SeaDreamer

Sin Bici No Hay Paraiso

2012-02-04T03:28:00.000+05:30

Just coming back from Cumbaya, the cutest town in Ecuador, and suffering from the paradise syndrome. A stucco church with bell tower edges a hedge-rowed garden park complete with a trickling fountain in the center. Boutiques surround the square across a cobblestone road that leads past the mission-style Educativo where the uniformed school-children are getting out. Down the street the mountains span the view, descending into green hills and valleys, from where the fresh breeze drags the mellow sunlight to play with the palm trees and our hair. There is everything from local bakery to a Sushi bar, and I’m glad I have no money, because I would hate to know the prices.

Down a 17-km bike trail lined with flowering foliage, the spike-gated mansions turn into one-roomed tin and wood structures where children and chickens run around. It is not bereft of the layered shawls and hats of indigenous poverty, but nevertheless it holds that endless weekend feeling that can be found at Parque Carolina on a Sunday morning.

El parque Carolina is a giant green park in the center of Quito filled with all the entertainment of a mini-paradise on Sundays. Couples cuddle as children beg for a paddle-boat ride in the winding lagoon, and avid bikers dash around a hilly dirt course. Artisan venders and entertainers tarry along the tree-lined street beside the famous “Jardin Botanico” of Quito, housing a fraction of the bursting biodiversity of Ecuador. Families laugh and play catch with new puppy they picked up at the dog adoption fair going on next to the promotional heavy-metal concert going on under the grove of Eucalyptus. This population is not necessarily rich simplicity is key to their biggest joys. As bit of street art claims, “Sin bici no hay paraiso” ~Without a bicycle, there is no paradise.

Meet, Cheese and Olives

2012-02-04T03:21:00.000+05:30

My first family outing to a Baby Shower: It was a solid evening. By the time it was time to go, I decided my Indian outfit would pass for something unique at least, to avoid the other judgments. It was a nice town-house out in the mountainside with lots of nice people to kiss on the cheek. I sit down on the decked couch with my sister Naomi beside me, chatting away… or texting. This scares me because she is my sole anchor to the world and without her it’s gone. I was buried in the dose of cultural cleavage and all I could do was digest the endless supply of cute little appetizers; meat, cheese and olives, to dip in some sort of zesty mustard sauce. I was the shy curious one. The blond girl. Smile. I struggle with the need of something to say and the guilt of not having more to add to the cultural interaction- of me and a “Beby Show-er.” The words flow over in Spanish and I pick up too much to remember how to say hello. In silence my mind convulses over what to say versus observing and questioning. Young, modern, almost bored girls, and the macho guy that cradles the baby; more hellos and the streamers float among the pale blue balloons. “It’s a boy!”

I am tense and taller than most of the people there and I still don’t know what to say. I don’t even answer direct preguntas, but turn to Naomi to understand. All the while I’m thinking “How estrange.” How strange. This thought clouds over. Finally I stop trying. Driving home in the car, lost in the ebb and flow of the conversation, I finally pick out a phrase I do know: “Ella es tranquila, no? Toda tranquila.” She’s chill isn’t she? Completely chill. In the world of culture shock, I’ve just reached nirvana.

Asking You

2012-02-04T03:15:00.000+05:30

I have been very proud to learn how to ask questions, not only questions that arise in the end-of-a-chapter Review, but the ones that actually reflect what I am thinking. The ones that reflect the true issues that complicate me, but also questions that can bring out very interesting answers. Effective questions. They give me more to work with, actually increase my knowledge. I mean, forget vast awareness, I am actually gathering specific evidence of the world, and its amazing. I love it. I have asked more questions than ever before, I’ve asked to join in the factual discussion of the world.

Argue to agree, to get more out of conversations- that drives me. New realizations, observations, discoveries, and no need to keep it all because it’s all there once I’ve asked. I can see more, and its amazing. I’ve tried cereal, boiled eggs, Mote (popped maize), and not disliked a single one of them. It’s absurd. I’m discovering new sides of me as though my dislike of nuts and socks were merely facades. “I like” is a bad phrase for what should not like? To ask you must be prepared to hear an answer, you must be able to listen, and to listen you must be able to believe.

Flight

2012-02-03T00:25:00.000+05:30

Here we are in to Atlanta, flying over it at the moment. “Starting our descent.” Left at 4 am this morning on extenuating circumstances of leaving 31 soul-mates that I met last week. I am awake to say the most of this situation, since I have been falling in and out of a doze for the past several (few?) hours, next to ‘Martin’ of Belguim on the plane (Delta Airlines). He is a calm cheery level-headed person to have along on a plane-ride away.

Now we are on the plane to Quito capital of Ecuador. People were telling me to get some sleep. Yesterday, as a farewell, we each shared something we commit to, and then passed on the ball of yarn. Abigail, who is sitting next to me on the plane, committed to ‘embracing the unexpected’. My piece of string that is currently tied around my ankle signifies my promise to love the entirety of this experience. It is extremely endearing to be broken up into country groups and be sharing the experience of a stormy ride to Ecuador as unique. Abigail saw some lightening and we are in a dark cloud. It was gloriously sunny before, above the palaces of clouds, but the skies change. Especially going at 904 km/hr. Cuba is carrying a mess of storms about its shores. It is perfect for writing in this dark, dim lighting- perfect almost, as it is personal; unadulterated and free-flowing in the just-gleaming light.
We are sitting next to a young man named David, from Quito. His father works in Washington. Abigail understands español bastante (quite) well…possibly because her mother is a Spanish professor. This plane is full of Ecuadorians and some stares, so that it felt like foreign territory even as we set foot on the plane. Their features do seem to share some Asian characteristics. I got quite excited to start learning Spanish. David is nice and friendly, but he is reading an english book “Awakening” about vampires, which he does not understand much of.
I am enjoying immersing. After two weeks of intense environment and encouragement to speak, communicate, we are thrown here, where truly you must be okay with listening and lying back…Which is just as well, because I’ve lost my voice. Quito-here you come.

Why We´re Here

2012-02-03T00:21:00.002+05:30

A two-week training period that is supposed to prepare me for six-months on a foreign continent. While the whiles of South America were waiting for me, Training hit hard. Standing over my 28 lbs suitcase, I only think “I didn’t pack for this.” I didn’t have the shorts, the appetite or the expectations for two beautiful weeks in Stanford University, California.

Training hit hard. It hit with the punch of 56 different personalities from across the United States, all of us gearing up for a year of adventure. No matter the voices and accents y’all are gonna hear from our cohort, we tried our hardest to consolidate that vivacious driving spirit that brought each of us to Global Citizen Year. And boy am I glad for each of you who took time to apply.

But training hit hard. Andre and the rest of the amazing team tried their hardest to destroy our expectations with the widest possible range of possibilities. We heard from One World Futbol (NGO), Outward Bound, to Farah Sanchez on Diversity. We had workshops on video-making and teaching English and even a pool party in the beautiful Palo Alto hills. The longer I was there, the less I knew why, and the more I could take in stride. I came out humbler, I came out committed and I came out with this one promise, ‘to love the experience and everyone in it.’

So thank you Abby Falik, Andre and Nicole; thanks to all Global Citizen Year supporters, for making Training more than preparation, for making it an experience in itself.

Why I’m Here

2012-01-06T09:36:00.000+05:30

Traveling has been always a passion of mine, since those initial bus-rides ‘round the Hydrabadi loop (India), which was all my mother could do to quiet my infant cries. Even then, the entrancing rhythm of being in motion, underneath the hum and roll of people talking, brought me home like nothing else could, just as I am now in love with the constant roll of the Indian trains, where people are chugged and dragged along through dust and door and urgent stations. Finally the beggars’ songs and calls of “Coffee! Hot Hot Coffee!” fade out long enough to cause the passengers to introduce themselves, tumbling out of their protective shells to cling to the fact that we are all going somewhere, we all have somewhere to be.

In such a place, even a third-culture child like me is welcome. But as I broke through culture shock in American high school, I realized that everyone must tell their story;community can only be achieved through personal resolve and a willingness to reach out and be involved in the world around me. My open smiles and up-raised hand were the beginnings of a living dialogue which melded together our stories to create a class ready to discuss, debate and decide a path most fitting our combined future. And I know this is true for a much larger world beyond my home.

The trick to being a Global Citizen, as to being a train passenger, is to let yourself be open to dialogue, wherever your journey takes you. I look forward to the adventures Global Citizen Year will take me to in Ecuador this upcoming year, and I plan to plunge in wholeheartedly as I open myself to a whole new range of cultural experiences.
I hope to watch a new “cultural railway” unfold between the far dispersed and diverse populations of the world, so that others can enjoy, like I have, the extraordinary phenomena of human interaction; and I invite you to join me through this blog. Though untrained and inexperienced, I enter the world with an open mind, a passion for human progress, and a mentality of solving problems and giving my all to the work I do.

Service, or Purpose

2010-11-20T10:54:00.000+05:30

Returning from night-time preparations for Homecoming activities with a bustling group of Seniors: This is a moment I cherish in the flow of seasons of being what I am. Caught between the service to others and explosion of chaotic creativity that causes me to rush at all directions and yet find myself still, in that place where a beautiful world is whirling around in its own rhythm offering us passage to opportunities beyond what our meek imaginations claim. A chance to put up that model-ship mast, decorate that wedding tent in flowers, join my voice in the chorus of a bonding song; all calling me to take part in a bigger piece of art which forms the framework of the world. For in each little stitch, each little step I take, each load I lift, I paint a little more of the monotonous with a stroke of heartfelt interest. The masterpiece of our cumulative un-synchronized efforts begins to weave the path of survival through the tragedies of the past into a way through the future. A million tragedies are met by a billion hopes for the future; in broken homes and fading languages, empty libraries and homeless men, we can find a nascent child, a home to fill, a hand to hold. This is the sketch I see, and in myself I see a tool to begin painting. I am untrained and inexperienced. But I enter the world with an open mind, a passion for human progress and a mentality of solving problems and giving my all to any work I do.

Lotus

2010-09-12T10:23:00.002+05:30

He loves me

He loves me not

Beautiful, familiar

He is a stranger in his eloquence

Where is my heart without him?

But when shall he know the heart

that is within?

Our little smiles, familiar sweetness

To cover the distance

of lies.

