In love with an idea

The waves crash around me
Seething, foaming
Walls of water.
Salt stings my eyes
The sea roars in my ears
My muscles throb in silent protest
At every stroke.
Then through the deepening mist
I see a beacon
land is near
No water can defeat me.

I walk through a desert.
the sun beats down relentlessly
No cloud to cool its heat.
My throat is swollen
I cannot speak.
My feel are blistered
I cannot walk
So I crawl.
Then from the top of a dune
I see the oasis
It is real, not a mirage.
Victory is still mine.

I stand on the top of a building
the wind blows against me.
It wants to throw me down,
this impediment in its path.
It tears at my clothes
It screams in my ears.
But I still stand.
In this silent battle
Far above the rest of the world.
Far beyond any of its cares,
I am the victor.

I see a man
his eyes are blue
not the blue of a calm sea
but the blue of a sea,
that he has calmed.
The sun shines on his hair
it glows in answer.
Gleaming strands
spun of light.
The wind blows agains his body
it serves to outline his shape.
The almost arrogant ease
in the way he stands.

I catch my breath.
I step forward, then kneel.
I kneel and adore
that which I can never defeat.

This dialoue was actually an assignment given in an intensely boring english class. We were studying this poem called the "Talisman" by some indian poet. The gist of it was the story of a fellow who couldn't get a job anywhere. A palmist gives him a talisman; which is basically a screw of paper with some writing that he's ordered not to read; and promises him that his fortune will change. However, it doesn't and the bloke decides to commit suicide. Wanting to see what was written on the talisman, he opens it to find some encouraging message and lo! the next day he lands a job.
Our assignment was to write a dialogue between the unemployed young man and the palmist. I did just that, but unfortunately, this shall be a forever unfinished work, as my flow of creativity was stemmed by the ringing of a bell.
The unemployed young man is sitting under a tree and brooding gloomily over his fate.
UYM (sigh) : How unlucky I am.

He hears a voice that seems to rise from the bowels of the earth.
P: Luck is but a wandering thing,
Who knows when, what it may bring.
But palms they speak nought but the truth.
What fools may say, let them forsooth!
Cross my palm with silver or gold
And I will tell you all to be told.

UYM: I'm hallucinating! An effect of being turned down on five jobs in a row in one day, I suppose.

P: You do not dream my voice, boy
Nor is this game or ploy.
Turn your head and look around
And see all your miseries unfound.

UYM (He finally finds the palmist sitting on the other side of the tree): Ha! it was you all along. Who are you anyway?

P: Cleverness is not a quality my friend,
that you possess as I portend.
I tought my words sufficiently clear.
But you listen not to what you hear.
I tell your fortunes, bare your palm.
I am a PALMIST! Hey, just be calm.

UYM: Okay, okay, I'm fine. Only, you don't have to yell like that. Do you always talk in poetry?

P(smugly): It is a trick I rather fancy.
My clients seem impressed, so I see.
But words are wasted so let us begin,
Here's my pouch, just put the silver in.

UYM: My Mum told me never to trust fortune tellers.

P: That good lady must have been
Sadly incapacitated, so it does seem.
But then to have a son like you,
Would certainly addle her brain, mine too.

UYM: Well, I guess it can't hurt. (extends his plam)

P: The silver first...

UYM: You don't bother much about rhyme when talking about cash, do you?

P(patiently) : ...Or you shall be cursed.

UYM: Pooh! here.
(He gives the palmist some money. The palmist seems satisfied and begins to read his palm.)

P( After inspecting for a long time, looks up) : Your fortunes will improve,
The lines say so.
Your future is bright,
Now you may go.

UYM: What??? I gave you all the money I had left to hear something I left home to stop hearing?

P: Fool! My words shall not be repeated.
Oh, I an getting really quite heated.
You question me? A seer of such repute?
You are not worthy to polish my boot!
Move along or I might just
Grind you with my feet into dust.

UYM: Goodness Sir, do not get heated.
I beg you to please be seated....
Oh my God! I'm doing it too.

This is where I was stopped both by the bell and a lack of ideas. The young man could of course hang himself and do literature a service, but how to bring that about plausibly was beyond my imagination. So, incomplete it shall always remain.

Dance

I spin
spin out of control
I don't need
to leave the ground
to fly.
Shimmering droplets of sweat
fall to the floor like teardrops
weeping for joy
the very joy of motion.

I stretch, I lunge,
I twist, I bend.
Pain, in its very essence
shoots up muscles like needles
yet all I feel is a driving greed
Don't stop.
Never stop.

Pain and pleasure melt into one
fused together,
I can no longer tell the difference.
Is this ecstasy?
I knew of nothing better.
Is this torture?
I knew of nothing worse.
I simply know this.
Don't stop.
Never stop.

By a die hard romantic

I wrote this for a friend who had just broken up with her boyfriend. I intended to write a funny poem, to make her laugh, but this just wrote itself. At the time I thought it very romantic. They got back together again, I was left to laugh at my mush. But I still like this poem... The poem I never intended to write, which wrote itself under a desk during a boring english class, with my friend sobbing next to me.

To keep a dam from breaking,
A great wall was built.
To save my heart from breaking,
Such a wall I too must build.
So it was fated, so it must be.
Tell me my girl, don't you agree?

The wall stands between us,
Its foundations dig deep.
But through its battlements,
some tears must seep.
Cry then, perhaps weeping, you may bring,
some new purpose whence hopes may spring.

Of all sad words
of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these-
It might have been.
But then I ask, was it wise?
for a love that fades and then dies...

Perhaps we were never meant to be,
Perhaps we are better so.
Perhaps eventually we'll forget.
Perhaps, perhaps perhaps... but I don't know.

But my girl your friends are here.
To hold your hand, to wipe a tear.
Life, work, love, its all so great,
I'm over my girl, don't wait.