An everlasting afternoon

It lingers like an everlasting afternoon
But now I ache for the barren night
Promise is a hazy gleam in the sky
I shield my eyes, I look away.

The rolling seas bring more to lament
To the shores of this quivering dawn
I tell myself it was worth this pain
And then I look for love elsewhere.

Tied up to the memory train
The churning is far too real.
Roiling and seething, like a black storm
In the confines of an undersized ship.

How will I sleep, how will I love,
While I carry it within?
How will I breathe, and make it count
When I'm listless and lost in your spin?

A fleeting gift

I beseech you to stay still

Lest you may stir the air and cause,

This dear moment to slip away

From the grasp of my senses in sway.

Rendered to quaking mush,

By the warmth of her tender touch,

Body, mind and soul - drifting

The veil of heaviness - lifting.

A song on the winter breeze

Sad in words, but of sweet tune

Through the depths of a black window

Adorned by a lonely moon.

I beseech you, my heart, stay still.

Lest you may wake her dreaming eyes.

Lest the world may turn wan again.

At the dying of this bittersweet fire.

Thinking on the Move - Words

These words are lifeless without you.
They do not breathe or feel without your embrace.

You think they are mine and yet, I don't see how. True, I dwelled upon and gave them form. But I would refrain to the best of my abilities from claiming them as my own. I would like to believe that they were always here - floating like orbs in all our minds, but caged by the rawness or absence of a means to express. I only carry them for a while and cherish their essence. Of what good is a wind that wont blow? What good is a seed you cannot sow? The moment they mean something to you, you carry them as well as I. The real wonder is how they go to you and yet from me, they are not gone. A singular ship that sails to its sailor. Read them, feel them and grant them life.

These words are lifeless without you.
They do not breathe or feel without your embrace.

Moving On

As the sun sets upon our stage
We need to move on and away
Lets not talk of the given and the taken
Just remember what came about and what will stay.

The yearning, like a slow flame may die
And leave nothing more than smoke and wax
But in words, songs and memories
May the treasure of our moments lie.

Maybe a day out on an unfamiliar street
Or in green paths of a woody dream
We will be passers by and we may meet
Let our words be happy and our embrace, sweet.

A trinket's wish

Crashing waves, mighty and white
A bundle of exhilaration and fright
Rise, roll, sweep and recede.
Imprisoned by the moon or are you free?

Happy greens, on dancing trees
Twinkling drops amidst your leaves
Sinewy boughs and a trunk of steel
Do you desire to walk and be free?

Standing proud, o mountain high
A temple of beauty, under starry skies
I wonder if beneath your tremors you hide
A dream of wings? an unrequited desire?

Ranger of skies, on steeds of glass
I wish to be as errant as thee
O mighty wind, the freest of all
Lend me your wings and release me.

To touch oceans, forests and mountains alike
To touch minds and hearts and have them believe
Its not folly for mere trinkets to dream
To wish to roam the world and to be free.

Lets go.

These cities, they seem lackluster;
To the mountains we must head.
Away from bright lights and billboards tall,
To the majesty of nature instead.

A late lesson

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me; you say it wearies you.

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn.

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.

Famous first lines from an equally famous Shakespearean play. The noble Antonio speaks these words I believe while standing at the balcony at a sea port and gazing out at the sea. His friends go on to suggest that it is his cargo currently aboard his majestic ships that are to blame. That his mind dwells upon the possibility of mishap, of his spices and silks being carelessly strewn on the waters of the mighty ocean. 

Back when I read this as part of high-school English, I failed to grasp the true idea behind these words. I was a mere child and children do not know or dwell on the causes of sorrow. Their fare is more primitive - laughter, mischief, instinctive jealousy, hunger, pain. To repeat what causes joy and to avoid what makes them sad. A physical trigger to a physically justifiable and curable feeling. 

As I got on to my motorcycle today, I suddenly realized I was reciting these words to myself. And in an instant the profoundness of these lines came to me, filling meaning into words I had read about 13 years back - a gush of red as today's wine came swirling eagerly into yesterday's glass. Little did his friends know of the nature of this sorrow. All the silk, gold and spices may yet fail to allay the dull despair he spoke of. Laughter, and good company may to some extent succeed where material wealth has failed. Good will and selfless giving better serve this ailment and a fulfilling life lived by ones own beliefs may be the best stance against this invincible enemy. 

The yellow leaves of sadness float about like an everlasting autumn. There is an incurable sadness in this world and its made of unrequited love, of the eyes of the old,  of the loss of life, of helplessness, of the feeble hand raised against the tyranny of money, of all the hunger of children in a world they did not build, of the castles of guilt in our minds and of the stupidity of the blind pursuit of material wealth. 

It gets me down, and when it does I will henceforth remember the saintly Antonio, the shrewd Shylock, the prodigal Bassanio and the clever Portia. More than all I will remember the goofy, fun-loving Launcelot Gobbo - for only by trivializing this life can I be careless and courageous, and by laughing at and accepting my misfortune will I be able to combat the sorrow it brings.