Lies not to lie, not to hurt,

But to protect

myself

of the terrible unknown

He speaks of love

Have we ever gauged the depth

of one to another?

To uncover we stand

face to face

hope for grace

This transfer of energy

is no easy task,

just hoping that one day

The faces will fall away

The days will melt away

the glances will carry a gift

from one to the other

The man will stand up

The woman won’t back down

We will stand

I love him

I love him not

Fuzzy but fading

funny but failing

Honorable, Gold

in the light

Does he stand in the darkness?

Is this laugh superficial?

That deep laugh, rising from his chest

The realest joy I’ve ever felt

That smile when he just

loses all control of his expression

His joy- do I have the strength to make him smile?

He won’t call, unless there is a reason

I am dying to hear his voice

you think this is a lie?

If not love, its at least addiction.

The eyes, deep black

reaching out to take me in

For once let me sink to my knees

and cry.

You are still there

And you are still golden

And you are still the best

So let me be yours.

I love you.

And am willing to believe

despite the difference

and the futility,

You love me.

16^th July 2010

Wages

2010-09-12T10:21:00.001+05:30

How long will this go on

a lie within a lie, game within the truth

Hassled bundles of emotion

Haggled together to find relief

Friction caused to bind the thief

to the robbed

and the stolen.

Worthless fought with earnest work

to keep somehow something shape or form

Laughter plagues the bedraggled ears

of chaos, Instantaneous; Tears

fight me back with mortal wounds

Over and over I plead guilty

Leave me to my own defects

Pain cannot envelope this grief

So the tragedy remains dry and tasteless

Walked through the days repeat

Back these roads are wry and paceless

Stuck between the greenly pages

These horrors can’t be rendered faceless

Masochistic optimism

draws in the flies like to a prison

Beating in a restless soul

Sell to me a glassless prism

Lit up enough

to light the sky

Free the pond’s delinquent cry

End the race and kill the die

Bird for stone and rock for sky.

31^st August 2010

Hoping

2010-07-24T07:47:00.000+05:30

The heart.
My heart is sinking
like the sun on the horizon
Yearning for people to be happy
Unhappy is not the place to be
Unhappy is shaken
deflation of spirit
frustration of mind
Sorrow can be good though too
Sorrow can be fine
Sorrow can accept
and be content
Sorrow and Joy combined
Nothing to do about weight on your chest
But let it go and be fine.
After a while
The sun will shine
With joy. True joy.
Joy that’s experienced truth
Joy that’s experienced sadness
Makes it much more complete.
This is why we live together on this Earth.
For the joy and tears
Beauty, love and dissension
Here I am hoping for love
I am hoping for love
I am hoping for love
I am hoping for love
From you.

Black Marble

2010-07-24T07:45:00.000+05:30

Twang wire sunlight
Burning down faster
than winter sunlight
I’m crying with my ribs
I want to see the Black stone
That we stand on
Ridiculous- we stand on
Marble black.
reflects the light
We soak up the heat
or on the black
But we are good
But we are white
We are fire
We are singing
To never stop
We are smiling
To never stop
So the water sea
will erode the soil
the black marble
The black marble
and the soil
will be new.
Will be red soil
Will be happy
Will be alive
will be there
When I die
‘Cause I am not dying, Red Soil
I am not singing to slime
To black soil
You are growing
You are growing
and red soil
goes black
The roots are delving
Deeper
You know it
You know it’s planted
I am rooted
and growing
in the red soil
They scatter my buds though
They scatter my blood
Mother
don’t stop
For I am still
of a fruit
and for the love
of the sky.

18th March 2010

Caller ID

2010-07-24T07:41:00.001+05:30

Cry for the hurts

Caused by stuck up souls

Chats over a cup of coffee

That tormented the politics of freedom

Have you ever heard

the cries of my soul

As I tell you how my dad’s dying

And my mother’s lying

to her soul.

Do you not see how I lie to you

When I say the pain is theirs, not mine

Do have a heart that dares

To look into another’s eyes?

No doubt you’ve lied of reputation

You’ve saved your own through refutation

You can say nothing to me

That isn’t true

‘Cause I know your number.

The pain you’ve had

Is buried in a cave of dissatisfaction

We dug you up

To get robbed of priority

Holding hands is like temptation

Bloody hell is left for Satan

Takes a grip to make one sick

And hope is lost amid frustration

Don’t call me again

Caller ID is the new thing

To fall into the swing of things

Is to let go of the past like we never knew

That I’d have your number

But you know what?

It’s the flames of fruition

That suck up the strokes of my pen.

No one owns no one.

No one knows no one.

No number is known.

Ashes

2010-07-24T07:39:00.001+05:30

Dying
on the inside
I believe in rebirth

Burning
through the layers
of masochistic insanity

I don't hate myself
I don't hate anyone else.
I just hate this feeling
That I don't belong

Belong perhaps
because of color and shape
Belong because of my name or my face
Belong because of right
Or terribly wrong

Do I deserve?

Its not a matter of comparison
I cannot be worse than a friend
I must only be the best
of myself
Standards on my own

But you, my mother, my father
My sister, my brother,
teacher and holder
caretaker, caregiver
You teach me the standards
I live by.

And yet they are my own.
Do I deserve?

Does this pain
correctly allocate the blame;
correctly certify the guilt
correctly advocate the shame?
Take this away, this seamless tide
of what and who and why I was.
Lies that name the darkest things
a person ever hoped to be.

I have been hurt
Let there be no lie.
The guilt gives me no strength
No moral fortitude resolves
What I have done.
No anger to vent
No soul to be rent
Poor savior, be sent
to my side.

I fear nothing more
Than the doubt
That I will make it out alive.
I couldn't care less for punishment
sorrow
If only I knew my heart would heal.
If only I knew my heart could still feel
The sunshine on a rainy day
And know that I'll be fine.

Dying
on the inside
Lying
in the rip tide
Crying
to be sanctified

There must be rebirth.
But do I deserve?

Soldier

2010-07-24T07:07:00.001+05:30

The music is changing

The heart-springs that pull me apart

Its then that I know

I was less than a song from the start

Cause heartbeats don't change
the color of my skin
If you want me to break
It'll take more to win

My neurons are linked
like a twisted flower
I'm wired like a war-tank
Its built like a tower

You blood doesn't stop me shuddering
Holocaust is a revolution
of the gruesome infinite reality
Into sickening sadly sunken ships.

My works are sacrificed
for your every call to help
But helping is consistent to myself
And your eyes tell me you are defeated.

I am sick with your loss
You glassy-eyed thing
But I cannot stop
I report to the king.

Repertoire, Commissary,
Painless job, delivery

Its my job to administrate
the movement of the fireflies
Its my dream to stay awake
At least until the fire dies

And though you ponder
what controls me
At least my Captain
is raging free.

Storyteller-cursed to tell
Stories like an axe-on-tree
Its histories you're cursed to fell
And stop the truths from hitting me.

Repertoire, Commissary
Painless job, delivery.

They hired me for the face
That told them they belong
In a stopped-clock salary
I think my face was wrong.

And I am sick with losing you
Your glassy eyes still torturing
I swear there was nothing I could do
I keep reporting to the King.

Ignorance not worth this price
You death worthier than you life-
It is my hope to be deceived
But truth is sharper than my knife.

Repertoire, Commissary
Painless job, delivery
I live and die in painless greed
Your king was mine
and we believe
In parking brakes and rusting keys
Change of gears
And we are free.

16^th May 2010

Force Me

2010-06-25T10:32:00.000+05:30

I walk away

to hear you say

‘Why do you do this to me?’

I come to you

and here you say

‘Why do you do this to me?’

I come to be

here for a day

to see you laugh

or turn away.

To leave me naked

to leave me bare

to leave me dying

or in despair

I walk away

to hear you say

the words that bring me back again.

Oh, please may I ask a single question-

Why do you do this to me?

P.L.Rao

4^th April 2009

Thirsty

2010-06-23T04:27:00.000+05:30

Laughs
Like the tinkling of a shell twig
in the wind

Ragged breath
Like the removal and renewal
of dirty sheets

Do you die
for the joy of the coming
generation?

Gritted teeth
To hold together the misinformation
of carnation

Drinking up
The elixir of glittery satisfaction
To be yours.

Dry as
a silly bee
in the autumn season
To be consumed by
The absence of
nectar.

21st June 2010

Divergence

2010-06-23T04:26:00.000+05:30

I could see the whole dress
Ripping down the seams
The dress of our relationship
Falling from my skin
And I will never be ready to be naked
Without you.

And I could see your hand fall away
There is nothing left to give
In the silence of the night
Your breathing shall not give
The comfort it once did.

At least in the quiet moments of night
peace can carry us to sleep
I never wanted to dream up lies
And now there is nothing left between us
To escape from

This dress drifts to the floor
And I am free from the itchiness of its weave
But some discomforts are worth living with.
And I’m still not sure
I am rid of you.

Nothing can force this silence down
But our words are heard unspoken
The harmony that our hearts play out
Has never ceased to make perfect sense
This ragged love can no longer delay
The point of our divergence.

15th May 2010

Woman

2010-06-23T04:11:00.000+05:30

Women are beautiful
Was there ever any doubt?
And when they step like a flower
To the light
And as I wander
So aim-less-ly
We may safely say
That she is I and I am she
Womanhood.
Is a state of red blood
And fair skin
Tough love
and hard faith
And no home
will ever be as home to me
As the home
a woman
makes for me.

May 1st 2010

Taking you back

2010-05-01T11:11:00.001+05:30

This may kill you
To hear me say
That you are dirty
Dirty like a killer plane
Crashes in the flames.

Dirty in the betrayal
Shore up what is left of your love
Among the muck of sick
betrothal.

You grabbed me by the hooks
And raided my pockets
It’s a hard world
To stay warm in.

If the fires are ever relit in your heart
Then may you go through the pain
of remorse
And relearn the meaning
of human.

And if the hopes are ever aroused again
May you remain isolated
Till you have the strength
To forgive yourself.

And if I’ve done you wrong
Then what have you done to me?
In pain and sorrow
All you could give is an apology.
And to give you’d have to reach me
And to reach you’d have to find me
And to find me would a job for you.
For Im living life,
And you have been dead.
And I don’t plan
on taking you back.

