Old

On top of the world

Looking down from snowy peaks

Dragons look just flies

Posted for Acrostic Only prompt for July Acrostic Haiku prompt 'Old'

Revenge

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 22; the twenty-second edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Writer's Note: Here I have attempted a fusion of 4 poetry forms : ballad, rondel, triolet and vilanelle. I was inspired by a prompt in One stop Poetry to post a poem based on a myth or story. Could not post in time for that one but I managed one here. I am not sure if this is the right forum for poetry. My earlier poem on Blog-a-Ton 'The Fool' was not too well received. But for a long time I have been having an itch to retell a story I had read long time back in school. It is by a Russian author. Can't remember which one. It is the tale of a young man accused of a murder commited by someone else. He is jailed and foresaken by even his near and dear. The story goes on to relate his reaction when the real murderer lands up in the same prison for a minor crime and our protaganist is the only witness of his escape attempt. It coincided well with this time's blog-a-ton theme of the month and here I am with a poem again on my 11th attempt here. I have tried to capture the protaganist's emotions through the three poems. The first one is a rondel, the second one a triolet and the third one a vilanelle. All 3 are French poetry forms. Also I have tried to maintain a pentameter (10 syllables) in every line. Ideally they should be iambic as well (Alternate short and long syllables). But I am not too great with English pronounciation having learnt my English mostly from reading and very little listening. So it is iambic if pronounced the way I do it. You can check out about all the four poetry forms at One Stop Poetry. This site has been agreat source of knowledge and inspiration for me. Unfortunately they are stopping their weekly feature from this week. But still the archives will be up I beleive. Do let me know what you think of my attempt.

Hunger for revenge

My beautiful life was stolen by him

His destruction my life’s only purpose

In jail spent I years most precious

The injustice of it has made me grim

For a wicked deed committed by him

Was I accused of crime cold and callous

My beautiful life was stolen by him

His destruction my life’s only purpose

A smart and merry lad, handsome and trim

No care in life, rich and industrious

A wife pretty, well read and gracious

Fortune had my life filled full to the brim

My beautiful life was stolen by him

Revenge served on a platter

This is the day for which I have waited

His fate has been handed into my hand

The hole under the wall I have sighted

This is the day for which I have waited

If the jailer were told what he wanted

to do, then would he in deep trouble land

This is the day for which I have waited

His fate has been handed into my hand

Taste of Revenge

My soul has burnt in life’s hot red furnace

In his utter ruin and destruction

Finally have I found source of solace

When the jailer disposes of his case

Like me, will he spend life in detention

My soul has burnt in life’s hot red furnace

I long to see the despair on his face

Sweet vengeance will give me satisfaction

Finally have I found source of solace

But will his plight my tales of woe erase?

Can I regain my life’s lost perfection?

My soul has burnt in life’s hot red furnace.

Forgiveness can only my woes efface

Bitter vengeance is no retribution

Finally have I found source of solace

Through suffering does one gain divine grace

This was my rite of purification

My soul has burnt in life’s hot red furnace

Finally have I found source of solace

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. This has also been submitted for Jingle Poetry weekly Poetry Pot Luck week 47 theme : History and Stories.

If you liked this poem, please click here to check out the rest of my poems.

Mask of Life

Master makers of motley masks are we

Making masks like a dainty packrat’s nest

Bits of the world woven for all to see

World is too wild for one naked to be

Hiding behind masks can one safely rest

Master makers of motley masks are we

Pick and choose as per his fancy does he

The packrat material for his nest

Bits of the world woven for all to see

The true face lies safe under lock and key

The mask goes out and faces life’s contest

Master makers of motley masks are we

  Does provide material every

 Experience to forge one’s mask the best

Bits of the world woven for all to see

One day true self will soar high and fly free

Only the best masks will stay and time test

Master makers of motley masks are we

Bits of the world woven for all to see

My first attempt at a type of poetry called Vilanelle. Here's the definition from Wikipedia. The accompanying picture belongs to Tess Kincaid of Magpie Tales. This poem has been inspired by the photo. I tried to compare the human life to that of a packrat. The same way packrat that lives a short life leaves behind middens that last for centuries, humans leave behind memories. The way packrat builds its nest from things around, we build our personalities from the experiences the world gives us. Our personalities are like our masks that we present to the world and that is what the people remember after we are gone. This post had been posted for weekly prompt for Magpie Tales Mag 74 and Jingle Poetry Week 44 Poetry Potluck- Painting Whispers.

