D). Kurukshetra Recurring

Kurukshetra Recurring

Seconds slip into aeons as eras slide away from me
Here in the heart of the dark night, the last night
Before the dawn of a whole new history.

Here where the sun sets
I see the pale wraiths
Drift into hell states
Framed by a square screen.
They don't know they are dead of the terminal disease
They feel no dread or sense of unease
They can't hear their souls scream.

They're sanitised, deodorised, virtually real
With nothing dangerous left to feel
Like love.

There's no gain in giving, here
There's no pain in living, here
Now ecstasy is just a drug
And joy has faded away;
Such a small price to pay
For these emotionally empty
These spiritually dead.
And for the few left reeling
By the lack of real feeling
There are pills for the ache in the heart
Which can fill the vacuum in the head.

The only virtue here is hypocrisy
No one has any faith in integrity.
While some ruthless old men hungry for fame
Sentence children to death, all in the name
Of a God to whom they only pay lip service,
Others make boys into bombs that never miss.
These cowards and fools are leaders who've never fought in a war
They play it as an intellectual game they know they can't lose,
for
Their wealth and power ensure that they will always have the
clout
To protect themselves from the death they deal out.

Rebellion was my only shield
Against this power I thought it wrong to wield
Proudly defiant, I said I'd never yield
But in every life I lost;
The bitter cost
Escalating every time
Until I had nothing left to tide
Me to my next defeat, not even pride;
Until I begged to be a part of everything I had decried.
That was always my last
Break with my past;
Betraying myself was my greatest crime.
And once I had done it the denizens of those hells outside my
skin
Knew that they had won and slowly, tantalisingly, refused to let me
in.

I fought to stay out of every category
So hard that I made it come true.
Though I only ever wanted to be me
In life after life I had to re-invent myself anew,
For I was afraid of being left behind as I grew old
And sought social approval to seal out the cold.

That's why I used to die here,
Trapped in this time of islands
Separated by oceans of fear.
In this dark age
Whole lives are pulverised by tidal waves of rage.

I used to live my final lie here,
And while eternity slid by
Watch those who I once loved
Become strangers, calcify
Into images crudely carved by time
Of the masks they used to don and doff;
Those masks we all wore to conceal
Our soft selves from the world reveal
Who we are now for real.

And between us stretch icy wastes of lives I cannot cross
If love still lived then that would be a loss,
But in their eyes I see the enemy
I stare at my reflection staring back at me.

Time after time this is the last, this is the loneliest place
This is Kurukshetra recurring, my final battlefield where I must
face
My fear and destroy it's seed at the end of every kali yuga so my
soul
Can win the freedom which in each lifetime is it's only goal.

Seconds slip into aeons as eras slide away from me
Here in the womb of night
I'll spark the sun and set the stars alight
To illuminate a different story.

I watch myself begin again and while I linger
The old dark wraps me round it's little finger
Tries to seduce me with the same old knowing grin
But this time I've learnt my lesson and I know I'll win.
I'll drink my victory like elixir,
Finding to my surprise
The singing draught fails to cheer
A heart grown cold and wise
Or warm a cool clear mind
No longer cruel or kind.

I watch as in my trance
Kalpas complete their dance
Expire with a sigh.

And before time starts yearning to begin once more, I
Inhale eternity in the spaces between seconds and see
How here where galaxies are conceived my soul is free
To weave dreams of another age
Spin new webs of ecstasy and pain,
So that when I am compelled to re-engage
In the new cycles of births my longing stirs,
I can play another universe
Sing fresh worlds into motion:
Live out the answer; once again
Become the eternal question.

*****
c. Copyright By Anjali Paul.