I left home to wander in pools of grey, sweeping misery that harked to the night. The world was a gravel mistake, like the turning spokes of a bike. Deluded directions, and torrid tidings; I burn under the heat of the sun. The clouds frizzle like my parchment tears plunging to the pavement. Waterfalls and crystal orbs that shatter when they fall to the ground.
The walls of uptown are naked, and it is there all people dwell. High heels that play symphonies by the roadsides and tap in a morse code I cannot understand.
The walls where the colour survives, and the paint peels off their surfaces are my retreat, and I try my best to clothe them with graffiti love.
It aches me to know that the world does not appreciate life. It appreciates the dying-- the dead. And I have long since decided that I want to live, even if this world is but a graveyard.
Spoiler! :
Useless thoughts on this piece
Apartment complexes, skyscrapers and sidewalks have always frightened me. And yet, they manage to be pretty intriguing at the same time. I often wonder if the city lives, too, if it breathes and laughs and cries like the living. But what if the world is dead? my puny mind axes. What if it's merely an illusion -- if death is an illusion of life greater to come? It's weird and it's mystifying. It has so many edges. There are so many ways to look at life, and at death within life. And it is then that man tries to convince himself that yes, he is living, and that the world isn't as false-faced as he believes it to be. But is this an illusion also? Is life nothing but illusion?
I've also been wanting to write from the point of view of a person who doesn't feel safe out in the big, wide artificial universe. Hence, the dark corners and "downtown" seem bright. I could blabber on about this all day, but I think this is pushing it already.
Interpret it as you will. It's not much good anyway, and I don't mind. XD
Amateur-ish attempts at Persian Poetry -- Rubaiyat
1.
A Library of Lost thoughts
Every spine shook with pagan dust where verses sung stark on their battlefields. Decrepit and grey, even Humayun returned as ignorance hath in all its glory.
2.
Sky-scenery
An upturned spectacle; a mark of time that fades away to a blot upon copper-blue moors. Dregs of lingering lint that sway as if scarlet peacocks dance asunder.
Spoiler! :
The intricate and overwhelming imagery of Rubaiyat has often enraptured and captivated me. Writers like Omar Khayyam and Rumi are one of the amazing-est Persian Poets of history, and I've been longing to try my hand at it for a long, long time. So, what is a Rubaiyat, you ask?
It's a form of free-verse poetry; normally, lines don't rhyme, but they can rhyme, though with no specific pattern. In effect, a story is conveyed in four lines, but unlike Haiku which are used to create images or a particular scene within the reader's mind, Rubaiyat tell a story. They delve into the historical depths of time, and into people's hearts. There's a whole load of research behind a rubaiyat; a history, you could say, and there's tons of imagery. (Which is one reason I love analyzing and reading it so much!) I've included a kinda-sorta summary of the Rubaiyat above, in case you'd like to check them out
1. This Rubaiyat explores the dark ages of Mughal history; the period after Aurangzeb, the last emperor who actually had any power, died, and the succession wars started. This was when British expansionism started in the sub-continent -- what is modern-day India and Pakistan. It's a very popular saying of the then governor-I-always-forget-his-name that: "One shelf of European literature is richer than an entire library of Indian literature."
This was because people were not striving for education anymore. And the ignorance that had existed in the pre-Islamic era had returned. I've given the example of Humayun here, who was one of the earlier Mughal emperors, here. Humayun lost the throne soon after he became king, and spent much of his life in exile, only returning after the man who had usurped throne had died. Humayun became king once again, only to die a few months after, and his son -- I bet you all know this guy -- Akbar, became king. Anyway, what I meant by that super-long and confusing history lesson, was that ignorance returned, just as Humayun did. But there's a twist -- that ignorance will die soon.
2. This is just a pretty scene of the transition time between night and dawn, with tons of imagery. "An upturned spectacle" is the moon. Geddit? It's a "mark of time" because we know it's night when we see the moon. I've grown tired of comparing clouds to cotton, hence the word "lint" came into play. I guess you can decipher for yourself what I mean. When clouds float across the sky, it's like the sun-beams are playing with the clouds -- like "scarlet peacocks that dance asunder."
She lived in a house where the walls were made of cardboard and the drains were corrugated. The roof was of tarot-cards in half-moon prints stacked like ladders to the sky. And it took but a jolt, the slightest of movements; an overblown gust of wind to ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~blow ~~ them ~~~ down~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ like dominoes. So all she could see was the clarity of the crepe paper sky. And she reached out to catch the light; it entwined with her fingers like elegant fly-paper. Her eyes burnt holes in the noon.
So much azure. Intermingled with the vermilion-est of reds. Never had she seen the way the sky frayed where it met the ground; a dewy hem of pale grey parchment.
*****><><><><><><><><>***** She lived in a house where the walls were made of cardboard and the windows were not made of glass. The shutters were A-4 sized; smaller than she realized. So when she lit a match, the embers singed through in UnEvEn PaTtErNs like lions that trawled through the night and tore at them.
So many stars in the darkness. Flickering. Winkering and blinkering at her. When she laughed, they laughed and she could hear the sound echo through the depths of space where angels sang to the moonlight. When the stars drove back home, she cried out to them to come and tell her their stories again. They let her go silently; they traipsed through the night, And they watched from overhead as the cardboard came tum- buh- ling down.
~*~
Spoiler! :
Last edited by Pompadour on Wed Apr 09, 2014 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He watched the blazing moors of yesterday light his Present on fire. And he tried to put it out but the lisping ladders insisted on climbing higher and higher until the clouds were rolling with red.
Oh, they crackled and hissed and singed his palms like a flighty mass of sparking dew. Oh, they sizzled and they laughed like a blacksmith's finest craft that burns in its own narcissism.
He watched as the inferno breathed in and puffs of sooty symphony exhaled. A trellis of climbing paintwork; tawny and blue and with traces of flickering amber-crimson. He tried to breathe in, but couldn't draw in his breath; respiration rendered useless, say no more!
The cunning canopy of flame towered above him. And. He. Saw. It. Dive. Oh, he tried to run away but the heaving heathen insisted on swallowing him alive.
A sketch of ash-work now lay still, suffocating on the stone.
Spoiler! :
And this is why, children, we should not play with fire.
there's a thread twining around my wrist, biting into my flesh like the fangs of an invisible rattle-snake. beads of red shine in the light like a thousand splendid suns; droplets of rain if the sky could cry blood.
and it curls and it lisps like a fire-flamed train. oh, it seeps and it pours and i think my wounds are scarlet birds trying to fly; they fall so easily. i watch the blood trail around my fingertips: like the viscosity of wine it floods through the ravines in my flesh and numbs me.
i'm hanging onto the sky by a thread. a stray, fraying, lingering bit of fibre the sky tore off its overcoat and gave to me.
who knew silver linings could cut so well? carve arches through my fingers and hollow down to my bones? they rip and tear like knives never could. they're pieces of fibre glass entwining with the wind; the clouds are the cheeks they rub up against. a patch of pale-red, a rosy ballet; the flimsy piece of paper that tugs me to the heavens like an old kashmiri rug grandma threw out until the rain took all the colour away.
the snakes bite into my sodden, soaked flesh. life bites just as hard, too. i can see the sun set, i wish i could set that easily. i am a puppet of the hills, and my theatre is rolling green where it meets the mountains carved; an amphitheater watches cruelly on.
and all puppets fall.
Spoiler! :
There's a reason kite-flying is banned in many parts of India and the sub-continent. Yerps.
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