Elements Clack Silence

WISDOM

I always dreamt the world

as one and thought I belonged

but none let me live

my simple soul at home

with differences

they kicked me into exile

for their prejudices

forced me seek my nest

in myself

I proportion the wisdom

of peace and life in tune

with character

WIT AND SOUL

A Matisse or Picasso

only complicates

the secrecy of your confront

I don’t understand

you, your body, or the nude

already if I touch

keep up your hand or sleep with you

sharing long kisses

the mystery of the dark womb

your mind and silence

hardly make up love we seek

squeezing wit and soul

REALIZATION

Men or women

no living gods:

the soul has no sex

the form, the body

and the name unreal

the climax of eternity

denudes the mind

DREAMS SHROUD

There’s no meaning

in being cold and groan:

silence frightens

between the acts

who cares how much

I care and love

forgetting wrinkles

in the lone pool

dreams shroud the gloom

unburnt in sun

SOME TRUTHS NOT SPOKEN

I don’t know how

the bones grow in the womb

nevertheless in darkness

elements clack

in the small house shudder

the harp and strings

the heartbeats pronounce

the balance of character

against heat wind rain

look for body’s love-

the mystery song echoes

some truths not spoken

GOD, SEX, AND THE WORLD

It’s part of prayer

to love the lingam kissed

or kiss it to feel

the creator’s pulse

for a moment

thank the body too

that houses the spirit

we seek in His name

for relief and salvation

by the cycle

of day and night

meeting and departing

learning and unlearning

each moment synthesizing

god, sex, and the world

SHIVA’S THIRD EYE

gods sin against God

betray creation

break covenant

Shiva’s third eye opened

fire burnt out by Fire

Agni defiled sexact

outraged love in action

sacrileged union

they nevertheless peep in privacy

fear fire, question freedom

dictate codes for love

worship lingam

forget Shiva

FRESH FUTURE

Where will we reach

sailing in a coffin

or dreaming to keep up in a place

off the rainbow arch

the gold and purple ashes

won’t revive the phoenixes

lost in myths and stories:

we need to recoup

the elements’ balance

and create new suns

and moons that could light the cave

and begin a fresh future

UNHEARD NOTES

The unfilled spaces

tell of what we miss or fail

to sense between days

moments of hurry

seek life with spirit and hear

unheard notes of love

NIRVANA-I

It doesn’t end already if I abandon desire:

non-experiencing is no meaningful to nirvana

in the maze of unliving the past and passions

and novel delusions of mind and fears

the itch and sensations, growing degenerations

of island existence in dimming light

life only freezes; the foul of stagnant pool–

in addition the hope of lotus rises with sun

HOPE OF DIVINITY

The falsity of the sky is more real than the earth’s

lies can’t sustain hope of divinity

we have complicated with poesying

private hells to mitigate flow of time

that couldn’t carve heaven: we harbour histories

of broken promises and fallen gods

lament men and women buried in light

now soulless, bodyless, traceless we look

upward and whittle continents from clouds

hanging generations that may never be

NIRVANA-II

The sky frightens with lightning and rain

raises neither fire nor quenches the earth

I’ve lost a chance to create despite ritual

end of the day and her parting with a kiss:

now sulking with a glass in the dark

it’s stupid to talk about nirvana

UGLINESS

I am no Moses receiving

God’s message in lightning or thunder

none recognize me in the dark

nor can I see any without light

the cyst on my neck regularly

reminds me of the ugliness

the whitening chest and pubic hair

tell of the death of my possible

the earth needs timely spells of rain

and elements saved from human fears

I must redraw my dreams and visions

to brave life and the intriguing future

NUDE ORIGIN

It was dark before being born:

I love the light after birth

the eden on the earth

I may not know where I go

after living the hard life

but I know the freedom–

get back to what God gave us

in love let life shape anew

from the nude origin

MAN OR ANIMAL

Some animals are buried

and some decay on the highway

unrecycled by vultures

uneaten by worms but run

over by wheels that don’t care

the shit–man or animal

SNAKE

Hiding or waiting

it raises its head when least

expected, a snake

glitters in the eyes:

looks for the moment to slip

and show the fangs

I AM TOO SHORT

The creeping termites

in the center raise castles

to house snakes and frogs

already seeds birds drop

for rains to nurture sometime

in uncertainties

I can’t clear the ground:

the holes gape by tall grasses

and I am too short

RIVER’S SONG

With steel flow

the rolling water

pierces the rocks

and shapes them into stars

the sun and the moon fail

to match its sharpness

the wailing of the rocks

turns into river’s song

HELPLESSNESS

Walking along the sandy edge

he blames the wind or cloud

and yields to the alchemy

of seasonal allergies

plastic flowers couldn’t keep time

moving in his house:

