charcoal/ pencil trial day 5

charcoal trials

charcoal trials

the unsaid

withdrawn back into my own little world

all the security, all the reassurance one needs

out away from the inexorable cold,

warmth of mine own arms, i keep.

no more love to met out, no one to lend any

exhausted and retiring, an empty soul

forsaken, forgiven, forgotten, sins a-many

but why in me is contained, a yawning vacant hole?

Lost faith in all, no one to trust

every implicit word, many misleading,

all you proffer are trivial links, of lust,

unacquainted of a heart beat ceasing.

Why did you draw me out into the world?

Only to leave drowning in the storm?

assure of sun and spring, you lured,

I saw you quite, in your seraphim form.

mendacity chokes and blinds me yet

is there anywhere else to retire?

Lies, Deceit, folly, no regrets,

Buried deep, within a smothering mire. 

Into my reverie

come hither , come away,

You! so lost, oblivious and vain!

come forth, where deep bonds nurture

a place called home, here to stay.

A cool shadow of a tree beckons,

relief from the harsh unremitting sun.

a cool zephyr blows o'er your sun kissed skin,

plaintive soul, an escape, a heaven.

lay down your aching bones,

upon the munificent expanse of green,

let your mind drift, an unbounded wondrous dream ,

ripples heard, a stream, o'er many a jagged stones.

come hither my love, into my reverie

whisk away shall I, from this world disparaged,  

You, into the sanctuary of my heart, ill keep,

away, unbound, uncaring, emancipated, free! 

Suppression

Suppression.

within, an emotion so cavernous,

its roots grow through a resistant heart,

like a tree grows on a rock,

encompassing it whole ,

yet obliterating its very core.

fragmented, yet held together.

A yearning within, to speak the unsaid,

the refrained,

talks of love.

an agony, yet so sweet;

twice, thrice a missed heart beat.

what is it you hide within,

deep within those melancholic eyes?

a fear, or you misconstrue,

what damage real love can do?

how long can i suppress,

those words whose meanings grow?

defined by your existence?

i've seen your heart;

your soul, their keeper i yearn to be

not much have i to give you.

nothing material, no place, no virtue,

A link made unknown,

feeds life to the beating heart, a vessel,

from you to mine.

All i could secure, a promise,

is to break every bond, every norm,

your contentment, is mine.

Yet i suppress those devastating words.

All those, which sound so simple,

but obliterate the very bond we share.

words fail to project how much i care.

Suppression. a slow uneasy death.

transcendence of a kind,

undefined, yet, broken down,

in a four lettered word,

Love.

The Teak Forest by Lawrence Hope

WheatherI loved you who shall say?

Whether I drifted down your way

In the endless River of Chance and Change

And you woke the strange

Unknown longings that have no names,

But burn us all in their hidden flames,

Who shall say?

 

Life is a strange and a wayward thing:

We heard the bells of the Temples ring,

The married children, in passing, sing.

The month of marriage, the month of spring,

Was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers

That bloom in a fiercer light than ours,

And, under a sky more fiercely blue,

I came to you!

 

You told me tales of your vivid life

Where death was cruel and danger rife--

Of deep dark forests, of poisoned trees,

Of pains and passions that scorch and freeze,

Of southern noontides and eastern nights,

Where love grew frantic with strange delights,

While men were slaying and maidens danced,

Till I, who listened, lay still, entranced.

Then, swift as a swallow heading south,

I kissed your mouth!

 

One night when the plains were bathed in blood

From sunset light in a crimson flood,

We wandered under the young teak trees

Whose branches whined in the light night breeze;

You led me down to the water's brink,

"The Spring where the Panthers came to drink

At night; there is always water here

Be the season never so parched and sere."

Have we souls of beasts in the forms of men?

I fain would have tasted your life-blood then.

 

The night fell swiftly; this sudden land

Can never lend us a twilight strand

'Twixt the daylight shore and the ocean night,

But takes--as it gives--at once, the light.

We laid us down on the steep hillside,

While far below us wild peacocks cried,

And we sometimes heard, in the sunburnt grass,

The stealthy steps of the Jungle pass.

We listened; knew not whether they went

On love or hunger the more intent.

And under your kisses I hardly knew

Whether I loved or hated you.

 

But your words were flame and your kisses fire,

And who shall resist a strong desire?

Not I, whose life is a broken boat

On a sea of passions, adrift, afloat.

And whether I came in love or hate,

That I came to you was written by Fate

In every hue of the blood-red sky,

In every tone of the peacocks' cry.

 

While every gust of the Jungle night

Was fanning the flame you had set alight.

For these things have power to stir the blood

And compel us all to their own chance mood.

And to love or not we are no more free

Than a ripple to rise and leave the sea.

 

We are ever and always slaves of these,

Of the suns that scorch and the winds that freeze,

Of the faint sweet scents of the sultry air,

Of the half heard owl from the far off lair.

These chance things muster us ever. Compel

To the heights of Heaven, the depths of Hell.

 

Whether I love you? You do not ask

Nor waste yourself on the thankless task.

I give your kisses at least return,

What matter whether they freeze or burn.

I feel the strength of your fervent arms,

What matter whether it heals or harms.

 

You are wise; you take what the Gods have sent.

You ask no questions, but rest content

So I am with you to take your kiss,

And perhaps I value you more for this.

For this is Wisdom; to love, to live,

To take what Fate, or the Gods, may give,

To ask no question, to make no prayer,

To kiss the lips and caress the hair,

Speed passion's ebb as you greet its flow,--

To have,--to hold,--and,--in time,--let go!

 

And this is our Wisdom: we rest together

On the great lone hills in the storm-filled weather,

And watch the skies as they pale and burn,

The golden stars in their orbits turn,

While love is with us, and Time and Peace,

And life has nothing to give but these,

But, whether you love me, who shall say.

Or whether you, drifting down my way

In the great sad River of Chance and Change,

With your looks so weary and words so strange,

Lit my soul from some hidden flame

To a passionate longing without a name,

Who shall say?

Not I, who am but a broaken boat,

Content for a while to drift afloat

In the little noontide of love's delights

Between two Nights.

Aging

 Have I really aged so much that I can no longer hold onto my convictions as steadfast as I used to?

That anyone could come by and falter my thoughts I held once so dear? Does age make you experience the virulent, the harsher forms of reality that are difficult to digest, yet you become so used to, they become part of your daily life?

Does age do away with all motivation that you had to achieve all your outlandish goals? Or does it make you realize, that in good time it is right to do away with the thought of getting any close to them? Does age make you stop breaking the norms, and get you down to following the herd? Does your ambition to outdo yourself die with age?

Does age stifle all hope and reason, and deliver each day as it comes, no pretenses, nothing to look forward to, nothing to remember and reminisce.

Does reality only mean that your existence is about breathing that foul air that you breathe, live a soulless existence, drained away by the many other soulless beings you encounter each day?

Does age dry away all your tears, empty your heart of all emotion, take away the mirth that once adorned your face, leaving behind an empty specter, a puppet, in the hands of the many puppeteers?

Age does away belief, in all existence of miracles and phenomena, and demands nonexistent proof.

They say time mellows your way of thinking, the people you meet during your lifetime are the catalysts to the change in you, and you begin to see things clearer and more rationally.

The reality is, age takes away your will to dream the implausible, the impossible, and does away with the impetus, the courage to make it a reality.

tree of life mural: work in progress

in memory of scrat