Tuesday 30 October 2018
The Curse - A Poem.
A sinister moon casts her noxious curse,
ominous clouds mock in menace above;
Treacherous thorns, cross from bad to worse,
spine-chilling death adorns the alcove;
Betrayal-cloaked monsters, darken the
dove,
stagnant passion begins to ebb;
Smothers the soothing shelter of love
& ensnares, in a mummified & mysterious
web…
***
Image : Pinterest.
Saturday 27 October 2018
Sinister - A Poem.
The blaze of a sinking orb, sets free
embodied ravens in her soul of sins;
The vengeance of her brokenness begins,
crossing the facade of her ecstasy;
Baring the beast within the beauty
is a sinister stem of scaly skin;
Majestic in spirit, winged monsters within
unveil a beautifully shattered travesty.
***
Image: Pinterest.
Friday 26 October 2018
Turmoil - A Poem.
My
fourth tribute is to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet, literary critic,
philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a
founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets.
I
have chosen these prompts from his poems, to use in my verse:
Ceaseless
turmoil
Caves
of ice
Demon
lover
(Poem:
Kubla
Khan)
Phantom Light
Smothering weight
Dallied with distress
Luminous
mist
Smarting
wounds
Bitter grief
(Poem:
Dejection: An Ode)
***
Inspiration in a volley
from Coleridge's Dejection;
Spill of melancholy
in poetic suffusion!
in poetic suffusion!
Turmoil.
In the
phantom light of a luminous mist,
Bitter
grief shalt hover,
A
smothering weight on soul, doth exist
Resonant
memories, beneath a moonlit bower;
Ceaseless
turmoil, within cavernous caves of ice
in the
heart, shalt ne’er recover;
Dallied
with distress, ensnared in games of vice,
smarting
wounds, left by a demon lover.
****
Image : Natalia Drepina , DeviantArt.
An Ode to Solitude.
My third tribute is to one of the most favorite poets of my
childhood, the nature poet, William Wordsworth (1770-1850).
I have chosen these prompts from three of his poems to pen my
verse.
Act of stealth
Troubled pleasure
Silent water
Trembling oars
Measured motion
Sparkling waves
Tempestuous time
Tenderness of thought.
Benign is Solitude
(Poem: The
Prelude)
Vales and hills
(Poem: Daffodils)
Melancholy strain
(Poem: The
Solitary Reaper)
I have written this ode in the Terza Rima rhyme
scheme of poetry. I first read about this scheme in a famous poem by P.B.Shelley, called ‘The Ode to the West Wind’ and was compelled to attempt a similar scheme
for one of my own poems.
In a terza rima poem,
the first and third lines of a stanza rhyme, but the first line of the next
stanza rhymes with the second line of the stanza before it. So, the stanzas
would look like A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, and so on, with each letter representing
the rhyming words.
***
A flow of ink,
for Wordsworth's Prelude;
To marvel & think
in poetic magnitude!
An Ode to Solitude
An act of stealth, in troubled pleasure
amidst vales & hills, on a moonlit night,
a quest for peace, an intangible treasure;
Sparkling waves, no horizon in sight,
rising tides, the boat doth slaughter,
adrift eastward, sails in flight;
A churn of memories, in the mind’s mortar,
the heart seeks harmony, all in vain
but all is tranquil, in silent water;
Tempestuous time, wreaks a melancholy strain,
shining waters sliced by trembling oars,
toss of tempests in the brain;
Singed soul, in voiceless roars,
plaintive pursuits of a pensive mood,
no conscious memory of distant shores.
Measured motion unearths quietude;
the weary will discovers tenderness of thought
for in blessed nature, benign is solitude.
***
Image: YouTube.com
Nemesis - A Poem
My second tribute is to William Blake (1757-1827), the poet, painter, imaginative,
mystic & intellectual visionary. A seminal figure of the Romantic age, he
has been deemed a major poet & an original thinker.
The prompts I have chosen from his poems are:
Dark secret love
Crimson joy
(Poem: The Sick Rose)
Seize the fire
Immortal hand
Dread grasp
(Poem: The Tyger)
***
Spilling poetic ink
for
William Blake;
Letting words spin & link,
as verses arise & awake!
