SNPTH: Imran, Twit

SNPTH:  Imran, Twit

#Imran, dekho #Pakistan, mat samjho khud to mahaan #Khushdil kahe, khush hain #Bharat mein #Musalmaan

- 

Wrote for tweeting on 27th Dec 2018, upon reading of Imran Khan's tweet about Muslims in India.

POEMH: Ghazal - Mubarak / Nahin Hai

Ghazal - Mubarak / Nahin Hai

Mubarak mere yaar tujhko ameeri, mujhe teri koi zaroorat nahin hai

Bohot sang mere hai jachti gharibi, mujhe teri koi zaroorat nahin hai

Milkar rahenge to apne rahenge, nahin mil sake to bhi jeete rahenge
Pyaara nahin tera main bhi hoon koi, mujhe teri koi zaroorat nahin hai

Dikhti teri chahaten hain hazaron, pa tere siwa koi meri nahin hai

Tujhe mujhse hajat jo hogi so hogi, mujhe teri koi zaroorat nahin hai

Main aashiq hoon aur ishq hai kaam mera, tu hi ho ke aur maashooq koi 

Mujhe chahiye bas faqat hai aseeri, mujhe teri koi zaroorat nahin hai

Aata hai pa aata nahin, milta hai pa milta nahin, karta hai pa karta nahin 

Mili tujhse mujhko kahan koi sairi, mujhe teri koi zaroorat nahin hai

Khushdil to hoon, pa dil mein tu bhi nahin hai,  khushi bhi nahin hai, 

Zinda to hoon, pa sunle meri zindagi, mujhe teri koi zaroorat nahin hai

POEME: Over to You

Over to You

You, forever, fight me.
And obviously, I forever, fight you.
Newton's third law ensures
that the second statement above
come as a natural consequence of the first.
Either, both the opening statements
are true.  Or both are false.

Assuming that both are true,
why is it that we
have different takes on every fact.
Is it because, you are so much younger than me?
Or, said differently,
you have so much lesser experience than me?

Or is it,
that our fundamentals differ?

If the former,
it is likely
that we will get more in sync,
with time.  And perhaps, there will come a day,
when we will not fight,
nor even agree to disagree,
but actually agree.
Life may go differently
from that point on, for both of us.

However, for now,
there is no 'us'.
There is only you.
And there is only me.

If, on the other hand,
it is the latter,
then why do our fundamentals differ?
Obviously,
because our pasts differ.
Or is it because our futures differ?

In any case,
if our fundamentals,
our basics,
our axioms,
our grounds differ,
how exactly so?

You are more given to your Subjective Reality
than I am, to mine.
Or at any rate, I happen to think so.
And this is my poem, not yours.  So, what I say goes.

But seriously,
do I not take the trouble
to get to the Objective Reality of everything?
Even of comfortable (to me)
lies,
like my belief that you are made for me?
I may still function as if you are,
but I do know,
searingly painfully,
that I do not much exist for you; forget about
you pegging your own existence to mine.
And therefore,
I do not much expect from you,
except periodically, lesser or larger
loads of shit.

You, on the other hand are,
more or less,
completely given to your Subjective Reality.
Which is why, eventually,
you get to hate everyone.
And everyone, you.
Except me.  At least, thus far.

So, standing on those grounds,
form seems to be of the greatest importance to you.
And to me, it has always been the function
that was more important,
even when form did have some importance to me.

So, you are driven by the form.
And I, by the function.
For most part, at least.
Or so, I like to believe.

Clearly, therefore,
you like different things;
and like differently.
So, unless we can see beyond form and function,
things of utmost importance to us,
we will always fight.
Both the opening statements shall remain true.

And when we will see beyond
our own individual likes and dislikes,
both the opening statements shall become false.

And when will that be?
When we value each-other
more than we value our own
independent likes and dislikes.
When will that day come?

At my end, let me try to begin today.

From now on,
when we are together,
I shall endeavour
to make my likes and dislikes
subservient to your opinion.
What you say will be right.
No matter what.  Now,

Over to you.

-

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEME: Religions and Ideologies

Religions and Ideologies

We are seeing
the rise of another conqueror,
another robber baron.

And this can be said truthfully,
at many points in place and time.
Not just now,
not just here,
not just what I suffer now and here,
from the hands of mine and the other.

We are seeing the rise of another conqueror,
another robber baron.
We can be sure that soon
it will be a religion of the devout,
a cherished ideology of many,
today and centuries from now.

Today and centuries from now, children will be bullied
to follow this asshole's hollow diktats,
taking away their innocence
and turning them into monsters who will,
in turn kill others,
directly and indirectly,
men and animals,
beings and habitats,
and rape their own women and bully their own children
in the name of their holy religion
or holy ideology
or holy asshole.

Even their children
who will profess their hate for
and disbelief in that religion
will harass those that love them,
by throwing the corrosive dregs of that holy way,
for they will know no other way,
and in their hubris, not look for one.

No one will bother
to ever practice
real love and compassion and truth.
Or take the trouble to get to the real reality.
Until comprehensively burnt
by the monsters' minstrels.

We are seeing the rise of another conqueror, another robber baron.

-

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEME: Dialogues with Mother: XII

Dialogues with Mother: XII

It has been long
since I spoke to you, Mother.

You are no more.

An atheist,
I cannot give myself comfort
in the delusion that you are happy
in some distant heaven somewhere.

You left this world
more than six years back.
But, for me
you still exist.
You are still there.

Of course, I had made my peace
with you
long before you stopped existing.
For I knew
that you will one day onward
not be there, and I will still be there.
For a while.
I knew I would miss you.
I knew I would want you again
close to me, so that I could
sit by you, resting my back,
or my head on you.

I knew I would miss all the pains
that we gave each-other.
I knew that if I did not make up to you,
I would regret not being able to do that
later.  So, I did that.
I made up to you.
I was by your side all the time
in your last years.  I did not allow
any regrets to linger.
And I forgave you.

I think you forgave me too.
For all the real and imagined pains that I gave you.
I know it, since you gave me all the letters
that you had written to others
condemning me.  I know it,
since you even gave me that Will and Testament
cancelled
in which you had disowned me.
I know it, since you truly smiled,
during those days, years.
Perhaps, for the first time in my life,
I saw you smile days on end.
I like to think that it was because
of all the love that I shared with you.
And because,
there was no one else
that you interacted with, then.
So, I am perhaps
not too far off the mark.

But, Mother,
those years and that happiness
was not quite enough.  Not for me.
Yours, you knew.
And never shared.
But so many years after your death,
I still have an empty space in my heart.
A humongous empty space.
Nothing fills it.
No one fills it.
Nothing and no one can.
Ever.
For no one will ever
be so completely dependent on me, so thoroughly limited
in their connection with the world, as you were.
Your only connection
to the world was your son.
Your only son.
Your only child.

