Raging Bull

Once there lived a raging bull
Who knew no semblance of fear
He fought for what he thought was right
And cared for the ones who were dear

Once there lived a raging bull
Whose hooves could till the earth
His bellow was as loud as a storm
And his charge was feared from birth

Once a cow met this raging bull
And everything changed forever
She calmed him down and taught him love
And peace flowed in him like a river

He no longer was the raging bull
That everyone knew him to be
He devoted his life to the cow he loved
They were happy as far as anyone could see

Every now and then our raging bull
Would buck and bellow and fight
But just one pat of the cow's tender touch
Would calm him down alright

And then, suddenly this raging bull
Was left without his better half
Where, oh where is that raging bull?
All I see now is a little calf

Zephyr

When I close my eyes I can see only her. Her smile, radiant as the sun. Her long, slender form envelops my being. I am happy when I think of her. Sad when I think of her. Angry when I think of her. Regretful when I think of her. Unknowing, unfeeling I walk on by, until the next time I close my eyes. Whenever I look at a place I've been before with her, a feeling comes over me that I cannot comprehend. I want to go inside and sit in the same place, praying with every fibre that Time consented to move backward for a while, so I could set things right. I want to go inside and sit in the same place and feel the warmth that was once mine own. That embrace which was once mine own, joyfully and freely given to me. That embrace which I have lost. That embrace that I crave, that I need. I wish to God I could never write, because I can write only in pain. I would gladly trade my writing in exchange for peace, for love. Her love. My own one, my Unknown, my Goddess. I see a red door and I want to paint it black. I see colours that have no place in a world where she loathes my very name. I see people happy, and their happiness enrages me. My face contorts in anger, and then subsides. Who am I to feel bad at their delight? They are luckier than I am, and I should thank God that they have that luxury. An ambulance passes, and I pray. I pray that whoever is inside has someone next to him or her who loves him or her. I was foolish, very foolish indeed to think that I deserved love. But, Oh Lord, doesn't even a wretch deserve forgiveness? Isn't there light at the end of every tunnel? Why is it that my light ends up to be a train that runs me over? I close my eyes again, and this time it is on purpose. Somehow I think that punishing myself with pain could somehow absolve my sins. It does not. It never does. I long to go to my great-grandmother - the one person from whom I had last tasted that kind of love - unconditional, non-expecting love. Then I pause to wonder - why am i upset? We are born alone, and we die alone. Nobody will go into my grave but me. When I came into existence and will go out of existence alone, why do I need someone in the interim? Why? The answer is simple. Because I love her. And I will. Always. Even if she does not. She comprises the elements that build my world. Earth, fire, Wind, water and sky. Time is supposed to heal. Why does it not, then? Even if the earth falls out of orbit, if the skies rain blood, if the waters turn into ash and the Wind stops moving, one thing in my world will not change. That one single constant. Her. Her alone. She alone remains in my world. She is my moonflower, my muse, my Zephyr. I was not born to die young, and so I will not end my life. Instead, I will live; live in the hope that someday she understands how deeply hurt I am, and utterly devastated I am that she decided to move away from me. I cannot forget that bond - the bond of love. I cannot. That bond that will forever be mine, and mine alone. That bond, which is like that of the eye and its iris. That bond, which I can never let go of. The simple, yet complicated; tender, yet painful; calm, yet stormy bond of Love.

I will always love you, and only you - my Zephyr

The Forbidden Fruit

He walks silently, with the grace of a doe
Briliance radiating through his silvery form
Admiring nature's wealth and beauty
Not knowing how he would soon be torn

He looked at the trees, naming them all
Cedar, Neem, Banyan and Teak
His joyous surrounding echoed his thought
As his bliss was at its very peak

Beauty and calm was the order of the day
In that divine Garden of love
Animals and birds, he named with delight
Tiger, Fox, Hawk and dove

A while later he craved a mate
Like all his faunic companions had
A mate who would love and take care of him
In whose embrace he could be glad

And so one was given and he took with glee
Like a child given its very first toy
A few months passed, and their love grew strong
And with it, so did their joy

And then it happened, it came to pass
That his instincts took over his love
His mate disowned him; even abhored him
Gone was that which came from Above

Empty and weary he travels the world
Looking for that which he lost
Mephistopheles had gathered his bounty
The Inferno had claimed its Faust

His soul was shattered, his mind was twisted
As he prayed to God above
Was he damned forever, cursed to never
Taste the Forbidden fruit of Love?

