Demiurgic Notions

Cut my arm, let me bleed

Let the scarlet river flow

Paint the town red, more crimson

I feel the rush- I am mad.

Explode, ah, explode!

Let the fire burn, fill me up

The flames lick the edge of my consciousness

They crackle, and the four walls become mere dust.

I am free!

It’s Pandora, the world is paradise.

I see the lines of life gleaming

In skobeloff and pale carmine, cyan and Mikado-yellow.

The silver-shot amethyst sky

Bathes me with its soft glow

Gypsy fey peep from the tree hollows

I laugh; the few wisps of restraint vanish

We dance wildly in that wonderland

Circle going on circle, music flowing like water

My head snaps back, I breathe in deeply

Glorious beauty, I am filled with thee.

What’s this?!?

I gasp; I emerge

The easel stands proudly

The brushes droop, tired out

My head sags in defeat

What of the filled canvas?

It is but a swift reflection,

A mere ripple in the mighty sea

For the ambrosia I have just tasted

Is like the juice of goblin fruit

I am forever thirsty, I want more

And what I have glimpsed, is nothing compared to this quotidian world.

Haiku Hassle

So, I got bored with the conventional poem, at least, with the kind I usually write. After dancing around the rhyming scheme and making Thesaurus.com my best friend, boy was I tired of stanzas! A vague idea of writing haiku instead began floating in my head. The first time I’d read it was in the House of Night books (back when sexy Loren Blake wooed Zoey with his mesmerizing ones. Yum.), but I still had no clue what a haiku was. So, it was back to the ol’ Google search engine.

Basically, a haiku is a very short form of Japanese poetry, and by very short, I mean ve-ery short. It’s usually three lines or so, in three phrases of five, seven and five respectively. Despite its size, haiku are actually pretty complex, and there are three major elements involved-

 ‘It is impossible to single out any current style or format or subject matter as definitive. Some of the more common practices in English are:

1. §  Use of three (or fewer) lines of 17 or fewer syllables;
2. §  Use of a season word (kigo);
3. §  Use of a cut (sometimes indicated by a punctuation mark) paralleling the Japanese use of kireji, to implicitly contrast and compare two events, images, or situations.

While the traditional Japanese haiku has focused on nature and the place of humans in it, some modern haiku poets, both in Japan and the West, consider a broader range of subject matter suitable, including urban contexts.’

(DISCLAIMER: Yes, I copied and pasted that from Wikipedia. So, the information ain’t coming from me. Sue me.)

After I went online and did some research on it, I tried writing a few of my own.

The first one turned out like this:

Moaning, groaning, slimy

In a pool of pale blood

My lovely baby.

Eeesh. See what I mean? It’s quite difficult.

Eventually, I did manage to crank out a few, but I’ll let you be the judge of how good they are (I’m pretty sure that they aren’t haiku at all, just random lines. Ah, what the hellJ)

The moon is Mikado-yellow

Suspended against a night of veiled beauty

Dreams explode above.

A Muscat evening

Warm, with a hollow roar

A shrill screech and people die.

Basketball swishes

The net plunges; I scream

Only sleep is my witness

Mysterious night

Dangerous lovely, what would you have me see?

Only nothing. Death.

Scopic sky

Nostalgia drags my wings

Mother, why would you have me leave?

In short, haiku are simply the most beautiful forms of poetry I’ve ever read. They’re short and get to the point quickly, but at the same time, they have this air of mystery that puts me in mind of a cold, moonlit night under a pear tree, on a snow-capped mountain in Japan. Good stuff.

Oh, That Dumb Kid!

‘Twas the biggest party of the year,
Glamour, glitz, the whole sha-bang.
Hotties of both sexes, dressed to impress,
Beer would be served too, as the rumors softly sang.

‘Course the teenager wanted to go!
A chance to make the ‘IT’ list! The coolest of cliques!
Quick! A dress must be bought! Who could forget, heels AND a makeover!
And arm candy too, to make ‘em whisper for weeks.

Alas! Alack! The parents were to be considered.

A mean lot they were, too.
It hadn’t been her fault, good grades were hard to acquire,
After all, of what use in real life were Calculus and the knowledge of the Caribou?!

But the Fs glared at her, blindingly scarlet.

Crocodile tears, hollow promises would not cajole or soften,
She was grounded till Judgement Day,
Or, at least, until her grades were less rotten.

Pah! Of what use was that?
The party was that very night!
A plan, a conspiracy was to be made,
One that could put the Duke of Wellington’s to shame (see, she did study a mite).

A sullen, constant reply was recorded and played on a loop,
A dummy was placed under her cavernous sheets.
The door was locked, the key safely tucked into a discreet pocket.
She escaped from the window into a car, very proud of her exigent feat.

Ah, what exhilaration! She threw her arms up,
And danced into the dead of the night.
Wall-to-wall stood teenagers of every shape, smoking, kissing,
Laughing and screaming, the boys in loose pants and the girls in tight skirts.

But all good things must come to end,
In this case, a drunken brawl did it.
A massive brawl! A bloody brawl! Glass and noses
Were broken alike, everybody kicking and punching as they saw fit.

A police siren screamed. The alarm!
A hundred boys and girls created a stampede on their way out.
Some collapsed on the streets, others at their friends’ place,
Many instantly arrested, with nothing to do but drunkenly shout.

Scared and humbled,
Bruised and scratched,
She scrambled into a car headed home,
When she arrived-oh horrors! - the front door was open and unlatched.