For all the pains that you gave me,
for all the limitations that you placed on me,
for all the negations that you heaped on me,
for not letting me be me,
and for all the success you had in breaking all my bonds
with everyone other than you,
I am not upset with you.

I knew long long ago,
that I would never be able to connect
with the world without you.
For you had forged me so.
And I am in no position
to reforge myself.  And honestly,
I do not even want to do it:
I am the only real heritage
that I have of yours.
I would not want to lose that too.

Mother, you were a flawed being.
But then who is not?
You had your pains and your struggles and your scars.
If I had to go through all that,
I would have been a much worse person
than the worst person I know.
You still managed to be a great mother.
Not a perfect one,
but great anyway.
I still remember all the pains
that you gave me.
But, who cares, Mother,
those made me tough.

You are laughing, Mother?
Yes, let me also laugh with you.

-

But after, the laughter, now,
let me assure you, Mother,
that hard-bodied, loud macho men are not tough men.
They are brittle.
They break easy.
My toughness is of the variety that you may not recognize:
I take all the shit the world,
indeed, all that my own beloveds give me
and I still love them all.
I still love the world.
I still love humen.
This is my variety of toughness, Mother:
I remain what I am,
no matter what.
Strength of any material, including human,
is defined as its ability
to withstand an applied load, or stress
without failure, or deformation.
That is a strength few men ever gain.  I did.
And I have you to thank for it.

Mother, thanks.
Thanks for making me.
Thanks for fighting me.
Thanks for being difficult.
Thanks for making me, inside,
the strongest man I know.

-

I did not speak to anyone,
in my poetry,
for a long while after you died.
I just did not want to.

I did not love myself
for a long while after you died.
I just did not want to.

I did not see myself
as useful for a long while after you died.
I just did not want to.

Perhaps,
the time has come to change all that.
I will still have the humongous hole in my heart.
But that need not stop me from again becoming
'useful'.

-

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEME: Bhāvābhāvagitam - Song of the Feeling of Want

Bhāvābhāvagitam - Song of the Feeling of Want

What do I want?

This is a big question,
for it decides what I do.
And thus, the path I take.
Eventually, this very question decides, for me,
who I am.

My needs, however,
and their fulfillment,
or otherwise,
merely decides how long I will continue pursuing
the path of being myself.

So, once again,
let us see if we can separate
my 'needs' and my 'wants'.

Defining a 'need' is simple: that which is necessary for me to live.

Defining a 'want' is more problematic,
perhaps: that which I love, or desire.
Or, perhaps: that without which I would not consider life a necessity.
Or, perhaps: a lack or deficiency of something.

Looking at these differently:
a Need is an Objective Reality.
Being Objective Reality, my needs are often similar
to the needs of others like me.  I need food.
Another person, say, my infant nephew, will also need food,
since he is a human like me.  But,
weighing a tenth of what I weigh, despite growing,
he will perhaps need no more than a fifth of the food that I need.
The amount differs,
but our needs are similar.
He does not need no food.
Also, he does not need to eat a million times as much as me.
Further, he does not need enriched Uranium for food.
He, too,
needs the same carbs and proteins and fats and vitamins that I do.
Thus our need is the same,
with a minor variation in the amount,
not in the kind, nor in the reason each needs it for.
We both will die if our need for food is not fulfilled.
Similarly, air, water, sleep, excretion, shelter, homeostasis and so forth.

Needs are thus necessarily undeniable, similar, predictable and mostly, fulfillable.

On the other hand,
a Want is a Subjective Reality,
often created through an interaction with an Intersubjective Reality.
Being a Subjective Reality, one of my wants may be similar
or vastly different from those of others like me -
in quantum, class, kind, reason, or even the very existence.
Thus, even though I and my nephew may both
(or may not)
want to suck on a breast at this time,
his and my reasons are entirely different.
For both, wanting or not wanting it.
Similarly, even when he is all grown up,
one of us may insist on partaking orifices,
and the other, mouthpieces.  And even if we both
find ourselves looking for the same kind of an opening,
we are likely to differ vastly in the want
of the human appendage to that, say, the mouthpiece.
Assuming that we, for a moment
remove the need-part of this want here,
there is comparatively little
     that is Objective in this or any other want.
I have found
that I want many things differently,
not just from other fellow humans,
but from my own past too.  But,...

...want, I do.
Though, no particular want is necessarily undeniable, similar, predictable and always fulfillable.

...want, I do.
And, for some of those wants, I would, if convenient, choose to not live,
     than live without their fulfillment.

...want, I do.
And, these very wants, fulfilled or unfulfilled, make me the person that I am,
     and am becoming.

Thus emerges the greatest
and the toughest question
that any human has ever faced:
what do I do?

This question,
and its variegated variants
are all so important
because answering in one way
results in me (and the world)
turning out very differently in future,
than when answering it another way.

And tough,
because we have absolutely no clue
about the ground that it has to stand on,
before it is answered.  Newton said it
most eloquently,
     "if I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants."
The ground
that this question stands on,
can well be that of any of the realities:
Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, Absolute.

If I choose the ground to be
my Subjective Reality, then I shall only follow
the commands of Hedone,
to an early grave.  Others may turn out to be ripper jacks, or perhaps teresas.
Or most likely, an average frustrated joe.
The  problem, thus,
in using this ground is that my Subjective Reality
is true only for me,
and thus not a reality at all,
on which one can base one's interactions
with anyone, and expect success.

Intersubjective Reality as the ground
can make me a hitler, a pope or a president.  Or,
most likely, a mere foot-soldier
to one of the myriad social systems that I exist in.
So, this reality, while it can help with people
that constitute the group
from which I obtain my Intersubjective Reality,
it is perfectly useless
in predicting how other groups will respond.

It is, of course,
not possible for me, or any of us,
to ground this question in Absolute Reality,
for that is the 'Real' Reality -
the un-mind-mediated reality,
to which none of us have any access.

This leaves me
only one reality to ground my question in:
Objective Reality -
the reality that is true for all beings known to us,
including those, that we understand not as beings, but as phenomena.
However,
we do not know it well enough.
It is always a work in progress.

The point at which we have reached so far,
leads me to two possible,
unsynonymous answers: progress and happiness.

I may want to progress,
to achieve goals:
career, corporate, financial, economic, political, national, social,
intellectual, creative, family, biological, fitness, sexual, emotional,
HDI, environmental, consumption, sporting, competitive,
reproductive, religious, fraternal, spiritual,
educational, beauty, romantic and any other goals
that I may find worthy of the tag 'Progress'.

There is a problem here, however.
If I must achieve high goals,
I have to set up higher expectations from myself.
Unless I aim for the moon,
I cannot get the lamppost.
But, if I do that,
I am always wanting; I am always inadequate,
my expectations are always belied,
I am always unhappy.

If I set my goals at achievable levels, and achieve them,
I may feel happy at my mediocre performance.
But I will never amount to much,
by way of achievements relative to my peers.
And even by my own internal measure.

