MORTAL COILS

“It seems a mischievous spirit has finally cast a spell over me. Now it (the spell) moves changing form, they slither within my heart conjuring massive structures built as if with beams of restless air. These bewitching edifice of knowledge…these “ORIENTING Fields”, these that ground your being…this dark bewilderment ….The background fields through which you make sense, like a thought, a lightening particle that uncoils into a language, like desire they arise only to collapse and arise anew flickering of cinematic light in the breathing fog of the attendees, like cultural projections. Like the very mischief existing only in the mind of a Demon, whose only purpose is to mislead, misinform, deceive, delude, whose very existence is a deception, a trick, so does my heart runs hither thither by spaces conjured by its own mischief.”

These cycle of poems were written in 1996/97 Mumbai
It was a time of tremendous crisis. I was young, freshly married, and my wife was expecting and the studio I worked for closed down so I was also virtually jobless.
Sometimes I wonder, If I hadn’t discovered poetry, I would have suffered a certain breakdown. Poetry sustained me through this dark patch.

I often call this phase of my life as the “Birth Cycle” as it was almost a second birth for me, a second life.
So here are the collection from 96/97 called the birth cycle.
Please report any typo error as I had to transcribe everything from hand written text and I am a clumsy typist.

I will post by typing one by one out of 20, which are further divided into three.
The First of the three is made up of 9 chapters and is called “Mortal Coils”
The second one also has nine chapters and is called “The Wanderings”
The third one is made up of just 2 chapters and is called “Desires”
Even though they belong to the same time, they are not related in any order or theme.

The last one is incomplete, basically things improved and the flood of poetry stopped. and it so happened that I wrote nothing for next 10 years.
Thanks for your patience and do leave your comments.
Regards
Rajiv Mudgal

This is just a selection. You can read the whole here or download it here

“After long spells of tormented cry, my soul only seeks you,
your bosom and its warmth, your subtle liquid eyes, those lips in
whose quivering the life in me quickens, in your arms refreshed,
in your breath rejuvenated invigorated by your love and by your
touch only to arise like the mighty and majestic Soma from its
own ashes, arising transformed, transmuted into lives final self
fulfillment, its yawning glory, its deepest promise.

In my dreams have I conjured you in many forms, in my
longings have I sought you in many sighs, In my verse I have
evoked you, In my songs have I sung you, still you elude me like a
distinct song heard by the passing pilgrimage on the other side of
the valley, or like the chants of some forgotten temple….

By many nights I have awakened feeling your presence by
my side. In lone hours I have watched the moon reflect in the
river searching in its shimmer your eluding sight.

At times in my throbbing heart I felt the surety of your
existence.”

“My love my joy I know not what seeks me within you with
such passions that I have no control nor any understanding as to
why and how, nor an inkling of how to end this sway of passions
that push my being, that stretch my nerves to their utmost
despair.

Possessed like some dark heavy cloud willed by some
unknown force ready to discharge it pyrotechnic with awesome
thunder, such awesome forces are let loose within me to rip open
my heart and let go a bizarre frenzy which pushes my being into
unrestrained epileptic convolutions.
Thus they gather within my being and dig their nails in my back,
behind my neck, to lift me up and throw me into some forgotten
abyss of fire.
Thus my body erupts with Hysterical intensity and my soul is
pushed forth like a pregnant women ready to release [life] and
the terrible spasms that eject….., such terrible spasms engulfs
me, push me towards you.

These were not desired, but desiring it-self, emerging from
deaths steely sleep to full wakefulness, uncoiling itself, unfolding
itself, pushing, pushed, ejected, ejaculated, erupted, auto
emerging, thus am I pushed into thy presence, like some mirific
power, unknown, beginning-less, self evolving, self enabling,
emerging, propelled by its own movement, thrown thrust[ed]
away like some self fulfilling destiny, whose only purpose is to be.
This to be now self possesses my soul like an eagle gnawing his
own flesh from his inside, to tear itself out of itself, thus I am
thrown, ejected, surfacing awake to be fulfilled in a nothing less
than a total and full comprehension of your mirific stance,
surfacing only to be completely shattered by your veiled
presence, to die in its own self-fulfilment, such do I evolve,
emerge waking self possessed by its own force, silent slow, sure in
its rhythmic self destruction, possessed by a will that is so certain
and so merciless that it knows only one reality, affirms only one
Will, seeks only one certainty, seeking its end in your love as my
death in you.”

“Pain arises out of the tired heart where are you, waiting the life in
me has gone dry.

Black clouds like heavy winds turning and twisting,
sweeping down only to torment the soul, these mighty clouds race
through my being searching within it feverishly dark reasons
whose presence I never knew…existed.

Now they move, seek and churn within my heart with
empty motive, while I watch them play their fiendish games in
silent agony waiting it to cease, wanting it to rest, to sleep, to die,
but it mocks my hope with its chameleon like activity and to tease
me they disappear like a flight of swifts dissolving to arise again
anew from some unknown void, as if from here and now from
there and still nowhere is its origin to be found…
How much to terminate.

Sweeping, sizing my body like a hawk, it gnaws the heart
as my restless awareness simply watches, then busying oneself
with trivial things, afraid of the acute sensitivity which has come
paralyzing me as its victim this my own Will haunts me now
dances in a growing swirl of wisps that searches in its sways
means to its own end as I attempt to loose myself in faithful
activity hoping it will cease in a situation that has become
interminable.
And some how these means have now become its own end.”