Nemesis.
A dread grasp
of an immortal hand,
doth seize the fire of gloom,
deceives in pitiless ploy;
A burn of betrayal,
hard to withstand
writ on the faithful plume
of her heart, t'was but a toy;
A dark secret love,
of sinister strand
blackens the bloom,
poisons petals of crimson joy;
A deadly duplicity,
is quiescent quicksand
nemesis rages in doom,
profound passion, it doth destroy.
***
Image: XiNature, Google.
Wednesday 17 October 2018
Book Review 15 : 'Breath', by Tim Winton
While my lungs turn into sponge
and the ocean inside me
flickers with cruel light.
Drowning. Drowning.
Fighting it.
But Drowning.
People are fools, not monsters.
***
Bruce
Pike, a paramedic.
Ivan
Loon or Loonie.
Billy
Sanderson or Sando, an Australian celebrity surfer.
Eva,
Sando’s American wife.
***
The Storyline:
The story begins with Bruce
Pike, a paramedic who receives a call to the site of a teenage suicide
by asphyxiation. This sets off an array of nostalgic memories of his own
teenage for Bruce that forms the premise for the whole novel.
His lifelong relationship with the ocean begins
with learning to swim in the river and he goes on to become a seasoned surfer in
the wildest waters of the sea.
Life in a small town called Sawyer, where he grows up gets
increasingly boring for the boy who revels in the sheer thrill, excitement and
compelling pull of danger, that grows on him as an addiction that he cannot
live without. Even when his parents try to wean him away from the influence of
the sea, by enrolling him in school 30 miles away in Angelus, after he defies
them to surf, he is hooked hard and fast to the pull of the treacherous water.
Accompanying Bruce in all his adventures is
his friend Loonie, who is driven by a near mania to sport with danger. Their roguish
habit of trying to hold their breath underwater, in their bid to outdo one
another holds them in good stead when they are out at the mercy of a turbulent
sea.
They come under the tutelage of a celebrity
surfer Sando, who takes them under his wing and compels them to soar into new heights
of surfing at sea. The three of them form a kind of cult that other surfers are
in awe of.
The boys keep a distance from Sando’s wife, Eva, as she makes no bones of her disapproval of their proximity to her husband. Much later, the discovery that Eva was a champion skier who has lost her skiing dream, after an accident changes his perception towards her.
Loonie’s frenzied energy and love for danger outdoes his fear, and affects Bruce in more ways than one. Loonie fractures his arm at a crucial time when Sando decides to take them to an exotic location, Old Smoky, to try a new surfing experience for the boys. Loonie’s intense envy and subsequent rude put-down of Bruce drives a wedge between the already strained relationship between the boys.
Loonie’s frenzied energy and love for danger outdoes his fear, and affects Bruce in more ways than one. Loonie fractures his arm at a crucial time when Sando decides to take them to an exotic location, Old Smoky, to try a new surfing experience for the boys. Loonie’s intense envy and subsequent rude put-down of Bruce drives a wedge between the already strained relationship between the boys.
Sando is disappointed with Bruce’s fear
at Old Smoky and although he deals with Bruce's anxious cowardice with mature
understanding, it drives him to choose the wild Loonie over Bruce during
subsequent trips. This drives a distance between the boys and is the beginning
of the demise of the friendship between them.
Bruce becomes increasingly depressed. His ‘moody,
selfish and inattentive’ attitude loses him his girlfriend Queenie. Bruce however, is
rather comforted to be relieved of his duties as a boyfriend.
Just when Bruce assumes that he has made
headway with Sando by getting a little closer to him, he is crushed to discover
that Sando goes off to Bali out of the blue, with Loonie, with neither of them even informing Bruce
of their plans.
The final nail in the coffin is drawn when
the three of them go to surf a thrillingly dangerous new break called Nautilus
and Bruce is unable to forego his fear, which disgusts Sando and driving them
both further away from Bruce.
