Matt and Bessie time

 I'll drag you along

Wherever I go 

Better you comply

Resisting? Don't even try!

I'll need you to snuggle

To ponder over life's muddy lanes

Its twists and turns

Its unforeseen pains.

Not just a stuff toy

But you are a perennial joy

My coping mechanism

My silver lining

To the dark clouds.

Sulk not - 

Spring to life

Don't act like a thing

You are a whole entire being.

Follow me in stride

Be me light, be my guide.

I know I need to look inside

But may be just may be

You are a manifestation of my soul, amplified!

Have my back, with me abide.

Fierce feller, My story teller

Join me in the narration

Of many a emotion.

Stop being just a stuff toy

My darling Matt, my wonder boy

Spring to life, sway that mane

You are my shower, I am  your hurricane.

Bessie dearest sends you this urge

Come and color her life mundane.

Pictured - Life versions of Matt and Bessie, shot by someone who in in sync with my imagination. _/\_

Drips

Hooded in somber detachment

He purses his lips

Closes his senses.

Little flecks of color

Tiny drips of glitter

Stick to his skin

cling to his  sense.

Silence his defense

Reflection his armor

The stunningly stunned

The endearingly spun

Carrying those splashes

Of gashes

With stoic grounding.

These are what meets the eye

What lies inside, unseen

Are  may be

Those unfathomable depths

That play peek a boo

Showing only what can be seen

Urging me to feel the in-between.

I hope not

That my insight fails me

Lost in the mesmerizing Glimpse.

Photo by Ivan Siarbolin from Pexels

Smelly Balladry

Somewhere, in the middle of nowhere

A housewife sits by her nook table

Peeling Garlic.

The pods feel snug in her hand

Like a prank gift

Wrapped in layers of tissue.

She uses her paring knife

And remembers a tip from a chef's video

Trying to pry out the cloves 

Like a magician pulls out bunnies from his hat!

No such luck, no such magic

Happens at her humble nook table

In her clumsy butter fingers!

She leaves magic to magicians and tries to do some 'being present'

"Zen isn't peeling potatoes and thinking of God

Zen is peeling potatoes"

The tidbit reminds her to be in Zen

And just peel garlic, and not to think of God

Or the evening dinner that needs to be cooked

Or an insult she endured as a teen

And the comebacks she thinks of now

After all these years, 

To those bullies and ruffians.

She pulls her mind back to the present

As she pulls out the juicy cloves

That transfer their pungency to her fingertips

May be to her apron and dress as well, in the process!

She thinks yet again, of the laundry load

Of a shower to wash off the linger of smell.

"Phew" she exclaims

"Why do you fly off my hands like a helium balloon?"

As the pod keeps slipping off her dainty fingers.

"Are you speaking to a garlic?"

The toddler stops coloring and looks up in disbelief

Her mom doesn't cease to surprise her.

Just the other day, the mom spoke to the seedlings in her veggie patch.

Cuckoo lady.

Isn't it a blessing, almost a favor

That the members of the family are blissfully unaware

Of what the cuckoo lady writes?

An ode to peeling garlic!

Among other goofy topics.

May be the housewife

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere

Is better off speaking to herself

Or to a garlic pod.

It might seem odd,

But she doesn't seem to ask for anyone to applaud.

Photo credit - Skitterphoto

The Finale

The birds fly in huge numbers

Looking like flecks spun across the sky

Petals from new blooms cascade to the ground

Like snow fall being sifted through a filter

Sniffles emerge, the palette of nature in full swing

Smudging color on the sepia tones

Tulips peek their pretty faces up

The groundhog has a field day

This can't be the last season - but what if it is?

U stand alone, pondering in the scene

Bright rays breaking a sweat on the back

Kids putting up lemonade stands

Random stalls of fresh picked fruit offer the juicy solace

Either side of the muddy ruddy road to nowhere.

A stroll on the beach perhaps

Your sunscreen streaks white patches on the face

Making you look like a Viking in action

Days longer - Sun shining stronger 

This can't be the last season - But what if it is?

Are the branches on fire?

You wonder! But then - they sway like enticing dancers

Showing off warm colored tresses

Reds, yellows, oranges - in all variations possible

Occurring on trees, like they dyed their hair ombre

Making a fashion statements

The harvest season emerges in full bloom

Jack O lanterns on doorways

Grin at you, promising a fun time

This can't be the last season - but what if it is??

