Friday 19 December 2014

The Predator

The wind is blowing with winter’s air
And the grey skies cry in despair
For hidden away in darkness somewhere
Is a little boy who needs some care
And up above his head wood creaks
He holds his breath as she softly speaks
“Please don’t!” but the breathless heaving seeks
To snuff away all air it leaks
And when the mother’s corpse lay still
The man got up and left his kill
The boys snuck out upon his will
To witness the work of the devil
And he screamed and he wailed
And he wept and he yelled
But no mercy brought back her life
No force could turn back times of strife.
He picked himself up and wiped his eyes
He walked, numb, through all the lies
They told, his mother was a whore,
He a bastard, son no more,
Yet he saw her corpse every night
And grew to despise every woman in sight
His heart melted at the sight of one,
Who soon crushed him, denial undone,
How could she reject him, oh that whore!
She’ll pay the price, that’s for sure,
He picked up the acid and knocked on her door
He smiled at her screams, content at the gore,
That’s when he heard a whimper from the shelf

Her little brother wept, now much like himself.

19/12/14

Tuesday 16 December 2014

16/12

The lustrous, orange, wintery dawn
Broke free from the night’s embrace,
As he stepped out into morning breeze,
With backpack, uniform and knotted shoe-lace.

The day was fun, co-workers, friends, now lovers,
In that dusky dark street they were heading home,
Hand in hand, happy for once, blessed and hopeful,
A great film, good future, and a wedding bells to come.

Before he could rush out the door to the stop,
His mother raced after him in a nightgown,
In hand a spoon and a cereal bowl,
Ruffled hair, a shawl and slippers hastily worn.

That fearless girl with her charming knight,
Hailed the vehicle and clambered to her seat
Unknowing, trusting, smiling, chatting lovingly,
The dependable queen of the family’s fleet.

She kissed his cheek, he rubbed it off,
She laughed; he smiled in rosy embarrassment,
And jumped onto the little yellow bus,
The day went by with time well spent.

The gloats of unchecked hormones gleaned
The jeering began and the whistles blew
She turned and quipped them to silence
They’d sat quietly till so they could not do.

The cereal was left uneaten, the homework undone,
The sky glowed a shade of burning red,
A tiny beating heart stopped, and lifted to the heavens,
A cry escaped her lips and tears now shed.

The pain blinding, soul turning, lambs in a slaughter,
They threw them out trembling, bleeding inside-out,
Naked living corpses, watchers moved uncaring,
He’d tried, helpless, broken and passed out.

It was over. All over.
No question. No reason fit.
No spark. No pulse.

Was their life worth it?

A Letter To Extremists

Dear religious extremists,
I understand your need to respect your Gods' words. I sympathize with your belief in the eternal and the supreme. Everyone needs something to believe in, else humanity would be tainted with hopeless darkness.
I'm a skeptic (believing in the existence of the divine, but requiring facts to prove it), from a Hindu family, who doesn't believe in religion and ritual. I have family members who chant Buddhist mantras and I have friends who are Muslims, Christian and Sikhs. I love them all without question of their faith for they mean a lot to me. I respect eveyone's beliefs when they go hand in hand with peace, love and harmony. You can even categorize me as an almost-atheist Indian hippie.
 After having cleared all these fact about my socio-cultural identity, I would like to raise my voice to all those who have caused bloodshed of a million innocents in the name of religion. You may argue about God's words, you may quote a million lines from a thousand holy books and none of it will change this one fact: you acted like the same hellish, damned beings that your religions and books describe.
 No individual can have a cause for requiring respect once they have caused harm (fatally even), for reasons purged in an illogical ideology, to innocent souls who have no direct relation what-so-ever with their many excuses, reasons, quotes and proverbs. If there is one thing that every religion most definitely teaches to all their followers, is the law of spreading love and not taking death in their own hands!
 How do you propose to justify the death of a child? By throwing religious lines? By equating justice for your own past wrongs through them? By declaring them to be defense mechanisms or triggers for a greater cause? HOW?
 All children have in their mind is good food, family, love, education and play! Why would you, by even the most stupid theory, pull them out of this protective, gentle, beautiful sphere and destroy them? Which hellish being destroys innocence?
 And this is not just limited to the poor souls of Pakistan, my neighbours, my friends. This is in reference to every terrorist motive in HISTORY! Killing people is NOT an answer! Raise your voice! Protest! Speak out! Cry! March! Run! Jump! Hide! But kill? That too innocents? How is this even remotely logical or justified? Did it SOLVE your issues? No! Rather it caused more harm and ruined you further. When you pull the trigger it isn't one man you kill, but two: the victim and yourself.
 So please, dear assaulter, see the sorrow in those parents' eyes. Their child lost to darkness, for no logical reason! Their lives shattered! How is this justified? Think! Sympathize! Regret!
Love,
Someone who is holding onto the last strands of hope,
Someone whose heart cries out for the families of the victims.

