"bedlamite" poems
Before you criticize me too soon, I think you should spare some seconds and answer a simple question to yourself...
If Shahjahan loved Mumtaz Mahal so much, why he had a harem of wives to use at his own pleasure?
While I agree that the Taj Mahal is arguably the most extraordinarily beautiful monument in the world, I don't agree upon the fact that it was built as a tomb of love. It is just a symbol of madness if you asked me. An emperor's insecure feeling to get his name registered in the history books. While it may be one of the most beautiful architectural monument, it was built by over 20,000 architects, craftsmen, masons and engineers who took over 16 years to build the magnificent building.
He got this apparently high & prestigious monument of love built but everything that the Emperor did was not pleasant at all.
° The lavishly living Mughal Emperor spent all his - his subjects' money into building this monument of love instead of keeping his subjects well-fed.
° Mumtaz Mahal might have been the luckiest woman to have died and got such a marvelous building built as her mausoleum but she died giving birth to her & Shahjahan's 17th offspring and then Shahjahan who had uncountable other wives was inspired by her demise apparently to undertake what is termed as the biggest project in history build the costliest monument proclaiming his rule.
° The arrogant - falsely proud lover - Mughal emperor didn't know that what he thought to be looked at as the greatest symbol of love will be criticized by some poet in his own land nearly 375 years later. The insane Mughal Emperor got all the builders of the Taj Mahal's fingers cut-off of so that there could be no other Taj Mahal.
But Aurangzeb, his & Mumtaz Mahal's son overthrew his power when Shahjahan got older and locked him up in a jail at the other end of Yamuna river where the emperor then died a sad old lovelorn bedlamite person in prison. Aurangzeb was the exact opposite of his dad, he showed religious intolerance and his habits drove the empire towards its doom after his death.
But let me think this way; when I look at any picture of the Taj Mahal, what I get the first thing in mind is this: Such a CRAZY emperor who got such a beautiful monument of Egotism built!
May 7, 2013
May 7, 2013 at 11:23 AM UTC
A man tired from the waking day
hangs his keys on the beaded hook,
lets the hat off his grateful head.
He places himself in front of the table
where he laid down his papers,
his skins and his skin.
He put on the table, the day's characters,
mulled them over in the electronic hum of Aleph and coffee flavoured eyes,
rolled them up tight with tomorrow's fears
and set them alight.
He put there a glass ashtray to catch the embers of regret.
He put on the table his dear friend, Old Man Wibble,
the bedlamite seer,
drunken oracle,
_"liquid Jesus, straight from the bottle"_
and longed for a glass to raise.
He put there the smoke from his exasperated lungs
and the wistful music of his tired throat,
he put there every last syllable and every letter left lingering on a lost lovers lips.
He put hope on the table,
for the weight might crush him as he sat
but not the table,
solid under this load,
to bear weight is what a table must do
and tomorrow will always bring another pile.
Jan 9, 2021
Jan 9, 2021 at 10:34 PM UTC
I dreamt the world
it never changed.
She never came.
My tethered skin
tore weathered chains.
I swore she knew
my given name.
Myths are stained.
Apocryphal.
A pocket full…
of gods and cherubs
in the fold.
Hope is serum
of the fools.
Hate is fearing
all the rules.
Love is blind
love is blind
If you love her
say it twice.
Broke my words
in several places
Make amends
in several phases
String the song
with several phrases.
We’ll become
a bending stalk.
Snapped in half
ascending up.
Blush and makeup.
Don’t believe.
Rush to make up
this belief.
So we’re here
in disbelief.
Petal, scent
fall to the earth
If mental cries
this mind is burnt.
I never changed
She never sensed
our plot unwritten.
Lift the pen.
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 10:46 PM UTC
motionless, inoffensive beige mannequins
stare with purple glass eyes. reflecting
windows in a grey plaster store
shopkeeper embraces
handles a broomstick
his sense is swarming
turns on a television
death and corruption
death and corruption
broadcast test patterns
no retribution for the cold and weak
a quack, hands in pockets, prances past
a roughly-edged black and white photo
of a specific eventful sunset, noteworthy
in the limitless notebook, a prime number
dated, thoroughly checked off, presented
the outer design is undeniably fractal
it is packaged in crushed red riches;
the coloring is so very numbing
the experience is so humbling
A physical form is misplaced
the blueprint is just blank points
faulty articles of a future failure
(I haven't been led to believe
that something makes a good anything)
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 12:39 AM UTC
A chamber promise nothing less
Pre-screened destiny
This is how the night begins
We slip inside our seventh skins
One minute and thirty-nine seconds
On short circuit
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
Not the Devil or his daughter or the nephew who had caught you,
but you tangled with the wrong guys after all.
In the bottom of the well where the dreams of dragons dwell and the fires of hell await you,
whether homicide or suicide or who has died and did you care?
bomb blasts melting oxygen making hot air,
burning skin.
Not the bible,
that won't save you
nor the holy book that craves
you enter in.
In this apocalyptic time
apocalypse with always rhyme.
The better of two evils is the choice
that we could make.
But
one for sorrow
so it's said,
two magpies always in my bed,
just hedging bets.
And when I think it's done and
the night sets out a place for me,
I wonder if I'll see the new day
in a new way or just the same way
as I always do.
The devil and his family live next door
down on this street with me,
happily they never got the key
that opens up this door.
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 3:37 AM UTC