'WHAT IS LITERATURE?'

Not the question I’ve always asked myself, rather the one I’ve evaded the most because I know that I would come up with a thousand explanations, none close enough to the actual truth, in case I asked myself this. It so happens that I like telling myself that ‘I’ began solely because this girl liked me that way. That I decided to stop killing ideas because she said they sounded fair enough, being alive. It could be the truth, for all I know, and it could be a whole different dimension far from truth, for the same. Of course, it is fanciful, writing to a crowd that you know would read you, or writing for that special person who exists to complement the existence of the writer in you, or some portion of the lot that you would appease in a way that would never happen if you didn’t deviate from being the ‘ordinary you’. And it is an end in itself to assert that you write because it gives you pleasure, or that it puts you out of pain, in which case what’s important is not the effect of the words but the effect of the writing of them, the effect of being rid of what you once felt to be full of – A scratch where it itches, of sorts, while sometimes, I feel that I write just to see how good I sound and it feels good to see the final cut, the last draft, the end result of a process that you tend to forget about once it’s done. Of course, no one would ever dig the source of a song once it’s been sung, for all we know it might as well have been a bunch of jarring melodies, non-sync, but put together, it makes a song. A song that sounds good, that too.

So, why write?

Fell out of the sky. I wasn’t looking for it in the first place, and neither have I kept tabs enough to start a scrutiny on Sartre, it was merely an impulsive reaction to put me out of a present state of chaos, but maybe only to a chaos different from this but a chaos all the same. It’s always reassuring to know that you aren’t the person that you were: makes it sound like progress was an inevitable intermediate even if ‘downhill’ is all you’ve gone. All the same, I like to think that I might and that I would get something out of it.

I need a reason to read. Never had one.

DON'T CRY, CHILD

It's for you, you know. I mean, you drove me insanely crazy when you came up to me and told me you've been crying your eyes out and I don't know if I could stand that, I mean, your eyes are the best part of you and I don't think anyone can ever brace himself enough to stand the fact that you were going to cry them out. And I turned numb, you turned me numb, not knowing what I could do to help, the least I could contribute. I directed you to 'Failure' by Laura Marling, she's a darling of a musician, always manages to charm, with all of the twelve tracks out of her debut album. But something told me you needed more. Meaning you deserve more. Probably more than this poem, but this was what I wanted to administer to you instantly. More like a hasty shot to an impending illness. Here's what I'm proud to have written.

Wither to the world and die,

the leaves that you never touched,

while the ones you did

would stay alive,

for replenishment is but a process

that knows not, a world without you.

Now, you might know

that this world’s a world

that makes clouds out of men,

women no less solid,

no less dense,

and how everyone

must leave the sky, sometime;

when you do is of least concern,

for what matters is where you go,

what matters is who you reach…

Not that you’d ever want it this way,

but to me,

you’re a raincloud in my hair,

would only spread if I scratch,

and I would wish I could grow it more;

that I could grow you more…

Your tears don’t deserve

the prize that you give them;

but then again,

you were always the silly girl

who gave more than she took…

Don't cry. You're worth more than your tears, and you're definitely worth more than this poem. :)

'WHAT DO YOU THINK I AM?'

where aphrodite is

live in los olimpo

I’ve always had this vision for a long-form concert. Goes back to when I was the backdoor anvil boy who dreamt Aulos, and I guess I could dream even now. But music is not a dream, it’s beyond a dream. It’s what’s there, it’s real and it’s all there, except that you don’t hear it because the door’s shut and she’s got the key. Same as the key to poetry: She holds it all.

I took my time. Still didn’t get it, though. She’s just giving me sneak peeks, inches of progress. I’d get full-frontal when I’ve got my foot, but for now, here’s the inch that I managed.

I got half her mind but a zero claim,

‘cause of a distinction of a ‘different lame’,

like I was born to lose and I can’t sustain,

What do you think I am?

A little closer when the day begins,

a look at my mind, you turn your back again,

a shifting road’s the shape you’re in,

What do you think I am?

You have me number but it’s always you it’s for,

What do you think I am?

Am I the fowl you flayed, for a feast that’s on?

“Get us a plate to serve Hephaestus on”,

better be sure before you taste me, son!

What do you think I am?

You have me number but it’s always you it’s for,

What do you think I am?

Burn me some light as you tie to this stake,

the fire could be mine, so see what you take!

Let me wave to my world,

she won’t mind that you’re late:

What do you think I am?

What do you think I am?

No one to listen to the blues anymore. No one to sing the blues, it’s all just ‘I shit you because you’d shit me back sometime’ and it’s sad how people don’t actually get sad and fall into this… moody depression, where you write her to fight her, and that’s what I’d like to be doing, because that’s what I’m all about.

First prospective single from ‘where aphrodite is: live in los olimpo’. Cry with me.

