ramatheertha

hearts desire, flow by me
quick and cold and sparkly
skip and trip betwixt the hills
my brow soothe, my soul fill.

the conjurer's curtains twitched aside
reveals a twinkle, small and shy;
as the bats another night abide,
stars wink on in a darkening sky.

a taper weaves its wreath of gold
a crowded, lacy, fluttering gloom
and a fabled floral queen of old
wreaths me round with roux perfume.

it's time, a time when dreams are woven;
the night calls out, and I come around
to find I'm all but behoven
to follow the whispered woodland sounds,

and realize that though I've known

some ugly times as knave and scoundrel,

the object of my devotion -

I will not let the this valley drown,

no steel will still its languid motion,

nor coal stain its silver crown.

sweet satire

The worst thing that we can do as a nation/ state/ linguistic minority is take ourselves too seriously, and fall onto the greased mental slide that leads to more and more entrenched political views, to the point where they become 'holy' and engraved in stone (see what I did there?).

The best antidote to that is people whose regular gig happens to be posing as professional purveyors of ridicule - to whom everything is fair game, to whom nothing is sacred. By that yardstick, comedians are like canaries in a coal mine - when they fall silent, you know there's something nasty in the air - and when there's a weird censorious smell on the airwaves, there's probably something rotten going on in the corridors of New Delhi.

There's also this blog post that I can't praise enough - I think this guy (gal?) should sell his writing.