The Last Layer

Yes we are both victims,
I, of my imagination
You, of your realities
I, of my ambition
You, of your perception
I, of sordid passions
You, of intense compulsions
I, of my death
You, of your life

We are both actors
and this world is our stage
We are both painters
this world is our muse
We are both artists
this world..our canvas.

Adventure of the Heart

I made my way into the beleaguered city
where existed numerous human voids
a lot of men who had fallen from grace
and women who did not have a life of choice

The Queen was concerned about them
as their destiny was my concern too
I could have given them weapons of emancipation
and allowed them to independently pursue their liberation

But what happens when there's such a large gap
between the aspirations and the desires of this worldly trap
which bounds your conscience with the withering materialism
and clutches life's poetry in its innate skepticism

I rode hard through the woods
Through the dark forests of wilderness, as swiftly as I could
into the world of the human folk again
to be their destiny's catalyst and take them away from the path uncertain

There were murderers and there were ferocious carnivores
and there were beasts feral, killing as a matter of course
but each moment I felt I was in trouble,
I looked up and saw the face of Queen among the rubble 

She had enlightened my journey with her delight
in the trust of her conscience fountain-ed my muscles might
I had to return, alive, even if death of my body it was
I had to finish my task, if even my approach was not filled with applause

It was the journey in which the victory was all mine
I just had to live these few moments which were filled with slime
and then I could go back and find solace in her company
the voyage of the soul was in some way becoming my journey

From her to this world and then back to her it goes
her inner strength protects her from the thorns of this temporary abode
and yet, one feels, so aloof and so dead
if he does not do her task and gives up to this prison instead

I was alive and I was fortunate to have her by my side
and to live in her enlightened shelter as my being prepared for the stride
she was with me, as concretely as one can seek
What is the worth of the air, if it's not the air that my Queen breathes

I took my stance as I approached the battlefield
My righteousness was my weapon and her belief was my shield
The enemy was large, and it looked at me with big ferocious eyes
Inciting in me the fears of defeat, even if I seemingly had victory on my side

I followed not the course travelled by fellows of the past
Those who had defeated torpor as they had set themselves to task
and proclaimed this land as belonging to the most enlightened beings
Neither fear, nor violence, nor did desire lead to their aspiration's decease

And I shall fight like the king of the earth

whose existence is accustomed to the pains from birth

and however there was a gentle accord in the nobility of his action
one that separates conscious effort from reaction

I could be beautiful even as I slay,

The might of the demons that lead the world astray
and revel in the glory of the shadowy night
still rise like the sun after winning this gory fight

I killed one after another, those beasts that blocked my straddle

and got hurt, wounded, aggrieved in this stranded gloom
but not once did I look back towards my past
Not once did I actually feel that there's an impending doom

And yet clearer did I see the Queen,

as my eyes lost their worldly sheen
I looked at the world with oculus of my soul
her fragrance was alive there, my wounds it did console

The more I got hurt, the more I defeated the foe with my smile

The little stings of the fate, appeared far, a few hundred mile
As if, it was not this body that was me,
I was above it and its throbs were bound to flee

I realized who I was, as the trumpets of the battles blew past

There were pain, there were cries and there were sights 
which left me aghast
and even when the noise was at its peak,
I was lost in love, and it was her glimpse that I did seek

It's only when you lose your valued possession to the obtuse

That you remember the one that loved you when you were destitute
as I was scraping through the thorns in this battle of peril
that I remembered what I was when my outer being was sterile

But It's not that I lost her sight, when I was still sharpening my steel

but her presence I did not feel, so strongly that the world would conceal
in the vesture of her being, in the light of her dawn
in the canopy of her veil my blindfolds were drawn

And that is why she sent me, in this expanse of serendipity

My poems were my life, but only then did I get life's true conformity
when the blood oozed out of my body, and caressed the earth
made me dive beneath its layers of slime and the dirt

I worked through my soul, when I was lost in battles of right

with those of benign might and whose parallel were out of sight
I was entrusted with her love and her luminosity as my glove
To aid the ailment of those, whose cure wasn't love

Knight's Quandary

Queen:          "Who has ever fathomed the enormity of your depths?

Oh Knight, 
the burning of life, in your ravenous wild eyes!

Who has ever dived deep into the abyss

of the perception of death, and found bliss?"

I smiled at her playful banter, for she woke me

from the deep trance that I delved in 
Meditating on her being, I was lost in her self

as she touched me with words, my assassin!

Knight:          "And why today do you deem to define

your mind's logic in the illusion of timeline

These eyes, shall grow cold, lose their vivacity

as I become old,

Only the spirit, this being, shall confine

My verisimilitude shall wither away with time."

Queen:          "Not later, but it is in this moment that connects our lives,

enchanting freedom just as our destiny contrives,

and your magnanimity is being wasted in my den

why don't you go out, pull your swords, for you are

a natural leader of men!"