Her dad did not shout, her mum did not scold.
Bundled into a blanket, with a hot drink and a soothing hug,
She could not, would not meet their eyes,
Conscience now raised its wise head and gave her heart a guilty tug.

Her apology was halting and feeble,
But Sincerity rang true in every syllable.
They did not punish her; she had been punished enough,
By an experience both traumatizing and terrible.

For now she knew how they had tried to protect her.
She had failed them now, but her mind fiercely resolved
She would work and please them immensely, she would, she would.
And she now realized how much, for the better, she had evolved.

We blaze through life with little thought for the consequences.
But only, when faced with the toughest and most terrifying
Do we realize, that our parents, strict and severe,
Unyielding and annoying as they may seem, are right.  About everything.

The Bird of Paradise Only Pecks the Hand of an Idiot

Or

I Hate Parrots

It was one of those weekends, you know, where you appreciate the fact that you can enjoy the night without having that cold realization that you’re going to have to go home early and sit down to glare at the ghastly textbooks filled with useless garbage that  only sadists can write and course book toting professors can understand. At any rate, I was elated. The exams were over, the new James Franco movie was out, and right now, a delicious dinner of lasagna oozing with tomato sauce and mozzarella was awaiting me at Pizza Hut. As a result, I didn’t even bothering listening to the rumble my stomach gave when my brother suggested a detour to a nearby pet store. Entertainment before dinner.

Consequently, I found myself in a small, but bright pet shop, with gleaming white walls and cute wall-hangings. It was filled with cages that housed white rats and hamsters that resembled those small, warm, butter-colored cookies you’ d find in a prosperous supermarket in Oman, sniffing at the cage door or cozily burrowing in a bale of straw and snoozing away peacefully (how I envied them!). In the corner of the shop was a storeroom with a glass door,where miserable puppies lay in their respective pens, their tails barely wagging when they saw us and their round, brown eyes full of unspeakable longing and suffering. Trying to curb the impulse to wrench open the door, grab a handful of heart-wringing, furry sweetness and vamoose, I turned to the man behind the counter, and found a beautiful Sulphur-crested cockatoo perched on his arm.

It cocked its head at the people gazing at it, allowing its bright-yellow crest, almost insolently curved at the end, to dip gracefully at the side of its pristine white head. Everybody oohed and aahed as they tentatively stroked its lovely plumage, while it clicked its shiny black bill impatiently.

I watched, as the man offered the bird his finger. It began nibbling the end of the fingernail gently, almost affectionately.  Thoroughly fascinated, I extended my finger, and was overjoyed when it began doing the same to me.

‘Look, Ma!’ I cried, gesturing wildly at her. ‘The bird likes me!’ Later, when I looked back at what happened after that, I realized that calling it a “bird” was probably not the best thing to have done just then. The cockatoo, after all, seemed like a feathery egotist- His Highness probably did not appreciate being given a common, lowdown name like “bird”.

Anyway, I turned back to the bird. The nibbling increased in fervor. Lulled by the rather pleasant sensation, I missed the baleful glare the cockatoo gave me, and the next moment, it clamped down on my finger, boring a hole with its sharp beak.

I let out a yell that had the lifeless dogs howling for the dead, the fish bumping into each other in their tanks and the little guinea-pigs squeaking with terror in their baskets. ‘Ow-ow-ow-ow! Lemme go, you stupid excuse for a parrot!’ This had the cockatoo biting my finger again, and the owner finally had to yank it away from me, lest I broke one of the window panes with my sonic screams of pain.

Nursing my poor finger, which was spouting so much blood that it looked like Old Faithful at Yellowstone Park, I was ushered out of the store by my parents who were laughing so hard (my own flesh and blood, no less!) that they were bent double, my brother who had gone into hysterics at the sight of the blood-filled crater in my finger, and an extremely apologetic shop owner (who promised a 25% discount on all pet birds if we ever wanted to buy any. I was never coming near his store again, let alone contemplate buying anything from it).

As I was sat down in my car, with assurances of Band-Aids (I loved Band-Aids with Winnie the Pooh patterns) and rocky-road ice-cream positively melting with chocolate sauce and marshmallow, I turned back and narrowed my eyes at the cockatoo. It stared back very innocently for a second, and then turned its back on me, but I could have sworn, if the door of the store had opened just a little wider, that I’d heard a very distinctive, rasping chuckle.

The Ennui of Being Studious

There’s still time,

It’s ages away

There are things to do, places to be,

As long as the sun shines, I’m going to make hay.

I have not changed; I don’t see the need,

Why is everybody in such a rush?

The future cannot be foreseen, it is not ours to map out,

Let’s enjoy the scenery, while it’s green and lush.

I’m going to make every moment count,

The days may trickle away, like sand in an hourglass.

But I don’t care, I won’t care,

I’m still a kid; I’m going to remain as I am and as I was.

Maturity will come when it will come,

Why won’t people stop nagging me?

So what if I’d rather sleep than study, play than plan?

Time will not leave me behind, just you wait and see!

I want to laze around and stare at the clouds,

I want to count the curving petals of a daisy, to toss a Frisbee with my dog,

I’d love to wrap myself up cozily and watch a movie, anytime, anywhere.

Is this desire to be free so wrong?

The deadline is but a speck in the distance,

I’ll be ready when it’s in clear sight.

When the future arrives, I’ll surpass them all.

But I want to wait. There’s still time for me. Right? Right?