Tuesday, November 13, 2018

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).

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

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.

-


Monday, October 29, 2018

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?

-

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