You walk in the stark chill

Bare branches skinny dipping

In spine twisting cold

Like they'd gone bonkers. Like dare devils

That throw caution to air 

And challenge the frost to obliterate them.

Icicle lights shine through their natural counterparts on the edges of the roof

You hear festive music, faintly lingering in the background

While bright faces gather around the dinner table 

Wafting with smells of cinnamon buns and hearty stews

This can't be the last season - but what if it is?

You sit through the flashing and flipping

Of days after days, 

Seasons after seasons - the 'to do lists' keep piling up

While a sense of eternity in this worldly garb

Makes you sit snug and sing like a grasshopper

That lives in the day, having a gala time, doing nothing.

Nothing isn't a bad thing - it is the thing if you will!

This nothing sounds like everything in another paradigm

But you'll save that tale for another ponder

You germinate seeds of everness in your egoness

This can't be the last season - But, just for argument's sake - 

What if it is?

Pic credit - Liam Ortiz 

Verse

Lost in the woods

Of volumes of books

I seek myself

Lingering in many lives, many emotions

In knowing and learning.

Lost in the pages 

Of  numerous binders

I relish the unknown

Like a first hand experience

Etched on the heart, sketched on the soul.

I transition in a life cycle

From larva to a Monarch.

I swim across oceans, I dive into craters

Lost in the stacks, in the tightly packed racks

I flip through pages like days of a many lifetimes.

All lived, zipped into paperbacks

Tucked into hardcovers.

I see illustrations pulling me in 

Opening doors to human imaginations

Unleashing awe of many creations.

Through dogeared piles

Through browned calico bound stacks

I transform and tread

From a mendicant to a monk

From a pauper to a princess.

From gullible to guarded.

Lost I say, but what a trope that!

Found perhaps is a better fit.

Pictured - Municipal Law library - Munich.

Breaking Up

"Don't you think we know?"

She asked him

"When someone loves us and doesn't convey?"

He looked ahead and nodded in a agreement.

"Don't you think we also know

When someone doesn't and they don't convey?

Don't you think our actions betray us more than our words?"

He smiled and nodded this time.

"So there is someone, or something

That makes it clear to us.

Downloading bytes of knowing, of wisdom

Just for seeking, for peeking into the 

Obvious and the obviously concealed!"

"Yes" He added.

"What's this randomness about?"

He asked.

"Its about breaking up" 

She chuckled.

"Nice try" he played  along.

"You are mine"

"NO, You are mine" She challenged him.

"But I am breaking up with sorrow"

"With this constant yearning to know, to be, to live"

"These apprehensions, these yearnings to be loved, to be owned"

"That's a brilliant idea" He said

"I have my arms open, for you to run into and embrace"

"Look inside, I am there"

"Like a beam of light, tracing your soul"

"You are the being, I am the bliss"

"A match, fused and tied forever"

"Of course, you need to dump Sorrow, The delusional bad boy"

This is a door, a camouflage, a trick

That leads not to the outdoors.

Sure, do the honors,

Dump the dude unceremoniously

Kick his backside, 

Kiss him goodbye!

And take the stroll within to this divine union.

Be here, be now, be bliss, be me!

And Let's celebrate the homecoming

Never ever looking back to the outside

Let's close the door on sorrow,

He can exist or may be he doesn't need to exist

Unless we house him and douse him in attention

In reverence.

Let's be irreverent. Let's rebel

And bask for ever in this treasure inside.

You within me, and I within you

Life and Joy, Being and bliss!

All else, on them, the curtains down.

Let the new Magnum opus unveil"

Verse

As I walk the life's streets

And watch the sunset

I realize

That one day this I the identity

Will leave these lanes

Flying away to a nowhere, no one that has seen

Had been seen.

I wonder over the sentiment

"The Show must go on"

And imagine a sunrise and a sunset

In these very streets

One melting the haze setting up sheets of backgrounds

One curdling the light into a dim darkness.

Both would be there, I wouldn't.

But My knowing gives the knowledge a twist.

Will I go on

More than this make believe prop

That is there but isn't?

"Just close your eyes, you'll find proof!"

The inner voice whispers.

I see the dusk in a new light

More illuminated than any dawn

For the smog has risen

Over my being!

