Showing posts with label creative writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creative writing. Show all posts

Monday, October 16, 2017

The Fun Young Swing

Sunny skies, flowers in full bloom
Children in the park, filled with happiness and laughter.
I looked at them and pleaded as I creaked
Slowly in to motion, feeling a gust of wind.
Come here and sit on me,
I’ll take you to great heights,
As I fill you with bubbly laughter
Through every link in my chains.

Suddenly darkness! Clouds gathered in gloom,
Dark figures filled the park, a lonely silhouette-
A shape shifter stood out;
I looked on in dread, fear spreading
Through every link in my chains; my seat, stiff
From the day’s work; Aching I looked on,
Pleading with unseeing eyes,
Don’t come near, don’t sit on me.
I know you’ll take me under, deep
Into cavernous places;
You’ll break my chains, detach me
From reality; you’ll break my seat
Until nothing but splinters remain.

I can feel your sweaty face,
Your ravaging hands,
The weight of your large base
Tearing through my planks.
I can feel my chains giving way,
Tearing away from the reality
That is mine, your weight pulling me down;
Your breath acrid fills my very being
As I fall deep in to the abyss
Of a never-ending universe;
Filled with darkness, the voices of beasts,
The smell of disgust, the taste of a thousand
Fetid corpses; an eternity of this.

I know you’re gone, now that morn has come;
But I dread the evening sun;
Bringing with it the shape shifter, that silhouette,
That destroyer of dreams, that killer of innocence.
Here I am, a fun young swing
Destined to spread laughter,
To take children to newer heights;
But your abuse leaves me broken and
Desolate, snatching the laughter
From every child who walks the park. Ever.

Note: I wrote a prequel to this poem "Give Me Strength" back in 2007. Ten years later I had to revisit it and make it mine once again.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The Stirrings of an Ineffable Soul

She closed her eyes,
As she felt every part of her being
Immersed in a consciousness, alien to her.
The voices in her head, faint whispers
To begin with, rose to a cacophony,
As the consciousness reached
A crescendo of its own!

Suddenly, it was all over;
She could hear the crash of silence
Against her pining soul.
A silence so loud, she wished
For the cacophony of the voices
In her head again.
Unknown to her, every bit of her soul
Transformed, mutated and altered
To soak in the silence,
Silently creating a sound of its own.

Exhausted, she lay, waiting
Patiently, for the pain,
The angst and the clarity
Of the unknown.
She relinquished her ego;
She relinquished her name;
She welcomed the unknown
With open arms and
Closed eyes.

In darkness of the sun,
It crept up on her,
Shrouding her being,
Purifying her soul,
Lightening her mind,
Brightening her body, and
Freeing her dreams;
Until all there was left
Was a single unity;
An unknown one.

There was no her;
There was no soul;
There was no light;
There was no pain;
There was only
The pureness of being.

Friday, September 16, 2016

No More...

If you gave me something today,
I would give you something for tomorrow.
If you broke it tomorrow,
I would give you something for the next day.

If I thought you'd give me something today,
I would dream of what I'd give you tomorrow.
If I thought you'd break it tomorrow,
I would dream of something to give you the next day.

If I saw you breaking something I gave you ever,
I would stop giving you anything...
Today, tomorrow and forever.

Right here, right now, it's just a muddle of words;
Contradicting emotions and
Ramblings on a September afternoon,
Nothing more, nothing less.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

The Journey

Austrian Landscape

Lost everyday
In the mundane,
In the living;
The soul gladdens,
Expands and accepts;
That which is lost,
Deep within us,
At the center of the cosmos.

I look into myself - 
Surprised, amused and
Nonchalant at what I see.
"This is being."
She tells me.

I close my eyes,
With my eyes
Wide open.
I see myself
As I unsee myself.

What, you may ask,
Is this contradiction?

You see, this is
No contradiction.
This, is coming undone,
When you are so together.

Looking up, I see,
Truly see, the expanse
Of the universe;
Yours and mine.

Let's put a dent
In this universe,
That's neither yours
Nor mine.

Let's be. Let's truly be;
In this, here, now,
Together and alone

Monday, August 10, 2015

Crumbling Walls


You saw me through the veil,
Through a carefully constructed
Façade I had over my face,
Until you reached my core.
You became the mirror I was afraid of,
Shining a bright light in to my eyes.
Neither love nor friendship
Ever gave me this feeling
Of being bare;
Completely and utterly naked
Face to face with myself.

