Why must I write
The epilogue and the prologue
To my poem
When it is nothing more
Than an epitaph?
But if I do not write
An epilogue and a prologue
And a something in between
How else will I put words in your mouth
So you can mourn
For that which has died?
How else will you sing my praise
If not by reading my poems
When you come seeking me
At my funeral?

kabira… get rid of duality from your heart
when the path on which you must walk is gossamer-like
then why must you bear so much burden on the mind?

The moment I spoke
That moment I broke
With the sheer force of my word
That dam from whereon thoughts gushed out
A giant sea
Made up of me
In which I drowned
And thus my life was born

So thus that which sings and
Contemplates in me
Still dwells in the confines of that first moment
Which scattered the stars into space*

It sings praise of the truth
Of that first moment
The vision of that fiery liquid
That spilled out to me
The moment I opened my eyes
And then I gave it different names

I sing of that oneness
The beauty of that fiery liquid
And self-seek

I speak thus and for my answer is to one
Who could not return to earth
Or this flame shall flicker no more

But since none ever return from this depth
Alive
So without fear of infamy
Without fear or shame, or guilt or regret
I answer thee and talk to thee**

PS

*That’s a Gibran line **That’s a Dante line

I do not believe in the world. I don't.
I do not believe in systems that run the city
I think they are all phonies in their own unique ways
Which they themselves know best
All of them intricately woven in the conspiracy of phony-hood
Which began just when they began
When they said to one another:
'I don't know exactly which way you are phony
But that does not matter
What matters is that I will endorse your phony-hood just like you will do mine.'

PS Who the hell wrote this?! I didn’t!

When men will laugh
I will be there
Right beside them, simmering
For they will mock at me

Men, who have achieved
Men of the world
I will be there
I will be there

This one promise I am sure to keep
That I will be there, simmering
When men will laugh
For they will laugh at me

Mediocrities, mediocrities everywhere
I speak for all mediocrities in the world.
I am your champion.
I am your patron saint.

I am your Christ
Come to die for you

Build me a temple
And enshrine mediocrity
Pray to me
And I will absolve you

When you hear the taunting
Of your uncaring God
Pray to me
And I will absolve you
For I am very kind

PS Inspired from: http://lissome.rediffiland.com/blogs/2009/01/24/CONSPIRACY-OF-MEDIOCRITY-1.html
Lines from the 4th stanza onwards taken from the classic movie, “Amadeus”, based on the life on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a sheer genius, and his jealous friend, Salieri, the “patron saint of mediocrity”.

Perhaps in dreaming more than in waking, I have often thought how much a person can go astray, to what extent and degree he can be lost before it can be safely assumed that he's inevitably doomed, because there is no returning back. I never thought on the subject objectively and very analytically, like sitting at a place and concentrating my thoughts ' no. Rather, it has been more like some quest wherein I have, in half awareness, searched for the answers outside of myself than inside, for the reason that I already knew that whatever there was to be sought within was either already sought or could come to the fore if only the soul were to come alive and engage in a dialogue.

In any case, even the lesser ideas that I, over the years, 'thought without thinking' kept coming together to take a formless form. So this is all the pool of water that has seeped through and accumulated in all this time: I think that the sense of the true purpose of one's life is not lost even if one has procrastinated, lazed, or killed several of his dreams one after another. Hmmm let me try again: I am saying that the sense of the nobility or general goodness of one's being is never lost no matter how much a person has gone astray. And this sense stays with him till the very end; even when he meets his doom, it stays with him. And this also strengthens the sense of tragedy to the extent that the person knows well enough what he has lost. Yes! This is what I intend to say. This is the statement; rest if I write any further would only be detailing it.

Consider the character of Gail Wynand in Ayn Rand's work of fiction, The Fountainhead. His life is a tragedy. He had a higher purpose in life but could not fulfil it. He only thought that he had become the man that he had always wanted to be ' what he thought to be an ideal man, but when he met Howard Roark, who was that man, he subsequently understood that he had never been, right since the beginning what he wanted to be; more importantly, what, at least in his view, he could be and thus had to be or was "destined to be". He only all along had had a strong sense of what an ideal man is - this he never lost, also, he never lost the sense of goodness of his being, and as long as a man does not lose this, he continues to think, since he has time on his side, that one day he shall be what, at least in his view, is "destined to be" or has to be.

Sometimes you read something which reverberates with your own foggy thoughts so strongly that you are completely shaken and stirred. It gives the all necessary base and at times even reason and logic to those foggy thoughts and vague feelings and strings them up with the rest of your consciousness, so you no longer doubt or disbelieve.

German philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche said in his book, Beyond Good and Evil: It is not the works, but the BELIEF which is here decisive and determines the order of rank–to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning–it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.–THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR ITSELF.–

I read these words in the prologue to The Fountainhead written by the author. She said that the quotation, if interpreted poetically, 'communicates the inner state of an exalted self-esteem?and sums up the emotional consequences for which The Fountainhead provides the rational, philosophical base . This view of man has rarely been expressed in human history Yet this is the view with which?in varying degrees of longing, wistfulness, passion and agonized confusion?the best of mankind's youth start out in life. It is not a view for most of them but a foggy, groping, undefined sense made of raw pain and incommunicable unhappiness. It is a sense of enormous expectation, the sense that one's life is important, that great achievements are within one's capacity, and that great things lie ahead.' The book details the journey of a man, Howard Roark, who never loses that 'fundamental certainty', that belief and has that reverence for himself that Neitzsche talks of. In the end, despite several odds, he accomplishes his dream and is successful.  

On a slight tangent: The favourite of many, Gibran too has spoken on this subject. But when he says, 'In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you', does he not merely state the obvious? In fact, I have come to think that he would mostly state only the obvious. He would word that we perceive, but would go no further, also, it might require a Herculean mental effort, but is not impossible to word what he worded. He would ask rhetorical questions and use poetry instead of prose. When you do that, you only touch upon the subject as if that were enough; and leave it to the reader to contemplate and understand what has been asked to consider. Like again, if I ask you to 'consider' and to answer in your own thoughts the rhetorical question: 'What is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?'

To conclude, I believe that as long as one has time on his side, and that "'Nietzschean' BELIEF and self-reverence" is not lost, which Nietzsche said can by nature never be lost, one can ' rejecting the thought that doom is certain and there is no returning back ' do what he had set out for himself to do?in the words of Rand?'at the dawn of his life'. The dream might dim over the years but its strong voice will never be completely lost. It will be heard in dreams, in poetry and in songs.

And there is no sight in the world more miserable as that of a man who “could have been”. Truly, when such a life goes waste, it is a tragedy as was in the case of Gail Wynand. 

“Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.”

– Gibran, The Prophet.

What is noble? What does the word "noble" still mean for us nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he recognized under this heavy overcast sky of the commencing plebeianism, by which everything is rendered opaque and leaden?? It is not his actions which establish his claim–actions are always ambiguous, always inscrutable; neither is it his “works.” One finds nowadays among artists and scholars plenty of those who betray by their works that a profound longing for nobleness impels them; but this very need of nobleness is radically different from the needs of the noble soul itself, and is in fact the eloquent and dangerous sign of the lack thereof. It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank–to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning?it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.?the noble soul has reverence for itself.?

'The truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?" '

– Kahlil Gibran  (1883–1931)