Letting the peace in.

I'll go on - Like an eternal show

In an eternal moment.

The props look like they are going on...

I have no issues with them.

I let them serenade me with their charm

I let me not slip away in their chase.

I am an infinite light

Passing through a finite sight!

And The show, I know :)

Verse

Over the indigo canopy
Amid the streaks of clouds
The dipping Sun dribbles
Gripping brush strokes.
Down under, the earth mattes
Into a pitch black void
Every existence, the living and the still
Dissolves in the darkness
Existing but no existent
Perhaps in helpless surrender
Or wondrous awe.
As the gaze traces the magnificence
The insides smile in awareness
Little cares dwindled into the illusion
Existing but non existent
Just like the ground below sucked out of illumination !
But here, the light of  knowing
Alights the darkness of the know all self
Dissipating every triviality
Into transcendent bliss!

Ponder - Toilet paper to Treasure

Some Costco employee out there, shout out to you Bro - Chutzpah and all :)

As soon as the Covid19 scare hit the planet, I was kind of contemplating whether or not to jump on the panic band wagon - but whatever they say about 'rub on effect' especially in a crisis situation is true as it can get, and I am sure if there's readership in here during this time, you are probably doing the 'Indian nod' in agreement. So, the panic, slowly and surely hit me as well. As I took a long look at the 'pantry' situation and cogitated deeply about the groceries that need to be replenished to do a starvation free sheltering at place, I realized that I ain't a hoarder. At all. So the daily necessities be it milk or sugar, flour or rice, fruits or veggies were brought in, in short regular intervals and I didn't in the least see a need to buy anything in bulk though the package deals in the US famous warehouse aren't being counted in here. I did have six 2 pound packs of dry pasta, a 20 lb bag of Indian rice and a 20 lb bag of wheat flour to make the Indian flat bread. That's pretty much it if I'd not counted the tubs of tomatoes that were froze from last  year's yield. For the amount of gravies I make, they do come handy though they occupy major real estate in the freezer side of my Sub Zero beauty meets beast of a refrigerator. 

But there are other things that seem to be flying off of the shelves. Toilet paper, sanitizing wipes / sprays and hand sanitizers occupy the top three slots in that order. The last time I bought toilet paper was sometime in December, a time when this virus is kind of visible but the effect it was to take in the coming months isn't.  I somehow did end up having a good supply of it, but not in any monumental proportions the average hoarder today might have - I did have an extra supply as we were expecting house guest in clusters during winter. Thank God for little blessings that amid the scare of having enough food to eat, this having enough to wipe the backside wasn't even an issue. Even if it were, it would have been a 'not such a burning issue' in my 'take life as it comes' philosophy - "toilet paper wasn't ever going to be a thing I'd panic about", I said to myself as I looked at the stark empty corner of the warehouse that housed this endangered item. Suddenly, I felt a slight sink in the gut, like the one you experience when you are being free dropped from a height on a very twisted roller coaster.  The plan B scenarios swarmed above my head - I'll not elucidate all of them here, but yes - When one grows up in the Indian subcontinent where water is supposed to the the holy grail cleanser - one doesn't panic till there's a drought - and drought I hope never hits us like Covid19  managed to hit - and I wish this in all earnestness.

So the trips to grocery stores did happen. I did dress up like a ninja - In head gear, browsing through eerie looking grocery store isles that looked more like whole businesses dressed in Halloween costumes than they looked like grocery stores. I carefully doused my hands and elbows in hand sanitizers that promised to kill 99.9% of the germs and prayed secretly that the .1% is just there for effect and it actually kills 100% of them - actually I said this as an artistic liberty ;) I did have a healthy fear, but wasn't really subscribing to this whole 'mental crisis' thing the pandemic brought along like a Siamese twin. So the dreaded trip to Costco happened as well and I was in the line, distanced by 10 feet from the person before and behind me. As we moved closer to entering the warehouse, a euphoria swept over me, akin to the one someone might experience upon winning the mega million lottery. The second time around, most of the items that were swept clean without evidence during my previous trip, made a contained but prominent appearance. Some items had limits on how many one could buy and rightly so I thought or the late, leisure bird that moi was, moi would be going around with an empty cart and brimming anxiety looking for daily necessities. 