30th April 2010

Listen

2010-04-28T06:48:00.000+05:30

To withhold myself and listen
When my heartbeat wont stop flying
To deny myself the simple right
of selfish ambition
By physical power
to prevent my indulging
in pleasurable worry
To stop myself and listen.
By mind I lose to personal daydreams
By heart to distracting desires
By decision I withhold
my personal pursuits
silence my spider-web mind of matters
and Listen
when there is someone speaking
To hear when someone calls
To learn when someone teaches
What have I missed
in searching for what I thought I wanted?
Who have I hurt
in finding what I thought healed me?
Home I have lost
in the race for some elusive ‘other’
Call me home
And I will come
Hear my call
Answer me
I withhold myself to listen.

9th March 2010

Moth

2010-04-28T06:38:00.001+05:30

What is life, but a few more hours of adventure?
What is a life saved to be lost months later?
What is a name
engraved on a tombstone wall?
What is the line between the light and the darkness?
What has been lost to me
by the fall of my faces, my society
my loves, my friends
My mother
What is more glorious than the touch in the darkness
than the pounding of light between hands
The swinging in the sky
The sailing of wings in the air
To pound and pull and strain to fly
higher and higher and higher away

25th January 2010

Seen

2010-04-28T06:32:00.000+05:30

Seen
For the lies I’ve told
Though my eyes told the truth.
And my heart yearned that you know
with out my saying.

Seen
For the smiles you mocked
Though my heart was warmed
With the thoughts you found
To be low

Seen
For the tears
I needn’t have shed
‘Cause I thought there was more wrong
Than there ever had to be

Yet I made the anger real
I made the tears a joke
I made the laughter die
I made the lies belie
What I wanted you to know.
This is a paradox of expression
In that I let you see
what I was not,
I let myself conform
To the shape of your eyes.
Forgive me though
you may not.
I still choose
To forgive myself.

26th April 2010

Cocoon

2010-04-28T06:26:00.003+05:30

The running, the screaming
The friends and the teaming
Your cries, and my lies
Your laughter so harsh
to my ears.

This talking,
not walking
Sitting, tick-tocking
Your faces so blind
to my fears.

This moment not stopping
My clattering talking
Till your hand comes to rest
on my tears.

Some slowing,
Some stopping,
Quiet and rocking
wiping, and soothing
slowing,
then stopping.

Peace swallows chaos,
Takes chaos in its arms and puts it to sleep,
and there in cocoons, the chaos blooms,
and grows into blossoms of a better kind of light,
and there in cocoons, the chaos blooms
and forms the foundation of a better kind of life.

16th April 2010

Crowned

2010-03-30T11:34:00.001+05:30

It’s the fire
that is singing new
in the cavern of my soul
as the sheep are calling
for peace
And the wolves are
chasing me through
shadows and darkness
to torment
and devour the flesh
That can express
only half of what I feel
And yet can symbolize so much more.
For I am a lion
in flaming gold
Falling down upon the Earth
as a thousand sparks of starlight.
I am raging
Firefly
to be caught
by some handsome spider
that will burn in the flames of
my hate
And the ransom will not arrive
before I am free.
HourNeverKnow
For this is the reason
I grow large day by day
with the changing of the seasons,
I am not the same
But the same heart overrides
the same heart overcomes
the same face becomes
what is, has always meant to be.
Patience a somber cast
that holds me back
But when I finally surrender
to its encircling arms
It lifts me up like a bird upon the crest of sunset
and walks me through the beaches of eternity
This sky is beautiful
and so are my eyes
when you have been reflected
in them
Darling-don’t step back
the waterfall of H2O
is carrying us through
like never before
I am here, as are you
and the sunrise here
to pronounce us King & Queen

4th February 2010

The World

2010-03-21T08:37:00.001+05:30

Everyone Says that the world
is progressed, modern and intellectual . . .

But when everything sounds like angry thunder
and all of this trash is under
the feet of a bunch of dunder-
heads
and my house is left in cinders
and can’t be fixed by builders
and I can’t find any funders
and none are helpers, just bystanders
and there are lots of papers in binders
made by trees ground in grinders
and people are just wilder
instead of being kinder
then I begin to wonder
if the world has been led into a great, big blunder.

21Oct. 2005

My Stutter

2010-03-04T07:23:00.001+05:30

I try not to speak
when there is nothing to say
But when you’re there my heart
is in silence.
And I want to share it with you.
I speak and stutter
And struggle to speak
In the hope of a quiet moment
Between our tossing words
Tossing upon a ravenous sea.
See, I speak to you
To hear you talk
To play with your words.
When you are speaking
I explore a wooden glen
I wade in the chilled stream
I watch the sunlight land upon you
I am free I am safe
When you speak, and when you don’t
There is a peace
I find with you
Do not see when I stutter
I am speaking silence
And smiling too.
All I’m doing
Is waiting for you.

Priyanka
25th February 2010

Black Dress

2010-03-04T07:14:00.003+05:30

Twisting into a new dress
For another little tryst
With society
To take a new form
for this particular set of eyes

These eyes though
are itchy and red
getting tired of seeing
People wear black more nowadays
More sleep, more darkness more amour
Less cited stains
Its easier on the perfect eyes
of that generation-
Weddings, Funerals
Sons and daughters.

We are not a colorful home to be in
and its time to get changed.
The guests love to see
your young vital bodies
move beneath the black.
Just keep moving
Keep grooving
Keep up the beat
Make it better
if you can

We don’t want no improvisation
No modification
No simplification
We want your moves
We want your bodies moving
to the beats we know-
We want the love
C’mon, its supposed to flow
from those young black hearts of yours
Get out there
and dance.
~Priyanka
8th Feb. 2010

Stationary

2010-02-09T09:10:00.002+05:30

Yes I will
I will.
Standin’ around for the sake of standing
Stationary
Everyone thinks they are going somewhere
Even the clouds are departing now
Huntless travelers.
When everything is moving
The traveler is the one standing still.
I had a dream last night
that I was standing next to you.
But we can't trust these dreams any longer
Their truth is as rare
as blood on water
They have no pity for human souls.
So now I stand alone.
Sunday Monday
doesn’t deserve this kind of thought.
Wednesday is the day where the people wake up
Wake up out of exhaustion
they get high when they’ve got nothing left to live on
When the sleep has run out
and the sunburnt night can’t sleep.
I shall awake.
I will.
Yes I will.

Well

2010-02-09T09:08:00.001+05:30

Do you see the lights
Shivering in the darkness
at the edge of the water?
How much warmer the reflections
seem to be upon the well water;
Beckoning warmth from you heart
to fill the shivery depths of the well
and light the rims of that round
chasm of water.
-like gold rings to protect you
a ring of fire encircling you
in the darkness
How the rings of light
are cast upon the age-old stone
drawing me to the middle of the well
Leaves and murk drift in the water
Leaves flutter with the fish of darkness
And the snails snuggle
along the muddy ground, with sharp
stones and the water of the well.
Forgotten garlands of marigold
float in the water
Twisting and tangling as if to strangle
some hopeful throat that reaches
for that warmth
of the candle
on the step
next to the water.
My feet are wet
and my toes snuggle in the soft mud
That glows faintly like glory
In that stout candle’s flame
So brave, in this dimly lit cavern
of the well.
The water is cold
And my clothes are dried of sweat
Do you know how much I love you?
The candle won’t burn forever
And the light won’t last the cold
It is time for bed
So sink you’re knees
in the mud with me
Wet our foreheads with the light
that is reflected from the candlelight.
The ripples leave my fingers as if
stealing my love
and chasing it up the well walls
in ringlets of light
that go playing up the wall of stone
Leave your jewels in the water
Leave you jewels in the water
See the hidden crickets chirping
a nightsong silently to me.
They tell me of my dream
And lies I’ve believed,
the candlelight is waking me up,
before I bury my feet in the cold mud
I cut off my hair
where it bothers me most
And tie the rest back.
I cover myself in the shawl
I wrap it around my shoulders and arms
I get out of that water of the well
I heat and fireflies poach the water
from my feet and my toes are warm.
I step into my shoes
I leave the well
I love you
I love you
But do not turn around to look back
into the depth of that well
and its little lights
That candle will go out
in its own time.
No need to sing that song again
You know where to go
And so do I
You know where to go
And so do I.

Priyanka
Jan. 2010

Tired

2010-02-09T09:07:00.000+05:30

On the road,
in a class
At the door
walking past;
There are faces
I yearn to know
I need to meet
But cannot reach.

The inability to express
The inability to shout
The inability to scream
A prisoner to doubt.

I cannot say what binds me so.
I am happy with a moment or two
of anger. To get me by.
I do not have the energy any longer
to fight.

I have fought and I have won,
and what have I gained,
but fire in my belly
and fire in my heart.

All the steam is rising
from the lake of my dissension.
I long to rest,
and feel the softness
of a kindred face-
To touch the wounds
of a blundering soul.
Someone to forgive
the crimes of angry nights,
And tell tales of struggles past
and overcome.

The fire still burns-
the embers low
The coals still glowing
with hungry heat.
I slave to cast away the fuel
Of my anger, and my wrath
For its hunger eats me up
Sucks the vigor from my limbs.

I sleep, and in dreams I see
Strangers that I love
and strangers that love me.
They say love is a decision
But I cannot afford to hate.

Lest it darken coming nights
Harden the sunset, once so bright
Turn the working hands to stone
Turn a life to brittle bone.
No one can afford to hate.

The sun is gone
The stars awake
The dreams begin
I lie awake.
No will to fight
A hopeless night…
What is there to do
but love, and wait?

Priyanka
24 October 2009

Unliving

2010-02-09T09:05:00.000+05:30

Doubt flickers
inside the box..
for where there used to be life
there is only peace

In the constant movement
of the holding hands
She finds extreme irritation
in the fiery palm-lines.

She suddenly finds
something against life
and movement
and pain and joy.

But the possession
of this demon
passed away
and life comes and goes
along its own way.

Its impossible to judge
when or where or why
anything happens,
anything is done to us,
by ourselves.
I see your heart
Always returning to
the one place
where everything is meant to be.
But is it your heart
or simply a dream,
or a hope,
or a deep desire for goodness?

