Caveat Lectorem

Is it because I never spoke them out back then that they return to haunt me know? Or is it that God was that dam that kept this flood in check? Because I suddenly find myself disenchanted with this moment. The present presents no allure for me. I yearn for my tender years. And the dreams of those tender years.

I understand what it is to be fortunate. I say fortunate because I’m not sure anymore whether what I’ve had these many years has been success. Success is hard-won. It’s sweat and blood. And I’ve never given that. All I have been is fortunate. Deity has beaten a path for me and bid me walk. But now Deity and I have parted ways, and I feel my fortunes waning.

I understand what it is to be fortunate. I have schooled in the finest institutions this republic has to offer. I have easily blazed a trail through every obstacle. There has not been an exam I did not leave dazed in my wake. Even math- my age old nemesis- has tasted the keen edge of this mind. The cut was not as deep, but my sword tasted blood nonetheless. And it was sweet. But that was then…

Perhaps it is because I am finally learning failure –or shall I say misfortune- that I find myself running back to those tender years when I could sit under the azure skies day-dreaming, and rise content, hours later. Achievement back then was as simple as building castles in the air. But now I find myself challenged to give blood and sweat in exchange for reward, and I fall short. And so I resort to reminiscing about that age of innocence. I attempt to make myself feel like I am still worth these opportunities accorded me; that I still possess that sterling intellect of yore. That perhaps it is not me but my lack of interest in it all that is turning me into this lacklustre carefree student that I have become. That perhaps I followed the wrong path. “I should have pursued my dreams,” I say every time I fail to turn up anything up to scratch. And thus I delude myself. Thus I keep myself shielded from bearing that responsibility that is all too clearly my burden: I have let myself, my family and those who granted me this particular honour down. I am no more than a has-been who still hopes to coast on the glory of his former years. And that cannot be.

The alternative view, again offered up by yours truly, is that I’m depressed, or bipolar, or some other bullshit fronted by the DSM IV to palliate our aching consciences when guilt gnaws at them too hard. For days on end I wallow in bed trying to convince myself that it’s all in my head, that it’s okay, that these are medical matters and that my dopamine levels are at fault. And then I think that I should get my house in order and stop clutching at these feeble straws… But how could I turn away from an excuse so convenient, so non-debatable? So I choose to lie in bed all day, letting my work fall behind. And I watch movies, and read books, and watch serialised comedies and dramas, and watch porn and hope it will all go away. But reality is at the ready to smack me at the end of my fantasy filled stupor. And this time he wears a face more grim than I have seen him don before.

For a moment I clench my balls and act the man. It is a brief and fleeting moment. Hardly have I assumed a fighting stance when he bears down at me with a ferocity hitherto unknown. He draws first blood. I flee, and learning failure once more- or is it misfortune, my flight leads me back to those tender years and the sweet dreams of that age long past. And the cycle of delusion continues, as does my fall. And how great shall be the noise of my landing!

2 A. M (Class at 7)

Night came and is now long worn

And still to wakefulness I cling

Perhaps afraid to shut these eyes

(These weary eyes!)

And wander to that vast beyond

Where among high hopes and lofty dreams

I walked bright eyed in days of yore

When the world was mine to rout and rule

When I could be one and I could be all

And I'd walk, and run, and take wing and soar...

But now those dreams...

Those dreams are gone

Reality has dimmed those eyes

That burnt back then with glorious flame

And dreamless is my slumber now

Bland, dull, and weary my starless night

And so to wakefulness I cling

There is no balm in Sleep's 'sweet' arms

From Back When I Wanted To Be Napoleon...

It is not in the straits of calm that our true mettle is revealed, not on silent sunlit waters that our character is forged. Nay. Only in hells rapids are our destinies truly altered.Let the ship steer as she will in gentle winds Captain. But when the seas rise against you, hold fast! Stand your ground, and every force in heaven, every energy, will be mustered, every angel stirred to action to lead you safe to port. Then, wear your scars with pride. To have won a war is to have suffered injury, but to have vanquished the enemy while at it. Those wounds- they are badges of honour, get out there and earn them!

Sweet as the Morning (or 5454)

Sweet as the morning…

That’s what you are

Radiant as the sunlight ooze of first light

Fiery yet warm

Glorious yet hiding

Some mystery of night

Sweet as morning’s music

That’s what your voice is

A chorus of a thousand

And another thousand song birds

Whose music bids soul rouse

From dark deathly slumber.

