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!

-

Ismat Bano Begum.  One of the last pics of Mom.

POEM_: ODA 101 - Laws, and Laws

ODA 101 – Laws, and Laws

Asked the disciple:

“So, all things in Nature

happen, as per Natural Laws?

“No”, said Oda,

“They do not.

“Citizenslive”,

continued Oda,

“as per the laws of their land. 

And courts judge,

as per those same laws.

“But laws arebroken”,

concluded Oda,

“Laws are ordained

by the powerful human beings, which other

less powerful ones, sometimes

endeavour to work, in contravention of.”

“But”, the confused disciple

blabbered: “Aren’t the laws of Nature,

similarly ordained by Nature?”

“Not really”, clarified Oda,

“Everything, including humans

is Nature.  And everything in Nature

works as per Nature.  A contravention

is notpossible.”

Oh, Oda,

now we understand, what you are telling

your disciple: Human laws

and Nature

are categoriesapart –

laws are those that can be broken;

Nature’s working, is always natural –

no contravention is possible,

no matter how much

it seemsto be so.

Thus, Nature’s “laws” are not mere

laws.  They are

the Reality,

the Truth,

the Nature.

That, I do not understand

what isnatural, in what situation

is a testimony to my ignorance;

and the seeming contravention

of the Natural

is onlythe failure

of mydogma!

And my dogma

any dogma

can bea law; a law,

not the Reality.

Not the Truth.

Not the Nature.

We mustn’t term them laws:

the Realities of Nature;

for then, we begin to believe

that like the laws of the humans,

the Nature’s “laws”

are also “made”

and canthus be “broken”. 

And Nature, thus

can be at par

or inferior

to our dogmas,

springing out of our

infinitesimally partial knowledge,

and humungous ignorance.

-

owais

-

This is first being published here. A note on this poem below...

This poem is about how we get confused between Natural 'laws', and human laws: Human laws are conventions that we have accepted as supportive of quality in our lives, while Natural 'laws' are actually the way Nature works.  The fundamental difference is that human laws can be flouted by some, or even all of us.  However, Nature, or Reality works the way it does: the Sun never rises in the West, and when it will, it will do so perfectly naturally.  Nothing and no one can ever countermand the Natural 'laws', quite irrespective of the quantum of ignorance we have of those ‘laws’. 

Even the most uncertainty promoting principles of human knowledge, those of quantum mechanics primarily talk of the uncertainty merely in observation / knowledge.  There is no way it can be known for certain that everything is uncertain at quantum levels!  In fact, if things actually do function at random, then quite logically ours cannot be the only Universe, and by that token Reality is only an illusion!  What's worse, only an illusion out of infinite illusions!! 

It can therefore safely be said that Natural laws cannot be broken; not merely that we have never observed a natural law having been broken.  Thus, to call both kinds of 'laws' as laws is extreme idiocy.  It is this idiocy that has given sellers of various dogmas, especially the religious ones, a legitimacy which they can neither have, nor deserve.

This poem, which I have just written today, rues this blunder of ours.

--

POEM_: The Four Ignoble Untruths

POEM_:  The Four Ignoble Untruths

The Four Ignoble Untruths:

Dogma, Unreality, Suffering, Bondage

Why mustI

oppose dogma,

religious,

or secular?

Primarily, because

it opposes truth.

Does it?

How?

Merely,

by considering itself

inviolable. 

Irrespective, of whether

the evidence

– our only

arbiter of truth-content –

supports it,

or opposes it.

Or, currently,

is unavailable.

Dogma,

must always pretend

to stand tall.

And why

is truthimportant?

Because,

it represents reality.

And unless

we are rooted

in reality,

we suffer.

For reality,

happens anyway.

Irrespective of whether

we, and our dogma

want it to happen,

or not.

And if,

we realize that

we can work towards

correctives,

or palliatives.

Before-hand,

or after-the-fact.

Dogma,

rejecting evidence,

disempowering us,

leads us to untruth,

unreality,

suffering.

Suffering,

like most

Terrorism, War, Violence

Racism, Jingoism, Fascism, Nazism, Anti-Semitism

Misogyny, Homophobia

and even, the Ecological Imperative.

How can I not

oppose dogma:

the promoter,

numero uno,

of untruth,

of the unreal?

The root

of most human suffering?

I may still

desire the unreal:

like I may want

my dead mother back,

my lost youth regifted,

love from all

those that I loved,

who never loved me back. 

At least, not in a measure

I found acceptable.

There is no harm

in desiring all that. 

So long as I know

it is all my desire,

not reality.  For then,

the absence does not

morph into suffering.

If Hitler had known

that Aryans are no master-race,

but on the contrary

his mere belief;

and if his followers had known

or believed that –

we wouldn’t quite have needed

the word, ‘holocaust’.

If Christians had believed

that God is a mere figment

of their imagination,

they would have yet

respected the Earth, and not converted

to the new religion

of freemarketism, with its clergy

of noble-ordained economists

who, with their dogma of interminable growth

have brought us past

the point-of-no-return

to the Ecological Imperative.

And if this realization had visited

the minions of Muhammad,

they may have bestowed, some

peace upon us.

Religious, or secular,

how canI not

oppose dogma?

And how can I not

demand the freedom of expression

to uncover the evils of dogma,

the only real devil,

for that freedom is of nothing

but to pursue the truth,

the reality,

the end to most

human suffering?

How can I accept the bondage

that takes me

and myhumen

to suffering, unreality, dogma?

-

owais

--

 This is first being published here.