"And it is in this moment that people want to be lead

through the blindness of the path which they tread,

you need to cleave the umbilical cord with their futurity

and impregnate their beings with the will of the divinity."

"And it's only you, who can do the onerous task,

for you are bestowed with the strength and the armor of god.

You have incarnated to wishfully fight for the truth

and heavens forbid if in this battle cry is left mute."

"You'll have to derive the strength from the abstract,
not your knighthood, which O Knight would be your weapon to escape

Your need is to be prepared for the war with yourself

and in this passion of your eyes should your timidity shelve."

Knight:          "Queen! You forget what I was before you held me in your arms

and took me in your stead, to create poems of tenderness and forlorn

I was a hardened frivolous rock, I was going for the kill, 
It was bloodshed and violence which were to me my life's appeal."

"And now, you ask me to go back to my past,

and kill within the world it's vitality, causing rampage aghast

These people of the unjust world you talk of will find their destiny anyway

The designs of the supreme are not so brittle that they would sway."

"If I of all the knights find solace in your love,

and give excuses to fate for hitherto being your glove
I would write and I would write, till the last of my breath,
to give you solace, as I derive the same from my fatigued death."

The Queen, amazed, and bewildered that she was,

gazed at me, as if her eyes were severed apart,

There was love, and there was life, and there was oblivion in her eyes,

and there were volumes of expectations of the surmise.

Queen:          "You leave me and my den, right now, O lord of annihilation!

Leave me, and my life, for once, and pursue your passion.

Don't come back to me till you do what your foretold task in the world is…

Poetry, is history, and the longing of a new genesis."

"What is the point, if you can't do for what you are presaged?

What is to you belonging, if you run from the ordained hearth’s fiery rage?

Give me one more flimsy excuse, and my respect would sublime

and without me O Knight you are sure to have a remorseless time."

I looked up again at her beautiful succulent face,

behold her lips and eyes, and her countenance did my sight race,

shocked and surprise at the lioness of her heart,

which had the strength to argue and the ferocity of a beast at dart!

I set my gaze on her, as she reflected a solemn calm

and yet benign with beauty of fire, twinkling through her eyes radiating charm

she looked at me, and then looked down, having kindled my passion

“Leave me alone,” was all that she said, as I was in my mode of persuasion.

Knight:          "Love me, and I would walk the fiery path,

give rise to a fire and drench the citadel with a bloodbath,

Don't ever tell me, that it's your den that I would have to leave,

If you slit my existence, it's only your heart which you will aggrieve."

Queen:          She came forth, and embraced me in her arms

"I am sorry, I was flowing in the passion of my own flames
devouring my mind of the greatness you earlier claimed,

I have committed a sin, forgiveness do I ask,

forgive me O Knight, I am inept in my task."

"You are valiant and heroic, but you have to take up arms

fight this battle, bring the world out of its strife,

take away my body, and my soul with your stride,

give me back your love and the promise that forth and back

you'd ride."

"I would till you are away, implore Krishna, the supreme lord,

cajole him to protect you as you finish your task
and if ever the wrongs around you lead you astray

I would do hard penance, standing on pointed iron nails I would pray."

"My love, shall be the guide, which will lead the troupe

show you the right path and till you get used to me,
I would ride in your heart then as you'd kindle my flames 
within your soul

I'd be your Queen consort, ready to take up your toll."

I was prepared, but it was still hard to feel,

there was something within me, which not ready to kneel

I had to leave, I had to work wonders outside,

This interplay of god, I so wanted to finish in a single stride.

But, maybe, this is what was destined for me,
to take a temporary break on this quiver of calamity.

The Queen, once again, had opened my closed eyes,
and defined for me the path, through her unarguable advice.

I took up my weapons, as I prepared for the departure,

Raised my bow in her direction, promising her a  just overture

for all the enemy who raised their heads above their neck

whose carcasses I will pile up before I return back.

And she waved, she waved, and she looked into my face

"Who has ever fathomed the enormity of your depths?

Oh Knight, 
the burning of life, in your ravenous wild eyes!?"

I smiled, there would be few others, examples they would be

wait till I return, till then let the dominion get used to thee."

Heart-strings

The Knight:  "Oft in thing and the songs

                     of love and forlorn

                     The past illuminates,

                     incandescent

                     by the flowing eternity's gaze.

                     And what is this love

                     of deceit and distrust

                     That the human race still

                      in it, finds their solace?"

The Queen:    "And yet within the confines

                     of the impermeable walls of time

                     There exists the truth

                     of the ever blissful soul

                     Which chooses what it seeks

                     which loses what it leaves,

                     and in the unfolding

                     of the songs

                     Creates a new sojourn"

The Knight:    "Maybe my distrust,

                      in the logic of this crust

                      is overbearing my capacity to feel

                      what it means,

                      for the Lethe to unveil"

The Queen:    "In the poison of life,
(smiling)
                      with the person of your choice."

