The Story of The Lunatics

Once upon a time, the Sun was in love with the Moon, the moon loved him too, just a little more, but they were condemned never to meet, you know, for the sin of love.  She was condemned to circle the earth, while the Sun would watch them at a distance.

Love was a sin you know.

The moon was another name of beauty, you know, anyone who had stared at her with their dreamy eyes were compelled to love her for her beauty, yes that was she was like-the silver moon. There were rumours that the moon was desired by a thousand stars.  But the moon loved only the sun.

When the earth was made of men, men too started loving the moon. And when men, love something they want it-that’s how men are, you know, very stupid.

I was one of them you know, one of those stupid men who dared to love the moon. I tried to bring the moon to me, you know, so that she loves me like she loves the Sun, perhaps a little more. I was to make her love me, you know, by daring to go against the sun. Oh how heroic it was I thought.

But you do not get moon in the day, when the Sun keeps an eye on everyone, the day is the Sun’s mistress, it blinds the moon, the sun is not a good fellow you see, he keeps a mistress, while the moon suffers in loneliness. What love is that? That is no love –said the wise men.

But you do not anger the Sun. He is so mighty, so powerful, he is mean too, you know. I remember the brave wise men-those who had once angered the sun, and they still suffer in the thousand long summers of a desert, you know, their skins all burnt and black. So I had to be careful you see. The day was not my friend.

So I became the man of the night.

But the night was no easy companion either, he was a foe, you know, he too yearned for the moon’s love, the night had only the moon for him- the day had stolen the Sun long away. The night was very lonely. The night could not convince the moon that the Sun had a mistress, how could he, no one trusts the night, you see, except for the mad writers and mad lovers.

So I had to fight the night too, for the moon’s love. But, oh how youth fools us, the moon would love none, she was blinded by the Sun, the Sun in whose light her beauty would bask, splutter, the Sun who would forever hide her dark side, it was the Sun and only the Sun that she had always known.

 Oh why can’t men be like the Sun?

Jealous, at his own plight, the night cursed all men who dared to love the moon. He took away their night’s sleep, so that they suffer with him. And ever since then, all the men like me were called lunatics and we were condemned to the night.

The moon still loves the sun, you know,

And we the Few daring men,

The men of the night, The lunatics,

We Still write poetry for her.

For you.

I am not a Poet.

But I am no poet
I am a vessel filled with blood
If you hurt me
I shall bleed
Till I turn white
Like ice
Which you will love to kiss
In the season of
The Sun.

In Our Feverish Summer.

Like every other
Sick child
I had smelled the eucalyptus
on my 
naked handkerchief.

My Doctors said
I was sick
From the 
Cold.


The Flu
That wreaks
The heart
And you
Never feel again.

You never feel.

We kids knew
How to 
Feel.

We could feel.

For a while

That smell of
Eucalyptus
And wonder 

If that’s
How
Love was like.

Like the smell
Of a
Daring eucalyptus
Keeping

The cold
away? 

To The Judges.

ONE

My father’s diabetic appetite desires sweets, like a jailbird.
He jumps for it, in secret, wary of lady warden.
My mother looks away, aware of the misdemeanour.
Men become boys yet again, hurting feminist sentiments, and the rain does sparkle on their rooftop, washing a few dirty birds thus adding on to the forty years of meaningful love-chores.

TWO

My friend, who is deemed fat by a society full of people like me, points his unhappiness to the lack of a lady love, and not his unjust appetite.
He often asks me how to talk with girls, suspecting my made up lady luck.
Whenever he gets drunk and sentimental he announces everyone I am some alpha-male thus boosting my ever hungry ego. I kind of like him.  But he is possessive about things he doesn’t even own, for instance say an unclothed-mannequin on some street shop.
So, I tell him, one day when he gets married, he will be very happy.


THREE

I am morally unfit and unsound, and my words disappoint civilization.
So I convert them into desires which grapple with each other ruining any inherent innocence.
In my dreams, I desire eight different women every night, and I always end up dying like Julius Caesar.

And the judges of the earth keep on judging,
Feeling important perhaps-
In this tiny rock
Warmed by
A tine fire
In a vast universe
Of
Physical nothingness.

Good Morning Love.

The morning sky
Like your old palette
Shall
Confound you with colors.

So,
Behold this time, lady!
The dawn of time,
When you shall

Rid your dolor.

Another Spring.

Time stood still as the meridians of his life perplexed themselves in the bitterness of beauty.

The window by whose side he had 'dreams' once upon a time, boasted those glistening yellow leaves of spring, waiting to invalidate in the beautiful evenings of summer, and just like them he was waiting to perish in the darkness of the lonely evenings with listless thoughts of no importance.

There was beauty at arm’s length and he wanted to swim in it, he had so much time, he was so spoilt with the gift of time.
A friend would accuse him of being a loner- it was every friends’ right.

He would light a joint, and point the table fan towards him, to drive all the holy smoke away, the valid precautions one takes for a secret love.
 Mother could sniff it out, he knew, the secret love and the secret life.

And that’s how he would gaze his days away staring at the blue skies and the green trees, flying in the easterlies of his table fan, dancing in the smell of the holy weed, thinking of all the beautiful songs that he could never write down, thinking of a muse who would die in summer- thinking of her.

Men could think of women that way too,
Like a spring leaf and a lover,
Like some secret beneath a river,
Waiting to be found,
Perhaps with the right words.

I love.

I love
Who I love
What I love
Not for love
But for love.
And thus I love
Too much love
Only love
And you.