time – Fleeting Muse

A Sojurn in Patience

The title may through you off. Please bear with me, have some patience. After all for last few months that’s what I had been assiduously cultivating.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not an impatient person. Born in a country with few thousands years of history and blessed or burdened with the weight of the past and growing up in a big family, patience becomes your second nature without even realizing.

They say patience is a virtue. May be. For practitioners of patience time moves slow. Trust me, practice it and see for yourself.

Ah, but I am digressing. It’s been slightly more than six years that I started my blog in WordPress. When I joined WordPress it had been forty plus years that I had not taken up the pen to write. Not that I was not writing anything. Hundreds of examinations, thousands of job applications, passport application, visa applications, green card application, naturalization applications, all these must count for something. What I was not writing was words that were buried deep inside me. My subdued passion was bubbling to come out. WordPress gave me an outlet.

And that’s when it hit me. I realized that somewhere in that journey called life I had lost my patience. The words were rushing out in torrents but I didn’t have the wherewithal to sit down at one place and write. The exuberance of writing something and posting it on the blog took over my psyche. No editing, no doing once over, just write and post. I am sure all my posts were crying out for editing but I just didn’t have the patience for that.

There was another revelation to me. I am realizing that while poetry comes naturally to me, I struggle when I have to write prose. One of the reason for that simply is my lack of patience to sit at one place and cohesively put my thoughts to paper.

Then about a year and nine months back something happened. Though the world had been opened to me through WordPress, I was not able to connect with readers of my posts written in my mother tongue Axomiya (Assamese). I am sure there must be wonderful bloggers in Axomiya in blogosphere using WordPress or some other platform. It was just that I was unsuccessful in finding out. Enter Facebook and a whole new world opened out to me. Suffice it to say that my writing in my mother tongue just took off and flourished.

For nearly two years I juggled my time between my blog on WordPress and my posts on Facebook. It was a struggle but I was able to balance my time well between the two worlds. Alas, there is only twenty four hours in the day. Then a few months back I started writing a story on Facebook. I intended to complete it withing two or three parts but somehow the story took wings and continued.

Now after forty four episodes, nearly forty six thousand words, the story is still continuing without an end in sight. So what that has got to do with this posts? Well, the balancing act between WordPress and Facebook is in tatters. I am finding that I am not being able to give as much time to my blog as I wish and I am suffering. I love the world of WordPress, friends that I have made, the beautiful words that I read and the learning. Yes, learning. I have learnt so much from my friends here in blogosphere. The thought that I am not being able to be an active participant here any more is killing me.

I am a pro- choice person by choice but in this particular issue of the story that I am currently posting in Facebook, I am pro-life in the sense that I will like to see my baby come to life. They say a full term for a baby is nine months. I am not there yet but not sure if the baby will be born pre-matured or the baby will be delivered overdue. Only thing I am sure about is that till it is delivered my visits to WordPress will be fe and far between. How I wish I can extend the day to forty eight hours or get and extra set of hands.

Well, as all of our wishes never become reality I only ask from you, my friends here in WordPress and my readers, that please bear with me in my sojurn in patience till I complete my story on Facebook and be back here again. Just have some patience.

As usual rest assured no editing had been done and it is straight from my heart to you.

Pranabendra Sarma, March 2, 2022
San Jose, California

From Vault of Memories Past – (Continued)

[I wrote this poem over a span of one month. As the poem is long , I shall post it in parts every Friday. It’s a poem about love but some may find the content semi-erotic. Lest their finer senses be disturbed, be aware and proceed at your own risk.]

Link to the previous part : https://wp.me/p73yZZ-4lM

Part II

How does one write about one’s own heart?
A feeling that lies buried deep inside,
Carried to every part of one’s being,
A constant reminder of being alone, but not,
A dull ache that throbs,
A painful reminder of what could have been
and now never would be,
Memories that would be carried
for the remainder of the life,
Memories that cut deep and slowly bleed pain,
drip, drip, drip,
Freeze the moment and stop time,
exhilaration and it heals.[9]

The moment from eons ago
when we first embraced,
My fingers stroking your lustrous hair,
A wave a satiny black cascading to infinity,
Darker than the darkest night,
Like the darkness from the abyss of a bottomless ocean,
Sweet fragrance of jasmine
wafting in the air from the wavy darkness, and
lost in the depth of those dark waves,
My fingers touched
the graceful arc of a swan’s neck
and I found heaven.[10]

[November 29, 2020]

Pulsating veins in a neck
gently bent backwards
as my fingers traced up,
A beautiful song in the making,
Quivering rosy lips parting softly,
Hint of a pearly whites necklace
showing the tip of a rosy tongue,
As I softly touched those inviting lips
with the tip of my index finger,
A soft moan ensued
and the most beautiful pair of eyes
that I had ever seen,
Opened slowly and looked into my eyes;
And I sank
In the deepest mystery
of those bottomless eyes;
Rendered senseless.[11]

Thin eyebrows arched like a bow
framed a smooth halfmoon forehead
glistening in the afternoon sunlight
filtering through the leaves,
Unwrinkled smoothness that
unable to contain
the beads of pearls of rising passion,
let it flow over the bridge
of the slightly upturned nose,
perfectly angled;
And as it dropped ever so slowly
from the tip of the nose to
moisten a pair of thirsty lips, I gasped;
No salt of passion ever tasted so sweet
to the waiting lips of a thirsty lover.[12]

[November 30, 2020]

Connect with me in twitter @pranabsarma2020

From Vault of Memories Past – (Continued)

Link to the previous part : https://wp.me/p73yZZ-4lw

Part I (continued)

