Stuck Between a Rock and Hard Place

Today as I began working, I found myself not having enough strength to concentrate. I told my client, "I'm just tired, it is fever." I didn’t want to discuss things that have been on my mind. He said, "that's not the issue, you are emotionally drained." Deep down, I knew he was right!

As soon as I wrapped up the meeting, immediately got on the computer, and the first thing I saw was this picture someone posted when she climbed Machu Picchu. Couldn't have been more timely, which is no surprise, it was a picture of the rock piles the hikers past had left as they climbed. What is interesting is, as the travelers journey past, each one is supposed to place another rock on top of the last one left behind. So, if the pile collapses the next hiker starts it all over again.

I realized it sort of becomes a marker that shows a single spot that is changed, augmented, sometimes even destroyed by random people who are otherwise unconnected or barely know each other.
And it made me think how similar my life is to rock piles; touched by random people, built up and broken down by the same and just waiting for the next traveler to venture...

But now, I’m not waiting for the next person to come by and shape my life in a totally different way.

Sleepless in Baltimore

Clouds sweep the moon off his feet and early showers ooze out of the dark..
As I lie in my bed counting the sheep, I saw him arriving with his arms open..
Open as they always are for the millionth time until we get to sleep the big sleep..
He prepares to come onto me with the hungry passion that his eyes betray.. Arms wide open..
I shun him this time.. Elude his embrace.. Giving no for an answer..
Pale as the moon turns his face.. Shell-shocked stands he.. Arms still wide open..
"Is there a woman?", asks he.. "Is there a woman that wouldn't need me every night?" "That wouldn't let me embrace her?"
"What is it with you my eternal lover?" "My favorite lady, what has become of you?", cries he with his arms wide open..
"Somnus", says I.. "You have to leave now".. "The time has come for us to part".. "Leave now and don't come back.."
Somnus smiles.. A knowing look comes to his face whose color now changes from pale to dark.. The familiar look of the jilted one.. Arms no longer wide open..

"Who is he?".. "Who is the mortal that made you forget me?"
"He is the god of love, the immortal beloved.. He is my love of life. The Apple of my eyes.."

Somnus smiles.. He knows he has to leave for this woman, who is afflicted by the worst of all maladies, no cure has been invented for which..
"I will leave you to him.. I shall leave now.." With sad eyes and dolor eating his mind, he turns to the door. Stops there and turns back..

"What is his name?" demands the God of Sleep..

"Bradley Cooper, The love of my life.. The Apple of my eyes.."

The forbidden love

As the west cringed in helpless fear
offering gasps of fear to the approaching thunder
Attila had come to the gates of Rome,
resolute he was in taking the lady home..
Quick to the feet was he to the pleas of Honoria
who in her epistles cast a spell on Attila..
But why did the hunnic king turn away his army?
And why does this mortal leave his lady?
Destiny strikes again with its innate wrath
and kills the sacred union in its birth..
Or is it the societal fear that considers it a taboo
for a princess and a barbarian to be in love?
But will the Honoria of the present grieve and lament
as did the Honoria of the past?

Love and affliction

The loneliest of nights makes you my opium,
pushing the afeemkhor that I’m into bouts of delirium
in the delirious moans of romantic euphoria
I chant thy name with a feverish zeal…

Neither the grecian ambrosia nor the vedic nectar
can satiate my hunger
only thy divine presence nourishes my soul
and its vestiges I devour…

Walking onto your shrine of hope
I seek for the meaning of life
like an exiled regent yearning for his land
a wandering hermit searching for God…

Like a lonesome warrior on a deserted fortress
I gaze upon my country of darkness
should I fall in this battle of cruel love?
will you lead me to the glorious Valhalla?…

Years of joy and pain

In my journey through the tunnel of time,
chants of thy name like the toll of the bells
resound in my head through endless nights..

Eerie silence and blinding darkness
intermingled with inner fears and desperation
wear me down to a confining exhaustion..

Unnerved, I tread on and inch toward the goal
protected by the divine angel of love
that promised to deliver me to the dark castle..

Art thou in the highest keep guarded by the sentinels?
Or in the recesses of the harem surrounded by eunuchs?
May he who made you a prisoner burn in hell..

Fire and sword create havoc
in the spate of blood and eternal pain
beseeching the angel of death to come down and reign..

Marching on I reach onto your abode
with bloodied hands and a sinned soul
seeking penitence in our holy consummation..

My sword slashes the gossamer
that dared hide the beloved milady
rendering death to the wicked and crafty..

Peering in what do I see?
Shoved back into the wormhole of time
I tremor and wake to see the blinding sunshine..

Then I realize what should follow.
Years of joy and years of pain
only to relive again and again..

While I still crave for those years of innocence
my cognizance has for them unsympathetic hate
for they are in deep and deplorable ignorance
unashamedly in denial of your existence..