Music Intoxicates

Have you ever felt that music gives you a better high than alcohol?

Yes, it does. Sometimes. Last night it did.

* * *

The room swirled in the lights that flashed on and off. Yellow and white. Red and purple. Haze of smoke. Moving bodies, in slow motion, defying the night. Moving to the beat, the bass. Sweat trickling down foreheads. Shining beads, like morning dew. Glistening and then disappearing into the distance.

Music echoes.

In your ears. From her mouth. Gentle yet stern. Reliving the past through the music of the past. Familiar lyrics. Familiar tunes. You hum them correct sometimes, and sometimes memory fails. Yet you go on. Intoxicated by the music, intoxicated by your past. The images flash by you. Black and white. And the music flows through your soul, taking you higher. And the night goes by in the background, giving way to a new day. To a new dawn.

The songs of April in the month of August.

Woosh!

The week seems to have gone by in a breeze. It is Thursday evening already and I haven't realised it. I have even put behind the 'horror' of AVP!

It has rained a couple of times this week. The sky looks positively infected right now. The night slowly spreading into it. Trickling.

The change is sudden. Especially sunset. The last few minutes of the day and you can watch the sun 'disappear' on you. Particularly, when you set out to 'watch' the sunset. It somehow doesn't last long enough. Ironic, you wait for the day to end and it drags along. And the end is just that. "The End".

Black. Fade in. "The End". Fade to Black.

Inspirationfearregretcreativity ... Boom!

INSPIRATION

Inspiration
Paid me a visit yesterday
It kindled the fire
Of my imagination
I was licked by its flames
Which did not burn me
It just heated my desire
To start again

* * *

I wrote this poem over 6 years ago.

When I had just discovered the joys of writing. When I discovered poetry. The feeling then was like what Neruda wrote in his poem "Poetry":

"I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky."

* * *

After years of suffering from writer's block, I am finding the urge to write again. I don't know if it is inspiration, but it is something that is making me write. Is it fear? Fear that I am losing my creativity? Fear that I am getting rusty?

Could be.

I have heard that fear is a great motivator. I never though that it could inspire creativity. I always thought that it was something forced. Like medicine, vegetables. So you never like them. They have a negative connotation rather than something positive. Like creativity. Like creation.

Fear.

Or is it regret? Or being on the brink of it? Or having your eyes opened one day to the fact that if you don't, then you will regret? Seeing someone keep the passion for writing, against all odds? Yes, I think that is it? But somewhere in that there is a mixture.

Inspirationfearregretcreativity.

The kind of writers block I have been suffering from is not something that happened overnight.

It came gradually.

Like a river drying up in summer. The writing just reduced. Till it stopped.

First it was gushing. Then flowing. Then trickling. Drip drip drip. Till, it was no more. And then it was gone. And now it has been years. And it is all coming back. But not dripdripdriptrickleflowgush.

Boom.

That's more like it. Unleasing itself like a caged animal. A caged animal that has been quiet too long and now needs to get out. The pent up anger and emotion, easily breaking the cage.

And getting out.

Out out out.

And its here.

* * *

I wrote this poem over 6 years ago. I can identify with it again today.

Here it comes ...

... here comes the weekend!

:-)

So ... the week has ended >> in my part of the world (I pity those at the other end who are just starting Friday morning). And now it is time to move on to the weekend. Ever get the feeling that sometimes the weekend is more hectic than the whole week? Trying to pack in and make up for 5 days in 2 days can be quite tiring!

Friday evenings are like crossroads - you need to decide whether to sack out the whole weekend or spend it doing all sorts of stuff, which will leave you tired at the end of it.

I am there right now.

But I am going to procrastinate ...

~ I used to be undecided, but now I am not sure!

The only downer is everyone's got the same idea

Sometimes, you get the 'ohiamsosmart' feeling to be replaced very soon with the 'ohwhatthehellwasithinking' feeling. It happened to me today morning.

You think that you have figured things out and can work around the system to your benefit. The only downer is everyone's got the same idea. And then you find yourself, along with many others, trying to beat the system in the same way. Crazy!

And now that it just happened to me, I can recall several instances when it has happened earlier. A particularly repetitive one, is trying to take shortcuts while driving and then you find out that everyone thought of the same short cut. And the next time you take a different short cut and then everyone has managed to do that!

"And then, we all travel thousand's of miles, just to watch TV and to check into somewhere with all the comforts of home. You gotta ask yourself, what is the point of that?"

Beginnings are always better than endings ...

... Then, everything was possible. Now, nothing is.


"In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.

In that land of beginnings spirits mingled with the unborn. We could assume numerous forms. There was much feasting, playing, and sorrowing. We feasted much because of the beautiful terrors of eternity. We played much because we were free. And we sorrowed much because there were always those amongst us who had returned from the world of the Living. They had returned inconsolable for all the love they had left behind, all the suffering they hadn’t redeemed, all that they hadn’t understood, and for all that they had barely begun to learn before they were drawn back to the land of the origins.

There was not one amongst us who looked forward to being born. We disliked the rigours of existence, the unfulfilled longings, the enshrined injustices of the world, the labyrinths of love, the ignorance of parents, the fact of dying, and the amazing indifference of the Living in the midst of the simple beauties of the universe. We feared the heartlessness of human beings, all of whom were born blind, few of whom ever learn to see."

~ From The Famished Road by Ben Okri

First Things First ...

"August, You're gonna get hazaar fucked in Madna"
- Dhrubo, 1993

"Hazaar fucked": (Old Indian saying) To be penetrated a thousand times; (syn) A bummed out experience.