Thus I can Progress.   Or I can be Happy.

Men have almost always chosen Progress.
Except for exceptional individuals like the Buddha,
Jesus, Mahavira, Laozi and such.  And each attained nirvana.
Which is freedom from misery,
even when they got their fair or unfair share of pain.

What do I want?
Progress?  Which can never end, and can never fulfill my ever-growing want.
Or, Happiness?  Which requires me to first lack nothing;
     and thus extinguish my want at all levels: from its root.
And with it, all my feelings.  Which, hitherto
were perhaps, the best possible proof of my actually existing.


What do I do?
What can I actually do?
Which must I gun for?
Which must I want?
Progress or Happiness?

The former, Progress, is logically
and evidentially unachievable.
Excepts for minor wayside halts,
which make us happy for ever so brief moments only.
And destroys far too much on the way.
Of us.
Of our fellow travellers.
Of the way.
But, what if,
we actually can define our Progress
in an area that gives us happiness.
A more lasting happiness
     than a mere hormone-driven set-pointed variety?
Something that gives us
a meaningful purpose.  Which, often will only be
another delusion, like living for
'godswork', 'myfamily', 'thehavenots',
and so forth?

Or,
the latter, Happiness,
which is impossible.
     Or, is it?
Can it not be expected,
that like in all human endeavours of progress,
in the arena of Happiness,
we will keep pushing the frontiers
of our knowledge and execution
incrementally, getting ever closer to it,
even if never actually reaching?
Would,
Can,
Should it
not be nearly enough,
for a mere lucky ape like me?

And in that dilemma,
hangs another piece of Objective Reality.
It is sufficiently clear,
that there exists no free will,
that our system, mind or whatever else,
has already made our decisions,
before we become aware of them,
and grandly, if somewhat pettily,
declare that we have decided.
Thus my decision is already made,
for every future twist and turn in my life,
whether I will choose Progress, or Happiness.
Only the awareness remains to be had.
Or at least
that is what all our biological and neurological knowledge
available to me,
tells me.

Or, is it,
rather like Schrodinger's cat,
simultaneously, both Progress and Happiness?
And it becomes one of them
when I get to that point and find out?

Either way,
there seems to be no conscious control
     that I have on this choice:
it is either one determined,
or either one by chance!

Is it all merely a game, as suspected,
of the hormones,
Serotonin and Oxytocin and Dopamine and others
that play in the grounds that I call my brain,
leading my mind to one or the other,
Progress or Happiness?

How far do we go in each?

Is the level of Progress that we can get to,
hard-wired into us,
or can it be impacted by us,
especially when there is no free will?

Are we nothing but the playthings
of those known,
unknown or unknowable agencies
that really are the ones making the play?
Perhaps the genes?
Perhaps the memes?
Perhaps the tissues?
Perhaps the cells?
Perhaps the collective of cells?
Perhaps the social organism, the collective of any species?
Perhaps the simulator whose simulation we are, or his simulator?
Perhaps, one of the concepts we have rejected?
Perhaps, one of the concepts we have not arrived at yet?
Perhaps, one of the concepts we do not have the wherewithal to arrive at?
Perhaps the non-conceptual entities
     or non-entities
     that we have no ability to ever understand?

But closer home:
is it really that my Happiness has a set point
and not much progress can be made in moving that point
into happier climes, or can I do something
to make myself happier?
But is that also not preprogrammed?

Is there anything that I do know?
That I can know?
Or is it that I exist, merely
to want,
and to blindly pursue those wants?

And even when I do that,
why do I have mutually exclusive wants?
When I get Progress, I do not get Happiness?
     And vice-versa?
Do we thus come to another one
of my Heisenberg points and poems!

Or perhaps,
this seems so because
I live not in a reality,
but in a shadow of the same.
The reality is never in my grasp,
since all that I see around me,
including myself,
are mere conscious shadows of what really is.
I do not make proper sense of it
because, just like our two-dimensional shadows
(who may well be conscious - in another way)
combine and separate
and create ever new, unreal patterns all the time,
which exist,
and look somewhat and uncannily sensible,
because the 3D relatively-real entities
     behave relatively logically and evidentially.
The 3D shadows too, similarly, merge and emerge,
increasing and decreasing the information of the real,
in my shadow world,
confounding me no end.

Whatever the real real is,
whatever it can be,
leaving aside all intellectual contortions,
I must address my raw biological wants
the primary of which is the one
that I seem to never get rid of:
the love that I want from The One.
But why is it that I always want His love to be mine alone,
     and yet myself want the love of another in another moment?
Why is it that I do not have the same want
in all moments of my life?
Why is it that I always want Him
and yet want something, someone else, soon enough?
Why do I not know what I really want?
Or, can I really want anything?

What do I want?

-

Annexure:

And,
in case,
you are wondering why I insist
on writing such long philosophical rants
in poetry and not in prose, it is perhaps,
my laziness, and 'disintegrity',
so that I can get away
with doing a partial job of explaining myself,
expressing myself in a jumble of prose and poetry, philosophy and love,
thoughts and feelings, intellectual and emotional, clear and creative,
rather than stick to one, the former, or the latter
and prove that I am either a bad philosopher,
or a bad poet.

Or, perhaps,
this is my unique process of making love to you,
by impregnating your mind with a million ideas,
or more precisely
sending your way
a million 'thoughtsperms',
of which a few might find a warm,
nurturing egg in your mind,
become yours
and produce a fully formed beauty
     that you can justifiably be proud of.
And if you will allow me,
I shall also be a minor, proud parent of the same.
So long as he is anchored in love.

To me, it 'feels' like the latter.
For I am,
in physical person,
committed to making love
without increasing the human load on my ecosystem.
Thus, I could only spawn
     thoughts and feelings.
And no vehicle does a better job of expressing my
'thoughtfeelings'
or 'feltthoughts',
which is what all my poetry is about.

So, please allow me that,
if not 'fatherishhood'.

--

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEME: I, Me, My Phone

I, Me, My Phone

They come home.
But they don't come home.

They see you.
But they don't see you.

They smile at you.
But they don't smile at you.

They are on their devices.
They are on your devices.
They are with people they do not know,
do not want to know.
But they do not want to be
with people they know,
who anyway, they do not really know
nor really want to know.
They are busy with things
they think matter.
But they ignore things
that do matter.

They are your sons and daughters.
Nephews and nieces, siblings and cousins, friends and colleagues.
Husbands and wives.
They are your co-travellers in life;
on short and long haul journeys.

Soon they will be your parents.

They ignore you.
They ignore the real world around them.
They ignore themselves.

You do the same.

They, you, I.
We have all, always lived in a reality
which we were never really sure
was real.  But now, we live in one
that we know for sure is not real.
The unreality,
or is it, the disreality
of Internet and e-mails,
social media and online games,
movies and serials.