Being sidelined by Sando over Loonie has a
profound effect on Bruce. His confidence takes a nosedive into loneliness. It
drives him to risk his life attempting to surf Old Smoky all by himself and he loses Sando’s surfboard
while trying to tackle the stormy sea, forcing him to swim many miles back to
shore. It causes Sando to seek him out at school to inform him the his board
was found by a fisherman twenty five miles out in teh ocean. Sando heaps praise on Bruce and gifts the surfboard to Bruce as a gift for the effort. However, it is
already too late for Sando to regain the worship that he previously enjoyed
from Bruce. Soon after this, Sando once again takes Loonie to Java without
Bruce.
Sando’s betrayal eventually paves the way
for the smarting Bruce to be drawn into a passionate affair with Eva. Eva’s
unhappiness with her marriage and helpless situation, clubbed with Sando’s inconsiderate
absence, leads her to take ruthless advantage of the teen-aged Bruce, even as she
never reciprocates his feelings of love, whatsoever.
Eva takes complete benefit of the innocent
boy and leads him to getting stoned on Hash and worse, forces him into bouts of
sexual adventures that involve her playing out her own fantasies of BDSM
suffocation. The affair ends unceremoniously when they discover Eva’s pregnancy
and Bruce is left to lick his wounds again.
His father’s death brings about a major
upheaval in the way he perceives life and puts him back on track with his
education. Loneliness, remorse and a desire to recompense his mother urges him
back to studies like never before.
The story ends years later, long after
Bruce separates from his wife Grace. He keeps in touch with his daughters,
meeting up with them for occasional bouts of surfing. There is a touch of
poignancy in the way the paramedic Bruce, remains an enigma to everyone who knows him,
including his own daughters, and the only time he feels liberated is when he is
out doing something ‘completely pointless and beautiful’ like surfing at sea.
***
The Review:
The
whole book can be summed up in one word: Retrospection.
The nostalgic tone is set in the first
chapter itself, which begins with a hook of a suicide for the reader and rapidly moves into an
internal probing of the past by the main protagonist, Bruce Pike.
The story of how two teenage boys begin to learn their surfing with ‘Coolites’, boxy Styrofoam boards and eventually traverse phenomenal surfing journeys across some of the most dangerous waters is thrilling one.
The dangerous games that the boys play, just for the thrill of it, keeps the reader on edge. The vivid descriptions capture the plethora of feelings of a surfer battling the waves, with brilliant finesse.
The dangerous games that the boys play, just for the thrill of it, keeps the reader on edge. The vivid descriptions capture the plethora of feelings of a surfer battling the waves, with brilliant finesse.
The strong contrast between the thrill of fast
paced life in a larger town and the intense boredom in the ‘sloth’ of a small
town as perceived by Bruce is palpable. In fact, Bruce refers to his parents as
‘old people’ and makes more than one reference to the disinterested singularity
of townsfolk ‘pottering’ around their town.
The phenomenal influence of an adult figure
on teenage boys is brought out with flair and detail. The deep hero-worship of the boys, who vie with each other for one-upmanship with Sando
showcases the typical, albeit sad jealousies, of the teenage years.
One may easily fault Sando for wielding an
influence that repeatedly puts the boys’ life in danger, to satisfy his own
requisite for revival of a lost youth. However, the impact does bring out hidden, latent skills and teaches the boys to overcome their fears, to go from strength
to strength along the story.
The
fact that Bruce dreams of drowning during his bouts of Pneumonia point to a
deep rooted fear in his psyche. Hence the title 'Breath' is a perfect complement that sets the tone of the whole book.
The
metaphors are mind-blowing, the similes are pure genius. The fury of the
ruthless sea and thrill of a surfer’s life, lived in mere seconds of playing
with danger, are showcased with aplomb.
The typical puppy love of a teenager for an
adult woman is demonstrated with clarity, even in the retrospective mood of the
narrative. The trauma of a kid forced into what he deems unnatural, is tangible.
