Thought

E for Endeavour or is it Enterprise

R is for Resolute or is it Regret?

Letters, not just the ones in envelopes

Have gone extinct in a sense-

But still work as

The mere

Hyroglyphics of Communication

It's a kind of costume change

Between sets...

Wave them around like feather boas

As you might

Its a peekaboo concealment game

Still-

But there's

Nothing to keep anymore

But why bother

When nothing sticks

Anyway.

But Nothing has reinvented itself

New Hat, New Coat

Or maybe a new Face-

And grown an Identity

In a petri dish

Actually probably many

But

Nothing means what You

Used to mean when you said it

Of course it didn't mean nothing

even then!

When You said something

Then

Or when you say things

Now

Even when You are not the same You

Not Changed or reinvented

But not You at all!

(Look you can prove it- its different chromosomes DNA everything)

Not counting the damage

But apart from being other people

Altogether

The fact is

There are so many ways

To say Nothing

So many ways to say it

Now

And they are

Those ways, pathways, channels, routes, links, kinks

Which are-

Embedded

Or are they Embarassed

Sniggering with it, giggling like young girls

All over each other

Because they can't go away

Or be separated?

They're in all the lobes now

Sneak capture

Poured in like dye-

Blanketed, smothered

But you can't see it on those MRI scans

Because they're made unseen, colourless

You can't see thoughts

Everyone knows that!

Even in the comic books, where they put dots to reach the thought balloons when you're thinking and not talking-

You've got all kinds of colours alright

For brain activity on those MRIs

Even emotions- Purple for Passion, Red for Anger, Blue for Tranquility, Greem foe Envy

But None, Nada, Nyet, NOTHING

For your thoughts-

You can still say

A Penny for them

Like they used to in 1932

And hope you're handed the right tray

To go around the customers

When the penny drops

But after the Interval

And the velvet goes up

If there is Anything

Private Now

Those are it

Them-

Provided you know

How to pretend

About how You're

Not

Thinking at all.

Gautam Mukherjee

22nd May 2011

Talents

Talents

Talents like talons-

Some grip success

Some don't,

But-

The ones that propel us to achievement

Are not necessarily superior to the ones

That don't-

A lot depends on fate-

You win only at what is meant to be

And for the rest

You're barking up the wrong tree

Beauty and the Beast may seem interchangeable

If you look at the outside of one

And the inside of the other

But this is facile-

They are what they are-

A lot of fairytales

Are just wish fulfillment

And romance.

It takes quite some time to accept this secret

Hiding there in plain sight

What is your fate?

Don't worry it will come and find you

Even if you're anonymous-

So

One Bin Laden becomes a top contractor in Saudi Arabia

Another the King of Terrorists-

Don't think Osama

Could have done anything else

Even

If he tried.

No Gandhian conversion was possible here

Not even at the doors of Hell rewritten in his own write as Heaven.

But with all that innocent blood on his hands-

Or what he would justify as historical consequence

The blood and the innocence

Merely incidental

To his big picture jihad

He was

Strong in the stomach

Weak in the morals-

With

Crusading medieval ethics

And a twisted version of

Reality.

He

Was

Consumed by hatred

Of symbols

Of people

Very much like himself

Reflected in a mirror

Reflecting

Someone he used to know

Only too well

In his affluent Bin Laden contractor's son days-

But the fugitive of Abbotabad

Neighbours of Pakistan's Army Staff College

With some fanciful name-

He

Was a ghost already

plotting inside his shroud

With shadows

That never left him

He

Was a chess piece

In a game too big for his sandals-

A golden goose for Pakistan

Worth keeping safe just sixty

Km from the Kapital-

And

Much

Too hot to handle alive

for the

Americans-

Old DNA verified dead man Osama

Can now compare

Notes

With that fat squat Tamil Tiger

Peera what's his name-

That never did get Eelam-

And Peera can recount some of his own social engineering efforts

And

How long they held out

Those years and years

When they couldn't be found

Both

Can talk about the perfection of human bombs

And Osama

can best Peera with references

To plane bombs that take out entire skyscrapers

and symbols they symbolise

And then

They can both compare wounds

Chest shots

Head shots

All the overkill

That befits their status

That lead and more lead

That killed them and their stature

Very very thoroughly-

So completely

That

They could stop being whatever

They were fated to be

At least for this life-

Without any more say so

Than death itself

Without any talk of martyrs

Or the bigtime such as-

Hitler for that matter.

Sometimes

One's talent

And fated affinity

For slaughter

Not only lie in the wrong place

But ignore time altogether.

Gautam Mukherjee

6th May 2011