The Inferno - A Vision of Hell

I had a dream. A very disturbing one. What follows is what I saw. I should have never read The Divine Comedy. What I saw is completely from there. I know that because I have read it many times. I never thought until today that it would haunt me like this. This is a book I'll never read again until I get over this dream/vision. Read on

Abandon All hope,
Ye who enter here
Once you come inside,
Your souls will disappear

Nine circles in all exist
Each with their story to tell
Come and I will show you all
As we descend into Hell

The first circle is Limbo
The home of the virtuous dead
Accept Christ they would not, and so
Heaven did not count their head

The second circle is for the lusty
Blown about by a violent storm
Francesca and Paolo are with the pack
Who in life did not reform

The third circle is for the gluttons
They with insatiable appetite
Rain and hail fall hard on them
As Cerberus watches in delight

The fourth circle is for the materialistic
The hoarders and who squandered well
The weights they push up against each other
Timed by Plutus' mindful bell

The fifth circle is for the wrath-consumed
In the dark Stygian water they are fixed
The agressors ravage each other forever
While the slothful gurgle forever in the Styx

The sixth circle is for the Heretics
Wrapped in violent, flaming tombs
The rejectors of God are forever punish
In the brightly burning catacombs

The seventh circle houses the violent
Divided into three dark rings
Let us go and visit them each
And hear the song each one sings

The first ring is guarded by centaurs
For those who opressed their fellow man
The Phlegethon consumes them to their measure of sin
Its blood boiling for time's entire span

The second ring is for the suicides
Who live as gnarled bushes and trees
In life they sought relief from pain
In death, they are relieved to bleed

The final ring is for the blasphemers and usurers
Who are kept company by sodomites
They reside in a desert of flaming sand
While the sky rains fire with all its might

The next circle is for the fraudulent
The ones who knowingly did harm
Their habitat is divided into ten stone ditches
When we look, try and keep your calm

The first stone block emanates pain
As we see people in two lines
Panderes and Seducers are whipped by demons
As their wounds multiply by nines

The second bolgia houses the flatterers
They who survived spewing lies
They are steeped in excrement forever
And feasted on by a million flies

The third rock is home to the simons
Bribers who paid The Church for their deed
Head first they stand buried in the rock
While a fire dances on the soles of their feet

The fourth ditch is for the false prophets
Whose heads are twisted down their backs
And the fifth is for the barrators who are punished
With boiling tar snce they did honesty lack

The sixth bolgia is the one with Hypocrites
Ambling around with heavy lead cloaks
And the seventh bolgia traps the thieves
Chased by snakes and by hellfire soaked

Bolgia eight is for the fraudulent advisor
Who are now encased in private flames
Bolgia nine is for the sowers of discord
A demon cuts up their bodies over and over again

The ninth circle is the icy pit
Reserved especially for traitors
Sub-zero temperatures torment the inmates
Those twisted and vile berators

Four zones adorn the icy pit
Each group at a different depth
Watching their plight so miserable and painful
Even a fiend like me broke down and wept

Caina is the first zone of four
For traitors to their kith and kin
Immersed in ice upto their necks they are
Measure for measure of their sin

Atenora is the name of zone two
For traitors of political entity
Unbendable necks, blocked by ice
Because they were consumed by their enimity

The third zone bears the name Ptolomaea
The traitors of guests have a lot to fear
The are buried upto their eyes in ice
And the cold freezes their every tear

Judecca is the final zone of all
It is for those betraying their master
The people here are buried completely in ice
Misshapen as though they were melted plaster

At the end of Judecca, I saw a dark figure
Huge and grotesque, yet captivating
Awe and disgust came in wave after wave
Between them, I kept fluctuating

He sat at the center of his dwelling place
Buried waist-deep in the ice
Six eyes, six wings and three heads I saw
Each representing a different vice

His wings beat hard and furiously fast
As he tries to escape his prison
But the harder he tries the more cold it becomes
Pushing him further into oblivion

His three heads chew three different persons
As his tears mix sickeningly with their blood
The Yellow chews Brutus, the Black chews Cassius
While the Red chews Judas; as they bleed a flood

The vision I saw has left me shaken
And chilled me to my very bone
I stood there scared, amazed and helpless
Worst of all, I stood there alone

Random Musings - Sometimes, Love Just Isn't Enough

Deal with it. Sometimes love just isn't enough to sustain a relationship. Yes, it is the quintessential element in the fabulous cocktail that is a relationship, but thats the point. A relationship is like a cocktail. It needs an alcoholic base (read love) in order to be a cocktail. Otherwise, quite literally, it becomes a MOCKtail. However, all you romantics out there who believe that true love will save the day - WAKE UP!!!! The Eagles were wrong. Love will NOT keep you alive.