Our loves
are now on-hand electronically,
but distant physically and emotionally.
Soon we will be making love,
not to real people, but to these
disreal toys, manufactured comforts and artificial intelligences.

The orchestra of the Homo sapiens
has reached its crescendo.
The power of the homo
has far outstripped his much vaunted wisdom.
This ape's masterful control of the world outside
is matched only by its utter ignorance
of what lies inside itself.

Our inability to know the Absolute Reality
has always pushed us into rejecting
the Objective Reality
and embracing the Subjective
and Intersubjective Realities.
We are now into new
Subjective and Intersubjective realities:
those owned and managed by corporations.
Empires, religions and social institutions
are losing hold.  Or rather,
newer paradigms of empires, religions and institutions
are taking hold: physical coercion,
guilt and shame
are giving way to canny subterfuge,
psychological manipulation
and unscrupulous marketing.

We are entering a brave new world.
Brave?  More like dastardly.

We fool.
We are fooled.
We are fooled by ourselves.

Nothing new about that, anyway.  We have always done that.

All species fool others
in some or the other way - other species,
as well as other individuals of their own species.
Not just humans do it.
Not just animals do it.
Not just insects do it.
Even plants fool others - and not just sundews and flytraps and pitcher plants.
Even the lovely orchids do it!

But we are unique.
I am unique.
I fool not just other species, or other men,
but myself too.
I live on all kinds of fanciful stories.
And all these devices allow me
to make ever greater, ever more fanciful
stories about myself.
I pretend to other men, known and unknown.
I pretend to the world.
I pretend to myself.

Every Gangu Teli today is Raja Bhoj.*
Every gadhayya today is Rani Kamlapati.**

Technology
and AI
are already making most humans irrelevant.
With a vast majority of upcoming adults
actively working towards making themselves irrelevant,
where will the world end up?
A dystopian nightmare
of some almighty corporation deciding that the world,
or rather its balance-sheet,
is better off with half the low-paying game-playing humans
killing themselves?

-

* An old saying of Bhopal - 'Kahan Raja Bhoj, kahan Gangu Teli' - highlighting the fact that the alpha in any society is always singular, and one does a disservice to oneself if he fancies himself to be the alpha when he is not.  He should rather get on with what he really is, and really can do; not get all fanciful and lose even that which he does have.

** An old saying of Bhopal - 'Taalon mein Bhopal Taal, Baqi sab talayyan; Rani to Kamlapati, baqi sab gadhayyan' - highlighting the same message above, with female protagonists in place of male ones, above.

--

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEMH: Ghazal - Zaalim / Aaye

Ghazal - Zaalim / Aaye

Zaalim jinhe zulmaton mein chhod aaye
Unhi se zindagi mein ujaale daud aaye

Kehte hain ke aashiqon ka khuda tu hai
Tere dar pe hum bhi apna sar phod aaye

Kitab usne likkhi thi apne ishq ki, Bin kahe
Us mein hum bhi kuch lafz apne jod aaye

Seedhi to kab hoti hai kiske ishq ki raah
Chale hain to mudenge, jo bhi mod aaye

Khushdil ka dil hai, phir jud jaaega kal tak
Jiska bhi dil kare jaakar usko aaj tod aaye

-

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEMH: Ghazal - Mat Aaya Kar / Tu Bhi Ziddi Main Bhi Ziddi

Ghazal - Mat Aaya Kar / Tu Bhi Ziddi Main Bhi Ziddi

Mat aaya kar, tu khwabon mein mere paas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi
Badh jaati hai, tujhe dekh kar meri pyaas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Phir aaya tu, phir muskuraya tu, phir aankhen chamkeen, phir ummeed jaagi
Kyun dilaata hai tu phir aaj, mujhe bemani aas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Har kaam karta hoon tere liye, jita hoon tere liye, mar jaaunga tere liye
Ghulam hoon tera, sada rahunga tera das, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Pyaar karta hai, nahin bhi, paas aata hai, nahin bhi, mujhe chahta hai, nahin bhi
Nahin aata yun, hona bhi na hona bhi, mujhe raas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Kaisi zindagi di tune, ke hai zindagi bhi maut bhi, na jita hoon, na marta hoon
Had hai, botal dikha kar tune, toda mera gilaas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Mar jaaunga ek din khamoshi se, teri raah dekhte dekhte, tujhe dekhte dekhte
Main tujh sa to nahin, ke nikalun apni bhadas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Neend aati nahin, raat jaati nahin, tu aata nahin, aakar bhi mujh mein samata nahin
Joojhte rehte hain har raat baham, ummeed-o-yaas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Roz soot katta hoon, roz kapda bunta hoon, roz kurta seekar roz taar taar karta hoon
Aaj phir tu aa gaya, phir rula gaya, phir bana kurta kapaas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Kab tak ummeed rakhoon, kyun rakhoon, intezaar se thak, muntazir hi qabr mein ja baithha
Ab khatm karun, tune hi nahin, maine bhi kiya hai apna naas, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

Tu kehta hai ke pyaar karta nahin, kar sakta nahin mujhse, par rehta hai sada mere paas
Khushdil to hoon main lekin, khaata nahin main ghaans, tu bhi ziddi, main bhi ziddi

-

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEMH: Ghazal - Aashiq Hoon / Kya Hai

Ghazal

Aashiq hoon, ishq ke siwa kiya kya hai
Na kaho, ke tum faqeer ho, diya kya hai

Mehram bhi ho, haram bhi, haraam bhi
Ahraam baandhe hoon, ab haya kya hai

Aayega voh laut kar, phir mere hi paas
Zingdagi khel samjhe hai, jiya kya hai

Aashiq ka gribaan hai, kitne jatan karoge
Sau baar hi taanka hai abhi, siya kya hai

Tumhari hi chahat hai, baqi to bas hain
Aakhirat bhi chhod doonga, duniya kya hai

Sadqe tumhari pyaas ke yeh jaam surahi
Darya hi sukhaya hai abhi, piya kya hai

Hum se aashiq hain har dar pe hazaron
Tu na ho mehboob to phir naya kya hai

Sirf naam-o-izzat-o-daulat hi luti hai abhi
Jab tum ho saath mere, to phir gaya kya hai

Jaan, rehne do andhera kuch daer aur abhi
Saraapa noor ho tum, mujhe diya kya hai

Khudaaon ke Khuda khud ho, mujh se poochho
Masjid ko jaao kyun, tumhen khuda kya hai

Bhoolun main khudi ko, khud ko, khuda ko
Mujhko jo mil jaaye tu, to phir bachaa kya hai

Khushdil ki khataon ko muaaf kaun karega
Nafraton ka daur hai, yeh maajraa kya hai

-

(c) owais Creative Commons Attribution license

POEME: All I Ever Ask

All I Ever Ask

My Sweetie,
My Lamb,
My Lover,
You are upset.  Essentially with the whole world.
He has hurt you.  She has hurt you.  They have hurt you.  Even,
it has hurt you.
You have a litany of grievances.
And you are upset with me too,
because I should also have been upset with them,
if I, at all, loved you.

