Evening's Sweetheart

Evening's Sweetheart

There lived a girl

Not well that I knew

Perpetually trapped in evening

Always spangled in apricot hue 

Sunsets from different worlds

Carefully she amassed

Days, seasons and years went by

But the bloody evening never passed

Everyday was like mornings at whorehouse 

Mysterious but delightfully calm

She never really saw starry night

As she held infinite suns in her palm

It happened one evening

I noticed her presence vast

Waited till night to wake up from the dream

But the bloody evening never passed

Love accompanied the nights

Dreams accompanied the days

But the poor evening had no company

Other than the dying sun's rays

Love replaced my art

Poetry became a thing of past

A thousand beats skipped my heart

But the bloody evening never passed

On one such evening 

A poem she scribbled

And a poet was born

With the words she dribbled

Before the poet could breathe

A love-spell was cast

She wanted to finish her poem by twilight

But the bloody evening never passed

The desolation of the afterglow

Made her to create a company

The poet was her created muse

So that he can write her a symphony

I was born to amuse her

So this poem I wrote at last

I wanted to die with her in dark

But the bloody evening never passed

- Salil Bhat 

Divinations of a caterpillar

The vision of diurnal course

When the cock crows in coarse

Makes the sky convulse in lavender hue

As the blade of grass shelters the morning dew

The dew drops cluster in a mother-of-pearl state

I have been drunk on that glorious pearly gate

I have consumed the light’s infinite source

I have done no harm and I seek no remorse

I glide gently through this realm of green

Just like Venus tours the twilight screen

What lies beyond that twig is a celestial thought

My delicate body celebrates spring when leaves start to rot

I wait, fearless, in grace, for my divine flight

I only fear the stars as they scream at night

I bide my time till I manifest myself in a shell

Where I shall sleep for eternity under nature’s spell

And then, on the tightrope of hope, shall I stride

I shall fear no Gods in this godless ride

What awaits at the end of this great divide?

An angelic butterfly or a moth undignified?

But under no circumstances shall my wings hide

For creatures who fly; only in flying lies the pride.

- Salil Bhat

Unstuck

But then again, who am I to feel pity

For that smudge of grey where wit ceases to be witty.

Ah! That marvelous smudge of grey!

That rhyme of blue and canto of yellow.

Dark! Like the song of morbid lark.

Agonizing and tantalizing taste of mellow.

He sculpts words and brews emotions.

I hereby share my intimidation and confusions

Of his untimely motions

I beg your pardon, a bad habit of mine.

I forgot to introduce myself.

I am a mere word that flows in a line.

Some people simply call me “time”.

Yes, some people. Not all. At least not him.

Neither he shares my flow nor does he sail in my river.

His tumultuous flow makes his sails quiver.

What sorcery might have conjured his creation?

 Like a painting that lacks translation.

Colors, he sings and flavors he writes.

Such is his darkness, flickering in lights.

And such is his art!

He is art!

He is a metaphor of himself.

Like a creation for sake of itself.

Watch his heart as it beats in a rhyme.

This poet is unstuck in time.

And now I shall unveil this obscure hymn.

The truth is that I am unstuck in him.

- Salil Bhat

*~Time's note: Time is unstuck in poet. Not the other way around.~*

Dear Glacier

Dear Glacier,

Heaven give me the sweet poison 
dare if I stop you.
Sweet poison 
distilled from the morning dew on angel's bosom
care if I touch you.
Man is not a man
lest his dry hand
adhere with your cold manifestation crystalline
and pleasure the shock so sublime
to freeze the manliness in your spine.
And then let us dine.
You serve to devour 
and I bring some wine. 
And let me move and take a chance. 
Let me be ever rambling like your unstoppable dance. 
And I will trade an inch for a tick.
So puzzle me and treat me a trick.
Are you a beauty or time ?
Your ceaseless shifting with grace divine.
And how can you be a poet's muse?
Killing the artist in cold 
leaving the death to amuse.
And that grim reaper left awestruck 
cursed with the poet's luck
For he knows not that this divine daughter
turns even a stone into a poet 
with a sight of her chilly slaughter 
Then put a wager on me and see me rhyme
So I can gamble with you and succumb to your crime 
And let me perish and pay 
a visit to heaven if I may
Then I will enjoy that sweet poison 
with the ticks I traded
And greet you again some summer
warm and faded.