The Warrior's Inamorata

Chapter I

She was veiled in eternity,

basking in the glory of her form
in the shining pride of her new-found youth
and her impossible to circumvent charm.

And there she stood, facing the mirror

admiring her succulent face,

combing her tresses again and again,

resplendent within her the beauty at which even
...the nymphs may feel displaced.

And yet, there was something amiss,

I stumbled upon that feeling by chance;

the grave indifference towards the love of life

which gave the impression of forlorn.

She saw me; and as she lowered her gaze

there was something about her that burnt ablaze,

It was the intensity within my eyes,
at which she felt bare, she later surmised.

I was captivated at our first acquaintance;

...such an embodiment of Aphrodite she was,

her outline shining with the luster of her soul

her inner beauty subtly appearing on her face thereof.

Chapter II

"Who are you?" she asked very discreetly,

Her tone was mild, her voice was rhythmic

Her words, stately even if ordinary,

had a strong impact on my balance.

"I am you, as you are me,

and we are siblings, the children of same god,
as we are lovers, whose lives are bound forever

at which the sun shines on its own accord."

She scrutinized me, from top to bottom

"You are not of noble blood!"

Her gaze pierced my lustrous armour;

"You are one of the holy knights; your job is to battle."

"You kill humans, and find pleasure in their death,

You take pride in belittling God's gift of flesh!
And then proudly push the sword back in the sheath

We're not lovers, and shall never have each other."

“I, on my part, am gravely in love with life.

Everything reverberates with the rhythm of my soul

and everything violent and dark I admonish.

Your audacity of us being one is a protestation to astonish.”

"I am the keeper of the worthy of this world,
everything I nurture with my heart and my soul.

The music of my creation makes the spirit cruise

I make paintings ethereal, in which the soul is the muse"

"And yet, there is something compelling about your eyes,

that makes me feel you are destined to be in my life,

as a pursuer perhaps of my cosmic wings

Extending your violence to my blissful strife."

I laughed aloud, at how impressive I was!

not a trace of beauty of my face, my body full of scars
and this penchant for violence was not my only bad deed

Howsoever grave it may have appeared indeed.

"I am human love, yet full of pernicious fight.

Painful in appearance,  but I am a symbol of light.

Formed within the core of the divine himself

Yet fragile in my strength, as I navigate all your hidden depths."

"I am within you, not the noble part you see,

but you'll discover the waves of pain and pleasure with me.

Your brows were raised, when you were ogling at your own face

Wondering what is the divide between love and sinful disgrace."

"I am here, to answer your questions one and all,

To take you along, on a path tough and rough

I will be the catalyst of your affair with infinity,
give you the same fate as the millions of minions
...who get used to me"

"You'll seek glory then, perhaps rise above yourself,
or fall into the abyss of obscure bottomless depth

I am the moment, of your cognizance of the truth of life,

I will bring you the day of judgement in your soul's stride"

She grimaced, her expressions were confused,

There was joy in her heart and immense fear of solitude

"Why of all the damsels, did you then choose me?

Why bring my life to this vantage point of seeking thee?"

"I was happy, weaving the beauty of the world,

why take me to a different path, which appears so devoured?

Is happiness so short-lived in my fate

Why force on me this test, when all I’ve walked on is a path straight?"

Chapter III

I felt for her, for her reservations to give up wings,
but I too was bound by the orders of the supreme king,

I had borne the wrath of the stormy tempests and the ignited sun,

and of the timeless hearts, of which she owned one.

"I can't let you out of this path that the you've sought

for it's you who called me, in the most innate of your thoughts,

I won't go back without catalyzing the subject of my destiny

without making your wings my own, I cannot pacify my life’s mutiny."

"I have to clutch onto you, hold you, and force you to grow,

my knighthood will transcend us as I do this onerous task.

Glory of my life is about killing naivety of men,

and give them an existence without which their journey will be in disdain"

"Born to be complete with me, you'll have to bear my stay.

That's the role the sovereign lord delineated for us to play.
Even if I am for a moment in your life,

it should be enough to let you from your trajectory astray."

"Give me up, and give me up once and for all,

but then don't live your beauty, for it's the sole cause,

It's the highest calling for me to incarnate
without beauty, love is as good as obsolete."

"We are both facets of the same coin,
one which is tossed in the air to learn earthly design.

I within you and you within me shall find the final abode,

or else the conscience of the world will bear the consequence's load."

Chapter IV

"Why do you come then? Why should one torment?

Why should the beauty of the world be put to its end?"

She asked, doe-eyed, drenched in the charm of her innocence

in her very last passionate, futile attempt to survive my presence.