What didn't change at all was the starkness of the toilet paper corner. It was as thread bare as a freshly delivered baby. the price displays telling the only tell tale signs of the existence of Toilet paper in the first place. This time around, my gut didn't do the cartwheel on the roller coaster, instead it thanked its lucky stars that it found the cooking oil I badly needed to keep the food on the dinner table, cooked n all :) But somehow, the supply/demand monster did get to the cool composed me, if not in an obvious way. As rolls dwindled in the household, the cool did too. But I wasn't going to sweat small things. I wasn't. What's the used of being a seasoned, disciplined meditator if it didn't come handy when it had to come handy?? So, the subtle yearning to find toilet paper did persist - though Plan Bs were a plenty.

The next trip was made by the handy husband ( I said handy in the spirit of artistic liberty too. This dude is as handy as a grand piano smack dab in the center of a tight living room where no one ever played the instrument. Enuf said ;)) and I for one thing, made ridiculously meticulous notes about what needed to be bought. So if I had to write Onions I'd write Onions (Red, non sweet ones. Check for mold and rotting ones at the bottom and stay clear) - So you get the idea. The shopping list's first item was toilet paper - it read "Toilet paper, any brand, any count - if it is available. If it isn't don't go around looking for it all over the length and breath of the warehouse like you do when you lose your way and don't want to ask for directions" ) I am sure he gave a chuckle when he read the list or may be he didn't. This dude is the love child of Katrina Kaif (poker faced no matter what the scene and situation demands emotion wise) and Elon Musk - (Ever heard about how his employees have mental issues and he finds it hard to stay married? He is a workaholic brothers and sisters - that's why! :-O

As I head the garage open, I walked out, wondering what all of the necessities made it to the house form the warehouse - and guess what I spot as I help the husband unload the loot! " Costoc's storebrand toilet paper. I in all honesty and zero artistic liberty, felt like meeting J K Rowling in person. It really felt that precious and blessed. I carefully unloaded the bundle onto the garage floor and ran my hands over the plastic having a very gratified moment. That dearies, is what crisis is supposed to put you through. It is supposed to take something as trivial and taken for granted as a toilet paper roll and escalate it to the capacity of a treasure.

Life dearies, is a treasure and so are everything that aid us to live it. Now, all the more, along with the global village, I realize  how interwoven we are and how there's lessons thrown at us so we become better human beings in the rush of living lives. Toilet paper did its job, The figurative one that is ;) - I am more evolved already. I swear. Now get this pandemic out of the way Dear God - Don't be on a time off! Please, pretty, please, with a cherry on top!

:)

 (This is being published in its first draft glory, please condone the typos and spelling atrocities )

Inspired!

Life of the party

That lady in red

Ruffles of scarlet encasing her grace

She treads in measured steps

Making the bystanders envy her stilettos 

For kissing and casing her feet!

She tips her green gloved hands

Offering the greeter a chance

To peck on her fingers 

As her sweet fragrance lingers

Captured in their breath!

And she dips her head bidding a bye!

“Camellia, come hither”

Her beau the butterfly signals

She turns around and pouts..

Spreading her palm before her face

And pulling the lover towards her 

As she pulls her finger back and forth!

Does she have strings wrapped around her tips

Maneuvering lovers like puppets?

I know not!

All I know is that she swirls around in that red  ruffles  

Making me twirl a ribbon of words

Watching her in awe, as she treads the garden party

In rockstar aplomb!

“Camellia, stay where you are, how you are”

I’ll come thither

And capture you on my lens and sense

Letting out a sigh and letting in your sighting!

A love not(e)

As you tread on the vagaries 

Of these heart lanes

And stop to stare

At the juxtapose

Of the fallen and the rising

Freeze not, and freeze my senses!

Under you feet, the margin of that path

Aligning the ever evolving

Textures of these soul planes

Lie the pavers to my perception.

Beneath your glide, gleams my muse

Unearthing the inspirations, imaginations.

As you take the road, cruising through the unknown

Greeted by the imagined

Daunted by the unexpected

Walk assured

Of my ever abiding presence

Tucked away in the unconscious insides

Of your psyche!

Pause if you must, well up if you should

But keep going

Aided by the crutches of my invisible support.

Let me revel in that perseverance

And knit cozy poems

Proclaiming my enamor.

As it is abstract, this attendance, so it is absolute!