The War cometh...

.A cold breeze blows
Sending chills down my spine and the deep dark crevices of my being
A vulgar fear grips pulls and stretches my nerve strings
and plays a song of dread
A war is coming
Can you hear it?
The drumrolls out in the horizon
Can you feel it?
The flinches of mothers at the sound of gunshots and warcries
A war...
Between mindless Belligerence
And ruthless Cunning
The war we wished to outlive and outrun
It's coming...
The first casualties will be innocence
Lock up your babies for they will be maimed
And you will not hear their wails
For the poison doesn't hurt but kills
Their mouths shall forget giggles
Their eyes shall exile awe..
Next, it will be the lovers
Flowers will lose their color and scent
Chocolates will lose their taste
Kisses will lose their passion
And Beauty will lose its home...
In the end it will be all of us
The war comes for all of us
And will not end until all that's left are the ghosts of a million stories untold
The burnt remains of imagination
And the tyranny of an endless cycle of struggle...

War

Fathers fight

for sons and daughters

they have never known

Men fight for wives

they have never loved

People fight for a land

they have never tread upon

What is war?

What is this struggle,

that we fight for a future 

unbeknownst to us?

What is war,

but a struggle in vanity?

What is war,

but a battle for a man's superiority

over his own kin?

Repressed Voices

My backpack sits at the corner with a thin layer of dust that has gathered over it. I look at it at least once a day and whenever I look at it I feel it taunting. I can almost hear it screaming, endlessly. Beckoning me to pick it up and start walking. Just start walking. No plans no roadmaps. Walk where my heart commands me to walk.

But no. Seemingly saner minds prevail. I manage to shut that voice out and turn my eyes away from my backpack.

I begin to dress myself for work. And a similar occurance. This time there was no screaming. Just soft sobs. This time it was not my backpack. It was my shoes. I hear it sobbing muttering to itself. "It's the same places every day. Same footsteps. Same dirt and the same duties". It does not say anything more just those words over and over again. And it continued to sob when I started for work.

Again, saner minds and repressed voices. It takes every bit of resolve I have to smile and wait upon people who either want to try something new or who want to remind themselves a little bit of home through their food.

Somehow amidst all the turmoil there was one who was surprisingly silent. So I asked him out of curiosity the reason for his silence. Is he, my heart, content with this routine I call a life?

He said, "if I were content with this then it would mean your worst nightmare has come to pass. And it will never end." And he told me what he wished for...what all my senses wished for...

Oh this heart of mine! It yearns to make the open road home, the fresh free air food and the damp earth bed. He wanted to escape this world of lies and deceit and become the priamal self again. My eyes, he told me, wanted to peek into the corners of the world that few have looked upon. These feet of mine wanted to grow old walking. To be one with the world as the birds, as pollen, as wind itself. And to keep moving until I glimpse the Light the world was blessed with.

Contention

The sadness of always being at a distance from things, either above or beneath...

I lay in contention on the warm seat as the light streams through my closed eyelids. A smile creeps upon my face as the clicking of the train against the rails, sound within me and outside of me, much like a heart beat. Contention. I had forgotten this word in sometime. Nothing had ever been enough, nothing had ever been  satisfying. But I find this word again today as my head hangs from the edge of the seat, as the blood rushes to the tips of my ears and as I feel the sun smile upon my skin.
Raucous laughter rise from the compartment next to mine and I see a bunch of kids that enjoy the summer as much as I do. In the seat next to mine sits a lady. Her wrinkles speak a million stories but her face speak one thing, as she sits by the window, eyes closed, a gentle smile playing around her lips: Contention.

Upside down...the world looks the same, but something is afoot

What we fantasize about what our lives should be? What we imagine our fates could be? And how sad it is that we loose the very essence of life chasing a better one? How we have lost sight of this moment that I am basking in, and how we chase that which may or may not come to pass? How pitiful our lives become as we delude ourselves into believing that we search for a good life?
I let the sun light wash over my body, purging me of all that is irrelevant, cleansing me of all delusions, and caressing lovingly every inch of me, as a mother would. I smile without opening my eyes, and cuddle up inside this wonderful feeling, and I realize something.
That this moment would cease to exist the minute I open my eyes. That I will be forced into a world where we are the rats and the blocks of cheese and the cats; where we are all of them and none of them. That we would end up devouring ourselves in the pursuit of something that exist within ourselves all the while. I realize all this and I smile. Who said I should wake up?

The Tunnel

There is a tunnel that leads from the platforms to the heart of a city. Its a small tunnel, about 200 yards long, but even within those 200 yards exists a whole different world. One will never be bored no matter how many times we walk through it. I find myself every single day amidst a multitude of people under those mild tungsten lights, walking at a measured pace, hands in my pocket and my heart surprisingly content. It is not as dirty as one would expect such a place to be but it is as eventful.On the walls are the paintings and photographs of the Central Sydney Railway station, that add color to it. About 10 yards into it on the left sits an old lady who reads palms for a living. She would sit in the same spot day after day offering someone or the other hope of better things to come. Her face would light up with this beautiful smile and so did her eyes. Today I found her gazing at her own palm with what I thought was a smirk in her face.

A short way in stands an old African-American gentleman with his battered guitar that made the sweetest sound with its frayed strings. But even the guitar couldn't come close to the beautiful voice that arose from this man's throat. He smiled in joy when he played and sang, his whole physique bubbling with energy and his mind lost in the music.Today he was singing 'Knocking on Heaven's door'. There was something haunting in the way he sang it, his eyes half closed, his body still and his voice crooning, honest and grounded. I stopped in my tracks and was lost along with him and five others who felt what I felt. When he was finally finished he gently lowered his gaze to us who slowly started clapping and met each and every one of our eyes. Something in his gaze said "Go forth. Everything will be fine." I started walking again.


Further down the tunnel sits a middle aged woman, an upturned cap in front of her and a sign that said "Bless each and everyone of you. Help a poor woman in need". Staring from underneath an untidy fringe of hair is the saddest pair of eyes I have ever seen. She stares straight through you and something quakes within you when you stare at them long enough. Today she was kneeling in front of a woman though. She was crying silently, tears streaming down her cheeks and soft sobs emanating from her. The woman was rubbing her shoulder and kept whispering something to her as she clutched her hand close to her chest and cried uncontrollably. I walked from there feeling assured.

It is never the same sight yesterday or tomorrow inside The Tunnel. Walk in content, walk in anger, walk in joy or walk without noticing these things around you but, as The Tunnel teaches me everyday, the world will keep going.