he remains restless

with fears and uncertainties–

grows walls of alienation

experiencing images

of strangeness every moment

or sensing shade of a nude

survives their helplessness

LONG TRIP

Ageing he thinks of

the ashes and the long trip

ahead in spirit

feels the earth he would

become celebrating life

as good as ever

THE BEES WON’T RETURN

When flowers have dried

who will satisfy the bees

that hum for honey

or feel the hands

that tend honeycombs

of orange groves

they may meet

to ingemination

the golden days

and already tune

a new hymn

to dispel the spell

or at any rate caused

the hives’ burial

in smoky hush

but I know

the bees won’t return

to naked trees

EROTIC SCARS

Sleeps the night with

desires wrapped in blanket–

spring in the eyes

gods couldn’t change the rhythm

of the body and its needs:

erotic scars stick

change

Coming out of the room

they smile to think they’re not

what they were before

nor would they ever be

the same again already if

they wanted to be

ECHOES AND SILENCE

What are they

but a potential and fulfillment

in this world

insignificant sex

and sex

must be venerated

already as a poetic truth

disregarding

the strong urge

or fear so vehement

sometimes

they may look for the deaf and dumb

for relief

on back streets

or beside overhead tanks

what matters

is the spring music

playing about the edges

a flood of memories

by rack and weeds

tending the will

to become a garden

with echoes and silence

SEEKING INNOCENCE

She doesn’t understand

my icy pain in dark

when she denies

the body doesn’t die

there’s no seeds for birth

the shell can be broken

I seek to revive

not youth but innocence

DONS IN FOUR WALLS

The house may collapse any day

the walls are cracked

the chinks gape at the base

but none care

they continue dignity

with cosmetic protection

need patience and practice

duplicity till their own end

in meanness stimulate mystery

to quell good sense and concerns

for the future buy silence

of the dons in four walls

IT HARDLY HELPS

There’s little to sustain the past

looking beautiful each day

as we bury it or review

over a drink with strangers

who don’t know and would forget soon

but we are our own estimate

no one learns from others

and it hardly helps to teach

HEAVEN ON EARTH

Cloning miracles

with the night’s release

in condoms

the political golfers

hit for divinity

in measured speed

take a long suck

to climax with myths

sown in the mud:

write a new history

with gods whose guff promises

a heaven on earth

TERRORISM

Each day ends in fear

of one or the other kind:

living in uncertainties

it’s life in death

and here they are

selling dreams

and winning votes

their proactive politics

adds to the list of

dead and dying

they may or may not sleep

in high security houses

but it will be too late

by the next election

IF THEY ORDER

Sitting in AC rooms

they do not know the cost

of failed adventure:

there won’t be martyrs

for empty struggle tomorrow

they may all be shot

if they order the soldiers

to march to snowy mountains

never to return

POLITICS DEFIES SILENCE

Do they ever see themselves

their truth inside the mirror?

sound too much anger and hate

burn humans and homes to teach

lessons never learnt but played

the communal card for rights

no god granted. Their petty

politics defies silence

I DON’T ENDORSE

I don’t endorse their pact

to squeeze adulation and

control faith of the masses

to discarded blood and spread darkness:

idols may draw crowds to kill

and the spell may not last long

the temple doesn’t attract me

I want to forget the myth

after the fascists owned him

Ram has ceased to be God

NUDE BEILEF

I don’t want to mount

the hardships of the sky

if the earth’s labour pain

is false or the action

stillborn with or without

scalpel the doctor

humiliates course of action

and I hate the crime

of creating god

on the ramp betraying

models too naïve

to be worshipped

for nude belief

HELPLESSNESS-II

I have no magical strength

to change my restlessness

into glory radiating

peace or purpose in living:

they give me no room to better

men or myself but condemn

as one hanged for nothing:

poets are no living lessons

I stand aside ruminating

what I couldn’t do or be

or await miracles by

circles and zigzags of the mind

already corrupt faith and curse

destiny for the maze

of my own making and in addition say

I know the spirit’s upward fire

LEECHES

At the end of the day

when I look back and see

my knowledge and insight

rusting with ageing colleagues

I pity my age and wish

to give up; I can’t change

the method and ends frustrate

the will to work any more

I want to rest now burying

ambitions and achievements

that ache the soul and make

empty sounds in the hollow

of a hallowed pond long doomed

for marrying self-indulgent

elites and idiots

sucking generations

WHEN I STOPPED…

If my world couldn’t be

what I had thought in my teens

I can’t help. I was

dependent on my father

a self-made man against

the currents I couldn’t read

the sky and its stronghold

the prints of the Ganga’s sand

have faded like the rainbow

in a spray of years

that pricks like pebbles

now the caries, cavities

cyst and myopia haunt

and sexual anxieties

upset sleep and dreamless nights

The hairs on my balding head

mirror the laughter

I have ceased to take observe of

I have ceased to peel

the ugly shapes, the cunning

and treacherous I work with

Resent my identity

and the future I fail

spinning influences

in addition I’m sure when I stopped

it won’t be all that bad:

my vision would nevertheless be good

I would nevertheless smell fresh air

Copyright:

Dr R K Singh

Professor & Head

Dept of Humanities & Social Sciences

Indian School of Mines

Dhanbad 826004

India