Mid-term Anthology

My encounters with verse this term were mostly of the order of doggerel. Here’s a few worth display. Written in the last few minutes before I left for home last term...

Thanatos

Water in my cupped hands
Trickles swiftly by,
I sit by myself waiting
For my time to die.

Last term it was HRP, this term, SRM. And so the cycle continued...

Amen

Adder's bladder, eagle's eye,
Roofie tainted apple pie,
The merciful YHWH hath looked my way,
Now my days go happily by.

Also written in the same class, but expressing dismay over PRD (tools), BFM (terror), Marketing (Ronin) and STM (games), was this.

Alas!

Tools of terror, Ronin's games,
Sissy knights & brazen dames,
The poetess me is made undead,
By this topsy-turvy chivalry.

I was sitting next to Mausami, hoping to keep her amused with these verses, when I happened to look back and found that the interest of even the twin rubies was ebbing away.

But who?

Sparkling water loses shine,
And muffles his gay song.
The season I try to keep amused,
But I can’t hold on long.

Another day, another uninteresting lecture, I wrote my notes on a brand new notepad. The title for this poem stems from the fact that I found an interpretation for this poem (3 actually) after I wrote it.

Hermeneutics

Colours on a tinted paper,
Rarely appear true,
But lack of paleness scarce affects,
The richness of their hue.

Same lecture, different theme - the सुभाषितानि

Maxims

The darkness of ignorance,
Doth many fancies make,
A halter thus innocuous,
Appears as a snake.

Fear inspires reverence,
Reverence desire,
All hope of seeing light,
Is extinguished by such fire.

In striking similarity to my HRP course, I found myself unaccompanied by my trusty file in many an SRM class, the first time due to the fact that I’d just returned from the Visarjan of the Goddess. Fortunately, every time this has happened, I have managed to make a fair and duly embellished copy of the notes. The yields:

Full Moon

I first glimpsed my true love,
Alas on such a fateful day,
Although my shafts had hit him true,
They’d wounded him the wrong way.

The Refuge

Every once in a while, comes a time,
The most prosaic must resort to rhyme,
When the mind cares not for the mores of the gross,
And the soul is lost in depths sublime.

For the uninitiated, in Greek Mythology, Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (death) are twins.

Hypnos

O Somnus Deo, Lord of rest,
Don't you put my powers to test,
For how may anyone well-disposed,
Refuse thy charms and make protest?

In an inanely trite STM guest lecture on entrepreneurship, it hit me harder than before, that I wrote just to keep the cogs in my head running...

Quality

I'm bored and sleepy,
I really need to leave,
I can't help but writing,
In such quality.

My prose is dying,
My verse doggerel,
And yet I can't stop writing,
Such dense drivel.

My eyes are drooping,
My hand is disarrayed,
But I've got to keep writing,
Or I'll be dismayed.

Another lecture, different passions, different meters...

Poverty

Heartstrings ache & gizzard growls,
At the sight of pleasure, scowls,
How may I faultless my soul placate,
And reconcile to my poverty.

Jealousy

When the scorching hype,
Burns not the actor so lit,
Shadows cross my life.

And one fine day, I was suddenly the most sought after person. It was RAJAXI night, and I found myself without pen or paper or Bare Act in a Law presentation class. So I borrowed some, and decided to keep myself engaged. Four doggerel verses later, something sensible came out. The first and last one describes peoples' various attempts at creativity, and the reactions that some of them face.

Classroom Battles

Beautiful minds fill the rows
flanked by comrades.
Armed by notions several
they fight for grades.

Attempt at Sense

Ennui pushes my pen
Inanity flows as ink
Such is the sorry result
When I write before I think

The Law of Pleadings

So if you got a valid point,
Don't you bogey that joint,
For the law of pleading is misleading,
And will all your pleas ignore.

Cows with Guns

Towering folks short on guts
Face cow-dung
Big promises and bigger buts
Will be hung

After that I swore to end my romance with doggerel. This means that I rarely give in to my urge to write nowadays. But then promises like that don’t last long. Here’s one describing a friend’s SRM ppt.

Measures

Water minus fluidity,
Chills me to my funny bones.
I bare my teeth in mirth,
To conceal my slaked thirst.

Sometimes the sight of ointment (salve) can bring you pain. It happened to me, making me write this...

Paucity

The sight of alien salve
Opens sore wounds.
Yet even lowly salt
Remains to them elusive.

All in all, life's been good. Winter has given up the stage to summer, with spring visible only in the deciduousity of the deodar trees. I've given in to the dangerous habit of extreme sleepiness, while ensuring that no one, not even me, can blame yours truly for lack of diligence and enterprise. As the countdown to the end of this term starts, I wish all my companions (willing or no) in the journey of life, as much self-awareness, as they can tolerate.