Please come near.
Age has robbed my vision;
It is not as clear.
You say it does not matter,
You promise to speak,
If I keep my eyes shut
And let my
Feelings speak.[5]

My hands cupped in yours,
Lilting voice I
Waited so long to hear.
Lovingly you spoke.
“Keep your eyes closed, my dear, and
Feel me with your imagination,
Fill my heart with tender words,
Words of passion, not of lust,
Words that a life-time will last.” [6]

Touch me, my love, with your feelings
From head to toe,
And whisper those words of love
In my ear.
Let your imagination sculpt
A picture of my youth,
I shall always carry with me.
Let the passion flow
And let us flow
In the torrents of love.
Vagaries of time may be cruel,
But we shall have enough,
To last a lifetime and more.[7]

Don’t hold back my dear,
I have felt your touch before;
The rousing passion,
Love mingled with lust,
The explorations and the discoveries,
All inhibitions shredded,
All these years I have carried you
Inside me.
Today, let me hear in your words,
Strip me bare,
And let me feel myself,
In your words,
Let me quench my thirst.[8]

[November 25, 2020]

Connect with me in twitter @pranabsarma2020

An illusion named Time

One that cannot be purchased,
Neither saved nor spent,
Cannot be owned nor enslaved,
Cannot be donated,
Nor received as gift,
What difference does it make,
On or in our hands,
An illusion
We think we have,
We measure and be precise,
We boast and we prance,
How much we saved or spent,
And then boom,
It stands still,
Eternity embraces,
Fragments of fossilized bones
Tell stories of
End of an illusion.

Taunt of Time

with all due respect to where it belongs, a tongue in cheek poem dedicated to the pedagogy of time.

I just wanted a lead,
A straight shot to her heart,
Wanted just a few minutes
Of her time,
But she had none;
She gave me a book,
A small one to read,
Only one equation, she said,
Told me once I understood well,
Come back and need to tell,
The story of the book,
A Brief History of Time.

Never in my life I thought
I would hate someone,
Who was dead and gone,
Oh Hawking,
Was that your way of
Having fun,
To tinker with time?
Days have turned into nights,
From the time
I was given the book,
Time stood still for me,
Taunting me day and night.

I read and read,
And then read again,
And tried to understand;
Who defined brief,
Nothing brief about time,
Except the few moments
That I asked from her, and the
Much shorter time
I was dismissed,
Time just flies.

Now I even dread to understand,
And go back to her,
As time ticks and taunts,
I fear if she hands me
A long history of time to read,
Life will pass by,
Time will fly,
And before I have my
Brief moment,
My time with her,
It will be time for me to go,
And meet Hawking
With his book in hand,
Ready to drill into my head,
The concept of time,
Either brief or long.

How can eternity be brief?
I am no Einstein,
But Hawking is wrong,
There is nothing brief,
About time;
Don’t get fooled by those
Big words,
(or are they the big bangs),
Lest you end up in
A black hole;
Ah, I feel enlightened,
And I feel brave,
As I get ready to meet
My love,
and proclaim,
When I am ready to
Be with you
From here to eternity,
And beyond,
There is no meaning to
The brief history of time,
Let the dead rest in peace,
Till eternity beckons.

Fantasy

what is life,
if not colored by a little fantasy?
I shall rather fly away
on the wings of my imagination,
than wither slowly by
dripping sands of time.
is there anything more painful,
than dying by grinding of the mundane?
let them ridicule me,
for my feet not being grounded;
will the bean counters ever comprehend,
ecstasy of riding the winged horses,
and flying away?

The Hourglass

The most profound ideas of the day come to mind in the toilet because they are worthy of being flushed out of the system at the earliest.

Why does the sands of time
drips so slowly, and then
the hourglass turns?
Why can’t time remain at
standstill as we mourn
the scores that departed
to the unknown shores?
do you hear the blood curdling
howls of the hyenas circling,
to rip the coffins before
the bodies are cold?
the vampires do not dread
the light anymore,
ready to suck the blood
as life goes out.
as we mourn, somewhere else
a life mortgaged to luxuries
while living, slowly ebbs,
and street dogs stand in
guard of honour
for the one who has no home.
the sands of time drips ever so slowly,
and the hourglass turns,
as we mourn.

featured image from pixabay

Uninvited guest

Update:

Edwin Alvarez was the kid I wrote about in my poem below today. Please read the request below from his friends trying to arrange for his funeral.

“Hey guys. I believe everyone is aware already that on Friday night there was a boating accident after which our friend Edwin unfortunately passed away. I don’t know however, if everyone is aware that he comes from a very humble family and I don’t know up to what point they relied on Edwin’s income. As far as I know, he was paying for his brother’s education, bootstrapping a business with his dad who works in construction and looking for ways to also help his mother, who is a maid, to find an alternate source of income.
Needless to say this is a life-altering situation that is going to be incredibly difficult for his family to overcome. Eduardo (one of Edwin’s friends who helped us contact his family), started a GoFundMe to help them out with the funeral expenses. Any help will surely be greatly appreciated. Here’s the link https://gf.me/u/ykvm62 . He also mentioned that Oscar (Edwin’s brother) is already aware of this effort.”

I write about current events, my poems are fiction, penned during my flights of imagination. The poem below is based on a tragedy that happened two nights ago. A young soul was called back too soon by the Lord. He was my son’s friend. I never met him but heard about him from my son. A hard working, honest, fun loving friendly guy. These are the times one questions, why? Why? I guess there is no answer.

a day in a life of hope

started with fun and frolic,

a boat ride down the river,

azure summer sky pierced

with laughter and singing.

sun moved slowly

to the western sky, Continue reading “Uninvited guest”