Where is the truth;
so lost in the mists of myth?
Where is the simplicity;
lost in the multiple facets of reality?
Where is the surrendering;
so essential to the beating of the heart-
but seems so abstract, so buried
Hiding beneath my feet
Crawling around
where it can’t be reached.

oh, breathing
of the summer air.
Is it any cooler up there?

Priyanka
15 April 2009

Boxtop

2010-01-04T09:29:00.002+05:30

This is for a new heart to fill everyday
a hope is born TO SHINE
Not ever to fall or fade, but to be remembered
till the end of time,
Where it will rise again
TRIUMPHANT
over all things
without and within
the human mind.
Amen.
30 July 09

Flutterfly

2010-01-04T09:24:00.004+05:30

Fluttering
Flattering
Settling Jitterfly
Jingling
Jungling
Glittering Jewelfly
Spiraling
Sprinkling
flowering Flutterfly
Bumbling
Nectaring
Hovering Suckerfly
Windy sigh
flowers die
Sailing by a Butterfly.

Season

2009-12-05T11:55:00.007+05:30

Did they tell you?
Did they tell you the news yet?
There is a change of season.
A change in the decade,
colors in the sky.
People too, are turning red
and white, and dead.
There is light in the sky
but it is not of the stars,
but more of the scars
which are borne by the earth-
this green planet upon which we live.
This beautiful scarred planet of life.
Yes, a change of season
that leaves the icy mountains
and is riding down the wind.
It loves to chase and scatter the hopes we have built
in the stagnant air.
Thirst slowly drives us mad
as the fires of humanity
are extinguished and driven down;
the last portraits of empire
slowly fade away.
Here I am walking
from one room to another
in the care of myself or another.
I seem to exist
for a fraction of a second,
a flutter of a leaf,
a sheaf of candle flame
that is so slowly falling
to the ground,
to settle among the other leaves
of passing seasons.
There is a change of season,
did you hear?
And people are changing-
red, white ... and blue.
There is a place where these colors paint the sky with beauty
An overflowing of paint
upon fresh young flesh
vibrating and alive,
and shining with all the colors of the earth.
These are the children our race
Standing among the reds and browns of fallen leaves
and dirt.
These are the painted children
who are rising up among the ashes of our fire
To stand like rainbow silhouettes, against the sunset.
These are the winged children
who take flight
upon the driving winds of change
These are the gold and silver
the light and shadow
the sunshine and stone
of the future.
These are the children
that reach beyond this black block of time
that step through the waterfall of age
and fall of autumn leaves.
These are the children
of the seasons
And the light of the world.
4th Dec. 09

Hunkerville

2009-12-02T09:45:00.009+05:30

Another day in Hunkerville
A place where men slump
and feet bump each other down the path to home
But the Sun still shines
like in the days of the young.
And occasionally the men
even have a heart to dance,
jiggle and juggle
have a bit of fun,
And then there are the rainy days
when the air frizzes up
and cranky turns crikey
and there's a little twist to the tale...
Hunkerville is weight
on the shoulders, even the lungs,
a bit of silence, stuffiness, coughing.
Where the mist plays with the sunrise
before it reaches the ground.
But oh, it still lights up their eyes
When they look up to see the morning sky!
Men don't go slow in Hunkerville
The world just goes slower for them.
There's no reason to die in Hunkerville
where the men stumble down their paths to home.
It's just a place to be
when the cloudy days are hunkering down
for the season.
Love is a reason to sing
in Hunkerville
And talking is a 'take it or leave it' deal
There are people there
who don't know where they came from
and are trying to find a reason to be there
But Hunkerville is a place to be
when you need a safe place to be for a while
Without any reason at all.
Hunkerville is not a question.

Hunkerville is a season
A walk down a muddy pathway
on a day when you've lost your balance
and people are a blur
as they walk by your place.
They don't stop for a glance at brown.
They are cool and cuddly
And sometimes they blink so slow
You get lost in the depth of their eyes.
They are beautiful between the falling leaves of fall.
All the colors
that come before white.
Hunkerville is walking on the right side of the road
and counting your footsteps.
Men count their footsteps in Hunkerville
till their boots are worn,
but they've lost count
plenty of times before.
There seems to be a sunset in Hunkerville
But no one knows the scheduled time
until it comes.
1st December 2009

Prisoner

2009-11-16T08:04:00.002+05:30

Nothing can stop
the meeting
of angels.
Then fly on
through prison doors
To make homes in the heart
of our prisoner’s soul.
Prisoners- we have committed the crime
of silencing what you have said.
Our prisoner speaks
in the darkness of night,
among the bad dreams,
or memories of crime.
He speaks of innocence
like only the guilty can.
And, still, we listen
and we understand.
Though we are bound
to the seat of the soldiers
The prisoner stands like stone,
before the window.
Where a little light has entered,
To taunt the darkness of our eyes.
But we can see
the prisoner speak.
Angels ascending from the stone,
With the faces of children
who have gone.
With the faces of children
who have gone.
But the prisoner remembers them.
More than we.
Angels from heaven
or angels from hell,
bringing news,
And news, may be good
and terribly sad.
He knows the angels,
And sings to them
if they ask.
And angels meet
in the strains of his voice.
Nothing stops the meeting
of angels.

8th August 2009

The New Priyanka

2009-11-16T07:53:00.003+05:30

The new Priyanka
walking around the neighborhood
with a green painter's hat
over her eyes
and earphones of an iPod
in her ears,
a jhola from Jerusalem
hanging on her shoulder,
knee length navy blue shorts,
with her hands fidgeting
with the penny in her pocket,
under a casual chocolate-brown t-shirt
and the emblem- ‘Hang loose’
dark blue, coming apart:-
A plain silver ring
On the strength finger
of her left hand,
picked up from the dust
of the Ghats;
As she walks to the rhythm
of the music and the cars;
Watching the hills in the distance
covered in trees and golden grass.
Staring at the blue blue sky
as if it is
her natural contestant.
Her eyes speaking
to that sky- 'Fine, you want to play this game with me...
Then here I am, waiting,
Here I am
And there you are...
I'm waiting."
And God stares back down
at this little girl,
Nodding at the blacks,
Nodding at the whites
Nodding at the Mexicans
A green glass Cross hangs
from the sacred red thread on her neck,
Hidden underneath the brown,
where only the Sky can see it.
Wondering if that car will hit her.
Wondering if God will take her now.
Wondering if she'll have to see Papa next week.
Wondering if she will weigh 2 more pounds tomorrow.
Wondering if this is how life goes.
Now, in an agreement with the Sky
A new Identity has been established
She is free to exist
in the form she was born
Free to face the world
Free to question without having an answer
She can now walk the streets
with a new name to hold.
A new cause to exist.
A new reason to be.
Smiling at purple flowers
So simply in bloom
She swings around to say goodbye.
She walks like she is lost
But at least she's still walking,
with a light white rose
in her hand.
She is not new,
she is not old
She just dropped out of the sky
And there
she is.

Obvious

2009-08-03T05:52:00.004+05:30

That is enough to speak of for now.
A hope for tomorrow.
And a love of today.
Is all you need
to fall a asleep on a night,
where nothing is different
from the day before.
Why do we happen to search for those faces of yesterday
when they don’t even exist in the people of today?
People stare at eachother
for an awful long time.
God knows what they see.
A pot is the same,
whatever it holds.
Mine holds quicksand,
and flowers are growing from it.
I’m supposed to pick the weeds,
I might do it tomorrow,
When I find them.
Would you like to be back in yesterday?
I’ll meet you there if you want.
We can talk about what happened
today.
And remember the things
that didn’t really happen,
when I was three.
I’m sure we’ll know the answer
to the question I’m asking you now
about the color of the sky,
when you knew the God that hid there.
Mine was hiding
inside me.
And now I’m walking
to the beat of that new song
they stuck on the radio
last week.
I’m sure there was some subtle meaning
to what it said.
But maybe it was a bit more obvious
than I had believed.

Priyanka
2 August 2009

Witness

2009-07-31T09:30:00.006+05:30

The pain of dark moments
in our past
haunt us between
the blinks of our eyes.
We turn around in our beds
To see them lunging at us
like dark monsters.
For us
these monsters come
and hunt.
The burden of fear
slows a man down
like nothing else can;
So we hold back from the future
While we’re running
from the past.
This is the curse
of evil moments,
to which we have been
even just witnesses to.
Witness Alone.
Sometimes this
is not enough to save a man
from the burden of guilt
for the crimes that are committed
on this earth.

Priyanka
30 July 2009

Survival

2009-05-17T04:20:00.004+05:30

Dying
Letting be
what is, I am hanging
by a tree.
Life twists me
and shakes me
It wants me to scream,
So I scream out loud
for the mountains to hear
But feel nothing.
I am singing
through the winds
Breathing
is all that is left
to my heart
so I am breathing in every hope
and breathing out every thought
and leaving nothing
for my stomach to digest;
My heart is beating
like a slow poison-
and the days are passing
through a bus window
to some other place …
But nothing can take me away;
I am not going
anywhere.

Priyanka
18th Feb. 2009

Suicide

2009-05-06T08:34:00.006+05:30

Falling through the curtains of water to a pool
thousand feet below . . -
I see it in the fishes eyes
the redness of change, perhaps shock
before the splash
of cold ending
that will be mine,
hopefully before
I ever feel I need it
I’m breathing
Stopping
Screaming
as loud as it goes
as far as the sky
I’m sending out
nothing more
than a wave.

Priyanka
31 Jan. 2009

Leaving

2009-05-04T14:09:00.002+05:30

I say to the sun
as it runs me by
if it will stay
to say goodbye.
'Oh no, I never do.
Because I am a flame
And I ride by round and round
blazing through the stars
You see me
when you're eyes
are open
looking for a ride
to the skies.'
So I said yes.
I see you coming; I see you going
I will be there
at the neck of the next wind,
and follow the flame
of your ruthless eyes
but for now,
I will say it for you
Good Bye.