But, Honey,
you miss the point.
I do not just love you.
I worship you.
I exist for you.
But, beyond that,
I love me too.
And most of all,
I love my heart.
It is a sacred space for me.
It is the sanctum sanctorum
of all that which has sanctity for me.
It is a place where I keep my treasures.
Like the divine vision
of the first day you asked me to dance with you.
And the first day you swam with me.
And the first day you asked me to hold you.

In that,
Darling,
I do not keep all the uncountable hours and days and months and years
when you were nasty towards me.
The times when you knew
I wanted you with me and you stayed away.
Most often,
while sitting right across me.
I have no ledger in my heart
where I could have noted down all the instances when you,
deliberately, broke my heart.
When you kept things from me.
When you gave me nothing,
but expected and took the world from me.

No,
Sugar,
I have no record,
of any of the times when you hurt me.
Nor, when anyone else did.
Even, people I actually do not like.
I forget all those pains
as soon as time allows me to.
And often, I assist it with all my being.
Why do I not keep my heart stocked up
with all those painful memories?

Because,
Love,
my heart is my refuge.
It is the place I go to
when I decide to live on for another day.
To find succour.
To find love.
To find beauty.
To find courage.
To find belief in this world, and its people.
To find pleasure.
To find gems long forgotten,
which when I rediscover,
make my heart skip a beat with joy.
My heart, Dearest,
is mine.
I do not collect and keep shit in it.
For then,
whenever I'll take a dip in it,
I will be covered with it.
I choose instead,
to emerge scintillating, shining, fragrant.
To again become the man
I can love.
I cannot afford to keep
even one piece of ugliness in it.
It is my safe, my vault, my safe-deposit box.
I keep my gold and diamonds
and pleasure and beauty and happiness and joy and liberty and love and life in it.
Not pieces of dried turd.

So,
Dearly Beloved,
I am not upset with them,
not because I do not love you.
But because
I love you far too much
to keep you cooped up with your hurts.
If I could,
I would erase them all
with one twirl of my finger, and give you,
Angel,
all the love that you deserve.
My heart,
Light of My Life,
is mine.
It must have in it
only those things that I love.
Like you.
Not those that hurt you.
Not those that hurt me.
Couldn't your heart,
Honeybunch,
be just a little bit your own?
A place to love?
A place of love?
A place for love?

And if not,
why not just give it
along with all the poison that is killing you,
to me?
In time,
I shall make it ambrosia,
and return it to you.  Possibly.
You forget
that I have no interest in life, but you.
Why ask me to commiserate
when I can transcreate?
Why ask me to hate the hurt,
when you know my job is to create happyness?
Why not allow me to rekindle in it,
a real love
for a real person
with a real opportunity
of making it real?

You do remember
that that is all
I ever asked of you.
Don't you?

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME: Masters and Slaves

Masters and Slaves

I,
Homo, s.

My surname, Homo,
now belongs only to me.
I have killed all my siblings.
Homo e, Homo n, Homo f.
And many more.

I have also killed
many more of my half-siblings.  And cousins.
And I am in the process of killing many,
many, many more.
My mother, doesn't anger easily.
But, I think, she is slowly losing her cool.
The other day, I heard her complaining,
to the perennially angry, Venus Aunty.
Hyperventilating, Aunty Venus advised,
"Gaia, you have given this one son too much liberty.
He is killing all your other children."

"No, Sister, he is not.
He is just too stupid
to know how he is being manipulated.

"See, he thinks he is an individual.
He thinks he is in control.
Of himself.
Of his siblings and half-siblings.
And of me.
But he is not." 

I was left wondering.
I take pride in my individuality.
But then,
am I really an individual?
Which parts of me
do not talk
to the other parts of me?
Which ones irreplaceable,
upon the pain of 'I' becoming non-'I'?
My liver
when it talks to my heart
upon my consuming alcohol,
ensuring it change its parameters accordingly,
it is not me, is it?
It does not do so at my command, does it?

Each tissue,
each cell in my body
is its own master.
Even the stories that
I tell myself are.

My genes,
or perhaps, the genes that I am the slave of,
dictate all my activities.
And they work with the stories,
the memes
that take away any sliver of freedom, that I might still have.
I, their,
genes' and memes' slave,
do their bidding.
Most importantly,
keeping them alive
with my actions, my speech, my thoughts.
I run and kill those
who are driven by rival memes,
so that my masters, my memes survive,
not the others.  And then,
I run and have sex, so that my other masters,
my genes survive.

And they have all kinds of arrangements
with all these other masters.
Memes of religion, nation, passions live on.
Between themselves,
they divvy me up.

And genes?
They even have truck
with their other sisters,
which I am told are my slaves.
But guess what, my masters, my genes
work with those of Triticum and Gallus gallus domesticus,
and together,
they ensure that I spend every living breath spreading them.
Triticum fellows need not worry.
Their value-add to my masters, my genes
comes only upon their having lived their lives,
and gifting away some of their seed.
Something akin to when I serve others
what they call a blow job.
Sad is the lot of domesticus 'individuals'...
just a few days of so-called life,
jailed in a coop,
and off to the butchers.

But seriously,
am I any better,
reproducing at breakneck speed,
only to eventually break backs and necks,
all in the service of Homo sapiens genes!

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME: Your Life; Your Choice

Your Life; Your Choice

I give you my money.
I give you my power.
I give you my forces.
I give you my resources.

All that I do not give you
is my heart.
And in my heart, lies my mind too.
So, apologies, no mind too.

And I will not give those,
until you bring, your heart to me.
For, though you are happy
giving your heart to someone
who does not value it
nor want it.
I cannot.

I am Krishna, dear Friend.
And my heart will await
and pine,
in every world
for my Arjuna.
My reason to exist, after all,
is to be Parthasarthy, my Dear.

I CANnot exist
without him.

You are welcome
to avail of my forces,
my resources.
I thought
that you were my Partha.
But you are only
his pale imitation, Suyodhana.
Until
you come to me
with your heart,
as your offering.

I will give you my guidance too.
But, merely what you want to hear.
Not what you need to hear.

I will agree with you.
But not fight you,
to guide you.

I will even love you.
But only in my deeds.
Not in my heart,
not in my mind,
not in my soul,
not in my being.

For I can do that
only to someone
whose heart and mind and soul
I own.

You choose your priorities.
You choose your side.
You choose your actions.
You choose your life.

And you do know what happened
in the Mahabharatha
five thousand years back. 

Choose wisely, Suyodhana,
now that five thousand years have passed.

In this world,
you can still be my Arjuna.
The choice lies with you.

As for me,
I have no choice.
I can only be what I am:
Sarvasukhsevaka.

