Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Final Testimony


Creaking panes now gather moss.
Outside, the shell now is torn to its ribs,
Opened to the battery of sunlight and hail.
Within, the plaster is loosened and falls,
Leaving my walls with melanomic skin,
Blotched with the cavities of mortars and bricks
Which shiver to its core, in the traffic rush of four,
Coughing as a consumptive could.

Groping my way through the cobwebs of halls,
I’m startled by voices of faces on walls
That long back had marched by my side.
But streets we had rumbled with such heady feet,
Now parcel our dreams to far other states,
Even beyond immigration desks.

Left with the sideshow of clowns among graves
We live out our days among logsheets of crime
In a land that is jammed in its wheels.

Should I have learnt that things would be thus?
Should I, after all the unlearnt lessons,
After so many blunders
Of so many proportions,
After all the aeons of promises forgot,
After so many, and so much more –
Should I have learnt longer back
To purge myself of hopeless hope
And drink the gall of hate and loss?

Yada Yada Hi Dharmasya
Glanirva Bhavathi Bharatha,
Abhyuthanam something something
Tadatmanam etc etc…

Questions whirl in vacant air
And leap and twirl and whisper by:
Was this the end for which we fought?

Ours was not a paltry lot.
Back in that midnighted tryst full of hope
We all did have far grander dreams.


I plod through the fields of ancestral bones,
And even as I wander among rubble smelling blood
I search for a light that shelters us all
From all those blasts that have bombed through my dreams
And charred into ashes with insatiate flame
Seeds of a time that unawakened lie.

Our hopes have bled for long –
What more from withered veins?

The courage of impossible hope,
The vision of life through undying dreams –
Still would I pray for these.

Suffer us not to stagnate and rot,
Even in these climes, these desert times
Amid the rocks and bones and dying grass.

I wish to believe to the last.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

(I think I read my first-ever quote from the Bhagvad Gita.)

This is a Magnum Opus, brother. The despair and the weight, the punch of rhyming, the artful personification...you are seriously one of the best poets writing right now. You even pick better topics than most.

Marcoantonio Arellano (Nene) said...

I would like to echo and amplify Jack's comments. You have a gift for words but more important is your ability to place them artistically, to articulate the cerebral and emotion in sync.

Wonderful creation mi amigo

Feliz Holidays

Sherry Blue Sky said...

So beautiful. One must hope and believe to the last. Such heartfelt writing, Abin. Looking forward to many more of your wonderful poems in 2013!

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful expression of hope in spite of sorrow and pain! I really enjoyed this.

Kerry O'Connor said...

I'm so intrigued by your walls with skin and faces - that is such an excellent abstract vision and works so well to bring the environment to life.

Mary said...

It is good to always keep hope alive, despite the periodic setbacks.

Happy New Year to you, Abin!

Scarlet said...

Terrific write Abin, ending with a powerful line ~ I specially like:

What more from withered veins?

The courage of impossible hope,
The vision of life through undying dreams –
Still would I pray for these.

Happy New Year to you ~

Fireblossom said...

And so you should.

Best wishes for the New Year, Abin.

Steve King said...

Powerful and eloquent. Always, there is hope in the rubble. Very fine job.

Laura said...

beautiful Abin... may hope remain alive.

Unknown said...

You skillfully carry us through a gamut of emotion, based on world truths but viewed through an artists eye. I like that you wove light and hope into the final stanzas. I, too, choose to believe. Blessings, Abin!

http://www.kimnelsonwrites.com/2012/12/31/your-essence/

LLM Calling said...

we must keep hope, happy New year http://llmcalling.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/happy-new-year-2013.html

Barbara said...

This poem seems to have come straight from the heart! So many questions - so much pain... yet there is hope in the final line! Well done. Happy New Year to you!

Barbara said...

So much pain and so heartfelt, this poem and yet a final note of hope! Well done! Hope the new year brings you much peace and many poems!

Laurie Kolp said...

Abin, this flows so well. It's just lovely. Happy New Year!

Kay L. Davies said...

When hope dies, there is nothing left, not even the rubble of which you speak.
A very powerful write, Abin. Well said.
K

Sreeja said...

Felt with every line....
Powerful! Lets hope for the hope to return....

Jennifer Wagner said...

Intense piece with amazing imagery. Oh yes, here's to hope and 'vision of life through undying dreams'...a happy 2013 to you Abin.

aelfbee said...

The light that shelters us all, all I could believe in to the last.

sayan said...

man..one of your best..and when we know how good some of the others are, we know how good this is..brilliant...brilliant...