P.L. Rao
1st Feb. 2009

Hopes

2009-04-28T12:01:00.001+05:30

Everything changes
and the truth turns away
to protect those little dreams
from the touch of the world
To let them be
as there are meant to be
at peace, complete
in silence
For them to exist
as all of them have,
in the hold of the universe
rotating, revolving
still,
like the stars,
dancing, spinning
turning
laughing
playing,
each in her own place,
in the universe.
Here we are.
Priyanka
26th March 2009

Mantra

2009-04-28T11:14:00.001+05:30

Bless those eyes
Bless that heart
Bless the breathing
Bless the art
Cover those eyes
Cover that heart
Open the breathing
Soften the art.
Stop the coughing
Stop the cheering
Stop the choking
Start the breathing
Soften the stone
It can’t stop seething
with utter cold hardness
with snake-cold kneading
Temper the leather
Temper the wood
Temper the air
which comes in as my food
Remove the bitter
destructive question
Remove the lying
betraying digestion
of how things are.
Beyond the mind
past the inverted
colored reflection
Past the lens
Past the protection
The truth of nature
free of dissection
Let her breathing
come in through the waves
and the shuddering shivering
wind in the trees.
Stop the cold
Stop the machine
Stop the harsh voice
Its only a dream
Let there be sunlight
Let there be motion
Let there be breathing
Through all my devotion
Let there be truth
Let there be freedom
Let there be peace
Like a summer’s hot ocean
With burning gold waves
and the vaporous air
rising softly
to the blistering sun
casting reflections
casting illusions
forgetting reasons
untying nooses.
Living and dying
right under the sea
Carry me to lightness
O let me be free.

Question

2009-04-28T10:48:00.000+05:30

I see your words
and see they are true
but for you.
Question now,
question everything,
question the names
you seem to have given.
For as I never knew
You must again not know
As the elements twist,
We must let go,
lest an Unconditioning
become a Reconditioning

In words I play,
a game I don't know,
and in silence I watch
paintings of my life
projected from the eyes
of people I know.
They don't matter,
any more
than raindrops in the leaves.

Looking forward
to the next story,
leaves your eyes unfocused
At a twisted dimension of space and time,
far away, as a dream
is our vision of the future;
Yet those dreams are not
events of the future,
only happening
in the now.

Looking back
Is seeing the fallen leaves
Of a newly blooming tree,
Is the watching of a film
That is playing in the back of our minds
Our only true hint of the way
Of the present, and what is to come.
And yet, is gone.

P.L.Rao
20th April 2009

Universe

2009-04-15T12:22:00.008+05:30

O Yesu
the breathing
in and out
of the layers of atmosphere
the heat the dust,
the cold the damp,
the green the red,
Through our bodies
as if we are a part
of it all
And to know, somehow
that we are.
The vastness of every thought
of every image,
every movement
every sound
flows so swiftly past,
That is barely has time
to leave an echo
behind.
And the pounding of my heart
racing in the beauty,
So many gifts
You have set upon me,
the images cast forth
like the rising Sun
for all to see.
And how much I want
to be the drum
upon which are beat
those eternal rhythms of celestial madness
and fire.
To fly on the waves
of that glorious sea.
To give these images
to the ravaged store
of ink and paper,
Lying in the vast open arms
of age old History. .
O if only you could let me be
a carrier of this legacy,
to walk upon the garden lanes
and trim and water
the growing trees,
which grow so big
and wise and old
whole and complete
and free
and happy.

P.l. Rao
10th April 09

To Get Beyond

2009-04-15T12:15:00.003+05:30

You don't have to give.
It will get taken from you
The amount that is gone
will always remain
in the air, like the fog
of a dried up ocean
So breathe
breathe it in,
breathe again, and let it go
to a faraway place
just around the bend
which is waiting
without waiting
for you.

P.L.Rao
15th January 2009

Human

2009-04-15T12:13:00.000+05:30

Light! It falls on me
It covers me in truth
But I block it with my hand
And think I cannot see.

I sit on heaven’s lawn
with flowers in my hand
I want to smell the scent of grace
But my sense of smell is gone.
жא☼Ж☼אж
-P.L.Rao
13th April 2006

Darkness Sweet

2009-03-26T12:59:00.001+05:30

On and on
the waves of the sea
shine and shatter
before they are free

on and on
I'm swallowed under
the breathless merciless
pound of beauty

close my eyes,
the darkness is sweet
silence is sinking
through all that is me.

P.L.Rao
15th January 2009

Sleep

2009-03-26T12:17:00.002+05:30

I am so tired
Physically
But that's about all
that's left of me,
except for my heart;
Its still beating wild
and fast and distracted,
like the eyes of a child
Perhaps the exhaustion
is sent to slow down
the flying thoughts
and bring me around-
Back to the constant
thrum of being.
Down to the softness;
calm the seething
Of the fire and the flames
inside the heart.
Burning up names
like the ancient dragon's art.
Folding my wings
I am ready to fly
Death comes slowly
With peace, and a sigh.

Priyanka Rao
12th March '09

To be

2009-03-26T12:08:00.004+05:30

To be a poet
is to see through the painting
of your eyes
and to hear
through the poetry
of your ears
and to sing the songs
of your heart

Priyanka
January 26th '09

The Flood of the Forest

2009-03-20T13:31:00.002+05:30

The trees crash down
upon the others
crawling with creatures
of teeth and feathers

Lightning attacks
like angry sunlight
tearing at the leaves
with ravenous appetite

Insects scuttle
among the chaos
fear and greed
fill their brain mass

The rainwater’s strength
saturates the skin
numbness fills
the bodies within

The wet wood’s pungence
fills frozen nostrils
mixed with the coldness
of the deepest evils

The thunder’s booms
Are buried by rustling
of a thousand leaves
thrashing and shaking

White light glows
upon the air
shadows dueling
everywhere

The trees that shake
among the dead
stand on to challenge
what next the storm bred

Terrible winds
clawed at the branches
hurling them down
as terrible lances

Flying paws
of some powerful creature
drowned by the crash
of a falling trees power

The rushing of leaves
the booming of thunder
the crashing of trees
falling asunder

creaking of trunks
moaning of lumber
howling of wind
shrieking its hunger

Trapped she was
in the flood of the forest
witness was she to war of the bravest . . .

Her prison of trees
lay unheeded
enraptured was she
by this War unabated

Dreadful it was
raging about her
yet in it she saw
terrible beauty alive in the horror

All of those people
dancing in the Sun
who would ever know
when it had begun?

No one would know
when it was won
No one would know
when this epic was done

In a War without hatred
but only fear
In a War that only changes
the soul with an ear.

Escape was estranged
this was the place
death was accepted
on her intoxicated face

But could she leave
this tale untold?
To all the world
would it never unfold?
* * *
Once upon
A winter’s day
Ignorant footsteps
tread light and gay

Unaware
of the terrific past,
When something of interest
was seen as he passed-

Under the ferns
upon the moss
lay a page
runes running across

A knee did bend
a hand reached out
to read the letters
to yet find out . . .

A sudden wind
rushed into the light,
as if a ghost
of that terrible night.

Across the page
A story lived
The Flood of the Forest
was relived.

And finally came
the ending lines
faded
but lasting through all times

‘I’ve used my ink
I’ve done my duty
Tribute has been paid
to this torrent of beauty.’
P.L. Rao
17th October 2006

The Heart

2009-03-20T13:15:00.004+05:30

You’re in the skies
your own life has made
you’re in the light
that cannot be weighed

The light that reflects
the light that spreads
the light that dances
through everyone’s heads

The light that glows
the light that dances
the light that knows
and through darkness prances

Alive and alight
like waters of the ocean
calm as a whole
but forever in motion.

Fantasies and dreams
evolve in this motion
bubbling like the surface
of some wonderful potion

Dreams of adventure
waves of voices
currents of drama
splashes of rejoices

Reflections of romance
Depths of affection
droplets of laughter
oaths of protection

Torrents of struggling
Storms of strength
Winds of rage
But for love with all faith.

God is life
quivering with emotion
sure as the Sun
and as young as an ocean.

Let me dive
into your sea
sink in your love
yet still stay me.

By P.L.Rao
1st October 2006

Wordeath

2009-03-20T13:01:00.002+05:30

The words I feel
are pressed into my skin
like red hot iron
Branded upon
my arm, my shoulder
my throat
my tongue
fenced around my lungs
Every feeling
is shredded through a comb
of thoughts and facts
and I am a tree
with these shredded leaves
fluttering in the wind
but my roots are deep
In the earth
and my branches
are way up high
and my thoughts are silent
and I open my throat
but no words are there
Slowly I’m finding myself
in a wordless world
with only feelings
twisting feelings
in my gut
and I feel full
As though I have
all the food
I’ll ever need
in my stomach
and I know
I’ve found
myself
In the silent
tangible gullies
of being
who I am.
P.L.Rao
17th Feb. 2009

Glade

2009-03-12T14:27:00.003+05:30

I love the dawn: there’s a fresh world
to see today
I love the quiet of a well
below the sunlight’s fray;
I love a home where everything else
is a world away . . .

I love the wild of a traveler’s road
and to hear the people of life’s every mold;
to see the pages of cultures unfold.

I love to see a plot at play-
From dawn to dusk; from gray to gay,
On books and tales, I love to prey.

I love these colors, deep and bold
I love to hide when its dark and cold,
I’ll love the world till I grow old . . .
Though, if asked why, I couldn't say.

жא☼Ж☼אж
-P.L.Rao

6th July 2008

Beauty Cage

2009-03-12T14:23:00.001+05:30

My life still swells and falls
like the surface of the sea
And a thousand frothy bubbles burst
and yet somehow capture me.
жא☼Ж☼אж
-P.L.Rao
14th August 2007

If only

2009-03-12T14:22:00.001+05:30

If only
If only
I could speak to time
I’m sure she would listen
to my pleading

If only
If only
I could show her my thoughts
I know she would
stop her speeding.

If only
If only
I could wear her down
stubborn though she may be
How popular she could be,

If only
If only
for a moment in time;
If only
If only
She waited for me.

P.L.Rao

Ambitious

2009-03-12T10:28:00.001+05:30

A season ends
with murk and blood
Its time to pull myself up from the mud.

I feel fresh, I feel full
Of whirring thoughts, on which to mull
I step onto the window sill
And see the sunrise, misty but full.

I want to dive
from window to world
And touch the currents
of the sea
I want to dive
from the sky, unfurled
and feel it flowing
over me.

