Tag Archive: Verse

Damn, you English language

Posted by Ankit On March 2nd, 2010

The teacher claimed it was so plain,
I only had to use my brain.
She said the past of throw was threw,
The past of grow - of course - was grew,
So flew must be the past of fly,
And now, my boy, your turn to try.
But when I trew,
I had no clue,
If mow was mew
Like know and knew
(Or is it knowed
Like snow and snowed?)

The teacher frowned at me and said
The past of feed was - plainly - fed.
Fed up, I knew then what I ned;
I took a break, and out I snoke,
She shook and quook (or quaked? or quoke?)
With raging anger out she broke;
Your ignorance you want to hide?
Tell me the past form of collide!
But how on earth should I decide
If it's collid
(Like hide and hid),
Or else - from all that I surmose,
The past of rise was simply rose,
And that of ride was simply rode,
So of collide must be collode?

Oh damn these English verbs, I thought
The whole thing absolutely stought!
Of English I have had enough,
Those verbs of yours are far too tough.
Bolt upright in my chair I sat,
And said to her 'that's that' - I quat.

-Guy Deutscher

The Golden Gate - Vikram Seth

Posted by Ankit On October 25th, 2009

11263_f260A bittersweet lovestory it's in verse
of hope and sadness, jealousy and loss,
of love which always has hateful obverse,
set against the lovely Francisco canvas.

Language at once both beautiful and wise
set in the tetrameter's confines,
a work as evocative as Monet,
unflinching rhymes, and refreshing sonnet.

Through joy and sorrow the characters drift,
like the unsure antics of fog and mist,
the Golden Gate often is in whose fist,
A belated thanks for this thoughtful gift.

To read it, I remember you had willed,
That promise, dear, today stands fulfilled.

P.S: The book is in iambic tetrameter but since I have no feel for it, the only thing I could manage was a pentameter. It's a good book, highly recommended.

Gravity of the situation

Posted by Ankit On April 24th, 2009

photo2

Posted by Ankit On January 5th, 2009

I was reading 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'. A few lines worth sharing:

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

-Wilde

Such a poetical exposition of the essential connection between love and hate that leaves them both tangled in each others embrace, hanging in an exquisite balance whose unstable equilibrium is a relationship.

Foggy and Gloomy

Posted by Ankit On January 2nd, 2009

Wilde once said that all bad poetry is a result of honest emotions. Well... at least my poetry is bad... it's in fact verse!

I wonder what to write on
in times of such distress,
with gloomy days and foggy nights
solitude lone buttress.
Specters rise in ghostly dance
from all engulfing mist,
I raise my hand to touch them all,
moisture my mistress.

Memory with its shearing edge
cuts carves clean car-cass,
and chops it to a deja vu
bludgeons it to molass.
And I walk on with eyes put fix
into the foggy dark,
anxiety, nerves, concern, shivers,
trepidation en masse.

Ink in the pen, starts to dry
with careless nonchalance,
in horror do I gape at the
precarious imbalance.
As it tilts here and it tilts there
I'm left to ruminate,
over our hollow rein on life,
self-deluding pretense.

Well... too gloomy I think, too dark. No no, things are not nearly dark enough but midway through it I was seized by the romantic imagery of it all. It's a vicious circle, gloom. It feeds on itself. The more eloquently you express it, the more beautiful, alluring, all-consuming it becomes until you are reduced to a whining, bleeding heart that your emotion and sympathy laden ideas want you to be. I know it from experience and I believe it very deeply that I have been dealt a more than fair hand. My travails have not been worse than anyone else's just like the travails of most people in the world are probably worse only in their own eyes. But such rational justifications do not stop me from writing self-indulgent, morose lines like the ones above. Hmmm... was it Gandhi who once said that to be happy, you only need to look at a person sadder than you?

Anand

Posted by Ankit On December 26th, 2008

In one of the most poignant scenes in Bollywood history, a hyperventilating Rajesh Khanna says to a massively worried Amitabh Bachchan, 'जो खत्म हो रहा है वो शरीर है।' (That which is ending is the body) and follows it up with one of the most beautiful poems I've ever come across:

मौत तू एक कविता है,
मुझसे एक कविता का वादा है मिलेगी मुझको

डूबती नब्ज़ों में जब दर्द को नींद आने लगे
ज़र्द सा चेहरा लिये जब चांद उफक तक पहुचे
दिन अभी पानी में हो, रात किनारे के करीब
ना अंधेरा ना उजाला हो, ना अभी रात ना दिन

जिस्म जब ख़त्म हो और रूह को जब साँस आऐ
मुझसे एक कविता का वादा है मिलेगी मुझको

which, when translated reads like:

Death, you are a poem,
and you shall meet me; in your poetic promise.

when pain begins to subside in my sinking pulse,
and the pale moon reaches the horizon.
while the day is still in water, and night lurks on the bank,
neither dark nor alight, when it's neither a day nor a night

when the body ends and the soul takes breath,
you shall meet me; in your poetic promise.

