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The Jester’s Court

“Somewhere on Beta Colony there is an institution. In one room of the institution, there is a man who spends his days and nights screaming at things that only he can see. Things we planted in his mind. They have to keep him in a straitjacket twenty-four hours a day or he’ll claw his own eyes out just to make it stop.”

— Lyta Alexander, Babylon 5
They call it the mind rape, in pop culture
Many have suffered from this trauma
This insanity brings insight, but how to share it?
This insanity makes you lose identity:
Creed, nation and economic fixation.
It can break a person, through mere retelling
Lulling their souls into extreme nihilism
Unless dumbed down, turned into a cosmic joke.
Parables don’t do the trick anymore, so I live through it all
And tell the story. Some play out in dreams, some in this world,
But perhaps there is no difference between the two.
The ragdoll brother and big saintly sister
Based on true characters, but false at the same time
I met ragdoll brother here, though not big sister
He died a few months ago. I fused his story with others in that one poem.
The big sister I made up, though her story is real for many
Both fake and real, the true wonder of fiction!
Ouranos and Tartarus: I being wooed by him in the depths
Queen of Snakes, ugly and beautiful, her actions were not quite consensual
The Torturer, burning out the eyes of his patients on hospital beds
Stories that will convey the message without the full horror
True stories, but false at the same time
Because they are a fusion of different realities
Doing it like this won’t burden you with that big yoke
So I’ll put on the jester’s hat, while I attempt to erase your number and suit
And try to turn us all into trumps, the best that I can
And transform the seven souled protagonist into a hero
If I fail, then I am meant to fail. If I succeed, that’d be nice.

I try to alienate you, to find a few to whom I can truly unburden

But I still don’t have the heart to cook this full meal, course and serving

So I’ll dilute the taste with the wrong wine

Garnish the dishes with heavy herbs and spices

And juggle souffles to distract your mind

Because if I’m writing for just me, and writing it all

I fear my wicked giants may become too tall

For both me and you!

Instead of healing, I may invoke a cancer!

 

Anonymous Tim and I have become one

Too late now to take our separate runs

 

I will become the Fool then

And perhaps while we laugh, we will learn

Or perhaps not, because

I don’t think the answers truly matter

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Poem] Sometimes… Angels Appear

Sometimes you don’t need the mos maiorum

To remember the way to the sanctum sanctorum

Sometimes you don’t need that guy with the skull

(When your head is stupid and dull)

Standing behind you, whispering ‘memento mori’

Making you feel sorry

Sometimes you don’t need a towering rival

To remember what to do

Sometimes you don’t need a whip to see yourself

And remember that you’re a Fool

Sometimes you don’t need the stigmata

To remember the ecstasy of nirvana
Sometimes you don’t need these things

To remember what is real

To remember what is trivial

That Life is bigger than ego

That Death is not just zero

Sometimes all you need is that one kind soul

When you’re way down in the hole

Who says the right thing at the right time

It needn’t be in rhyme

That puts everything into perspective

True wisdom, gleaned without service

Without the need for rigorous ponderings

Or mystical meanderings

Without waging berserk battles of verses

Or carting hearses

Without performing severe penances

Or purchasing new lenses

Without hard pilgrimages or epic quests

Without encountering bests and worsts

Lessons learnt without pain

Thanks to the providence of simple words

A stupendous miracle that Everyman can enjoy

Sometimes it’s pretty easy

To learn how to laugh at yourself

When you’re in the right company.

[Poem] Mentor/Rival Part 2

[Poem] Mentor… Rival!

Old man, now that you’re gone

There is no rhythm to my song

Every trick of mine seems hollow

No more leprechauns under rainbows

My work now lacks those layers

Within layers within layers

That you surely did inspire

I doubt you were even aware

Of our little rivalry

Which surely made me swear

But my mind did cheer

At your every word

Even if they weren’t directed at me

I still directed mine at you

My Antietam to your Gettysburg

My masquerade to your Oscars

My republic to your Empire

My Athena to your Anunaki

My Ork and Binary to your brain physiology

You summoned a cormorant to rescue me from the pit

You got my mind to quest

And my words to have meaning

And now you’re gone

And my words mean nothing

…

You truly helped me feel

Alive for two glorious months

I thank you and salute your memory

May your soul rest in peace

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting Shiva

I am taken away to another place. I find myself in a garden filled with strange creatures, alien and terrifying in their diversity. “Come dance with us,” they sing to me. I am exchanged from one to the other in the blink of an eye, transforming into the form of each of my dancing partners. One moment, I am a horned creature with one eye, the next a multi coloured bee, then a blue humanoid with too many eyes, and then a red flower, a mosquito, a fish thingy, I change too quickly for my mind to keep up. I break into a sweat, and feel my head spin.

