Tag Archives: paradox

Shattering Illusions

Posted on by akanksha gupta
This solitary cow escaped slaughter, was lauded for taking initiative, and rewarded with life imprisonment. Its compatriots remain statistics. The war ended before it started.

We have words troubled with thoughts
That tremble with indecision
That tiptoe through unfunny bones
Before being steeped in precision

Yet ego scours substance
For paper town forget-me-nots
And intent, unless misdiagnosed,
Languishes as an afterthought

It’s a chicken-egg irony
Wrapped in a beefed up paradox
That in an era of diplomacy
Tolerance should be hitting the rocks

There are acts of courage
Powerful, undisguised, profound
Excepted from acceptance
Deemed exceptionally unsound

Oh it is hard to blame
Wherever would it fall?
Indeed it is hard to blame
If we should blame at all

It’s a chicken – egg irony
Wrapped in a beefed up paradox
That in an era of transparency
Honesty should be hitting the rocks

Arguments define the momentum that
The intelligentsia seeks to win
Yet their support is insidiously fed
Auctioned information

The unyielding grip of sanctions
Chokes the fair and free flow
So that the bias sowed in opinions
Gets steadily watered and ploughed

It’s a chicken – egg irony
Wrapped in a beefed up paradox
That in an era of self-discovery
The mind remains lost in thought

– Akanksha Gupta

What Makes the World Tick

Posted on by akanksha gupta

I like to think
I am like a pendulum;
I am wont to seesaw
Between
A very high opinion
Of myself
And a critically flawed
One

Yet unlike the pendulum
This wont is an artist’s science –
Abstract rhythm
Immeasurable rhyme
It ebbs and flows
Like a musician’s score,
Its intensity oft rendering
Thinking a chore,
And in this state my Subconscious
Still battles with indecision;
A furious yet subliminal exercise
Both, a virtue and a vice
That’s crept up in my sinews
Contracting, expanding,
In sweet delirium
(Quite unlike alcohol)
Therefore,
And Apparently,
This makes it good for the soul,
Like,
Chicken soup!
Drinking in incredible stories –
An oblivious escape
A deliberate distraction
A tragic twist
An inspiring action –

Each oscillation thusly stokes
The storyteller’s
Imagination
And, don’t we have them all?
Stories to tell
Stories to live
Even as we’re grasping
At the straws
We push through
And pull rabbits
Out of our ordinary tales –
Veritable magicians we are
With bewilderingly bewitching brains
That delude themselves
To swing
Between
Self love
And loathing

– Akanksha Gupta

Conjunct

Posted on by akanksha gupta

And so, and yet,
Life toasts to and with
Glasses half filled,
Half spilled, half empty,
And so, and yet,
Delicious
In their entirety,
Where taste is a mindful perception
And mind a powerful beast
The heart is an overpowering illusion
And so, and yet,
Is breaking free

– Akanksha Gupta