Can I face that wrenching cold
and reach out to the sunlight's gold?
Do I do this on my own
Can I fight the currents hold?
I want to weave
from present and past
a binding golden tapestry
I want to weave
something to last
throughout the stony century

O, but take these questions from me now
I never wanted to know how
to live an entire life alone
I just want to find a home
somehow

I want to lock
windows and doors
in the house surrounding me
I want to lock out
all the roars
of all the thoughts attacking me

I want a warming hand to hold
I want to paint the sky with gold
I want some love to share with you
I want this life to stay unsold

I want to live
from heat to pain
a life with love
but still so free
I want to live
through every rain
with the will to live
and a smile
that is me.

Plr

13th Dec. 09

Railroad Tracks

2009-03-07T15:04:00.002+05:30

Chained by my wrists
to a block of stone
that is sinking in the sand
like a melting bone
Hardness of heart
constricts the breath
Solid as stone
Static as death

It’s hard to breathe
this dusty darkness
Am I full of emotion
or simply heartless?

The restless demon
calls this suffocation
Just stop- don't give
an explanation
The air in my lungs
an expanding load
A violent conclusion
-when I explode.
So foggy my mind
So full of the cold
So soft and grey
like I might have been told.

Kill me this way
by blocking me up
the phone is ringing
but I can't pick it up

I hear you're voice
From the vibrating phone
Scratching my nerves
with your endless drone

I'm folded and packed
into your suitcase
and left on the desk
along with your shoelace

The roof falls down
I fall to the floor
I slip down the stairs
but just miss the door.

I look up the stairs
coming down is a train
the railroad tracks
are slippery with rain
they are full of cracks
I might slip through
I want to be tied down
And broken anew
With hammers and picks
And the sweat from their backs
Till I sizzle and fly
from the railroad tracks.

Priyanka Rao
3rd Feb. ‘09.

Elements

2009-03-07T14:36:00.004+05:30

So much to say
Again.
But the words are not
the property of
those layering thoughts
But currents
flying from my being
sparkling with electricity
like they do
when I am
fully breathing
Such a game
Is being played
within me
without me
the elements are moving
so fast, so slow
in such wild rapture
through the universe-
of the universe
growing pulsing
shifting
and in it here we are
the beings
twisting into layers
of earth, of fire
shifting fading
shining flying
flowing through
flowing with
flowing on
finding eachother
finding ourselves
finding that
we are all
of one
and the same.
In the elements
we move
lose eachother
lose ourselves
lose the light
for in it
we are
we are
we are
and we grow
layers and layers
the thoughts rise
and the thoughts fall about us
like rain, like floods
and we are swimming
we are sinking
we are rising
we are floating
and the elements bite us
fire water air
eating through our being
braiding our veins
weaving our muscles
binding our bones
burning our blood
electricity in our nerves
waving
We come
to eachother
we touch
we pull eachother
from the plug
of that name
and we are
breathing
we are burning
we are finding something
of ourselves
oneself
before the birth
after the death
I am there
We are there
in the heart
the heart
the heart
is overflowing
with the red hot blood
with the love
with the life
and the thoughts
are poring over like sand
and the elements are cracking
and crackling
and burning through the space
like burning moss
like moss on fire
through the night
through the light
earth, water, fire
air, space
Love
25th Feb 2009

Silent Life’s Child

2009-03-07T14:00:00.002+05:30

Visiting a friends house, I was left alone with a little girl and a newborn child, nearly three weeks old who was born deformed. Seeing the child I felt this poem, and so, here it is.

His eyes moved
vaguely, across the roof;
The glaring white light,
like he doesn't belong here
a graceful dolphin,
left on land
Silent as a fish
You can see he is looking
for an ally
which I might have been…
But cannot be
And this is his world
Alone and searching
Smaller than a doll
Stiff and unshapely
Lifted and jostled
by no mother, but a girl
in search of a playmate
Lost in her imaginary world
with the silent child
He is caught is a heartless experiment
of the restless world
Another unfortunate growth
of twisted DNA
Holding her doll
in her arms
clueless to the slight
of its existence.
I start at the thought
that it is meant to be alive…
The adults
the parents
are conspicuously absent,
Disassociating from
those pitiful tiny hands
Letting him live or die alone
in the arms of an innocent
lonely young girl
Wanting only to be a mother and child
I place my hand
upon his chest
and feel the frantic
beating of his heart
As though beneath
those silent eyes
a vigorous schemer
is fighting for life
inside the body
of this silent unmoving
Child of life.
Priyanka Rao

6th Feb. 09.

Naked

2009-01-24T10:25:00.004+05:30

So, you're taking the credit?
Take all you want
I don't need it.
Take from me
these flowing clothes
Tear them from
my burning skin
All you need
To cover the world
Gift-wrapped for another soul
To sleep in
and dream their restless dreams.
I'm going to an appointment with stars
And I'll bring them with me
when I swim back
through the ocean
of twisting emotions
And light the trees
with starlight
so the kings and queens
can find their way
through the gardens
to pick the fruits
of human dreams
and chat with the fairies
Till its time to go home
and sing the gravitational
songs of the wind,
And wake up the adventurers
Tempted with a breathe of mountain spices
before they disappear
with the tides
of the blue blue sea.
Priyanka
24th January 2009

Illusion

2009-01-24T10:12:00.009+05:30

Beauty, o!

You treacherous thing

I live for you

You are my being

But I’m peeling away

like cloth from a wall

catching the winds to

abort my fall

Bondage to a wound

I am coming away

from drying blood

and flesh in decay

Coming to float

on the tips of a pond

fresh chill of the water

then I’m floating beyond

Falling away

what a beautiful thing!

the scraps coming loose

and into nothing . . .

The buzzing of a fly

or perhaps it is crying-

the screaming of my heart

-it still thinks this is dying

And perhaps it is

I wouldn’t know

I’ve been here too long

Its time to let go

A storm seems to follow

As I’m flying away

Chasing me down

I’m turning to clay

I’m standing underwater

Before a full jury

‘Here they are- you’re rights and duties,

Get along now, we’re all in a hurry. '

Oh, what in the world?

I was flying through space

‘No, no,’ they assure me

‘now put on your face.’

So I pull on with work

Now life is so heavy

I look for strength

But I’m all cut free

All the holds are gone

where they used to be

I let go of the past,

Now there’s nothing left of me.

Its all a cheat

Its never fair

beautiful fabric of being-

my life’s just a tear.

I scream

I want to die

would it get me anywhere?

I can’t even try

'Let go, let go'

they stare at me

I’ve nothing to hold

except this key

Ah, but see me scream

love my tears

O trap of lies-

you feed me fears

You tear me from the wall

shred by shred

Not again, no-

I wish I were dead

Tearing burning

through the seams

You’re turning out the lights

in all of my dreams

I’m falling falling

falling free . . .

Isn’t this once

where I wanted to be . . .?

P.L.Rao

14th January 2009

2009-01-14T17:37:00.003+05:30

Suddenly I feel as if I am bathed in sunlight and I realize that this is the feeling I have been longing for all these days, shivering in the sun. But sometimes sunlight can't do it, and sometimes something else can.
Sometimes the people we most want to avoid talking to can give us what we need.
Sometimes places we never want to go to can give us a new home to be at.
Sometimes things we hide from things which are really things we want most.
So how can we judge what is what and where to find it?
We sometimes have to just go to dark places and speak to ridiculous people to find what it is we really need. We can't hold on to things we once loved and places that were once home. We have to let it all go and be ready for hope from any quarter, and see a home in any place.
Sometimes we don't see the lesson being given to us. But the things which will hit us, the things we really learn and never forget will reach us, and in the end we will know what we need know; understand what we need to.

Veiled

2009-01-01T11:55:00.002+05:30

Storm of my life
is woven with strife,
An obstacle course
which is carrying me by force.

I’ve lost all track
They call me black
Lies they have built
All fill me with guilt

But I don't really care
‘cause you are there
to keep out that rain
of teary pain.

-P.L.Rao
21st February 2006

Driftwood

2008-12-30T09:48:00.008+05:30

I'm the sailor
that is a scholar
That no one wants to hire.

Such skies you see-
And the wind in my hair.
What a time this would be
to sail and explore!

So I walk on the sand
By the wave's endless roar;
I wave my hand.
I wait at the shore.

The ships come and go
Without coming ashore;
The days come and they go
From their endless store.

No one wants to hire
the sailor that is a scholar
So I keep building rafts
to send out on the water.
P.L.Rao
31st Dec. 2008

Bleeds

2008-12-28T21:05:00.002+05:30

Take the knot
of twisted vines
That is my heart
a mix of flowers, pierced with thorns

Destroy this web
of tangled brush
And leave not a single
branch wilting, on the bush

But rather,
let it flower again
New and washed pure
by the falling rain.
жא☼Ж☼אж
-P.L.Rao
12th July 2007

Gregorian Chants

2008-12-28T21:02:00.000+05:30

21 August 2005
While I was listening to the music I left the physical world and was in a world of dreams; Dreams which seemed more real than anything there was. This world seemed abstract and irrelevant completely. I was not a body but a soul. A clear mixture of thoughts, some looking like currents of water flowing though the air and some were sparks of colour flashing up and sinking again to the beats of the ringing bells. The deep voices were long strands of twanging vibrations, connecting each part of the dark blue, almost black universe, so rich of feeling. The beat of drums was solidness, lightly, but steadily shaking. The deep organs were like clouds hard as a rock to stand on, yet the softest beds of the universe. The clear twang of instruments seemed like threads of love wrapping around my arms, holding me from above. Everything was a swaying universe where we fall forever, slow as a snail yet never going anywhere. Never declining at all, like a universe underwater. There was no colour but brightness and darkness. There was no texture but solidness and softness. There was no sound but vibrations and beats. There was just o world of feelings . . .

You may think that I am just creative at making things up, but what if? What if I didn't make it? Just trust, believe . . .It is there. Let yourself feel it. It is everywhere, it is nowhere. It isn't time, it isn't shape, it isn't distance, it isn't anything yet it is.
IT IS.
By P.L. Rao

Crow's Nest

2008-12-28T09:58:00.006+05:30

I met a man
who ran from home
its time for me
to find my own.

I see the ragged
weave of sand
grainy, across
the empty hand

And want to live
my life again
with purpose,
down the golden chain.