I can only serve you all.
Work to make you all happy.
I can only love you all.
I can only present you all
with all my being.

What you choose
and what you leave
is your right.
That I have given you.

Only,
you will have to live with your choices.

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME: It's ALL Good

It's ALL Good

I wanted a future 

with you in it.

You wanted one 

with me out of it.

You won.  

Congratulations.

-

What are you upset about, 

now that I have nothing left 

to talk to you about?

-

Victories 

are often not 

what we want them to be. 

Mine may have been the same. 

And if I were to be miserable anyway, 

good, that you have your victory. 

I can live with my misery 

either way, 

but I could not have compensated 

for your misery 

with my victory.  

You can. 

So,
good.

--

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME:: 4AwfulTruths: Forget Everything I Said

4AwfulTruths: Forget Everything I Said

He said:
"I have the Truth".
He said it a few times more.

It morphed into:
"I alone have the Truth".
Then,
he said it again, a few more times.

It became:
"I own the Truth".

Many heard him.
Most laughed.
But he kept saying it.
Then one day,
another said: "I believe you".

Now,
both 'owned' the Truth.

Some more agreed: "We believe you".
Many, still laughed at them.

But they kept saying: "We own the Truth".
Upon hearing them, time and again, many more joined.
Many more said: "We own the Truth".
Now,
only a few laughed at them.
One of them laughed a bit too loudly.

They killed her.
No one laughed.
Those who owned the Truth, said:
"All is fair in the service of the Truth".

Some of the others became angry.

The two sides fought.
They fought again.
And again.
And again and again.

Who won?
The ones who thought they owned the Truth.
Not because they actually owned the Truth.
No one knows who owned the Truth.
Or, if the Truth was 'ownable'.
Or even,
if the Truth was 'knowable'.

Yet,
the believers believed it.
And, the disbelievers disbelieved it.
The believers won.
And the disbelievers turned believers.
They loved their skin far too much.
The believers ruled.
The belief ruled.

Why?

Because fiction
has greater power over human minds
than the absence of that fiction.
Fiction gives confidence to the believer.

Confidence kills.

Nazis kill Jews.
And many more.
Jews kill Islamists.
And many more.
Islamists kill Kafirs.
Which includes everyone other than the killers' brand of Islamists.
Cow-savers kill Muslims,
confident that they are all Islamists.
Muslims (and most non-cow-believers) kill cows.
All (or almost all) kill chicken.
All (actually all) kill habitats,
which kills non-humans.
And then, humans.
Homo sapiens kill Homo sapiens.
In wars, genocides, massacres,
slavery, manufactured famines, other-hate.
Politics, Mismanagement, Religion.
Not to mention,
women, who drink from their water.
Homo sapiens kill Dodos, Mastodons,
Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus,  Homo floresiensis,
Homo sexuals.

Confidence kills.

Fiction gives confidence to the believer.
Because fiction
has greater power over human minds
than the absence of that fiction.

The more you believe a fiction,
the more confident you become.
The more power it gives you.
The more you kill.

The more you kill,
anyone who disagrees with you.

Why?
Because your mind knows that
what you believe most fervently,
is actually a fiction.
And does not want you to know what it knows.
It speaks the Language of Truth to itself.
For all natural phenomena speak that.
And only that.
But it, your mind
speaks the Language of Fiction to H sapiens.
For all H sapiens speak that.
For all H sapiens speak only that.

Also,
because your mind does not want to die.
And if it talks to you
in a non-fictive language,
you will lose your confidence.

And then,
you will lose your power.

H sapiens became
the undisputed emperors of this Earth
upon the coattails of their
fictive cognitive power:
the power to create an owned truth;
a mass subjective truth.
A mass earnestly-believed delusion.
That power will be lost.

Our empire,
our power, our survival
is all built upon our ability,
our minds' ability
to speak convincing fiction;
to delude ourselves into believing, any convenient fiction.
To the extent of finding it,
our owned Truth.

Our individual minds,
our collective mind
lies to us,
so that it can help us survive long.
And then,
survive our death.

The Truth does not rule the human world.
Lies do.

If it were not so,
scientists would be emperors.
But no great emperor
has ever been a good scientist.
But always,
a story-teller, par-excellence.

Forget everything I said.

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME: It's About Me, Really

It's About Me, Really

I let you,
and pretty much everybody
that comes to me,
take advantage of me.

Often,
I know that I am being taken advantage of. 
Sometimes,
I do not,
for I never earnestly built the apparatus
needed to second-guess. 
I have been deluding myself
in the 'wrong' direction.

I have often felt bad,
at being THIS stupid.

But, really,
it is not stupidity. 
It is a life strategy. 
I am less invested in myself, as an island owned by me;
more a commons,
on which I am myself
only as welcome as the next man.

No wonder,
I am a living, breathing example of
The Tragedy of Commons.

Yet,
I continue to be passionately invested in this,
less than 'useful' strategy. 
Why?

Perhaps,
because I care less
about comforts and conveniences and status and toys. 
And more about my feelings. 
More about my emotional being,
than the social,
or financial being that I am.

The real being,
I feel,
is the one that feels.

It's about me,
really. 
I want more
to feel good,
than be seen good,
or worse,
be seen as owning good,
or goods.

It's not about the economic me,
or the social me. 
It's about the real me, really.

Thus,
those that care about me,
and those that do not,
are all welcome to use me.  I just hope,
against the reality known well to me,
that I will not be misused or abused. 
Or, perhaps, not much.

So,
feel free,
as you always have had, to use me the way you see fit. 
For it is not about you, at all. 
It is about me, really.

And my reality,
as I have always chosen it to be,
is that I was,
am
and wish to remain,
a giver:
a giver that does not merely give of himself,
but himself. 
And that reality
is far more valuable to me,
than working towards and becoming,
say, a trillionaire.

You may find it stupid of me. 
But then,
it's about me, really.

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

POEME:: 4AwfulTruths: Realities/Stories

4AwfulTruths: Realities/Stories

You disagree with me.
I disagree with him.
He disagrees with her.
She disagrees with them.
They disagree with everyone.

They fight them.  They kill them.  They exterminate them.

Or wish to.

Why?

Isn't the World, the Universe
an Objective Reality?  No matter who I am,
I will still get an electric shock,
get washed away in a tsunami, get cut in half under a train,
if another human will, in the exact same situation.
Yet, men cut men in half
over religion, politics,
and a host of other bullshit.
Why?

Simple.

Because despite our bodies
living in an Objective World,
our hearts and minds
live in a Fictive world.
A world made of fiction.
Stories.  Imagined reality.  Subjective truth.

Each of us has our own stories.
Not deliberate lies.
Not mean-minded fabrications.
Only passionately-lived unrealities,
which are all too real for us.
Homo sapiens is a self-delusional species.
And so, because these stories gave us
our unparalleled power.  These stories are
our greatest strength.
And our greatest weakness.