Bruce hates what he is forced to do by Eva and yet, unable to refrain from giving in to her. His panic when she stops breathing is palpable. The irony is
profound, that for a boy who is addicted to the dangers of the ocean, a boy who
playfully holds his breath underwater for a mere game, is terrified of death by asphyxiation in the
entrapment-equipment of the bedroom.
Bruce’s sexual attraction to Eva’s pregnant
state comes as a surprise. And again, the irony of his wife Grace perceiving it
as an unnatural tendency, even ‘grotesque’ as she words it, is thought
provoking.
The book reveals to what extent a man is
forced to conceal hold back his real feelings. The compelling need to veil inner
thoughts, turmoils and perhaps, natural tendencies, even from his own
family, in a bid to appear ‘normal’ is food for thought. In a world that harps
on ‘communication, this is an eye-opener that emphasizes how difficult it is,
especially for a man, to ‘communicate’.
Overall, a good journey for readers who
love to curl up indoors with a book on a rainy day; a must-read for readers who
love reading about the sea, surf, danger and adventure.
Excerpts:
It
changed things between us in ways that we could neither foresee nor understand.
He
was real enough but less of a friend than I'd imagined.
And I
didn’t know whether to feel honored or angry that he might expect us to attempt
it with him.
Fear’s
natural, mate, said Sando. There’s no shame in it.
Being
afraid, said Sando. Proves that you are alive and awake.
Animals
react out of instinct. Sando continued. Like they are always on automatic. We’e
got plenty of that too. But our minds complicate things, slow us down. We’re
always calculating the odds, measuring the circumstances. But you can train
your mind to live with fear and deal with the anticipation.
It
transpired that I was not, after all, immune to a dare.
While
my lungs turn into sponge and the ocean inside me flickers with cruel light.
Drowning. Drowning. Fighting it. But Drowning.
For
weeks I smarted with a feeling of having been overlooked, forsaken, unchosen –
and the shock of it was all the greater because of how much I’d lately come to
imagine an advantage over Loonie.
For
the first time in my life, I was not so much solitary as plain lonely.
Yet,
we had some things in common, Eva and I.
There
was something careless about her that I mistook for courage in the same way I
misread Sando’s vanity as wisdom.
Life
was too short for rules and obligations.
Given
my time over, I would not do it all
again.
People
talk such a storm of crap about the things they’ve done, had done to them.
She
had no business doing what she did, but I’m through hating and blaming. People
are fools, not monsters.
Listen,
she said as though offering me a lifeline. I have a game we can play.
I’d
been an idiot. I saw it now.
So
you prefer revulsion to reverence.
How
do you explain the sense of being made to feel improper?
*****
Book Photography : ©Chethana Ramesh
Tuesday 2 October 2018
Mourning - A Sonnet.
William
Shakespeare was the genius who established 1700 English words!
My
tribute to the Bard continues, with the second poem I penned to
Shakespeare's astounding contribution to English Literature. It is a Sonnet,
(with 14 lines) and uses a picture as an accompaniment to the verse.
(Read my first tribute poem to Shakespeare here:
The prompts I picked are from the
play, 'The Midsummer Night's dream'.
(Act II, Scene i)
Wild Thyme
Luscious woodbine
Dances and Delight.
Enamelled skin.
Heaven of Hell.
I used a couple of bonus prompts too, from the tragic plays
Hamlet (Act II, Scene i & Act II Scene ii) and Julius
Caesar (Act II Scene ii)
Slings and Arrows.
Stars are fire.
Taste of death.
Inspired by a dream,
may
the verses gleam!
Mourning.
Stars are fire, in shifts of paradigm
beneath canopies of luscious woodbine;
Aromas assault, in drifts of wild thyme
& caress her enamelled skin divine;
Of gaily trysts, in showy springtime
of dances & delight, & heady wine;
of amorous suitors, with words of rhyme
of emeralds bright, & riches fine;
Amidst astringent memories, in scents of lime
Of legacies lost, she doth dream & pine;
Heaven of hell, in the whims of time
slings & arrows of fate in line;
A taste of death, in her valiant prime,
a fallen beauty mourns, & lays supine.
***
: YouTube.com
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