Rhythms of My Heart: Soulful Poems and Songs

By Vikas Chandra Balodi

This book is all about embellishing every facet of life with the art called poetry. Yes, this art transcends all creeds and brings together mankind under one umbrella of symbiotic co-existence. The most banal and the most intense truth is made enduringly beautiful with poetry, which is essentially written with the ink of compassion dissolved in pain. Every poem is an attempt to discover the core of human psyche; the way it perceives and deals with relationships and situations of all kinds.
I believe I have been successful to a certain extent in bringing out the truth which is so evasive otherwise. This truth imparts the unique beauty and lasting appeal to my poems as it dazzles and floats on the surface of each poem. It is a result of the churning of the soul with the curdler of heart. Hope you enjoy these poems as they are my sincere effort to bring out the best to your esteemed and sensible self.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504994828

Vikas Chandra Balodi

I am a poet of wide-ranging sensitivities. I believe that poetry is essentially a reflection of our life, our doings, and our analysis of it in discreet terms. This book deals with various topics covering human experiences, dilemmas, and historical events in a very unbiased and discerning way. I believe you will like and appreciate this effort.

Book preview

1

The pain of togetherness

Wonder how, now, we see through it all

Whims of love, saccharine smiles! Life’s cherished haul?

Don’t recall, where we left, that self of ours

Which was us, once, not these, souls with scars

Was it love, which made us, make this abode?

Then it bemoans why, our lone dream, shadowed

By a chase that spent, our lives to the core

See, how the tide of time, wrecked our ferry, ashore

How we gazed at moon, holding vows, from the roof

Still the moon does rise, finds those lovebirds aloof

Their forlorn nest, dying lovelorn quest

Echoes of that fiesta, and this solemn fest

Do we still possess, do we still belong?

To that tender spirit, that once, made us long

How had we sobbed, our hearts out, that day

At last, we got each other, but, that love lost, on the way

Ego was some species, extinct, in our cozy world

How it calls the shots now, a utopia, rendered blurred

Each whiff of space, which once, smelt of trust

Now clogs the breaths, doubt-laden dust

How we spent that time, and this time spends us

Gone those days, we missed the bus, on purpose

To walk as one, lavishly, on the mystic lanes of love

How short on time, now, these parted lives, we shove

So, shall we sleep, one more night, on that wrinkled bed?

Devour mean flesh, now, or mate souls, unwed

This pain, we share, unfeeling yet, why, to our plight?

Shan’t we search, the flare, that once, kindled our delight

What it takes, to stitch that love, threadbare, left by time?

Let’s vow our hearts and souls, once, to that dream, sublime

So many yarns, to fall in place, might miss the same finesse

Better still, soiled angel’s face, than, the pain of togetherness

© 2015 Vikas Chandra

2

Let’s make a dream, not love tonight

How spent was the day

Anything, but a child’s play

How we chiseled through a mountain, to make our way

To reach the far end of twilight

Where a myriad of yearnings, spark alight

Let’s set aside, riots of drifts, that wants incite

Let’s make a dream, not love tonight

Our spent up bodies, pure flesh, beyond which lies

Two souls, bygone married, lovelorn magpies

Unrequited yet, our spirits, our summed up sighs

For kindled bodies stir more heat than light

Let’s not be spent, anymore downright

Let’s mate our souls now, past the heaven’s delight

Let’s make a dream, not love tonight

That pregnant moment, will our hearts redeem?

For the labors of love that made our dream

Flesh left aside, for our souls to team

Love-laden souls outlast our being, come what might

We dwell in each other, melded, by passion hearts ignite

Profound this dream, beyond regimes, forever we unite

Let’s make a dream, not love tonight

© 2015 Vikas Chandra

3

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Will that love’s creed, go astray?

Which sells, at desire’s cost?

Will that drag, midst hearts, be lost?

Which kindles, the passion’s play

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Will the Cupid, be out of fray?

To forsake, the realm, of hearts

Till that last spark, of love departs

And lingering cinders, sigh away

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Will that love, hold on its sway?

Which was tried, on pledges galore?

Now platonic passion, nothing more

An ordeal of delusion, borne every day?

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Would making love, be passé?

Would bodies, be rendered, empty urns?

With no sign left, of the fury, that burns?

In yearning hearts, now a long-lost melee?

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Will the flesh, sell on display?

Will the skin, lose its cherished sheen?

Will extinct, go desire’s gene?

Will posterity’s hope, decay?

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Would austere, be his way?

Will mystic, become a man?

And women, a banished clan?

With a vain allure, to parlay?

