Fathomless
And Other Poems
Samir Dash
Published by
www.patterngraphic.com
Fathomless And Other Poems
By Samir Dash
Visit poet’s homepage at samirshomepage.wordpress.com
First Published in 2009 BaishnoMedia, India
Republished with permission from the poet.
Copyright © Samir Dash, 2004
All rights reserved.
Digital Editions rights owned by patternGraphic, India.
First Edition : 2009
Current Samshwords Edition: 2011
PG2011B2
ISBN 978-1-4658-7910-3
For the girl who taught me
what I should look for, in love…
Acknowledgements:
Among my conscious debts are phrases from T. S. Eliot (from The Waste Land) and Nissim Ezekiel (from The Hymns of Darkness).
Contents
1. Fathomless
Epigraph
Closing Chapter
A Painting
Old Wife’s Tale
Utterances
A Night Preparation
Longing!
A Moral
The Celebration
Fake Castle
Betrayed
At the Strangers’ Street
The Beginning
2. When words fail...
3. Sense Betrays, Images Don't
4. I Search...
5. Burning Bride
6. Apprehension
7. What, when, which, who, why, how?
8. Have Mercy on White Things!
Fathomless
Epigraph
“Love is itself blind .That’s why it let’s you see more clearly…”
I. Closing Chapter
In the darkest of alleys
at the misty hour
an old man begging for life
in the age old remaining
of the Shiva temple.
Years before the alley was not
the morgue of dry leaves
who mutter when
you walk upon them
to warn you
against the life’s truth
man is but a ‘handful of dust’ !
With the rise of the hour-hand
and the ringing of the far away bell
the sprits rise
with their unquenched stories to be
re-opened and retold …
II. A Painting
A shadow moving across the bay
rising with the setting sun
taking a dip in the roaring sea.
Alone perhaps… deep in his thoughts
talking to self
“why one loves if
to love is to fail oneself
at the need of the moment?”
When everyone expects you
to bring some laurels;
when parents wish you
cross the crossroad,
you betray their dreams
just for a sake of an emotion!”
With the vanishing footprints
on the sand
the shadow is no more.
The leather jacket of darkness
enveloping the shadow
making him the un-detachable part
of the black paste
that paints the canvas…
“True” mutters the painter
with the thin brush
dipped in black, that spurt out
like the burnt out Palm leaf.
“The moment ago ,
What the image of the lover
that lingers at the bay thought
was my philosophy too”.
But with the change of time
and with the change of passage
one has to repair his moods
his thoughts, ideas and views.
“so, there is no surprise
if now I have
a divorced legacy of a frustrated view !”
III Old Wife’s Tale
Told the old woman
with the growing line of seriousness
resting at the far corners of her chin
the story of the old painter
who once loved a princess
of course of his dreams
not of any state.
Childhood memories are
but a part of the album,
where among the fading snaps
you search for
the sweet moments.
But the black – and – white
moments do betray
with their promises to
colour up your life…
The colour was used
to bring them to life
but as mere dark-light remainings
of the passing moment.
So, that smiling chin
above the grey shadow
of your princess is not what you see, but is
just what you can imagine
how she looked once
standing at the last corners of time’s street,
when the painter too
didn’t know except to smile
at the darkening lens
with the innocent looks.
As the miles crossed
with the dropping innocence
“we used to grow”
with our growing senses
with our passions and
perhaps
a little hunger.
IV. Utterances
“The truth is harsh, but true.
We shared, what other lovers had
except a heartfelt emotion
at least I feel that even if I agreed to share
it was a fear to her.
What prevented her to
open her thought
sitting beside me
is an unknown episode
-- a mystery book
with its last pages lost
into the fathomless dark
pulling me inside.
I sit over the heap
of dead skeletons of the glow worms
who lost their youth
in search of some sweet fragrance
of some deadly plant.
Looking around I found myself lost !”
V. A Night Preparation
“Money is hardly my aim,
but there is the lurking wish
for what it can buy”
A charming mirror
like an Yes-Man
always ready to nod
in affirmative
at every wish of the princess
“Who is most beautiful in the world?”
“You yourself, with no doubt”
replies the shining plate.
with the tempting voice
the glow in the eyes grow --
So, what if hundreds like it would
bow down to the ultimate beauty?
Wouldn’t that be more nice
to have millions
with their thirsty eyes
look up at the
sweet piece?
“Yes!”
whispers the princess
“I need something more
to prove my beauty”.
So,
when above the far edge of the sky
the blue shawl was raised
with hundreds of silvery glows
spreading across the sky,
the princess leans over the castle window
and waits for the hoofs
of the stranger
with his promise of gold.
VI. Longing!
Tears of a drop or two
dropped from the old eyes
more than the man.
but with grip of age,
the mirror cheated the million times,
cracking the mud castle
of the princess’ dreams.