The Curse of the Last Swan

Picture Credit : TinyPilot at Deviant Art

The sun’s rays found their way through the dark skies and touched the brown earth. Father Sanchez’s spirit followed the sun’s rays from heaven and descended on the earth as he finished his morning prayers. He was a frail man nearing his fiftieth year. This apostle of Christ bore a striking resemblance to the depictions of his master himself with his beard and his deep soulful look. As he walked towards the door of the church one could feel a complete sense of detachment in his gait.

The church door opened to a cobbled path. Waste land lay all around. And behind the church was the final resting place of the island’s former inhabitants. Father Sanchez stepped out and began to walk towards the small area of low shrubs and bushes a few miles from the church. Foraging for mushrooms and berries was part of his daily morning routine. That was the only source of food on the island. Father Sanchez could identify sufficient number of edible species to sustain him. He rarely ventured into anything new. He did not need to. The explorations had already been done and the pioneers rested peacefully behind the church. On a lucky day, a fish or two might supplement his diet of mushrooms and berries.

His path was lined with battered buildings on either side giving an appearance of an archeological excavation site. Even in their ruined state the buildings emanated signs of past glory. A perceptive observer could not but appreciate the amazing town planning. Sanchez stopped by the grandest of the ruins. After hesitating a bit, he stepped in. He was greeted by a most spectacular sight. There chamber held some of the most intricately carved statues of marble and jade set with precious rubies and emeralds. In the middle of the rooms was the most amazing throne made of gold of seven different colors. The next room held the kind of jewels that would have probably given the caves of Ali Baba and Alladin a run for their money. But more surprising than all these sights was Sanchez’s utter indifference to these treasures.

Sanchez ‘s eyes were frozen in a glassy expression. This had been his home where he had spent his childhood. His father Fernando had been the lord of the island. That had been a golden period. The island had been one of the richest trading hubs. Ships from far and wide would come to buy the island’s timber and iron ore. In return they received gold, jade, marble, finest garments, exotic spices and wines. The island’s population had been really industrious. The miners and loggers worked day in and day out to keep the island’s economy ticking. Then there were the craftsmen who carved exquisite sculptures and the jewelers who fabricated intricate designs out of gold and silver. The lords, who loved a life of luxury and opulence, were great patrons of these crafts.

Sanchez’s gaze then moved on to their family of coat of arms – a majestic swan like bird. Sanchez himself had never seen one though. But the old palace servant Rafael had told him they had abounded in his great grandfather’s days. In fact the entire island had been a lush jungle. Hunting had been a favorite pastime of the lords during his grandfather’s times. But by his father’s time, the island had become a more urban community with urban pastimes.

His reverie over, Sanchez proceeded on his daily trek. Once again he paused as he neared the water line. One could make out remnants of a burnt down structure. This had been the dock. It had been a buzz of activity in its time. Sanchez had vivid memories of the night the rebels burnt it down. His mind began to trace the series of events that lead to the rebellion. One thing had lead to another. Disease had followed drought and then came rebellion. The island had made the workers toil hard before yielding her last reserves of wood and iron. It was too late by the time the lords realized the price of their obsession with spices, wine and arts.

Sanchez’s eyes filled with tears as he reflected over the next ten years that followed. Things had gone from bad to worse. Hunger and disease were no longer the preserve of the working classes. Death stalked the island at every corner. Some said all the luck left the island long back along with the island’s symbol of luck – the royal family’s insignia. The last swan had cursed the island with its last breath. Now the whole island lay in utter desolation. Sanchez and his church were all that remained.

This story has been published as part of Thursday Tales Tale #68.
If you liked this story, you can check out my other stories here.

Infatuation

The leaves are falling

Infatuations no more

green; blushes remain

Posted for Haiku Heights: Prompt #51 I know most people post pictures with Haikus. Even I felt such a small post looked odd on the blog and wanted to add a picture. But as they say a picture speaks more than 1000 words. What chance will my poor 17 syllables have against a picture? So decided against it.

How to write a story?

There are very few who do not love a good story. I have often wondered what it is that makes a story so fascinating. Then there are good stories and bad ones. Exploring what makes a story fascinating probably can give clues on what are the characteristics of a good story. Extending this further I was wondering if one can develop a framework to evaluate stories as well as serve as a guideline to write good stories.