'WARCRY' - ARTWORK

A dismal day, of dismal hours and minutes and seconds to match, one can't help but feel the fire, I guess. Get pumped up. Want some heads rolling on the ground, want some feet kicking it out at them. Faces beneath the foot, a stampede on the race for nothing but victory.

Proud to present to you, the official artwork for 'WARCRY'. Version 1.

(For the ignorant, 'Warcry' is meant to be the last addition to 'My Book of Rhymes', although first conceived. Not like 'saving the best for last'. The best would come when willed and absolutely desired. That's about it.)

LINES

I thought I’d name this post as ‘Rhyme and Reason’, on a personal point of view that the said terms can never come together, as one has to always have an element of absurdity or at least, ‘obscurity’ for the sake of rhyme and no, it’s not a compromise, it’s just words slowing down for the tune to run with them, and once the pace is set, they’d just quicken together.

“words are stalled in a line,

it’s tough to make up my mind,

‘cause there’s not much of

rhyme in reason;

this is just my rhyme”

Setting aside the fact that I got to write ordinary lines, there’s a hint of pride that I got to twiddle my first tune and associate legit words to it. Very simple, and I got reminded of a ‘Swell Season’ song called ‘The Verb’, so I thought I’d write something sober, yet emotional, reminiscent of the stuff that Glen Hansard comes up with. So I guess this could be my tribute to him and to ‘Miss Incredible’ Marketa Irglova, and to the amazing music and lyrics that they come up with, solely to mesmerize and induce an amount of joy that can’t quite be paralleled. ‘Strict Joy’, as they put it themselves.

I’m not going to complete the song. I don’t know enough notes to do so.

'N'-THINGS

"See, I refuse to believe
that my life's gonna be
just a string of incomplete
never to lead to me anything
remotely close to my home life..."

- 'HOME LIFE', John Mayer.

'Heavier Things' - An album that happened to set the stage that he stands on, right now. Back then, you know.

Not the same man, no, I do know that. I'm not kidding myself otherwise, either. He said he's waiting on the world to change, I guess I'm waiting on him. A lot of things past, a lot of things said, it's said people crack under the strain anyway, but it still hurts, for I've never seen him as 'people'. Maybe I should. Maybe then, he'd prove me wrong. Either way, I'm still here. I doubt if there's the remotest possibility that he'd be reading this, but I'm still here.



I guess we're 'In Repair', now. Not together yet, but we'd be getting there. I hope.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - PART TWO

I didn’t need to open the door to let her in, that would only have proved her wrong and shattered my belief, for at that moment, I wanted to believe. Tough times, you know, waking up with longing to see eye to eye what you dreamt the whole night about, what you wished morning came faster for, what you wished would never ever let you oversleep, because this was just too important. Much too important than anything else, even examinations (with varying degrees of preparation), even interviews, even a date with your wife-to-be, because this is something that could eventually lead you to it, or so you like to believe. And belief is this vice that you’d wish you never held, once it starts to hold you back.

I didn’t tell her anything she couldn’t see for herself, and there was nothing she couldn’t, I had written it all on my mind and she was close enough to not miss out even on a single letter. I leant myself on both my arms, feet firm on the ground as I sat on the side of my bed, and she sat beside me, legs hovering an inch from the ground, for she was short. I smiled. I was looking nowhere but at her feet, at how she swung them back and forth from time to time, at how she swayed, deciding on the rhythm of the world as she did that, and I couldn’t help but be mesmerized. She was still a girl, still the girl who was as young as me, despite attempts from folk to marry her on and on and on and on to the same man, writing incarnation after incarnation and I could tell that she was tired, her eyes told me that. I looked at them. I’m not someone who could tell hazel from green and brown from black, but I could tell ‘impacting’ from ‘not’ and she had the prettiest pair of eyes I’ve seen on a girl: pretty big eyes that came alight when she smiled, and she was smiling right there, looking into mine, asking me not to worry, telling me everything that went wrong went wrong only to make ‘fine’ sound better than just that. And she said the world could do with a little more magic, with a little more faith, as faith is fun, it’s like the eternal game of hide and seek and you find you can never exhaust yourself playing it, refreshments galore. I told her I never disbelieved in her, and that I only waited for this moment to come, post eighteen years of penance under the veil of cynicism, for I can’t tell the world that I believe in no part of the cloud but its silver lining. She laughed, not at my pitiful metaphor, but at how glad I was making her, how light she felt despite the load of all the world’s responsibility, including mine, and how I was responsible for that, out and out.

She dropped a tear on my shirt as she wept with joy, leaning on, and I lifted her up by her chin, telling her to not weep, for she would flood the world otherwise. She closed her eyes as a drop trickled down her cheeks, onto my thumb and to the ground from my elbow. And I stopped the next to come with my eyelash.

She disappeared in a puff of smoke, ten minutes later. What happened before shall stay a secret, barely revealed.

I had helped move the world. Something I would sleep on, anytime.