A Tree blossoms at my grave
Blinding sun-
My shadow, pause awhile
As you pass my grave
And I will be content with thee.
One day, life will bloom
From my remains –
Then, in its shade-
Stay, forever.
Contemplative poems
Contemplative poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Monocular Views
Turning it inward, the first thing I noticed
Was the paleness of the Blue.
As I scanned, colours of different hues appeared
A bright saffron Red that excited me,
Greens, strange, I always felt erotic
Browns of barren lands and then
The White of the snow-capped hills.
I shook the Glass and Viola'! it turned
To a Kalaiedoscope.
Sparklers and bangle pieces
Tinted glass and tiny beads - I shake -
And marvel at the myriad of love.
Love, in its infinite patterns, Love
That I knew, and that I didn't
Each design, falling into place
So different from the other, so unique!
On Seeing a Dead Snake
Snakes don't close their eyelids
'Coz snakes can't close their eyelids.
Fused, the eyelids keep the eyes open
From birth to postmortem.
Perhaps, as the rest of the body rots away,
The eyeballs would lie there forever,
Twinkling like forlorn stars.
Scared of the vacant look of death,we
Scramble to pull down our dead's eyelids.
Perhaps, if we didn't,
they would light up stars
In somebody else's eyes...
Definition
To define is to confine
To define is to be finite
To finally shut the windows
To firmly shut others out.
To define is not to look at the sky
To define is to end the quest
To define would be
To defeat yourselves
To rob yourselves of the infinity that was promised...
Time, Frozen
Flipping through Henri’s* pictures,
I see how desperate he was, like me,
To freeze time.
Fleeting are our lives - the ones you see smiling,
Crying, frowning, deep in thought, their inner selves revealed
A glimpse offered in these frozen images
And then taken away in the flood.
Faster, quicker than the flowing water,
Life flees, swirls and then disappears -
All that remains is a dash between
A year and another...
Ant on the Wire
Along the wires
That connect my laptop to the mutiple pins
That connect my mobile to its charger
That connect the speakers to its charger
That connect my camera to its charger -
Wires, looped, coiled, twisted, splayed like intestines pulled out -
Along the wires walks an ant.
It could be walking (?) through an unending maze
Entrance and exit confused
A path directionless, destination-less .
What is the ant looking for - food, I presume
Though I would like to fantasize
That the ant is searching for -
Meaning of life? Ho ho ho!
Through the haze of smoke that drifts up from the cigarette
I try to look at the way I am going, the whys and wheres of it.
The Basketball Players
Outside my window, below on the ground, the Basketball players.
In the mornings I awake to the drumming of the ball on the concrete floor
And to the yelps and shouts of children playing basketball.
Lifting the curtain, through the haze of the mosquitoe net,
I watch them, lithe, graceful
Jumping and running like antelopes in the savannah.
Dribbling the ball, they run to and fro
Across the court, turning, twisting, ducking
Swiftly passing the ball, faking a throw
Blocking, trying to snatch, moving like cats
On a hot tin roof and then leap and lift the ball to the basket
Some bounce off the board, some slip neatly through the net
Only to be grabbed and loped again and again.
A Methodical Life
There is a method to starting a bike.
A deliberateness, a pause, before every step.
Keenly detecting flecks of dust, dried droppings
Of crows, of oil leaked and sticking like paste
Mixed, with the finest of grains
Wiping it all clean.
Flipping back the stand, inserting the key
And turning it right, assured of the green light,
You depress the lever; throttle closed,
Carefully pressing your foot down on the kicker
You pause – again, before bringing it down again
Gently, but firmly and swiftly,
Listening to the plug catching a spark.
As the engine sputters to life, you listen to the thuds, even.
With such intimacy, with almost love, you listen
To the throb; your bike is alive.
Choice Is Not An Option
The day on which I was born,
The day on which I will die,
The people whom raised me,
The places where I reside,
The schools where I was a student,
The classes which I attended,
The extracurricular activities I took part in,
The degrees that I earned,
Where I was employed,
For whom I worked,
How long my stay was,
My ultimate career path,
The jokes to which I laugh,
The music that I enjoy,
The trips that I took,
It was all predestined,
Denial Filling the Void
I don’t need my games,
Don’t need my movies,
Don’t need my CDs,
You can take it all,
No need for my toys,
My pictures,
My books,
They’re yours,
My car need not exist,
My furniture either,
My TV may be thrown,
You can have it all,
Sitting by my lonesome,
Without all my things,
I feel a weight lifted from my shoulders,
I feel at peace,
The Shadow
One foot in front of the other,
Speed continually increasing,
Reluctant to look back,
Indifferent to pushing and shoving,
With no definite destination,
You continue to run,
No care about fatigue,
No worry of dehydration,
Not knowing when to stop,
If the end is near,
Not knowing if you should go back,
To conquer that fear,
Others watch and shake their heads,
Having been there before,
Until they learned there was no finish,
It did them no good,
The Mirror of Life
I stand before the mirror,
Barely able to see my face,
My whole life in front of me,
Hopes and dreams to embrace,
I stand before the mirror,
Not liking what I see,
Small for my age,
Changes occurring constantly,
I stand before the mirror,
Excited about my future,
Lofty goals still I hold,
Naively full of optimism,
I stand before the mirror,
Uncertain of what’s to come,
Full of dedication and determination,
As I’m still young,
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