~ Poet's note: " Timeless beauty " is an oxymoron ~

Quartz

Quartz

The quartz rattles, strapped in leather

They say tis’ getting warm, not the weather

The wicker rocks on the Venetian Waltz

A cradle not of child but a bygone quartz

What a pity to be born; what a shame to die

What a pleasure to pen this on a bourbon high

Pleasure it is my friend, to listen the quartz fly

Between the first cry and last sigh

In this ward of life, the visitors are the seasons

Wishing you false hope with rains of reasons

They greet you in turns

Placing on the side table, their fruits and flowers

Pineapples in snow and oranges in showers

But alas my friend

This salt and pepper head is too seasoned

For technicolour radio and age of the reasoned

To ye fresh flesh charioteers I say

Think of me not what I may

Wheels of quartz run those chariots you ride

Ever rambling, ever moving forward, an unstoppable tide

Waits for none, carries but itself, regardless of effort you make

The tracks it leaves behind is the only thing you may take

And soon the tracks be gone and chariot out of sight

Out of mind will depart the mind and itself from itself might

Crooked nihilist, I am not, of what you think I may

Walk those tracks while ye may, is all I have to say

The humble snail leaves behind

What Parisians in Gauloises find

A lustrous track of drunken blood

Of misfit meals and the generation flood

What happened to those who made it happen

The flattening soda and  rock n roll autumn

What of the lost souls that are no longer lost

Found in niches like ice in frost

The harvest of season past

Shall mock the shiny seeds at last

And yet the farmer reaps on so fine

So that a distant table in peace can dine

So, dear friend, I am here to say

Befriend the scythe and unrecalled hay

Epochs pass like night and day

But the jingle of quartz is here to stay

Eventide

Sunset (or eventide) is one of the most beautiful gifts of nature. This poem is an empathy of Sunset. It objectifies Sunset as an entity which feels for a human sitting under a chestnut tree. There are certain strings attached between humans and sunset. On human end of the string we find sunset  comforting and beautiful. On the other end of string the Sunset finds.....  

Defeated maybe I; yet I caress thee 

Drowning in this bottomless line; just like thou painted me  

As I intertwine with this century old chestnut tree 

By which thou art resting solitary  

I touch this nature’s furrowed paw 

And feel a century of scars on this wooden scree.  

As I embrace this grassy nature’s skin 

Unto which thou art resting solitary 

I get a sensation so akin 

As infinite blades of grass fit in infinite pores of my skin  

Defeated maybe I; yet I caress thee

Entity of past will be I soon; leaving behind this gentle golden sea

  

And yet in thee I find nothing to feel 

As I stroke thy skin and everything underneath 

What enigmatic broth doth thy soul conceal? 

Which my placid touch is unable to heal

  

Amongst the familiar voices, a whisper of air thou art 

Reticent to the pathos is thy alienated heart  

And yet I glide towards thee for intangible reasons  

As I perceive in thee a thousand summer seasons

   

Defeated maybe I; yet I caress thee 

I am defeated every day and yet I can never foresee

  

Thou gaze at me as if thou art breathing me 

As thy lungs get filled with my soothing gleam 

Solitude has hollowed thy soul as I caress thee 

I can feel thy presence as feeble as a fleeting dream 

Though thy presence be void unlike grass and chestnut tree 

But this eternal pact with solitude will set you free 

And now, I am defeated by dusk and farewell I bid thee 

This solitary air dissolves you as the horizon dissolves me 

- Salil Bhat

A Solitary God

On 8^th December 1982, the Nobel Prize committee paid tribute to an eternal masterpiece, without an equal on earth, One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was a literary diamond that shone like no other and whose brightness would blind the sun itself. It was a literary sorcery that was beyond the measure of man and beyond the calibration of time and space. But, who on earth, less than a God, could possibly conjure up such a divine creation, except for the God himself.

It was indeed a God, lurking in solitude, and turning each word into Gold. This living Philosopher’s Stone was named Gabriel García Márquez. Gabo, as he was affectionately called, was a Colombian novelist who introduced the world a genre called “Magic Realism”. It is a genre in which it becomes difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality. This made Gabo a true magician in all aspects. His magic left the entire universe spell-bound and especially Latin Americans who credit him for giving them back their history.

There are times when we say “I am speechless”, “I have no words”, “I can’t describe”, etc. Gabriel García Márquez found words for these expressions. Gabriel García Márquez found words, lines, paragraphs and metaphors for things which were otherwise impossible to describe. In his writings, he forced upon the readers, the wonder and extravagance of life.  His work is considered to be written even before the world was created and written to such a perfection that weighed every a single comma. Just one book of Marquez sold more than thirty million copies and was translated into thirty-seven languages across the world. This obstinate story-teller explored the theme of “Solitude” which made his books an exploration into solitude of an individual and solitude of humankind as a society.

Gabriel García Márquez died on 17^th April, 2014. On this day Columbia’s President declared an official three day mourning in the memory of, as described by him, “the greatest Columbian who ever lived”. But his immortal legacy lives on beyond time and space. People will cherish his Magnum Opus forever just like they have been cherishing before. His greatest works include One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in The time of Cholera and other short stories. Even in future, when entire human race would be reduced to monotonous dust, his writings would continue to live on.

Gabriel García Márquez, an alchemist of words, through his books, gave readers the feeling of swinging into a hammock, having a peaceful siesta and daydreaming of fantasies till it becomes impossible to separate them from mundane reality and till it becomes a single solitary act of celebrating life.