To ......

"........... And when an hour with calmer wings 
Its down upon my spirit flings- 
That little time with lyre and rhyme 
 To while away- forbidden things! 
My heart would feel to be a crime 
Unless it trembled with the strings" -Edgar Allan Poe (Romance)

There she went, with an aura of Aphrodite,
Gliding on the floor, with ethereal grace,
"A full orbed moon, that, like thine own soul", (Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen)
with two callous prongs that pierce one's heart!

Eyes! the dreamy getaways, gateways dans le ciel - the Montoyaesque mystery,
Hair! thin bold strokes of flowing fervor, imagery of Monet's mastery,
Gait! graceful grandeur- Coup de foudre , Metzinger's sorcery,
All things put, a Van Gogh's vivid vortex of vivacity

A faint little laugh,
A coy clumsy look,
A heart-swaying walk,
Dangling desires!

The flowing creek and rising sun, the budding green and whistling wind,
as unadulterated as they seem, pale in front of the effervescent emotions you evoke,
if there was ever a pedestal, an embodiment of femininity,
There would you stand, the resplendent beauty,

Valentine

It all seemed fine until the temperatures dropped.

The large building stood silently. A person in it, had he taken the time to give a cursory glance into the triangular lawns in the distance, would have observed a human form; something similar to the solitary reaper (from Longfellow's poem). Had he any artistic inclination he would have felt the urge to run out of his cubicle and sit beside that form. Such was the weather.

Like a sulking woman, it seems calm and tranquil from inside, and on confrontation, like her words, it cuts through you like a sharp, cold knife. Everything is crystal clear in a sepia tint painted by the momentary demise of the fiery sun. The weather is beautiful and dangerous, a femme fatale.

High up in the clouds, water molecules, hardened by the coldness around them, striving for symmetry, fell in place into hexagonal flakes. On the ground, amidst the artificial grass, the human form stirred in discomfort. The bone-chilling cold was to the least of its (the human form’s) worries. The whole world weighed down on its shoulders; it normally does, doesn't it when your whole world is everything of that one person?

Merrily, the snowflake danced to the tunes of wind. The clock is ticking and Gravity tugged it hard but it is in no hurry. It fluttered hither and thither. The beautiful symmetry seemed everlasting; the airy dance, the eerie calm, the buoyancy. The yellow flake, in wonderland, felt elation at the breeziness and listened to the pensive voice (of wind) singing praises to the heavens.

The human form looked up at the sky. And the large building. It kept asking again and again, WHY? WHY? WHY? The sky was silent. So was the building. The only voice that answered was the melancholic resonance of the air. That all pervading entity, in answer, brought merry flurries with it; little six-handed youthful figurines.
The human form looked at the falling white snow-flakes. (Optical compensation makes the brain perceive the yellow flake as a white flake) For the human form, in all the youthful exuberance, the world seemed white. The brain compensated for all the flaws. The yellowness in the character painted a pure white by breezy boldness. And the human form embraced the white light, allowed the light to blind it to everything else.

The snow flake fell to the ground. The heaven, from whence it came seemed far and unreal. Stuck to the ground, symmetry broken, it stared about in confusion. Thrown, haphazardly, its companions, those partners-in-solace, looked back in equal dismay. No more breezy dances and pensive praises. They laid about, beside the human form, silent spectators of a similar spirit with expression.

The last of the tint disappeared and the Sun died completely. And then there was darkness.

After countless questions, with the numbness gone, the human form suddenly felt its brain respond to stimuli. It is biting-cold. All around, neither there was yellow nor white light. It was dark. And in a place darker, somewhere in the depths of its heart, where there was neither yellow nor white, was a seething pain, a cold, dark pain burning with blinding intensity. It's like an itch in a phantom limb. You just stare about in confusion (remember our crestfallen white hexagonal friends) not knowing how (or where) to scratch on a limb that doesn't exist. With all the sense organs in confusion, the eyes took the initiative. Trying to warm up the dying spirit, they continuously spilled-out warm tears.

The snowflakes cried in unison.

If only there was a natural law of relativity that could bend the physical weather around the human mental conditions! As merciless as a scorned woman, the cold bit into the human form. It lay there, waiting for the numbness to be complete.

Like the cold, reality bites.

The Artist

The Artist was in one of his trances.

Physically, he was on the ground. But he was levitating, like heated air bidding farewell to the ground, he was rising; up, up, up, and into those realms of ecstatic excellence reserved uniquely for the minds blessed to transgress the thin line separating the good from great. He was oblivious to everything but that nebulous outline of a magnificent portrait; hiding like a picturesque scenery under the early morning mist.Like a predator intent on his prey, his focus sharpened; his soul sensed surreal shadows starting to shape into sublime symbols stimulating scintillating somatic sketches. His hands picked up the brush, involuntarily, and started working. His eyes were half-closed, but the guiding eye was wide open, the one that was signaling his hands, radiating abstract guiding signals; seemingly received from a sentient almighty summoned by the artist.

The hand picked up pace.

There were no extraneous lines,no unwanted features, and nothing looked unwarranted. The brush danced, and danced like a slender ballerina. Every stroke a syllable, every feature a word, creating a harmonious song for the ballerina's beautiful act. Time seemed to stop to watch the marvel; the picture slowly emerged from the hazy chambers of the artist's brain, to be frozen into eternity on a piece of papyrus. Slowly the picture neared its completion: with the artist's hands deciphering the divine code; triggered by a trance that flooded his senses- causing an overflow, an out pour, an ethereal flood escaping through the brush strokes. The strokes reached a crescendo, the hand moved with furious intensity indicating a climax, the artist vibrated with feverish exuberance, his whole body swayed synchronously with a transcendental symphony; composed and conducted by him; a symphony that was his and his alone.