Saturday 13 December 2014

Lost... {#ImmortalChroniclesOfAMortalWorld_4}

Emptiness...


That’s all there is...


Existence...


Is a frustration...


A curse...


A benefit for solely the other...


Happiness?


A myth...


A song long lost...


Never to be found again...


Not in the dim of machinery...


Not in the dull by-hearting of education...


The spirit of learning is lost...


Knowledge is now but a shriveled raisin...


Lost...


In the carcass of the world...


Lost!

Pups of the winter

Sleep dwells beyond the night
The ancient harp sings in chimes
Signalling an hour of the wild old sight
Prophesies lost to unfocused rhymes
And the howling mother.
Darkness embraces every child
A chill of sweet breath and shivers warm
Domesticated cousins of the wild
They yelp with love, for all lovelorn
And huddle in a cuddle together.
Harm doesn’t reach them, protected and strong

Are eyes watching those who mayn’t last long.

Thursday 13 November 2014

SONNET FOR MY LAPTOP ~A love-hate relationship~

Broken keys, dusty face,
Viral downloads, crumbling case,
Faulty fan, dying battery,
It sits there looking at me.
Sound unsound, flashing tune,
Mute as a fox, old as an ox,
Winter, summer, spring, monsoon,
Sleek little brick black box.
It watches me as I watch it,
A companion unchallenged,
Night and day, together we sit,
It grows old, old, old and aged.
Dear me, dear mine, forever you shined,
All my memories crashed and you smiled.


-Nov’ 2014
-Manny D

Tuesday 21 October 2014

Fiction Speaks Ration

How many times has that little annoying distraction
That keeps bugging you at the wrong time
Saved you from absurd existentialist suicide?
Ah books!
Tales and tales waiting to unfold beneath your fingers...
The pages and fresh paste, the drug-like aroma...
The enchantment of words, a magic cast out on paper...
Read and unravel a Utopian world...
Do still believe fiction is delusional?
Do you still believe fiction to be a waste of time?
Whoa! These allegations!
Hold my hand and be delusional with me for a moment.
Let's go back to the days of fiction.
They told stories about a Utopian world where the blacks weren't slaves...
They told stories about men on the moon!
They told stories about women in trousers working like men!
(how preposterous!)
They wrote Ungodly things against the Church! Science? Humbug!
They told stories about better days...
They told stories about the Collider and God's particle!
These people are all loony, aren't they?
Utopia can never exist, apparently...
Dreams are NOT real, they can NEVER be.
Yes! I see you scrutinizing the text...
Throwing it aside as worthless
Saying it is against "fact", against "reality"...
Say whatever you like... you have an opinion like me, like many.
And if you are "rational" as you believe,
Then understand this...
Every thought sparks an idea...
Every idea gains form...
In the form of words and language they fly
Off into the head of every neighbour
To be interpreted and re interpreted..
To form a major accepted notion...
To form a mass action..
To finally turn to reality...
So dismiss fiction all you want, but let's make it clear
That you're living in a delusion yourself, my dear! :)