We achieve because of them.
We get our drive because of them.
We strive because of them.
We survive because of them.
We thrive because of them.
We are today alive because of them. 

And tomorrow, we will die because of them.

Why?
Because we are now
far too powerful.
It is fine for a weakling
to live in an imaginary world.  All he hurts is himself.
But one whose writ runs on entities
other than himself
hurts all others when he
forces down decisions based on unreality.
Which is what
every Subjective reality is.

The only right way to live
is to be aware of one's stories;
of one's Subjective realities,
and keep them a level below
the Objective reality.  For only then does
the Universe back us
in our endeavours.
Those who prioritize their Subjective reality
over the objective one
are a threat to themselves
and to the World!

Further,
when the interests of two power centers clash,
unless they are both
based on Objective reality,
or on the exact same Subjective reality,
which almost never happens,
they fight.  And thus,
there is 'Collateral Damage'.
The greater their power, the greater the damage.

We, Homo sapiens
are on course to create
a lot more havoc, than what we are already guilty of.
Perhaps,
we are the secret agents of destruction,
created by greater powers that seek
the destruction of all
that we have ever held dear,
in order to create a new world.

Or, perhaps,
our universe is a mere video game
of a god-kid, who is trashing this play
since his mom wants him at the dinner table, forthwith.

In any case, it does not matter.
A human-driven cataclysm is written on the wall.
Nothing I,
or you, dear reader can do, will ever change it.
Humankind is doomed.
As is the Bountiful Earth,
what we have always known her to be.
That is my story.
I fervently hope
it does not turn out to be the Objective reality.

Epilogue:
The Real reality,
of course, being the
un-mind-mediated reality,
shall always remain the Known unknown.
And then,
there is the matter
of the Unknown unknown(s).

-

(c) owais. Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed).

Tyranny of the Upward Graph: A Structured Rant

Tyranny of the Upward Graph: A Structured Rant

I.

Life begins slowly. 
You are incapable
even of feeding
or cleaning yourself. 

Everyone
is superior to you. 
More powerful. 
You exist, almost,
by their permission.

You grow up,
gradually, more and more
capable and powerful. 
One day,
the world belongs to you.

And then,
you start going down again. 
Everyone has more real power than you. 

If you are lucky,
you avoid the ignominy, of once again,
existing, by others' permission. 
You, again, incapable
even of feeding or cleaning yourself. 

Life ends slowly.

-

II.

As you were on the way up,
you had your mother. 
Once a physical part of her,
you were intimately connected to her. 
But gradually, you went away. 
Farther and farther. 
Then came a day
you stopped belonging to her;
in order to belong to another.

Yet the other
never knew you
as their own physical being,
and though you enjoyed more with them,
you didn't ever become, really,
their egg,
or a resident of their womb. 
Or share blood. 
Or, really,
feed upon their milk.

This other,
could never love you, as your mother.

This other,
could never be there,
really in the same measure,
when will come another time,
for you to exist
by another's permission.

This other
would always, merely be an option. 
And you,
an option for the other. 
This other,
could never be your mother.

- 

III.

So, you see,
here is my predicament: 
I have been your other. 
And I wish to be there,
for you, forever. 

And, perhaps,
be your,
or have you, as my,
final permittor.

Yet, I will never know you
as close as I wish to know you. 
I can never be your mother. 
And even if I could,
I wouldn't choose that ever. 

Because though, initially,
I would have you
as a physical part of me,
it will then, necessarily,
degenerate to merely intimate. 
And finally, neither.

And as your other,
I know you have other others
in your past and definitely,
in your dreams. 

So, I can neither be
your mother, nor your other,
who will have the honour of being
your final permittor. 

And not just because
you would not permit it.

It will be so, as
I would not permit it.
Why?  Because, I would,
I COULD
never have YOU
on a declining graph. 
Neither, as a receding part of me. 
Nor,
declining as the owner of the world,
which I have always known you to be. 
Even when you were not.

-

IV.

So,
if decline is a must,
then be on your way,
now. 

Right now,
please. 

For I have this great weakness:
I am the unemancipable
slave of the Upward Graph.

-

V.

I have the shittiest of fits in life:
despite loving you more than my own life,
I seem destined
to lose you before my life. 

Which, incidentally,
I have had enough of.

-

VI.

Unless...

...unless YOU WISH
to be MY final permittor.

So,
either choose to ride
my final horrible downward slide with me. 
Or leave. 
And it is not for me,
or within my power,
to invite you on that journey. 
Or even,
to leave you.

It is for you to decide.

What I know for sure is this: 
I WILL NEVER see you slide. 
Or force you to see me slide. 
I am far too programmed
to live for the upward graph!

So, damn you,
Decide.

And decide,
what I WANT you to decide!

-

VII.

I wish
this golden age of liberalism,
which is drawing to a close now,
had granted me enough rights
to end my life,
conveniently and comfortably,
when I saw fit. 

Before the inevitable slide.

If that were so,
we could have truly belonged to each-other. 

And when done,
at least I,
could simply cease to be.

Before I declined. 
Or you did. 
Or, please, no,
our love did.

--

A Prayer...

-

A Prayer...

May I live as long as I love
and love as long as I live

May I give you all the love you can take
and may you take all the love I can give

May our lives be full of love
and fill all the lives that touch ours with love

May we Homo sapiēns invent ourselves to be
not just sapiēns, but Homo sapiēns-amāns*!



--

*
Homo = Man / Human Being      https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/homo#Latin
Sapiēns = Wise                          https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sapiens
Amāns = Loving                         https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amans

Interesting to note that the word 'amans' is gender-blind and is used for all 3 genders.  In the noun form, it can mean lover or sweetheart of any gender

Also interesting to note that one of the anagrams of the word 'sapiens' is 'pansies'

Further, most interesting is to note that the word 'homo' is equally or more often used for referring to homosexuals (the 'homo' in H. sapiens comes from Latin and that in H. sexuals comes from Greek)

It seems that you cannot be a happy man unless, in some measure or form, you are gay! (For those who have come in late, the word 'gay' refers/referred both to a happy person as well as to homosexual and beyond/transgender person).

Who Will I?

Who Will I?

A niece insulted me yesterday. 
Nothing new. 
She does it often. 
Insult me, that is. 
And insult others.

No, she is not a bad person. 
On the contrary, quite loving. 
Or most often so.

So, why does she do that? 
Insult people she loves,
and wants love from?

I can think of only one reason. 
That she is either too certain
of what she believes in. 
Or too doubtful.

History is full of men
who killed others, not in numbers,
but in heaps and mounds and mountains. 
Only, because
they were too certain of themselves. 
Opposition had no right to exist,
as far as they could tell.

Yet others kill
so they can convince themselves
of the imaginary truth content of their lies. 
Lies, hidden, securely locked. 
In dark, deserted dungeons!

