Of pilgrimage and divinity

Pilgrimage as a niche for battered souls,
and leverage of the faithful
cure festering sins
Unholy entente, corporate deals, imperial politics
damage the essence of pilgrimage now.

Divinity is a reason for pilgrimage
and if woven with ambiguity,
is a threat to the individual
Sisypus knew it well
as does a laborer or rickshawalla.

But divinity and pilgrimage is a casual concoction of
status symbol, power play and bankrupt religiosity
for rulers and regimes blessed with timorous teeth and tenacity.

Serpentine Thrills

for D H Lawrence

She saw the snake skin first,
against the wall,
like crumpled paper,
and we rushed to read it
for clues and explanations
as though it were a discarded
love letter, which in a way it was.

We knelt together over it
with a curious reverence,
our own itchy skins full
of admiration and envy
for that ease of removing ourselves,
without the need of water, or wind.

Enchanter’s chant

Artworks are bohemian
in essence, far removed
from the gallows of insipid living.
Sometimes inane gratifications
crowd in an artist’s mind,
taboo, lust marvels his soul,tedious wrath
huddles with innocent trust.
Together they harvest
intriguing, transforming lines
like religion shaped by liaison
of a devout soul and a drifted body.

Fitful turmoil of faith

Walking in a bustling city and
presuming honking vehicles as soulless
backfires, becomes a cruel reality
as souls, these days, are mortgaged to rambling former bureaucrats
and tedious televangelists.

Chastity ridden and clerical,
they incite dread on TV
roars to suppress the feminine
terror returns,
ripping apart lives, killing many in the name of God.

The clash of ignorance is on
raised in the turbulent sea of faith
as sagacious men quarry and squander time
only to mislead.

An Area of Darkness

Nurturing a narcissistic mind
invites consistent illusions
forgotten is the weary world
provinciality forsaken.

The mind wallops Lisa Ray
manifesting a beauty obsessed temporal world

Long ago did Thoreau prophesized
through the immortal words in Walden
the ways for building of a soul
to live a life
beyond sorrow and ignominy

Baudelaire cursed ennui
deeming it destructive
utterly ravaging man
chanting for Lady Macbeth
whose soul so potent in crime
provided perfect cure
for a heart
profound as an abyss
worthy of invoking ladies of the night
While Satan spirits his soul with Faustian wishes
fuelling the dark Le Fleur du Mal

Such poetic journeys need a shattered naked soul
To triumph over the diabolic
Leading to happiness

This is soul’s journey uniting all erring humans
Quivering poets they are,
Sages of past, present and future.


# The title refers to V S Naipaul’s non-fiction An Area of Darkness

Atonement

They marched past
brittle streets,
entered a highway
of meaningless commotions,

Pouring hearts out
beating melancholy drums
told sad tales of crime
committed ages hence,

Wary of oddities let loose
state servicemen guard the procession
with a fanatics’ zeal,
appeasing
outrageously suspicious masters
busy plotting peace
while millions walk barefooted
towards the kerbala of soul
armed with sorrows and sores only.