I see the sun
in its stony grave
I feel for heat
lost in liquid haze

I look out
at the stars away
see their light,
at constant play

The loneliness
is fearfully free . . .
No need to respond
calls back to me.

I have a heart
as large as being
Yet I feel nothing
Blind eyes are seeing.

Flowers blooming
black and blue
are morning’s blossoms,
as old as new.

So, see the ripples
of sparkle light
cold upon
the waves of night.

Wave a flag
way out at sea
Maybe that, perhaps,
Will matter to me.
P.L. Rao
27th December 2008

Routine Beauty

2008-11-25T16:16:00.004+05:30

28th February 2006
Soft are the cushions I sit on
and cool is the summer air

How fresh are the trees around me
where grow flowers known to be rare

Warm is the sun on my face
and gold are the drops of dew

How fragrant are the flowers
near graceful peacocks, two

Safe is the place I am standing
between these many great mountains

How sweet is the water I drink
from dainty glowing fountains

Soft is the rustle of wind in the leaves
and deep is the waterfalls roar

But all its affect is wasted on me,
For I've heard a thousand times before.
P.L.Rao

Cries

2008-11-25T15:55:00.006+05:30

8th May 2008
They all love me so much
somehow I know.
But when I do something
They all scream
and scream
and scream
I just don't understand
and they scream
and scream
and scream
Why must I only understand
when they scream?
And scream!
and scream.
That we could just talk
to eachother, I dream.

With each scream they somehow rip
every seam
after seam . . .
after seam.
They love me so much;
why must I see
them scream-
and scream! . . .
and scream
at me?

Quiver

2007-12-03T17:52:00.002+05:30

No, this is how you break a heart,
perhaps, too, how you make a heart.

I felt it before, liquid tint, upon my eyes
For me, once has been enough tries

I've had my heart crested with frost
Now I'm too afraid of being lost.

Stop now-! I struggle to request,
Yet, its too late. I should have guessed.

To ask a promise- the only protection
No! Better to leave the unasked question

I want to believe that hearts are gold
But I can't ignore what my heart has been told

Why is everything so twisted?
'Cause truth is too risky, unless misted

This is how you make a heart
But this too, is how you break a heart.

P.L.Rao
29th December 2008

Visitor to the Sleeping Soul

2007-09-19T18:05:00.001+05:30

I sat there
with an hour of freedom to go
5:30 in the morning
wondering how to start the show

"Do anything you want,"
Said a voice in my head
A response I heard:
"Why not go back to bed?"

My mind was asleep
So I didn't really know . . .
The best response
seemed a mechanical "No."

"So what shall we do?"
the hasty voice chimed.
It seemed to me
only one option remained;

I searched with my eyes
And reached with my hand
On my palm what lay
were the shackles of my land;

A timetable-
Monday to Friday, Saturday too,
"Now," I thought,
"We will know what to do!"

Sighed the voice,
"Yes, this thing must be for the best . . .
But you know,
I'd rather just get some rest."

"But really," I cried,
"I don't understand!
Now there's something to do,
you seem to melt like a castle of sand!"

"You know,"
the voice said passively,
"Perhaps there is more in the world to see,
than Maths, Biology, History . . . "

"Yeah, Yeah . . . "
is all that I replied,
To deep
asleep, to follow, further, my thoughtful guide.
P.L. Rao

In You

2007-06-13T08:49:00.002+05:30

In your hands
I see the labour of a million centuries
whose fruit is beyond our lands.

In your veins
I see the blood of endurance
to wait till we walk up your lanes

In your lips
I see the unwavering comfort
to every falling soul that trips

In your eyes
I see the forgetting forgiveness
for everyone who hides behind lies

In your heart
I see the everlasting love
for every creation in your art

In you
I see something which will never
break or wear or waver or fall
or end.

By P.L. Rao

16-2-2006

Pointlessness

2007-05-30T17:05:00.000+05:30

Here is an article out of my journal. It might be depressing and seem bad at places. I am not saying it is all the truth. I am talking about a fear that might come over every and any man. I am experiencing it so that I can understand it, whether I believe it or not. It is long. But it is a thought. An experience. And when you experience it time somehow seems to work a bit different.

Here it comes again- the same that has tortured me before,the thing that seems to grow through the bars of my prison like a thorn bush when I feel encaged. So here it comes. What is the point? What is the reason? What is the use? Of anything. Of everything. Of existence of life in this world and this planet in this universe. Of being. What is the point and right for anything to be? What is the point of learning and growing? Of course that is what we should do, and even want to do. But why? Why should we try to make this world better? Why do we need to make the world better? Just to live? So that we can live in good? Just try and struggle to live, when we have no reason to stay away from death? What do we then, when we have learned how to survive? For it is true that we learn how to survive.

If not, if we had just kept struggling to survive, like in the olden days, creating thoughts, stories and feelings along the way, then all would be fine. But somewhere, somehow we learned and will learn again how to survive. And we either get lost in working our wretched ways to survive or we sit there looking for a purpose. What is our purpose? To choose between good and bad? So we go to heaven and be happy forever or we go to hell and be tortured forever? Tortured forever? Why? Why should anyone be tortured forever? Even if they deserve it, how can anyone do that to them? Why can they not be simply finished? So that they are no longer in existence. What is the point of torturing anyone for eternity when they need not exist at all? And those in heaven? What of them? Will they just sit around doing things they want? No. So we will live together in love, peace, unity, caring for eachother? Yes that will be worth something but we must have something to do! Won't heaven be a place where we do something? Where we all strive to accomplish some great work, mission or feat? But if there is such a thing as Nothingness at all and if this world and life and the planets and universe were made into the Nothingness, made into nothing at all then how can there be any any reason, for doing anything? If there is a Nothing than how can there ever be a need or reason, except those that we create? There cannot. If there is Nothing there is no reason. And if. And if there is no reason then We will die. We will not be able to exist anymore. If there is no reason we will die. We will not matter. It will not matter what we do or don't do. It will not matter where we go, what we say, how we act. It will not matter whether we live or die. It will all be toil. If there is no reason here and nothing after death and we are trapped in a horrible existence where we can't live and we will just end if we die. If there is no reason here and nothing after death than despair, for that is something that no man can face.

Stand there and think of it. What point is there for you to live? To help others? Why? They can have good lives? What for, if nothing they do will matter and they will go on to end as if they never existed anyway? No point. But is something you can not face. That there is no reason at all. That we just are, for wasting away. And so that is why, when this terrible feeling, that we are only here for wasting away, for nothing, when that feeling grows through the bars of our prison like thorns, brittle, truthful, harsh, careless thorns, that tear apart the human heart, we start twisting and turning in bitter desperation that there is no point, no reason, for anything.

But if, although it seems impossible, this world is at it appears. As a child sees it, Whole, and complete, with many, many layers, of which there endless types, and a Nothingness doesn't exist somehow then this world is perfect. It is comfortable. It is where we belong. To you now, with the education you have had, with the way you have settled on thinking it will seem almost definite that it all did come from nothing. Nothing and God. That is how your is set. The most obvious explanation is that there is nothing. But stop. Think of the other explanation. That the world is as it appears. How it is when you look out the window. How it is when you look up at the skies. With many mysteries and layers and paths and twinings. What if the world is like this. It has a reason, and it goes on functioning with some unknown cause labelling it at all corners. And inside itself there are hundreds and hundreds of layers. Of physical workings, of dreams, of mental power, of magic, of feelings, of jobs, of painting, of designs, of time of all things inside this world itself, vast, gigantic, eternal. If you think about it than actually this is the explanation we should be faithful to. We should be trusting in what we see, like we do in everything else, right? But somehow in the process of this Scientific Education or something our mindset was changed to one that would believe in Nothingness. But if the world is as it appears then Man can survive, because the world is, to innocent eyes, a beautiful place.

Today perhaps I am not encaged, maybe I do not feel the prison today. But maybe it is always there. The cage of time, life, pointlessness, uselessness. But in all of life, in history, there is something which seems to matter. In this torrent of pointlessness there is something to which we cling onto because somehow it is our only way to exist and to believe in anything. It is creation. Stories told, stories happened, dreams created, dreams believed in, feelings, bonds, things built, memories created. All of that is somehow for a cause. And that is what makes living worth anything. The feelings, the actions, the stories of truth. The worlds that we lived in. For sometimes it seems that those things which are the least real are the things most worth believing in. Perhaps it is because those things, those worlds do seem to have a purpose. They always have a purpose and the pointlessness of this Earth can have no effect on those worlds. Maybe my only hope left is that the things that make those worlds are real. That this world really is like that. Maybe it is my greatest fear is that there is no world like that. That this is all there is. It is my only hope left that there must be more. More than this. This cage of time, life, pointlessness and uselessness. And what is most terrifying is that everywhere you look , all you see is more of this same world in the same sick cage. Of everyone living as though this IS all there is. As though there is nothing more and no need for anything more than this.

When you are in your own world you begin to believe in a world like that, like the stories. Deep, fantastic, true, real. You see it. The world actually begins to seem like that. And you begin to walk around in a world that really is like that. Like the stories, the dreams. You believe in the stories and you believe that God loves them too. You believe that they are real and God is in them too. You do not feel that God would be angry for not believing only in his world. You do not feel condemned to the pointlessness. For he created all worlds. He loves those worlds too. He loves all worlds. And he is present in them all. He is there in all. And when you believe that God is in the beautiful world that you want to believe in than you are happy. You know that God is also a happy beautiful thing, and does not want to trap you do darkness and sin. And that is what saves you. Is is wrong to imagine a world like that? For that is what I love. And that is what I believe in. And when I think those thoughts, when I stand up for the world I believe in, I feel right. Happy. I do not feel the fear of being wrong. I do not feel guilty. I feel brave, honest, good. For when there is no more guilt or fear you know God is with you and has also accepted you. I feel right. So believe in that world, the true world, and let God be in that world and love that world too because I know that that feeling of being good and being right is the truest feeling and greatest thing of life. For in that world somehow there is a reason. A wonderful reason. Instead of a world which is reasonless because of nothing, there is something because of all the little reasons that come together that make a wonderful reason to live, to discover, grow, learn, and love. So believe in those stories and dreams and feelings because you know that somehow, some way, the reasonlessness is not all there is! Believe in it because it is the truest and realest thing and the most beautiful thing there is and always will be on this Earth. And believe in it because you will have to believe in every single beautiful thing left, no matter how cursed it seems, to keep this Earth from becoming a monochrome chaos of pointlessness in which people are doing so many millions of different kinds of pointless things with no real meaning.