"Give me my veracity back! And I am allowing you to go alive.

There are many cavaliers that protect me, who'd be happy to take your life.

Boasting of the gods, you are truly a devil incarnate,

Truth is that love, whose flow ne’er can be bound by your gate."
 

"No one can stop me and my chaste love to flow,
and my beauty to adorn life, for it is not shallow.

Your agonizing presence will now have an abrupt end.

You've come on the wrong path; and thy remonstrations now I suspend."

"The truth within me will lead to the death of yourself, you mortal
your spirit shall elope into the netherworld, to never return to this portal.

You'll die, with the cruelty with which you excruciate hurt.

Only my purity shall remain, the purity with which I love."

I smiled, for the beauty was fast becoming an assassin,
doing exactly what she thought was my deadly sin.

Going down from the highest to the feverish dark slope

lost in her puerile logic, unaware of the predestined scope!

"I am eternity,” I proclaimed , “the most effective weapon of crime.

My duty absolves me of the kingdom of time and clime.
I shall hold you there! Divest you of your unenlightened veil,

clog your vitality and you'd not have strength to appeal."

I saw rage in her eyes, for they had become dark red,

But I saw in her also perception; to stride on a path she'd otherwise never tread.

Lost in her own thoughts, she finally capitulated to my presence,

Recognizing herself in me, realizing she's cannot win my parlance.

Chapter V

"I am you and you are me?" she repeated as she asked

"Why then this cruelty as you seem to accomplish your task?”

“Why not with love do you take your prisoners away,

if epitome of human love is what you are you say?"

"Take me, love me, if you must, and clutch me in chains of gold,

Nonetheless, you shall also reverse the trajectories and lifetimes you behold

Give me the charm that will take me out of this forlorn

and take away from me sin, with which you say I was born."

I closed my eyes, as I withered slowly inside almost to vanish,

Was this really the insurmountable task I was sent to accomplish?

I had never met such an astute subject ever in my past,

This epitome of beauty was my destiny set in my forecasted cast.

Slowly I felt, my pains started to fade away,

and my ego and fortitude started to get disarrayed,

Fresh skin replaced my disoriented old crust,

I got back my youth, as I found someone to trust.

"You are pure," I reverberated from the deepest of my being;

"Much purer than anything, I had ever known,

Your presence has given me the elixir of eternal youth

and you shall denude me of this sin which was my hitherto truth."

"And yet, I shall take you away from the world in which you live,

for there is this higher force which is obstinate to contrive.

This kingdom shall nevermore be your slave and you shall never rule again

You shall rule the earth of my making, wherein your title you retain.”

"But this flight of ours cannot be further delayed,

give me your hand O Queen, the cosmos is intently grave.

Its lightning bolts strike when you least expect its wrath.

Let us, before it gets apathetic, redefine for us an alternate path."

She extended her hand to hold forever mine.

She smiled as she realized the destiny cast in time.

"I always knew you've come to take me away,

It’s your knighthood to which my heart had come to sway."

"And yet, I was uncertain if this darkness would ever fade

and what fervent designs of predestination would my future shade,

But You, Knight, are much higher than what you seem,

No wonder, it's in your favor that the gods appear to deem."

"You are beautiful when you remove your dirty mask,

you are chiseled with the fineness and the mightiness of your task,

built within your confines are greatest tales on earth

I now together we discover the endless possibilities and their worth."

"Give me my freedom Oh Knight that I may complete the mission of my birth

and build with me the story ever-rejoiced and celebrated on this earth

Let our love be the legend which generations would look upon

with immense fortitude in our claims which give rise to a new dawn."

"Let there be light, let it shine, every place to which together conquer.

Let there be a world, a novel world, which men did not evermore suffer.

Let us be the hope, in which the solitary find their solace,

and those engaged, look up to the immensity of the mighty space."

"And retrieve their world, from the pettiness of their crimes,

give rise to new realities with the song of love as their chime."

She flew, and she flew, like no other that I knew,

Her exalting beauty of cosmos creating so much anew.

I flew with her, allowed her wings to be in place,

There was no need of me clutching them, our flight had so much power and grace,

I held her, when she needed me, I kept her aloft

as she touched me, and held me, if I stumbled in the draft.

Epilogue

The story is a symbol, of the true love of night and day,

of the Queen and the Knight, whose trust in each other did not sway.

She was smitten by the strength ingrained in his character,

while he was in love with her consistency that never shattered.

They were both cradled in The Divine’s arms,

and they were both by their nature beyond the worldly charms.

And yet, they did fight in the darkness of this civilization,

as their colors gave a new hues and meaning to the twilight and its passion.

It is often the opposites that meet, and give rise to the vibrant dawn,

and increase the intensity of light and proximity of the horizon.