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Will the world, in order, stay?

Bigotry, amid sexes rife!

Cynicism, the new creed, of life

A new way, to betray?

If sex were to die today!

If sex were to die today!

Yes, world will be, many shades gray

For passion has, its reason to be

Beyond souls, lies destiny’s decree

That stirs man and woman unendingly

To dissolve in one, two species, vainly

Two souls, born to stray, still, abstract to say

If sex were to die today!

© 2015 Vikas Chandra

4

O’ America: Where guns call the shots!!!!

From Texas to California, South Carolina to Oregon

Smoking guns rule the roost, from dusk to dawn

Play games of cold passion, new kids, on the block

Gory lessons of obsessions, scratched on walls, with red chalk

Why guns became the creed, of this American breed

For ages indeed! America destined, to bleed

Thru schools and colleges, bloodbaths galore

These kids ain’t done yet, blood-thirsty, all the more

Is it some trendy video game, or legacy of Tombstone?

Why shouldn’t idolize youngsters, this prophecy, homegrown

With 280 million guns, 4.5 million per year! Does Obama care?!

Every Christmas, a bloody Christmas, every New Year, a bloody year!!

This relentless, blood flood, does it define American ethos?

Fewer lost to liberty, more sons to guns! What a lavish loss?

Is it the whiff of gun smoke, which weighs down the blue air?

Or the charcoal smoldering, from someone’s funeral prayer

Is gun-culture some fad, in this hallowed American Land?

Fortressed from fanatics, wrecked, Bastille, built on sand

Which mother bore that son, who slaughtered this mother’s son?

Two mothers stand demolished, by a single shot of gun!!

But gun is a well-paid trade too, spins monies for, touts and regimes

So coldblooded is this dealing, deafened to next door screams

Is the state impotent, held hostage to its own laws?

Have they enforced in schools too, … at your own risk clause?

Is racialist their genre, or some reckless passion, profound

Doesn’t he slay, his soul too, not just compassion, downed!!?

Dailies splatter the murders, in crude colors of black-and-blue

Congressmen, warily tint their tales, lost somewhere, the hues that strew

Will tomorrow be, one more day, of a bloody, newsworthy shootout?

Will Obama slumber tonight too, in the coffin of, today’s fallout?

Will American Dream breathe free, thru this miasma, wherein blood rots?

Shan’t we dream of that America, where guns call the shots?!!!!

© 2015 Vikas Chandra

5

A Blogger’s Creed – The Wolf of Blog Street

Broken to bits, now lives on the cloud

Little legend he; heard, read, seen and known!

In megabytes of some server, his being avowed

Thru internet, he heaves, his theories outgrown

No more that minion, who tamely, loaned his soul

To the glory of tech-snobs, reigning the World Wide Web

A blogger now, with a face and name, a spirit on a roll

Not millions though, many dozen know, this rising celeb

Bygone those times, when Wordsworth’s Daffodils

And Shakespeare’s Hamlet, had to, for ages, but wait

For the world to rejoice, to their hankering hearts’ fills

Now a click away, a virgin view, yet a second, too late

On PC’s screen, what seems to be, his world to him

Is half-made truth and half-said lie, a mutually cherished sin!

Do the Likes, Views, Comments and Follows, echo his triumph’s whim?

Or a sham of sorts, some buy and sell trade in!

A Like for a Like or a Like for a View, who’ll know!

Who cares to view or follow, in the spree to be, that cynosure?

Who is liked, viewed, followed, commented to death, as though

The rest are mere testimonies, in his accolade’s brochure

Why stares and then despairs he, Alas! No Likes, or Views today!

As if past Likes, were Oscars and Views, Grammys bestowed

How many were so honest, how many were just stray?

Get into their minds if you can, the only mode to decode

Blocking is his easy tool, to blind his soul, to the other view

Why he chisels out a dwarf from self, to shrink to a shaky man?

A walled garden his blog became, where blooms his dogma, thru and thru

But blogosphere is not for him, the one from the prejudiced clan

Does he dare to dare, the fanatics, flaunting bloggers’ blood?

On hands, that cleaved their heads, and said

Now fear is mightier than pen! that old adage, a dead dud

Few martyred, but the rest are left, to fight your dread, with blogs instead!

Why he chose to be a propagandist? A royal beggar’s creed!

Fancy-dressed statesmen dwell his blog, vermin begging a look

On his million Likes, they rear their ploys, like some vile weed

Once a blogger, see how he became, a money-minded crook!

Will regimes ever understand, cyberspace’s not their domain?

Why curbing minds on some pretext, is