I don't even know if it is possible for man to know something that is not real, not really there. How can we imagine something which does not somehow exist? So I say, Believe in all of it. Everything that is beautiful. For someday it will be worth it. Someday I know we will see the beautiful world full of all the things we love and care for.

Mr.Nobody

2007-05-29T07:06:00.000+05:30

This is a short story that I wrote a while ago. Even before the date that I have written, which is only when it was typed into the computer. But bits of the ideas that are in the story keep coming back to me. Like what would the different feelings be in the most gloomy man on earth. And the society which lived in the city might have been interesting as well.

Mr. Nobody 17-1-2005

Once there was a city. The gloomiest city that ever existed. Thick smoke came out of it giving off a repulsive stench. So thick was the hate in the air that it actually stifled your breath, and everyone who lived there had contorted faces, with wrinkles that stuck from frowning too long.
Now, down the darkest road, in the darkest square, in the darkest house, near the heart of the black city, where no sunlight could ever delve, lived a stooped old man, with red eyes and a sharp stick. He had a limp in one leg, though it had never been injured and his pupils were black, and terrible. Like two black abysses, with no texture at all and yet somehow grainy. This man was Mr. Nobody.
He was poor, and mean. He was the meanest man to exist. Nobody cared for Mr. Nobody. Mr. Nobody was always irritated, angry, despairing and wanting revenge. But his hate had been so strong that it buried the reason for itself. He did nothing until his home was covered in dirt and grit and rotting wood and broken bottles and the water that came through the tap was like black slush. This was when he finally had to work to survive. But he would not work ‘And’ he thought to himself, ‘no one would give me a job if I was dying on the streets.’ So he began to steal, giving himself the lying excuse, “They deserve to be stolen from. They should treat me properly.” but his worst excuse was, “I have no other way of living.” and that is what he tried to believe, to shield the guilt which grew heavier and heavier, for although he thought he was sending the guilt away he was actually sending the opposite direction- his heart. And before he knew it he had been stealing for ages when he’d thought he had just begun.He did not remember any family, except in drunken hazes when his wife’s death served an excuse for drinking, but always he knew that someone had died. Though it seemed impossible that he had ever loved anyone, he hated that person for dying, though he knew not why.
Mr. Nobody’s point of view was that that everyone hated him and everyone else’s view was that he hated them. And everyone’s response was this word spit out dirt from the mouth, ‘Fine!’ The truth was that he had become a little mean while mourning for his now forgotten wife and the people became mean to him, and they started getting into fights about if the death of the relative had been because of not a sickness but that someone had poisoned her food. This made Mr. Nobody angry and slowly, slowly, for one reason or the next the hate had become stronger and stronger until this day.

The same things had happened to Mr. Invisible and Mrs. Nowhere.

Now, in this city, which in fact was called Bliss, everything and everybody were exactly opposite to their name. So, of course, the revered judges, Mr. Wise, Mr. Smart, Mr. Understanding, and Mrs. Just, were none of these things, which caused havoc and more hate everywhere. In fact there was no one nice in the whole city . . .except one. This man was known as Mr. Terribly Unsensible Meanie. Mr. Terribly Unsensible Meanie (Mr. TUM for short, and teased because of it,) was great, wise and very kind. But everyone else cared more for people’s awe then their own personalities and so they all had wonderful names and terrible personalities, and judged Mr. TUM the easiest, yet most foolish way possible- his name.

Now, Mr. TUM had had run away from the city long ago when he was young and had the sense to do so before he became mad at everything that was in that city. The day he came back home and saw that nothing had changed at all he realized he should not have run away. He realized that no one else was going to save the city for him. So he started his mission with something which secretly he had wanted to do for many, many years. He disguised himself as a merchant and went to Mr. Nobody’s house. He knocked. Mr. Nobody opened the door. Just as he started shouting about stupid merchants trying to tease his poverty with their fake riches, Mr. TUM began. “I know how you feel. Though you may not. You feel as though your heart has shriveled into a black thorny sour rotten fruit. But you have forgotten. You have forgotten everything. You have even forgotten how to love! Do you want me to tell you the story of yourself? Do you want to hear the truth?”
For the first time the old man stayed silent and forgot his duty to hate. Because for some reason the word Love tasted sweet in his mouth. Sweeter than anything he had tasted for years. But he would not answer. So, Mr. TUM continued.

“Love is the only thing worth knowing, worth having. Why do Mr. Invisible and Mrs. Nowhere lie and threaten. Because they miss true Love. This city used to be filled with beautiful gardens and flowing fountains. There was bright sunshine everywhere. But now the whole city is in ruins because there is no Love. This is because once long ago a man lost his wife. His Love. His grief spread through the city which hardened to anger, when they told him that his son had poisoned his mother. He knew that his son hadn’t done it but to remove the anger and shame he gave his son a terrible name and beat the son until the son was forced to run from his home. The hate became so dense that it is breathed in from the air. That man’s wife took the whole city’s love with her. She was the last one loved. Now if that one man took the whole city’s love, then I think that he and his son can weave back into the city, can’t we, my father?”
The old man (for by now he really was an old man) stared at the man before him and stepped back, his bloodshot eyes frozen, his hunched form losing all strength as he collapsed over the other man’s shoulders. And Mr.Tum embraced his father with true love for the first time in forty years. The old man clung to his son as the first pure beautiful tears leaked from his eyes and he sobbed as you do when you know that it will be all right.
“Yes we can . . . and we will my son. We will,” he said in his old croaking voice which sounded almost more beautiful to the son than what the words meant to him. Now, in all of that darkness and dust and hate and tears they had a promise to the city that they said they would fulfil.
And so they did.

By P.L. Rao

Unity

2007-03-25T16:21:00.000+05:30

I realized that from a certain angle, unity, literally seems to be almost opposite the real meaning. It is used to mean 'all together' but you would expect unity means 'all one'. If it was used in this literal sense it would create a feeling not of all being together, and mingling with eachother but of being alone. 'One' does not give the feeling of variety of cultures, feelings, histories, minds etc that is contained it the word 'Unity'. One thing that we like about the word unity is not the feeling of being one and all agreeing on the same thing, but being different and still being together. We like the feeling of working together and learning about eachother.
Here again, as I have said it a previous entry ('Active' February 2007), it shows how humans naturally are happier when they are active; they like the unity in which we learn and work together, not the one in which we just know everything about eachother and all just do everything the exact same way. We like an active Unity. You can also see from this that humans like variety and change. We can not just be all the same and manufactured out of the same factory.
One of the most beautiful things in our dreams of Unity is when we look at all the different things it contains- the animals, poeple, mountains, rivers etc all together. Not a crowd of uniformed living creatures all just standing or doing the same thing, as one. In fact that is one thing we don't like, usually. No one likes infinite repetition of anything, no matter how beautiful it is. We find beauty is new things. Not that we can't find beauty in old things, but the beauty in old things is again a change, from what we have lately been seeing.
A beautiful song of Unity is "It is One" and yet in it we get the feeling and all the different things that we consist of in Unity.

Time

2007-02-21T19:50:00.001+05:30

1-12-2005

Time is passing
forever harassing
my ever-emptying life

Here I am wasting
time, while I’m waiting
for never arriving joy

Now I am fighting
to put into writing
my ever-wondering soul.

By P.L. Rao

Active

2007-02-21T19:34:00.000+05:30

I think that I have just discovered a great key to my problems. Being active. I am happy and get a lot of things solved and done when I am active. And I think I am usually unhappy when I am unhappy. I feel so good when I feel like am at the start af an active season. I feel like I have more control. I think part of the thing that brought me to this idea and state is an experiment on the statement "The time is always now" It stopped me from avoiding the doing-it-later problem and got me to do stuff now. Which, of course, translates to my being ACTIVE. I feel the most alive right now when I am active and feel like I can do so much stuff. Right now. I don't have to wait till I the summer vacation ar when I am 'older'. I feel alive like a river coming of a stagnant marsh. If only I could stay like this forever, I think, but I can if I stay like this if I stay aware. If only I could make this letter send it to me as an answer to my problem when I need it. A song that would be quite accurate for this post would be 'Stuck in the moment' by U2 on their album 'All that you can't leave behind'. So here I go. The time is NOW.

Red Lily

2007-02-16T09:36:00.003+05:30

Yesu, the patient flower
that blooms is slow motion
Yesu, the fantasy
of all the flowing dreams
Yesu, the love
that flows through the body
Yesu, the soul
that calms my beating heart

Yesu is here, and forever will be
till he raises the Sun and again let it shine
on this life of your daughter Priyanka.
And again he will wake her
to a new life awaiting
With a gush of hot blood
through her veins.
жא☼Ж☼אж
-P.L.Rao
16th October 2006

Thought Hunger
I want to think . . . and think and never stop thinking. I want to have a mind that can grow and live and be whole. Right now there are way too many people who are living completely thoughtless lives and don't do anything because of what they think and then they go to the grave and its The End. Ah, but what if you are living that life and you suddenly realize where you are? You would feel trapped and would want to escape life. But life is for changing. For doing things the way you want so that you can help the world be a little bit better. Thats what I will do. I will make myself complete and I will use myself to build and create the way I think will be good.

Mysterious

2007-01-21T13:44:00.001+05:30

or
The mystery of a flowering writer

I don’t know what to write about
I don’t know what to think
I don’t know what will be given next
I don’t know what I’ll have to face

I seem ready for something
though I’m not sure just how big
what unexpected thing will fall
to crack my patched heart yet?

I know something is waiting
I know I’ll learn from it
I know that it’s for good in the end
I know I shouldn’t worry

But how long must I wait
for such a terrible thing
so strange, so empty, and yet so whole
so nameless and so wonderfully mysterious
and yet so sharp and clear

It seem as if an ocean awaits
it has the peace as well as the grace
but hidden I can feel the power
of turbulence so great I could cower

Something hidden
I can always feel
beginnings and endings
ideas to be real
and seem to hear the waves
of what could only be
the ocean of endless stories
coming crashing down on me.
<+~.~*~.~+> By P. L. Rao
1-3-2006