To define what a story is, I would go right down to what distinguishes humans from other beings. As per me the most distinguishing features of humans are intellect and emotions, the head and the heart. So I would classify stories into two kinds – those that appeal to the head and those that appeal to the heart. Of course a hallmark of good stories is a combination of both. But I would keep these two aspects separate for simplicity of analysis.

Let us start from the top, the head. What is called intelligence is essentially an ability to solve problems. Evolution favored development of intelligence as it enabled man to solve diverse problems thrown up by nature. The brain tries to quickly gather all information available, sifts through, identifies all that is relevant and tries to come up with the most optimal solution based on the available information. As more information becomes available the solution keeps getting more refined. Copulation and eating are pleasant experiences by themselves, even when not done to serve their evolutionary purposes of procreation and providing nutrition respectively. Same is the case with problem solving. It is a pleasant experience in itself even if it has no practical purpose. This is one of the things a good story tries to exploit. It initiates the reader into a problem and slowly releases more and more information that enables him to proceed towards the solution.

A good story of the above kind is like a giant jigsaw puzzle whose size and number of pieces the reader does not know. One of the abilities of the brain is to duck bouncers. So right in the beginning, if one were to recognize that a problem is too complex, the mind decides that it would be prudent to avoid taking on the problem. In many practical cases flight makes a better strategy then fight. So it is the writer’s skill is to trick the reader’s mind into believing that the solution is just at hand. Else he will lose the reader right away. So in the very beginning the writer has to get the reader curious, which is the step of getting the reader to recognize the problem and take it on. To encourage the reader to hang on, there can be a big problem consisting of a series of smaller problems. Solving the smaller problems earlier on in the book can give the reader encouragement to keep going at the big problem. The master story teller has to release one clue after another and the readers must be left gaping for the next hoping that will solve the problem only to realize he has to wait for one more. It is a final balance. If anything is released too early, the problem is solved and reader looses interest. If too much is held back to the last, the reader may decide it is too tough mid way and give up. And finally, it should seem that the reader has arrived at the solution rather than some random solution popping up like a rabbit out of a hat at the end. Else the reader does not get the satisfaction of solving a problem.

Moving on to the heart, we seldom have control over our emotions. The world just plays with our emotions and we just have to stand by and experience them. Stories are one of the means of deliberately creating emotions and experiencing them. Stories describe situations that create a particular emotion. The mind has already associated certain emotions with certain kind of situations and so description of the situation triggers the corresponding emotion. The trick here is to make the mind believe that the reader is actually undergoing the experience that is being described. That is where the skill of the writer comes in. The descriptions have to be vivid and consistent for the reader to believe it is real. This concept is well illustrated in the movie ‘Inception’. The moment mind sees the boundaries of the world the book creates or inconsistencies, it stops believing and the story looses the ability to trigger emotions. That is why the writer has to make every effort to make the descriptions as complex and consistent as possible.

Many writers recognize the importance of keeping the settings sufficiently complex and consistent. But that is by no means sufficient in itself. From a writer’s point of view this exercise is a problem to be solved and weaving an imaginary situation that is sufficiently complex and consistent can be pleasurable. But then that is not sufficient from the reader’s point of view. The reader is looking to experience emotions. He wants to experience intense fear without exposing himself to danger. He wants to feel anger and wreck destruction and seek revenge without really hurting anyone or falling foul of law. He wants to experience the amazement of visiting a distant country or and inaccessible wonder of nature without incurring the expenses and the ardors of the journey. He wants to be part of great deeds of valor and nobility that he may not have opportunity to be part of in the real world. He wants to commit the vilest of crimes and experience sadistic pleasure without the repercussions. He wants to feel intense love and the pangs of loss for an hour and then close the book and get on with life. I can go on and on. But I guess I have made my point. Many stories, in spite of their complexity and consistency, fail to invoke these intense emotions and end up hovering at the emotional neutrality of just another day of the reader’s life. No wonder they fail in spite of the sincerest efforts from the writer.

Now it might seem I am suggesting a story to be either a problem or description of a situation that invokes a particular emotion. But most good stories are a combination of a problem and a myriad of emotions. There is no science around getting the right blend though. That is where writing becomes an art. The writer like any other artist has to rely on his feelings to judge if the blend is right. The final story has to seem real, have a problem that is neither too simple nor too complex and a set of emotions that gives the reader an overall interesting experience. There is no formula or technique for this. But this kind of analytical framework can help a writer avoid basic blunders before this stage.

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