Monday 22 September 2014

The Incense from Beyond

Cries of pain, an anxious air,
Till a small mewling rinsed anxiety,
Spreading smiles as they’d declare
My love and protected longevity.
So, I was held, cuddled and kissed,
Loved, promised and missed,
I learnt what it was to be a princess
I embraced their dreamy incense,
I walked, I ran, I jumped, I skipped,
I wore the uniform, I learnt to lisp,
And write and read and sometimes tripped,
A holy incense, a vanishing wisp,
They held my hand and pulled me up,
Till some day they decided that I’d grown up,
That’s when the angry glares began,
At loud mouths, improper dress and head-band,
I learnt to bow my head by now,
I’d know what my father wished somehow,
I’d not ask, not speak unless spoken to
Each day repeated, bringing nothing new.
I was a woman now, all in full bloom.
They noticed me now and warned me of doom.
Be careful, beware, don’t attract, vanish!
Till the day we fulfil your “wish.”
But, they didn’t know, it wasn’t my wish,
Marriage was an inevitable karmatic dish.
How will I survive if I don’t “settle”?
My brother was the worker, I merely a petal!
Then came the truth of the burden of the girl child:
All expensive with her dowry, they reviled!
I sat all silent, forever silent, never a word,
Then one day when seventeen, a voice I heard.
He smiled, I smiled, we talked and laughed together,
He was soon my secret, no one could discover.
I knew it was evil, but we would never run away,
We would face up, but that was years and years from today.
For now we just had words, and smiles
And an occasional blush and a kiss
And on vacations and weekend miles
His company I’d sorely miss,
For no one had an ear for me the way he did,
The rest saw a reflection, not the true me I hid,
I couldn’t be honest to them for I knew,
They would throw me out if they knew what was true,
So I kept my best friend in my heart and lived
Happily till that fateful day, when he last breathed.
It was around the corner away from view
We held hands and chatted beneath the vast blue,
A lovely day, a peaceful present,
Till a sudden yell disrupted the moment.
They found us! My secret was out!
They beat him, yet to me he called out.
He loved me, I loved him, but it was a sin.
He died, murdered by my own kin.
I didn’t know the reason, I was being “protected”
From conversion and exploitation, but I lamented
Nothing but the loss of a friendly, loving soul.
They didn’t ask me. No words. Now there was a hole,
A silence, a void, and all they saw was an image:
Of a daughter exploited, saved from sacrilege.
Now the battle came, and I was shut in,
Shut out, away, to contemplate my sin.
I did contemplate, I thought back to my lesson,
Love. That was every religion’s intention.
So how have I sinned? By love?
By following the wise words pouring from above?
No one asked. No one cared. I was “exploited”.
Now I was to be given “safely” away and married.
I didn’t want this life. He was gone. Why must I endeavour?
And so, silent as incense, I shut my eyes forever.

22/10/2014
~Manny D

Sunday 21 September 2014

A reflection { #ImmortalChroniclesOfAMoralWorld_3 }

You cry, you do,
You weep a lonesome tear,
Waiting for something new.
No one cares? Oh dear!
Let's step back a day,
When your friend called you
And you were deaf to their dismay,
Or a week into the summer, it's true,
when you avoided that thirsty child,
A month back, that weird kid
Who you called names so wild,
It brought that tear, it did,
the same tear as yours today.
No one cares, you say?
Look in the mirror and think again,
It's you, not the world, that's so damn vain.

Life {#ImmortalChroniclesOfAMoralWorld_2}


Call out to the Universe!
Sing! Smile! Cheer! Dance!
Every moment a happy discourse,
Step out! Give life a chance!

Thursday 18 September 2014

Battle Song { #ImmoralChroniclesOfAMortalWorld }

Open your mind to the world,
Your heart, a fortress, flag unfurled,
Protect, shield, battle, conquer,
Be Queen or King, never surrender,
This is your life, your kingdom,
An imaginative reality, a freedom.
Hold on with all your might,
At arms! March! Be ready to fight!