No one is immune. 
Mom used to get awfully angry. 
About anything and everything. 
At anyone and everyone. 
Why?  Was it merely in order to get results? 
Or in order to convince others? 
Herself?

Results do not require anger. 
Real anger only reduces positive outcome. 
Only excessive self-belief
and excessive self-doubt demand that. 
Truth and results
merely need evidence and gentle nudges.

Newton, Einstein and Darwin
never needed armies - standing or cyber. 
Nor anger.

But Modi needs it. 
As does my barbie-doll niece. 
What do we do
with these selfers: Believers and Doubters? 
How to make them see
that all they need is a commitment to truth,
even when inconvenient, uncomfortable.

But truth loses
when the option is a simple, comforting one:
anger!

I have no solution for their problem. 

Having lived a life-time with angry, difficult persons. 
Having loved them. 
Having fallen in love with them. 
Having always struggled
with their angry irritating intransigence. 
Having always lost. 

Is my niece
destined to live a life full of,
and spreading pain? 
All because she is unwilling to examine her beliefs?

Or, all because
I always gave up? 
With Mom? 
With the love of my life? 
With my beautiful little princess?

Is it them? 
Or is it me? 
They know not, thus are innocent of wrongdoing. 
I know, but have never had the courage, nor perseverance.

Who will the posterity find the real culprit? 
More importantly, who will I?

-

Questions, Questions!

Questions, Questions!

Did I lose you
because I did not really believe
you to be mine?

Have I never had anyone,
REALLY MINE,
because I never believed someone
could be really mine?
Really anyone's?

Should I have taken you
for granted?
Abused you?
Should I have been painful and difficult,
like all those who I felt I belonged to?

Can we belong only there,
where we are not given any choice?

Can we belong only there,
where we are dominated,
or dominate?

Where we have no rights,
or all the rights?

Is liberty
all a pile of manure?
Are we only of the jungle, or savanna, still?

Can we never be equal
and still belong to each-other?

Or will you always keep finding
all possible excuses to deny
what you feel for me?

Will the brain-washing
that our society subjected us to,
always count so much for you,
that you will never create
an inviolable space for me within you?

Or come live within mine?

Will our connection wither
and die as do countless others,
simply because the twain are not certain?

Or is it that we really do have
an unbridgeable gap between us?

But then,
have you seen any gap,
that can never be bridged,
despite the belief of men
that the bridge is never too far?

Have I lost you because I lost hope?

Is it heroic to hope and act,
despite reality?

Or is it too stupid
to hope that counter-real reality
is creatable?

That it takes mere belief to do so?

Can you ever become mine
merely because I am yours
and want you to be mine?

Desperately?

Still?

And then,
do I have to be only The One?

Can you have
an undestroyable space within you
for those other than The One,
keeping the sanctum of The One
sacrosanct?

Can I accept being one
other than The One?

Do we create a connection
between us
only within the norms
set by the society and the movies?

Or can we create a new reality?

Do we even care?
Do you even care?
Do I even care?

-

Why Poetry?

Why Poetry?

Why do I write?
When do I write?

Prose
when I want to make my audience
understand my point.
Poetry
when I want to,
but know that I cannot
make my audience understand my point.
Nor get them
to give a damn about it.

Prose
gets me results.
Poetry
stops me from killing myself.

I often wish
that I did not write poetry.

-

A Question

A Question

Fret not.  My presence in your life
is now no longer
than that of a Mayfly in summer. 
You will soon find me a bother. 
And value me, as one does a vestigial organ.

Every man thinks through his penis. 
It is not given you to not be a man. 
You will too. 
No, you do too.

No wonder
Newton found celibacy
his greatest achievement.  Move over
gravity, optics, mechanics, calculus.

You are not,
and I am not
Newton.  We go our ways
and become irrelevant to each-other.

You have your life ahead of you.

While I am left wondering
why, precisely,
must I continue existing.

-

I Asked

I Asked

It was I who asked you
to let me go, if you could not
love me.

I,
of course, knew you
could not.

What do I get for this
murder/suicide/martyrdom?

-

Obituary

Obituary

This is not self-pity.
Nor, self-hatred.
This is self-grief.

I grieve the end
of my unrequited love.

Which was the sum total
of my Self.

With you goes,
not just my love,
but the entirety
of my being, my existence.
I grieve for myself.
For my own passing.

-

Deserving Disservice

Deserving Disservice

You
are a difficult person.
And you know that.

I am easy.
And I know that.

You demand service.  Always.
I serve.  Always.

I am schooled
in the necessary art of masochism. 
And sadism comes
naturally to you.

I have no clue
how you thought
that we are not
made for each-other. 

Go,
perhaps there will be many
who will give you the love you deserve.

I do not
even deserve difficulty!

-

Grieve/Celebrate

Grieve/Celebrate

I am invited
to a sumptuous dinner.
I eat well. 
It seems
that I enjoyed my dinner.  To others. 
For I am good at pretense.

Only I know that
without you, I can enjoy
no dinner. 

Without me,
do you? 

Good for you. 

My remaining years
are too few
to not grieve you. 
Yours, too many,
to.

Go,
celebrate.

-

Without You

Without You

Without you
life has no meaning.
So is it good
that you went early. 
Or bad?

-

You Won

You Won

You pushed.
I pulled.

You won.

Goodbye.

-

Empty ...Yet Again

Empty     ...Yet Again

Another day draws to an end.
And the Universe yawns, once again.
At my stupidity.

Must I always wish
to fill my system with passing comets?
A short burst of energy, emotion, engagement,
enjoyment?

But, as ever,
the ethereal enchantment
goes expeditiously extinct.
Again, no more.
The devotee is destitute, dead.
Again, no more.
The love is lost.
Again, no more.

I lose, again, as always.
Alone, again, as always.
Empty, again, as always.

Left again, alone, with my tears,
and my words.  My empty words.
Rumi's Shams has again set.
The light has again gone out.
All that remains is the twilight, the promise of the darkness to come.
The demons.  The beasts.  The vampires. The loneliness.

Yuck...
Who cares anymore.
Not even I.
I am stupid.
I must pay the price. 

When will I ever learn?
Humen and I are not meant to be.
I rue the passing of my comet.
But then, perhaps,
I am no star.
Or perhaps am, but with a tail, myself.
Capable only of wandering.
Destined to wowing systems for a brief interlude,
between their silent, morose, meaningless existences.
And then, to leave.
Trail blazing.
Or, tail flailing.

Or else, I am,
but a line.
Either,
I have no intersection
with another.
Or if I do,
it is meant to be a brief meeting.
And that, to only send us away.
Farther.  And farther, from each-other.

A line,
unlike any other two-dimensional existence,
I can hold nothing within me.
And if I do,
ever so ephemerally,
I am soon empty.
Yet again.

I am a line.
Separated again.
Empty again.
Yet, a line,
always, infinite.
At both,
non-ends!

-