----

Not the brightest of thoughts with which to start the day but it does serve to elucidate the power of creative effort. Art, in its best attempt, trying to veil the hideous reality in a beautiful raiment, thereby engendering an experience that is as rooted in ethereal beauty as in dead certainty. Bare truth is not only depressing, it's also predictably boring. A creative vision, in the above example, seeking to redress reality's morbid obsession with its own mediocrity and inevitability.

Chequered and Flagged

Posted by Ankit On June 20th, 2008

The pieces set gleaming in crimson light
the players sweat o'er impending fight
him taking black, it's me who has the white
who gallantly gallops his gallant knight

He moves his pawn to gain the center stage
and my pawn brings us both on the same page
his knight, my bishop, such a trembling rage
histrionics nettling they do engage

We hunch over the board with faces grave
with fingers twirling hair in baffled wave
I sacrifice a rook in moment brave
he sees through it, oh! what a damn close shave

his mistress now breathing down on my neck
with raging fury, slaps me with a check
I move to left - she eats one from my deck
and leaves behind a battered, rickety wreck

I must wake up before it gets too late
with middling talent, all I have is fate
I march forward, he storms in through my gate
"5-naught", says he and adds, "it's a check-mate"

🙁

The curse of the iambic pentameter

Posted by Ankit On May 26th, 2008

You pick your pen and scratch your chin a bit
these wretched words frankly just would not fit
you're growing gray rhyming cheater and peter
and stuffing them all in an iambic pentameter

Swallowing your pride with every ending 'love'
with a helplessly crushed creativity you rhyme it with 'dove'
but then 'orange' somehow finds its way to the end
and no bloody word would rhyme howsoever language is bend

And by now you realize that the pentameter is lost
in the quest for rhyme, rhythm was the cost
or maybe you are just not enough talented
your pride is bruised and your ego, dented

All you can do now is write loose verse
with shallow meaning and language too terse
on how you suck at what others are so much better
on the restrictiveness of iambic pentameter

On how the literary world is completely unfair
with some hogging more talent than their share
and sad figures like you barely making ends meet
staring sadly, hopelessly at the sparkling clean sheet

Hoping that words would appear by godly intervention
that 'heart' will find a partner without undue tension
and you twitch your brow and scratch you head
think for a bit and go down to bed.

Bird

Posted by Ankit On May 11th, 2008

Perched atop the open cage
ruminating over freedom
nostalgic taste of iron below
and a slightly confused gaze.

she eyes the enslaved liberation
and the illusion of independence,
humanity-her every breath
polluted with myriad obligation.

sorrow masked as hope
punctuating the pursuit of happiness
with sorrow in such abundance
how can I ever cope ?

then she flaps her wings and flies
enters the cage and sings:
this hopeless prison is better
in a world where hope is a vice.

नाउम्मीद

Posted by Ankit On November 5th, 2007

तेरे ग़मों की डली बनाकर ज़ुबाँ पे रख ली है देखो मैंने
वो क़तरा क़तरा पिघल रही है, मैं क़तरा क़तरा ही जी रहा हूँ

इन आँखों की खामोश सिलवटों में, लबों की शर्माई करवटों में
रुकी हुयी एक आह दिल में, ज़हर मैं कितना जा पी रहा हूं
... मैं क़तरा क़तरा ही जी रहा हूँ

वो दिन जो मेरे करीब आकर, नज़र मिलाकर था तूने देखा
ये दिन जो यादें सिसक रहीं हैं, मैं फिर भी सपना वो सी रहा हूं
... मैं क़तरा क़तरा ही जी रहा हूँ

झुलस चुकी इस शाख पे अब मायूस ख्वाबों की राख बस है
तड़पती साँसे अनसुनी सी, कहानी चुप अनकही रहा हूं
... मैं क़तरा क़तरा ही जी रहा हूँ

--------------

कविता की पहली दो पंक्तियाँ गुलज़ार की हैं । बाकी मेरा छोटा सा प्रयास ।

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