I would rise if for nothing

But to hear those birds sing

Fresh as morning’s crisp air

Such is your presence

Oh I feel reborn

If you’re standing beside me

I could weep were it not unmanly

At this newness you give me

My lass of dawn.

And yet…

Fleeting as morning

And her dews and her sweet scents

Is this fire we share

For soon mighty fires

Become glowing embers

Become smouldering ash

Become chilled cold hearths

And beside these bodies tremble

Desperately clinging

To each other for warmth

As to life’s failing breath

Perhaps it is good to linger in night

Hopeless

Than to find hope

Then lose it

But perhaps it is better to be

Consumed by the rapture of finding that hope

And to joy and make merry while it lasts

Than to never have sought it

At all

But perhaps only the gods know best…

That I were a god

How sweet my mornings would forever be.

On Dreaming...

These may very well be the only things I live for; for whether I admit it or not, they give my life meaning. I remember when I was younger (not that I am old now) and every so often a fire raged so wildly within me that had the world been razed away, I would have scarce taken notice. That I could relive those dawning years! Or that I could vivify again that spirit of that era long past!

I have come to that point in life that no man need come. A point where to look ahead for foresight, or behind for hindsight, or within for insight, or even above for the visions of the Divine is vanity. I find myself crippled by a fear that dream as I may, I will never anchor any of those airy castles to the ground on which men. But is it because its reality is feasible that we conjure up visions of night and day? Do we dream because it can be done, or do we do it because it was once dreamt?

I argue for the latter. Dreams are the stuff by which the progress of the Homo sapien race has been fuelled. Not that those dreams were achieved. At least not all. But in dreaming was courage found to pursue the most inane, most ridiculous of causes. And in pursuing those were the most marvellous of humanity’s leaps and bounds made. Perhaps you will not find what you seek along that road you are determined to travel. But let it be considered that something greater may chance upon you. Let it be considered that in pursuit of our whims (yet our dreams are much more glorious, more powerful than even the most un-petty of whims) those things that have lingered in the infinitely unfathomable and vast sea of knowledge, achievement and progress will chance upon we lonely sailors, leading us on to that shore where the light of inquiry can be cast upon them, and they at last can fulfil that purpose they have had since time dawned- to make man a better race, yea the best.

There will forever be dissenting voices. That barbarous mob (yet how sophisticated their presentation is) that will shout down from the sidelines, and spit and slap us for dreaming. Their ways are cast in stone. The dynamism and radical thought that characterises the truly fulfilling search for truth or solution is lost on them. Yet that is where we must go. These ageing colossi will soon go the way of their fellow from Rhodes. And ours will be the music to make. Perhaps it is the strings who must make play the winds’ music. Whatever it is, let us boldly pursue it. And let it be that when that jester failure taunts our efforts, his mockery only works to fuel our drive. We shall achieve.

Dreams are the stuff the universe is made off. Forget matter, or the atom, or the proton, or gluon, or fermion or the undiscovered tiny-on or other-on. It is the dreams of the Maker that He put into form. Those form all time and space. And we are the very height of that Divine dreaming. He points out the way. Let us dream then. And dream big.

Change (Or ' A Lame Attempt at Depth')

Is that all there is?
The sum total of life and living?
Change after the next
In an endless sequence of change
Change changing at every change of change,
Yet changeless?
Every moment different yet the same
As it has been from the beginning.
Our curse:
That all men must live it
And one day leave living it
Behind
And change
In that immortal changeless fashion
That changeless through change
And changing times has stood
Unchanged.

There is nothing new under the face of the sun
Naught but unchanging change
(Reeking with the staleness of changeless millenia)
Life viciously cycling with unchanging constancy
Changing... Changeless
Ever different
Ever the same

(Title: Couldn't Find One)

Of hearts, hushed beating
Of lungs, deep breathing
Of minds, no thinking
(Just bliss)
Of souls, meeting

Each cleaved to the other
By these flames
Bound, (willful slaves)
By these shackles
By these ties that bind
In a union unbreakable
Not even by death

A confluence of two lives
Birth of a greater stream
A flow so mighty
Nature doth not contend
That carves itself a canyon
In the hard crust of history
Immortalising flimsy flows
That alone,
(In the heat of life)
In this desert of loneliness
Alien to mists and rainfalls-
Of love, of laughter, of joy-
Beaten upon by a cruel and unforgiving sun,
Would have long been but dry and dusty gullies
Riding no more than whistling winds
Housing naught but snakes and scorpions
(And castaway demons?)
Shadows of their potential glories
Testimonies of loveless livings,
Forsaken of God...