And, as abruptly as it began, the hand stopped. The artist collapsed onto the floor.

He looked at the result. With eyes effusing affection; like a mother looking at her new born baby; he looked at his piece of art. There was no expectation, no sense of achievement, nor was there a greedy knowledge of praises to come. There was only pure, unadulterated love. A joyous feeling that enthused him, filling an empty cup, his artistry, to the brim, pushing him over the limits into the realms of the hitherto unseen beauty, looked back. Two sparkling eyes, laughing at his awe-struck countenance, secretly staring back at him; serene smile, gracing the flowery arches that were lips; pathways to heaven, thin strands of hair covering the left cheek, and a sloping nose that gave way to a vast area where you could get lost easily: the forehead half covered with hair.

He had no idea how long he sat staring at it. Everything seemed to be frozen; like the picture. Slowly, he stood up. With a sense of anti-climax, he gathered his wits, and removed the picture from the mantel.

He would always like this picture. Look at it in awe. But, this was his picture, and his picture alone. People might praise it, pay him huge amounts, but they would never be able to admire it the way he did. They can never understand the wonderful emotions; the heightened sense of beauty, the abstract admiration that resulted in the picture. They might concur with him in his opinions on the artwork, and would want to know his inspiration, his motivation for this fantastic work; a facsimile of his soul. That's what it is- a facsimile of his soul, and you can never explain you soul to anyone. It is yours.

He removed the picture from the mantel, and slowly walked towards the locked door to his left.

A Facsimile of his soul. He wouldn't bare his soul to anyone. That's a dangerous proposition; neither for money nor fame. Admiration without understanding is a dangerous proposition. A precious soul in the hands of an empty mind leads to torture, unimaginable. With every praise on his work, his soul would get tarnished. With every observation on his piece, the soul would break into pieces. An innocent soul is pure, extremely sensitive. People might be mesmerized by it, but let them touch it and it gets smeared; it isn't pristine anymore. It is an instrument playing divine music. Every body would want to own it. In the hands of many, the music would lose its divinity. They have to find their own instrument. No, the painting stays where it should.

He approached the door. Unlocked it, and placed the portrait in the center of the room.

A facsimile of his soul. He looked at her, with eyes full of himself. She looked back at him, with sparkling eyes full of herself. His portrait was full of him. No one would ever understand it. Everyone has their own soul-stirring piece of work; one that would never be completely understood by anyone else. By a quirk of fate, he found his. Being an artist, he gave it a shape.

Unknowingly, he found an answer to the eternal question troubling the conscience from its dawn. He found an answer to what life is. He found the work that would portray his soul, and he was content with locking it in his personal room.

A room that is his body.

She

Excuses don't matter, only the results.

Have you ever had the mad urge to touch the beautiful woman's hair in front of you?

Have you ever wanted to follow a heart-swaying beauty all day, just watching her walk gracefully?

Have you ever looked into the eyes of your loved one and were done with the world, lost in a world of worship and wonder?

Encore….

The woman glided, literally glided across the floor. Her perfectly symmetrical, curvilicious body, accentuated by the tight sleeveless muscle shirt, making an impression on all the people around her. She isn't muscular enough for a muscle t-shirt but those delicately carved, soft, spotless body features effused a sense of feminine brilliance that's hard to ignore for the opposite sex. She glided along like Venus, laughing inwardly, with assured calmness on face masking the bombastic sensation of pleasure- admiring, admitting, yet ignoring all the appreciative glances, discreet and dangerous feminine cachet. Her thin waistline looked like a sweet paradox to those wide swaying hips, creating a vibration, creating a resonance out of both the air molecules and the male heartbeats. With every step she took, a head would turn, conquering the sense of decency and leaving the victim in a daze of dazzled damnation; urging him to go insane, connive against conventions and collapse in front of her; crave for just one touch of that soft ethereal substance that looked so ephemeral. Like hot fudge on a chocolate ice cream, her torso and chest, perfectly shaped and ponderous, left everyone in her wake with an exclamation (of pure joy, in completely abstract sense).

What's a banana split without whipped cream!

The face! I wish I were Tennyson.

Face (or the eyes) is the gateway to heart. And that face sure is a gateway to anybody's heart. With a skin vibrating healthiness so vividly; engendering a fear that a little touch from anyone would pollute its purity, she cast a look around. The two darks eyes set so beautifully in their niche seemed to have a language of their own; exuding a fresh aroma of fullness that spoke of beauty, paradise and fulfillment. If the two dark eyes were the jewels in the crown, the full, red lips were like the crown's crowning achievements, inviting; instigating and pervading a mad rush of magnetism through the body, sending pangs of electric signals inciting the brain to indulge in a mouth to mouth ritual. The red full lips and the dark deadly eyes were topped by the cherry on the cream, a big creamy forehead that was a like serrated coastline with splendid, serene waves of hair drifting off into nothingness that was at once alluring and unreachable.

I met her eyes and for once lost my breath; and I held my breath, trying not to miss that moment of electric beauty's radiance; held my breath to manage that magnificence messing my manhood. Praying, in some lost world of consciousness, to a higher being, for creating a perfect piece of art, love and emotion…

I kneeled before her.

People don't matter, only the ideas.