A relationship takes a lot of hard work for it to succeed. This is especially true for romantic relationships. It requires sacrifice. It requires compromise. It requires putting the other person in front of you. And most of all, it requires integrity of word and deed. I'm not much of a Gandhian, but that particular phrase - integrity of word and deed - I belive in. If you say something and do something else, the person you're talking to will feel lied to. There's a simple way around this. Its called empathising.

Most people get confused between empathising and sympathising. Lets go linguistically. Sympathy means "having a fellow feeling" or "affected by like feelings," from syn- "together" + pathos "feeling". Empathy, however, is very different. It comes from the translation of the German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"). It means actually feeling the other person's feelings - their hurt, pain, laughter, sorrow, et al.

Empathy is very important for any relationship to survive. The Good Book tells us to "Love thy neighbour as thyself", to "Judge not, lest thee be judged yourself" and to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Incidentally, the Gita also says these in more or less the same meter, tone and voice. In addition to the aforementioned, the two Books also tell us to forgive and forget. Now there, as the Bard will tell us, lies the rub.

Human beings do not know to forgive and forget. And yes, that includes all of us - yes, yes; Me too. We forgive, but seldom do we forget. This is the scourge of all relationships. When we get cross we dig up all our derogatory graves, and reopen the scabs that are healing with our words. And whoever said "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words cannot harm me" is a FOOL. So before we say what we say, I urge you.....stop for a minute and see whether you'd like to hear what you are about to say if it were being said to you. If you wouldn't, then dont say it.

By that I do not mean to say that we should sugar-coat everything, but as the Buddhha said, find that Golden Mean - the Divine Path. I also do not mean to say we must never say what we want to. Just say it in a pleasing way. Another thing we must do in a relationship is let the other person know what they mean to us, because if they dont, the relationship is dead to begin with. Imagine if you think the person means the world to you, but that person does not even know you care. Not very nice is it?

Here's another reason why relationships fail - LACK OF COMMUNICATION. The inability to communicate is also a detriment. And remember, communication is seriously damaged by non-integrity of word and deed. If your partner, or friend or boyfriend or husband or wife or mother or sister tells you something you did wrong, DO NOT get defensive. They're just venting their frustrations due to your behaviour. You might've been 100% right, but you cannot take away the importance of how they felt and what they felt. And remember this - people may forget what you said, when you said it or where, but they will never forget how they felt when you said it.

So talk to the people you're in a relationship with. There's no point trying to play the oneupmanship game. That helps in sports, and when you're a lawyer. In a relationship, you'll win the argument, but lose the relationship. An observation - non-integrity of word and deed can happen when you contradict yourself just because you want to have the last word in an argument; so beware of that.

If you weren't paying attention thus far, it's alright. But this is the most important part of what I have to say. Everything that was written above is far far easier said than done. Showing the other cheek, empathising; all these are good traits, but they are almost non-existent. So work hard on your relationships - because they're worth it. I know the feeling. I'm in a relationship thats worth every shred of effort involving everything I've written about. And it is by no means easy. Its a daily struggle, but thats the challenge, thats the voyage, thats the journey of love. Oh and last but not least, do yourself a favour and DO NOT ask an outside party for advice on your relationship unless things are way beyond repair (which they never will be if you simply empathise) or the person you are seeking advice from is a professional counsellor. This is simply because your friends will advise you in the way they see fit, and believe me - EVERYONE IS AN EXPERT ON SOMEBODY ELSE'S RELATIONSHIP. Their relationship is probably as screwed up as your own. So talk it out with your partner instead. It will be a wonderful learning experience. And here I use the word partner not as in romantically, but in any relationship because thats what a relationship is - a partnership.

In conclusion, I wish you all the very best in your relationships, and hope and pray that they will be as fruitful as they could ever be. I also pray that each of us will be able to practice what we preach - thats more for myself though :) - and that we will be able to empathise as well as we sympathise.

God Bless

N