I wonder if you truly see me,
Or is it still just a reflection you see
That I have shown the world…
Every single day, every single night?
Memories may fade, of laughter
And tears, of happiness and sadness;
But this cloudy night will remain
Even as the universe dissipates
Into another unholy big bang.
I will stand still remembering,
Sighing and tearing up but never crying.

See me my dear, truly see me
Not today, not tomorrow,
But in the multiple nows
That make up life; both yours and mine.
As the night turns to day
I will remain standing here
Gazing in to my own eyes
Seeing you see me,
Looking deep within, with that familiar frown
Adorning your face, a faint smile
Creeping into your eyes.

Yes, you see me, you found me
And now I am lost unto myself.
I’ll stand right here, mourning
The death of a life that could have been;
Silently standing...
Gazing in to my own eyes.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Eternity

The wind howls.
The skies bellow.
Deep inside, she trembles.
Drowning in the downpour,
She is squished like a bug.

Years later she yawns
And stretches, as she wakes up.
Her soul rattles in the aftermath
Of a storm so long ago,
It seems but just a dream.

Gliding down from open skies,
She lets the wind guide her.
Gently landing on a blade of grass,
She melts into the earth;
Lying down to rest... now and forever.


Monday, March 02, 2015

The Vagabond

An empty bottle by my side;
“The rum gone?!” I wondered,
“It was half full when I lay it there last night.”
And then I saw her dead, by the roadside.

She lapped it all up through the cold night… that mutt!





Friday, February 13, 2015

So, here’s the world, remade!

If I had to remake the world, I would keep it just the way it is with just two changes. There is a lot wrong with the world today but these two things are all I would change and then hope that all other things wrong will sort itself out.

The problem with the world as it is today began with the evolution of human beings. Food and shelter being primary needs, humans began ravaging the earth to ensure that they survived. In order to have control over resources where food and shelter was abundant. There began a struggle to have and control more than others. As the world transformed, those with more energy and power had better access to food, shelter and more than is needed to survive.

The other problem with the human race today that I would like to change stems strongly from inequality. The foremost and oldest being gender inequality. Controlling women meant increasing one’s tribe and thereby having more people to work and create more wealth and thereby more power.

The first change in a world remade…
Imagine a world where trees thrive.
Trees with leaves that were solar panels;
An end to fighting over food and energy.
Imagine a world where trees thrive.

The second change in a world remade…
Imagine a world where each human would thrive.
Both men and women would bear children;
An end to power control and rapes.
Imagine a world where every human would thrive.

Oh yes, there is the problem with population so…
A human could bear a child only once in their lifetime.
Sorry, but that’s the way it would be in a world remade
Remade by me… Remade by me…

“So, here’s the world, remade!” I would beam.


I am participating in the #TheWorldRemade activityat BlogAdda in association with India Today #Conclave15. This is my take on what I would change if the world was remade.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Ramblings About Fictional Characters

I can never stop myself from getting into the world of characters in a book. That for me defines a well-written story. I just finished reading +Lisa Genova's Still Alice for a project I am working on and pretty much became Alice, feeling her journey and living her life in the two days it took me to finish reading the book.

My family and friends worry for themselves when I begin reading an intense book because my conversations usually revolve around issues the protagonist faces in the story. In some way reading helps discover new topics of conversations and makes even uncomfortable conversations easier to have such as mortality, life after death, spirituality, sexuality, parenting and more.

The challenge for a writer is to create characters that will be remembered long after the story is read and the book is back on the shelf or in the storage space of an iPad. Recently I was talking to someone who I know through an online group over the phone and in the middle of the conversation she said "Wait, aren't you the one who wrote the Bushaka stories? My daughter loved those stories and still talks about Bushaka" You can only guess how wide I was grinning. I think the high of writing fiction is when someone recognizes you in reference to the characters you have created. But the genius in creating epic characters like a Harry Porter or Percy Jackson in recent times for young audiences simply amazes me.

As I get back to writing my stories after this post, I am hoping that an unforgettable character is waiting to come alive through the screen while I type away frantically. The day feels perfect for the birth of a new fictional person.

If you read this post, I would love to hear from you through your comments on fictional characters that have stayed with you in your life far longer than you though they would.