And then they stop, “time to meet our Lord,” they say to me.

I am ushered before a figure sitting on a throne, whose form I can make sense of. He looks just like that picture. I stand before Shiva, and gaze awestruck.

“Bow,” one of the creatures behind me says with a slight chuckle.

I begin to make my bow, but as soon as I get started Shiva places his foot on my head to force me into submission. I resist, beginning to feel a little peeved. We then begin to wrestle, and he easily pins me to the grassy floor.

“Why didn’t you bow?” He asks, with a hint of laughter in his voice.

“Because you forced me to,” I answer.

He lifts me to my feet and hugs me, “Good,” he says. “Remember this lesson. Bow to no-one who forces you, except to Parabrahman, the All Creator who never forces submission.”

I float away. I peer down from the sky, and see a gigantic elephant, or mammoth perhaps, in the middle of a grove near the throne, imprisoned by thick trees. The elephant looks angry. It scares me. I do not know what the last part of this dream means.

[AA2] Day 45: Brahmarishi in the Making

Previously

Soul quotient: 3/7

Mohan attracted trouble like honey attracted flies. It wasn’t his fault, just the way of the Universe. Mohan had long since accepted that fact, ever since he’d been expelled from school for holding a teacher to the same standards that the teacher held his students.

He’d long since accepted that there was no such thing as justice in society. Courts and law and order were illusions. Real justice could only be obtained out in the wild, deep in the core of the Western Ghats or up in the snowy Himalayas. He hadn’t been to the Rajasthan deserts but he was sure there was justice to be obtained there too, the natural order that cared nothing for pseudo morality. Oh dear, Mohan lulled his mind into lethargy with a lullaby he’d learnt from an elephant in the zoo. It didn’t do any good to let his mind go wandering like that.
“So,” said the yoga teacher, throwing his slipper at Mohan, “you came here because you wanted to learn how to sleep?”
It was a free yoga class that Mohan had entered to kill time. He didn’t have enough money for anything and his parents weren’t going to be at home for another hour. Perhaps it would have been wiser to just sit on a bench and watch the birds.
“I thought this was Bihar School of Yoga, not Beer School,” Mohan said, unintentionally mispronouncing BR. Why did he always make those clumsy mistakes? That damn Universe again!
“You come here and insult me,” the yogacharya shouted shrilly.
“No insult was intended,” Mohan said, guilt ridden. “I just thought it would be nice to sleep and do that yoga thing at the same time. Yoga nidra, you know? That way I wouldn’t be wasting any time.”
“Wasting time?” the yogacharya’s face was beginning to grow red.

“I just meant…”

“Out!”

[Poem] Tra

With three legs cut off from your charge

Come hither now on your barge

The world waits with bated breath

Though many see you as a threat

When the fourth leg of Dharma is cut

And Shamballa’s dharna is done

Go to the banner of the son

To the car of the bull and the sun

An army of spirits you’ll lead

As you raise your standard

Of the crow and the elephant

Time will cease to flow

Until the legs again grow.

These events are inevitable

 

Demagogues and tyrants

Ruination of civilizations

Plumbum poisoning of man’s intelligence

Leading to violent tendencies and stupidity

In turn, the birth of a redeeming hero archetype

Cyrus, Horus, Melchizidek, take your pick.

Easy to see, mathematical pattern, predictable!

A little like Asimov’s psychohistory.
Destruction/creation: constants

Planets moving around stars

And stars around galactic centres

Galaxies moving somewhere too

Resonance with the macro and micro

With the quantum and the grand celestial

Fractal truths, seen in the stars and distilled into each blade of grass

Natural rhythms of the universe

As solar systems and galaxies dance

Constant movement, that cannot be properly seen

Because of relative velocity

A cycle that will cease

only with the complete destruction

Of the everything, when the cosmic waters cease to be.

0,1 and 3!

 

And so dear Saturn, you will dance the same dance

And sing the same songs, like a traveling troupe

As our Milky Way production moves to a different theater

Garnering different receptions for the same play.

And we will all play our roles, paraphrasing our hearts out

To a script that we can’t remember but still perform flawlessly.