18/09/2014

Tuesday 8 July 2014

Nyx

That girl? She smiles.
She smiles, she laughs,
She laughs till it hurts,
Then clutching her stomach, cries.
The tears break through broken sobs,
The shuddering shoulders, the drying throat,
The hot cheeks, the feverish head,
All dry up as she lies in bed
And she breathes and breathes again,
Her eyes on the ceiling, lights off,
Pondering thoughtlessly, wishing, dreaming,
Hoping that the ceiling would break through
And the sky drizzles down, cooling her flesh,
And the clouds clear up, revealing the starry sky.
She fixes her gaze on the moon,
Then wanders to the star and smiles,
She smiles and she laughs,
Laughs till the sun comes out
And sleep carries her away,

Away to another world...



By Manny D
08/07/14

Sunday 8 June 2014

The Diary

Let’s keep writing, you and I
While the world keeps fleeing by and by
Pick that pen and start off with my
First page, then two, then three, then fly!
Let that ink on that page glide
Then dive in back to the other side
Where no feeling, no secret you’d need to hide
Bring your soul to life back from when it died.
I see you struggle, I watch you weep,
To them a straight face you must keep,
But not here, let those emotions seep,
Through the pages of your heart so deep,
Yes I will listen, yes I will hear,
Every story of all that you hold dear,
Of regret, of guilt, of acts so queer,
That a laugh escapes the broken tear,
I’m here; I’ll read every word you write,
I can’t speak but I’ll remember all you cite,
And maybe, who knows, I just might,

Pop out these pages and show you the light!



BY MANNY D

Saturday 24 May 2014

Just Breathe

At times you must scream
Some days you must cry
Often it's alright to not be fine
But soon you must remember to smile
It's important to find your way
It's important to fix wrongs
It may be tough and murderous
But remember: You were as alive then as you are now
At times we know, at times we don't
Sometimes we go too fast or don't move at all
At times it's hard, and you accept defeat
And sometime you just have to breathe...

Wednesday 30 April 2014

Moment

A silent love
A blink, a smile
A wishful dream
A hope, a mile
Never too hard
Never too shy
A simple word
Beneath the sky
A memory locked
A moment timed
Resisting the touch
The clock has chimed
A delicate presence
Some words unsaid
Heart chuckling, shivering
Satisfactory dread
Here, right now
But then, long ago
A void of pain

Sweet smiles a-tow


By- Manny D

Rose Red

A blushing rose bud blossomed that summer morning,
The sky, blessed blue, smiled down shyly,
Watching the dew shimmered on her petals,
As she opened her heart to tell a simple story,
Of her childhood, of her past, of her home,
From where she had fled,
For fear of her lecherous relatives,
To seek shelter at the earthly bed,
Yet, she grew and knew of the trap,
And hence she breathed and broke through,
Reaching out her green arms, struggling for light,
Till at last, her heart relaxed, stretched anew,
Thorny and unafraid from predators and fears,
Red lips smiling with love through dewy tears,
Now a bud, next a blossom, then a full-bloom flower,
She’ll live and love herself till her final hour.



~Manny D

Wednesday 23 April 2014

Everlasting Evenings

The breeze blew through her hair,

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath,

Then blew it out, with all worry and care,

Smiling, her eyes opened and gazed at the depth

Of the orange sky above the brown-grey terraces;

The blushing sun and loving, familial embraces;

The majestic birds skimming, dodging jets and kites;

The sighing cloud witnessing the marriage of days and nights...

Wednesday 2 April 2014

GoLd Is OlD


These poets of the old make no sense
Unless you seek scholarly reference,
Know their lives from birth and hence
Read every critic’s attack and defence,
And of those writers of dinosaurs’ times,
Many of whose lost works are counted in dimes
And only one single text now shines
Driven to depths with nonchalant rhymes.
To all of ye famous writers of the old,
Pardon my forwardness, may I be so bold,
Your works have a base of rusty gold,
You lustre through time, so I’ve been told.
What matters it now of Achilles’ fury?
What matters of Macbeth’s soul to free
From self-pity, guilt and a walking tree?
Must I so care for you so long dead?
Must I write a thesis on the worth of your head?
You won’t bring change, December or May,
Nor would your descriptive self save the day.
Hence, excuse me, reading classics I do dread,

I’d rather read Rowling and go to bed.


