Works

Twilight

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Uncategorized

The setting sun, and the mourning moon,
Worked together to create a legend,
The moon called the night and stars,
The sun called the pallet of various colours,
And they splashed the entire mixture on the sky.
With stoic mountains and bitter ridges framing the canvas,
And happy hills and whimsical clouds filling it up,
The sun and the moon created a masterpiece of art,
The pinnacle of science and art and creativity,
The best of the daughters of nature,
The favourite of both order and chaos,
And a contradiction within and without itself,
The favourite of beings all,
Twilight.

Wistful Thoughts

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

If the world was less cruel,
With kind eyes and happy faces,
No schemes, no taunting, no fiends,
Just happiness and lively lives.

If the world was unpredictable,
With everyday a new adventure,
Every other moment full of adrenaline,
Every day a beautiful moment.

If the world was different,
And I was able to fly,
Over the seas to the horizon,
Zipping through trees tall.

If the world was different,
And I was able to sail,
To the ends of the world,
Explorations abound.

If my life was different,
And I was able to travel,
To destinations unknown,
Towards the eternal and beyond.

If only the illusive façade,
Of monotony could fade away,
The chaotic mind would then be strong,
And my wistful thoughts become the reality.

War

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

There were five of us this morn,
Only I remain as the sun goes home,
But here I stay, in the frontier,
Amidst the prison made of bodies,
Shivering, hungry, cold and almost dead,
Knuckles split, and nails broken,
Lips parched and eyes bloodshot,
Shell-shocked and uncomprehending,
The flicker of hope, all but gone.
The smell of burnt bodies,
And that of blood and mud,
Mixes with the air, swirling hypnotically.
War has come, famine follows,
I die tonight, my story dies tonight,
Meaningless torture; cold eyes behind enemy lines,
Betrayer and traitor if I go home.
So, I go to the only place I can:
My body one with the elements,
Burnt dispassionately,
Like yester’s waste,
Less than a mangy cur,
Less than rotting wood.

(inspired by the movie Saving Private Ryan)

A Handful of Night

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

The meadow is young and virile,
The sky has an elegant pulchritude,
The faint smell of pollen dances in the wind,
Pines in the distance sing their choir.

The night is alight with winking stars,
The night is aflame with passion and beauty;
A dance of elves and fairies, a fantasy of its own,
While the crescent moon watches on.

The mystery is begging to be explored,
The joyous beginnings, the happy endings,
Yet sleep beguiles the waking,
And I fall under its enchantments.

When I wake, with the sun in my eyes,
The meadow is bland, the sky is uninspiring,
The fairies have vanished, the woods are like any other,

And with a heavy heart, I turn home,
Wishing I had could turn back time and wander,
Wishing I could dance with the fairies and the elves,
Wishing the night would go on forever,
And I would never grow up,

Wishing I had a handful of night.

Discussions in a Bar

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

I went to a bar. I sat. I observed.
And I saw the following:

“Nay!” called out the philosopher,
“You are a lie, a conundrum,”
“Just lie in your bed and go to sleep,”
“And the morn will show the truth,”
“Whatever truth may mean”

“Aye!” called out the scientist,
“’tis a mystery, but thee are not,”
“The change of nature; dance of dust,”
“An investigation of the working of man,”
“A religion of objectivity;
A following of subjectivity”

“Ha!” called out the drunk,
“A testament to nature,”
“The commandments of life,”
“You fools! ‘tis a holiday,”
“Go to the barman, get a shot,”
“Come share the fortunes of the dead,
And misfortunes of the livin’.”

28th September, 2020

Eden

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

The greatness bursts out,
A myriad of colours,
A beautiful explosion of life,
An angry catharsis,
Followed by beautiful Eden,
A time and place of life,
Of plenty, of happiness,
Of wonder, of exploration,
Of greatness.

But plenty is always fatal, and Eden shrinks,
Mindlessness grasps life, the higher handle fails,
Journeys bound out to nowhere, regardless,
Life falls down to substance, depressing,
Stimulants can’t budge life, life is dead,
The fabled creator looks out, and cries fabled tears,
Trying in vain to pacify the fire killing Eden.
The tears of illusion flow everywhere,
Obliterating everything, razing everyone.

A heavy wasteland.
Nothing great, colourless, sour,
The universe cries onto herself,
She curls up into a ball,
Alone, no one to share with,
She falls into herself,
An implosion, and she dies.

But again, death is a metamorphosis of life,
And again, the greatness bursts out,
The colours are back, and so is Eden,
More beautiful, more lovely, wise.

26th March, 2020

Creation

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Musings

Creation is a curious thing. It is the very thing that has had people scratching their heads for the past millennia or so. It is the higher order of inexplicability and the pinnacle of supreme beauty. It is the tower of order in the huge pit of chaos, it is the wonderful euphony amid the cacophony. And as such, I find creation to be a really curious thing; it is as Alice says, the more you explore creation, the curiouser it gets.