“Now my lover is not here
only his remote memory is,
whom I thought a sure-thing
is now an impossibility --
a much faded dream!
VII. A Moral
The little girl
with innocent looks
right beside the Grand-Pa
looking for butterflies
points to the red beauties
over the green thorn --
“Aren’t the lovely?”
Nodded the old man smilingly
in his usual way
with a resonant voice
“Yeah, they are -- the roses;
but what makes them special
is not what they are,
but for what we keep for them
inside us -- a little room
in the kingdom of our heart
a special room”.
It is that special place
that brings someone close
makes someone a part of us
perhaps creates the rainbow
while you are standing under the rain.
VIII. The Celebration
Gold is stronger,
stronger is the lust
than the faint morals of love
“You don’t need to wait
when your body calls
to serve it with another”
Rapenzel’s hair waited for the
touch of stranger’s ride.
And princess shared the aftermath -- a sweet nothing
with the stranger -- the sweeter than the old painter”
Pink is not the part of night
‘cause it is morning to come
bringing with it an end to an erotic dream
to the flickering eyes,
trembling hands and heavy breaths.
An episode ended,
unknown to the world…
unknown to the lover
who thought she was the queen
the queen of his heart!
IX. Fake Castle
Evening falls,
not with golden chariot
to take you and move about
in the land of dreams.
The open passage
the bare feet
both are the hard facts not dreams with my each step
with my each move
what comes to my mind is
the drowsy dream of your sweet voice, of your rosy smell.
But with the company of the heartless Time
with no interest
at the beats of nerves
with the blank eyes
and in empty glance
I hear the castle falls
on the bank of our childhood
-- once we made together
against the threatening foams.
To your questioning eyes,
“we are for eternity,
not these foams”,
was the answer
that seems a lie today
a fake piece of faith
like a cracking table with
no lasting legs.
X. Betrayed
Not that they know
how years pass
with the passage of time
with the passage of sorrow and
perhaps a deep sigh.
Age was not the same
when Sun used to smile
with the rays of gold
with the fearing cold and
perhaps a hearty dream.
They used to play
on the bank of the memory
with their feet in sand and
perhaps a drop of salty water.
Time flew, like a bird
and they grew old
with their cherishing dreams
with the growing passions and
perhaps a pinch of lust.
Innocence remained no more
the part of their eyes
with the hunger of the flesh
with the sensual screams
perhaps a goal is achieved.
They have reached the goal
have known how it tastes
in the embrace of the other
in the beat other’s heart and
perhaps no need to wear the mask.
They knew, living together is not easy
as it once seemed
with the masks on
with the hunger in the hands
perhaps, it’s time for separation!
Not that they knew
how years pass
with the passage of time
with the passage of sorrow and
perhaps a little sigh.
XI. At the Strangers’ Street
When trust is in question
you never know
whom you love
and long to own
has her heart reserved for you?
When faith is in question
you never know the one you believe
next to you
has one’s ear reserved for you?
How to know, when you are in doubt
what you feel,
those sweet beats of your heart,
are not meant for the waste?
How to know, when you are in dark
what you think ---
those pleasured voices
are not to be made silent?
In the street of the crowd,
lots more to gather
you are there,
but can not utter
the rising utterances
the bitter agonies
along with the sweet pains
that your heart bears
to tell someone near, some close
those words, you long to open
In the Strangers’ street,
none is so close
not even dear !
A deep sigh perhaps,
or a long passing breath
at the moment’s end,
is what you need --
you need to exist
and to exit.
XII. The Beginning
The beatings of the bells --
the sun shall shine
over the broken walls
of Shiva temple.
The paused storm;
a young one amidst the dead leaves
all wait for a new start,
a new beginning.
What the old man wanted was
just the re-packed version
of the lost story -- to be alive again
to make a new start
from the desert of the distant past .
He said:
‘I’m forced by the five senses
to fear the five senses !’
What is waited for, is a story
I not know
But when I search for more
I see a vacant paper
where a vague memory
threat to linger !
When words fail...
The days were dark…
And the moon was out …in the nights!
But suddenly what came were no words …
But the feelings now pasted to this paper…
Saying something which only the passing breath may express…
Still incomplete and unexpressed …
May be this is what that expression…
Or something lying deep inside…!
Sense Betrays, Images Don't
Sense betrays...
Images don't.
Moving over the bridge
slowly... silently
two images sit at the far corners of the sand
hands in hand, lip on lip
like two shadows
each in other's arms
> Moving over the bridge I see,
slowly... silently.
full moon riding over the misty sky
smiling slightly with the teeth-less lips
Ages have gone by,
And history is repeated
"What you see tonight
was the dream of those two
ages before you were born, this city was born."