If I don't wake and you're home

©  mobius-one.deviantart.com

If I'm not awake when you are home

Know that the body has left but, the mind

Hasn't. Know that the ideas and the

Ideals are safe within yours. If I'm

Gone when you return, give me your

Balmy smell and let the candles burn.

I'm not awake and you're home and I 

Am always around still, and you're

Never alone because memories you'll 

Have galore and what's within you are

Yours alone.That I'm gone when you're

Home is just a phase like I was born.

When I'm awake still and you're home

And you find me strife ridden and 

Despite you alone, don't change your path 

Or Waver your course because I'm just a

Rider of a black death horse. While I rest and

You're in your wake- hold me for heaven's sake.

For when I'll not wake and you will in

The next morn, don't treat the bed like a

Sheet of thorns. For when you slept and I was

Awake I weaved a million dreams around your

Face. That face will carry me home when I sleep and

Perhaps, I dearly hope in the cosmos make us meet.

So, if I'm not awake and you're home, know

That the body has served its debt but the heart

Is your's alone...

© Malyaban Lahiri

Raag Megh-Malhaar

A sudden torrential innerburst, mind numbing

And tearful in extent. What is it? Where in 

Natures bountiful mysteries does this figure?

Overflowing inner joy but by no means peaceful,

Like a matrimony of Ghalib's pain with the joys

Of the rain!

A welcome yet unsure change between hazy days of

Self yielding grey. What mist, what silence, what

Rhythm brings about this cataclysm of overwhelming

Heaviness in the throat, skipped beats in the heart

And a rush of ecstacy in my blood? A sense of such

Seductive anticipation..

A timeless time on the clocks that remains unseen

Just so the soul can enjoy these fleeting yet strong

Lapses of unhindered selfless freedom. Inward collages

Of crashing waterfalls, stubborn rivers, golden fields

Of wheat and green valleys of flowers. The focus of a

Tiger and the suspense of a deer. Oh what is it?

This resonanting tune of the flute, the naughty string

Games of a sitar, the push of the tabla beats and the

Binding sorrow of the piano- the outburst in the inner!

Then, when I open my eyes, harness my senses ready to 

Plunge in the senseless mediocrity does my mind answer-

It's the raag Megh-Malhaar!

© Malyaban Lahiri

An altered state of mind

Image Copyright © TimFrommeyer

I am as if in the midst of a conundrum.

I can see but I cant watch, hear but 

Really dont want to listen. I move, yet

I am still, but walking on the waters of

The rainy Hyades on the dim sea.

I can hold yet cannot touch, I cry but

Do not weep. The salt dries on the face

And yet I cant feel the residue. I write

And imagine yet I dont think and toil. I

Am just a mirror placed in an angle.

You can see a million me's and I can

See a million yous. But its just me at

The funhouse of mirrors and distortion

Of internal images. In a slumber I am

And when I wake, its on the lap of daze.

Words pass me by, an incommunicado

Sub-conscious doll embraced by cobwebs

And dust at my angles, and a mask on the

Mirror that I know but have never seen. Its

An altered state of mind. A lapse of your reality

But, I am still awake with heavy eyes scanning

Frantically around to find a shudder that will wake

Me up from this state of seemingly eternal bliss. Its

Too good to leave but too hard to stay coz when its

Over you are way below in time and space;

Gathering your conscious pieces and sweeping those

Sub-conscious cellophane bags under your cerebrum

Is as easy as saying goodbye to the last train of eternity-

Inevitable yet painful but, again somewhat ecstatic. A

Thousand screaming headless torsos thrown into the mix.

The trip; the journey into the micro of things but

Looking at it from the macro on top just feels

Like the body is detached from you and you are your

Reflection. As the neurons fire under the influence,

The brain sits still gathering the output like cable tv.

I am what you are and I am what you are not,

I am your reflection and you are mine. But 

Beyond the wakefulness of it all is what I tend

To think about and then I see not me, not you

And not them, but a pulsating electron surging.

Into the funhouse we go and look at the distorted

Mirrors showing our true self and what we can be,

But, once we leave the mirrors still follow to remind

You of a sense of time which has no minutes or hours

But, only me and because of me a different you.

So tell me perception, which is me, what is them and

What is us and ours? Coz all I see is a hollow lane where

You can choose to light the flame or just walk into the

Darkness that keeps crawling like maggots and eating

Our state and time and realizations. Its altered and yet isnt.

The mind over the body, the subconscious over both,

Or just me and a perceived you above all else. Let my

Altered state of mind decipher and decide. For it will

Never be decided and the you and the me will all be 

But one and different in an altered state of mind. 

Every stranger has a name. Me and you...

© Malyaban Lahiri