By- Manny D
02/04/14

Sunday 23 March 2014

The Invisibility Cloak

A noisy marketplace.
Keep your feet close or you’ll step on them
And start a brawl,
Or they’ll step on you and hurt you more.
Don’t react! Hush!
Stay calm! Stay cool! Apologize to them!
Limp slowly away.
Don’t look back. Edge sideways now! Careful!
Don’t let them touch you!
They did? Head down! Keep moving forward.
Remember the rules.
You’re invisible so be invisible.
Obey, respect, salute!
Don’t sit! Don’t slouch! Don’t run! Don’t shout!
Behave, you fool!
Can’t you take it? Fine. Wear the cloak.
And vanish!
You tripped and fell? They can’t see you.
Don’t create a scene!
Just keep walking. Stay invisible!
Are you hurt?
Bear with it soldier. Keep walking!
But I can’t!
I’m hurt! I need help! Please help me!
Don’t ignore me!
Please? I’m screaming now! At the top of my lungs!
They can’t hear me!
I’m a ghost. I’m still invisible.
Attract attention fast!
There only one way. I hope they see me.
Hear me! Look!
I unbutton the invisibility cloak
And let it fall.
Stop! Everyone freezes. A million glares.
My voice barely audible:
“I’m hurt. Please, will you help me?”
They’re staring.
Every eye on me. Roving up and down. Piercing.
I look down.
I’m naked. I’m exposed. I’m bleeding.
The whispers:
“Shameless creature!” “Put some clothes on it!”
“Bitch!”
“Want to spend some time in bed, dear?”
Yes, I want a bed.
I want shelter. I want protection.
He wants my body.
They all want my body. No! Run! Run!
Where is my cloak?
It’s lost! Gone forever! No time! Run!
I need help!
There is no help. There is no prince.
There’s no fairy-tale.
Only blood. Only violence. Only darkness.
Darkness is inviting.
I slip into the shadows. Death welcomes me.
I stop. No!
I don’t want to die! I don’t! No!
I want to live!
I want to love! I want to smile!
I hear it,
The sound of raging testosterone behind me,
The Grim Reaper
In front and chaos all around!
To my left
A brick wall. A dead end.
To my right
An endless road to nothingness.
I turn right.
I leave death and the predator behind.
And I walk.
And I’m still walking, on and on.
I don’t know.
I don’t know where to go, what to do.
But I’m not invisible.
I’m alone. I’m uncovered. I’m walking.
And I smile.
I see a heap of clothes. I put them on.
I enter the market.
I smile at them. They smile at me.
I can read eyes.
They see me stark naked, a target, a shame,
Despite the clothes.
Yet, they don’t see me. Even without the cloak!
They don’t see
The tiresome endless struggle, the still bleeding wound.
It hurts.
There is no help.
Yet, I live.
Yet, I smile. A toxic smile,
In which, I hope, they burn

And die.



By- Manny D
23/03/14

Thursday 27 February 2014

SHE AND I

There she stood
Her gaze scrutinizing my face
Not but inches from
Where I was.
Her features dimmed
Due to improper lighting,
Yet, with each freckle prominent,
Her hair in a disarray,
Each strand visible to the naked eye,
Her dark eyes steady,
Eyebrows furrowed in deep thought,
She stood there uncertainly.
With a comb, she set her hair,
Turned the tap,
Splashed water on her face,
Dried herself,
Then a liner lighted her eyes
And after a dab or two
Of creams, powders and colours,
She looked up at me
For confirmation.
We both nodded.
With that she straightened her clothes,
Straightened her back,
Held up her chin
And smiled.
Only I could read her eyes:
“Who cares about you?”
They seemed to say,
“All they want is me.”
Hence,
I turned my back to the mirror

And walked away.


By- Manny D