor seek shelter,
what we simply do is nothing
but write a poem, only a poem.
Enchanting echoes of the past
the days we have heard of, not seen
remain uninitiated echoes only
our movement amid these echoes,
restrained movements
successful irrelevance of contemplation,
a historically mighty technique at work
to determine our being us.