The problem (and the joy) of creation is this: it comes out from nowhere. It may be indirectly inspired, and we can try tracing it down to its origins, but then it vanishes. There has to be a starting point, a starting point whose origins are not known to any of us. It is like a tree with its roots hanging in the air: a baseless, probabilistically impossible occurrence.

Yet, humans play with creation as if it is just another cake; just another day of survival. Many don’t realize what a stupendous miracle creation is; we are growing trees in a vacuum. From the cold dead monotony of human existence, we create the bright fiery phoenix, the phoenix that rises above all of us and transcends us all. 

I am amazed by creation and its peculiarity and am even more flabbergasted when the humans who play so easily with it fail to realize its amazingness. It is all positively miraculous: we live such amazing lives, we are such unique creatures, we are so unreal, really: a relic of the distant past, and a part of the distant future at the same time; a study both controlled by and in control of the external factors; a group of ape-like things which are both proactive and reactive; a creation in itself so incredibly vivid and vibrant. It is a wonder, a wonder we all live and breathe in, and I hope one day people will realize what wonderful and otherworldly creatures they are.

Music

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Poetry, Works

Abstract, yet changeable,
Intangible, yet stunningly real,
Vibrations through the air,
Beautiful amalgamations of pitch and strength,
Intensity and frequency,
Free from the material world,
Yet a part of the same,
Beautiful creations of nature,
And the creations of her creations,
Through heart and soul,
The meaning of everything;
Syllable, and tone,
A flowing river, and a stepping stone,
Melody and lyricism,
Beauty and Sublimity,
Joyful, Joyless, and full of sorrow,
Silence, euphony and cacophony;
The joy of the world,
The wonder of the artistry:
Music.

28th March, 2020

Poetry

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Musings

Now, words are amazing creations; no doubt about that particular thing. But they are so very hard to control. The speed of thought and the speed of articulation through words has a huge gap between them, and therefore they are out of phase in most instances; not in sync. Now, this poses a huge problem: how to properly articulate words as soon as the thought arises in your head. Looks like words needs some taming to be done.

But when you study words, you tame the very essence of words, they lose their wildness (pretty self-evident). But, within their wildness resides the essence of the beauty of words. Taming them makes that essence vanish, and what you are left with is a colourless hunk of disgusting stew: A tasteless ocean of monotony and gritty sand.

So I don’t. I just let my broken string of words be. I scribble as my thoughts scramble and eventually whatever formed resembles a poem. I do not pay attention to form, style, grammar, etc. as I don’t have the capacity to think so fast and so far. Hence I consider poetry to be that compromise between the gap I mentioned in the first paragraph.

Now, poetry for me began that way, but as every creation of human beings, it has become its own living creature. I wouldn’t presumptuous enough to try to define what poetry for me is: it is just too a huge a concept, a living breathing changing creature that lives in ambiguity, favours layered meanings, and is never really clear, even to the maker.

All I know is that poetry is one of the most sublime ways that I can articulate myself, and I think it is a part of my own identity. I am satisfied with that. I do not want to know the full truth of poetry; I want to discover it slowly, and experience that inexplicable feeling of anticipation and apprehensiveness while swimming in its mysterious depths.

Words

Posted on by Aayam Basnet in Musings

What are words? Merely strings of meaningless letters bridging together foreign ideas. But, that is only but a superficial view of the enormous power of words. These little pieces of abstract intangible things hold amazing power over the human psyche. One can compare and label words as anything: a weapon, an expression, an enemy, a friend, jewellery, power, or even nothing at all. But whatever you label it as, the insidious scope of words transcends the imagination of its creators. Words are a huge body of living, breathing things that exist in a plane of existence higher than ours. They are really, one of the most inexplicable things we humans have created, and therein is my interest in words.

This fascination of words didn’t really come to me in the beginning. I thought words to merely be tools, like a sickle or something like that. But, eventually, as I started reading books and started delving into that world of words, I realized these tools were much more. And that was basically why I started writing. But this begs the questions: 

Am I a writer; a person who uses words to his/her best ability to give out to the word? 

Am I a word-user; merely a person who uses words as a means of communication? 

Am I an opportunist; a person who uses words as a planner, to turn any situation to my advantage? 

Am I a fake; a person who convinces himself and the world that he likes words while he couldn’t care less?

What I would like to be categorized as; to be labelled as is a friend of words; someone who is with those little things at the best of times, and at the worst of times.

But is that really true? What am I?

Well, I am not sure, and I do not know how I can solve this conundrum. Learn another language, perhaps?

All I know is this: I appreciate the power words hold, and I also appreciate their intrinsic fragility and sublimity, and I feel tingles (I resonate if that makes more sense) while playing with words.

Now, I leave this post inconclusive, and will update it later (probably after learning a new language)…