Riders in the Storm

Workout in my friend's gym - music playing loud - mixture of rock songs from the 1980s... one song that I have not heard in over ten years goes.. 'Riders on the Storm... There's a Killer on the Road' and the whole mood is that of a traveller driving down a highway in the dark of the night with a swirling rain storm raging...


I was marvelling at how the words conjure up an image of darkness and thrilling chilling suspense, while the music paints in the background of the rain and thunder... Poetry should be like that - combining the mood of the words with the rhythm of the metre... How I wish I could write like that with abandon and passion...


Neruda seems to be a master at this...

Notice these lines from The Wars -

`...Toy of the Asians, doll
scorched by aerial murderers,
show your blank eyes
far from the waist of the child
who fled when you burst into flame
as every wall blazed
and death held the rice-fields...'


There is something inviolate about the Child. However abnormal the situation. We know of many stories where childhood ended at three even. Not just in warlike or other such dramatic conditions, but even in the most ordinary everyday situations like the case of nomadic labourers...