Without poetic seed there won’t be prose. The elaborate network of trunks, branches, twigs, flowers, fruits and leaves is nothing but a commentary on the small poetic seed. So all ye wannabe writers, nurture the poet in you, who understands the value of pause in life, who moves slowly to watch everything, sight and smell everything. Brushstrokes of poetry softly touch the soul without disrupting its restful muse and bring out the nuggets of love, compassion, harmony and peace.
Holy Harlots
Yamuna!
A black, toxic, putrefied nullah.
Cow!
A sewage-eating big pig
surviving on garbage dumps.
Two holy mothers turned harlots
in this age of Kaliyuga!
Delhi, meanwhile, pumps
more pride in its polluted lungs.
On stinking sewage-layered banks,
The skinny cow grazes on
noxious weeds and poisoned shrubbery,
Its beneficent, teary eyes
ogle at the human-industrial waste
mocking and mirthing over Yamuna’s sighs.
Who needs a holy bath now and cow’s blessings?
Two pillars of faith
now crumble down to pieces,
Any listeners to their dismantling shrieks?
Holy Touch!
With softly pining majesty, silence sings a song,
Shadows grow long,
Her soft fingers brace my face
and go along a tears trace.
Delicate tip of her finger bears the jewel,
The tear that would have been lost as salt on my face.
Phoenix
In the fire of my passion
people say I will burn my wings,
And then I will not be able to fly,
How mischievously society takes a dig sly
at those who dare to be different,
For rutted path’s stranglehold is luring,
doling out short-cuts aiming massive gains,–
The ordinary paths avoiding the penanceful pains.
Burn I’ll myself in my own fire
to ashes and ambers,
Or the inferno will bake the skill raw
To turn gold in my soul’s chambers,
Either ashes or gold—
Though the path full of miseries untold,
But even this treacherousness has exceptional charms,
Its forlorn sand is pregnant with virginal solitude,
Its uncluttered loneliness, a mine full of possibilities!
Far away from the crowd
How brilliantly shines that prospect!
The solitary walkers on this path
either die a lonely, ignominious death,
To become the unencumbered particles of its ungutted earth,
Or if somebody carries through the desert,
He arrives at an oasis of gold,
where the creative bliss takes him in charming fold.
These sufferings might turn me into ashes
or turn me into gold,
If the ash is my fate
then I should not hate
my passion’s flame,
For I turned out to be a horse lame
that lined up for the toughest race,
Or with inferno lurking on my face
I play with the fire
and make it my mistress to sire
the golden-winged off-springs;
my consummation signs with the infernal houri,
That wedding night’s taming with creative fury.
The moth is aware of fire’s fury,
Still it doesn’t hover
around a desirous flower’s utility,
With passionate ambers smoldering in its guts,
It goes for a dazzling display around fire;
Its perilous, exciting, flirtatious orbit around the glow,
And the flame laying snares for the deadly blow,
Yet with intoxicated zeal
nearer and nearer it comes to kiss and feel
that finest nectar hidden behind the fiery eyes:
The honey sweeter than any flower for which a worldly honey-bee dies.
Fuelled and fired by every ounce of its instinct
it buzzes around with ecstatic swirls,
It lives life thousand times more
than the ones lured by worldly flower’s lore,
Even its death isn’t just painful plights,
It is merely the pinnacle of its
gradually graduating love flights,
And when it meets its end that explosion of its flesh
is the acme of its fiery passion.
Likewise, I’m the helpless satellite
of the sun of my art,
Hardest I might try,
but from it I can’t part,
Its my life and source of light,
Without it everything is a blind flight
and nothing of purpose in sight,
Hovering around my inspirational sun
is the only form of my fun,
Even if it means the final
crashlanding into the fiery ball,
For the artist it is still a regally carpeted hall.
MIRAGE
How possessed the show of life floats away!
Self-absorbed and self-satiating eyes
perpetually ogling at that last ray,
Shines which with trayful of exceptional mundanities,
delicious crumbs and specks of pleasant trivialities,–
Prize’s lesser essence exaggerated manifold,
How deceiving has’n this mirage since times untold!
The rioting mob, meanwhile, creating a stampede and storm—
Thirsty, hungry, eating and breathing sand,
Trying to outpace each other
to reach that coveted oasis land,
where the mirageful sweet speck lies
and the supposed spring of will never dries.
God created us to walk brotherly
on the lush green pastures hand-in-hand,
But we take the path lost in treacherous sand
to out-run each other,
Leaving each other dying
and lying to be buried under those sand dunes,
So much we lose and force others to lose
while running to catch those boons,
Blindly we trample orchids
to catch up with the call by those sandy sighs,
And see, so many die with sand in mouth and eyes!
See that fellow huffing and puffing like an animal
going after that ever-escaping destination,
Like an oxen sweating out the precious drops
to drain out even the last ounces of humanity
from those strained innards,–
The orchid inside suffers a drought,
Aah! How valiantly he fought,
But unfortunately always had’n taking unnecessary shot,
And then the chase became unbearably hot,
Desire’s hallucination sparkles in his eyes as the loser’s dot.
Ever pretending to kow-tow the pious injunctions,
most often we do the opposite,
How coquettishly we keep God
unaware of our motives true!
The characters outsmarting the creator’s real hue,
Betraying thus God and trampling orchards,
whose seeds He planted,
we move ahead,
Unaware the spirit is already dead,
And the title deed with the creator
torn and tattered to its last thread,
Then we go out without any dread
and tread over each other in blind race,
Spit each other in the face
to stop (or made to stop) finally at a place,
where there isn’t those presumptions’ single trace.
Highway Murder
Listen you all, men and nature!
They are killing me!
As the iron hisses, and kisses
across the rings of my age,
I stand benumbed in daze,
This end was not supposed to come so soon,
Wasn’t I fulfilling all the duties assigned to me,
entitling me another wintery full moon?
In self-imposed anesthesia
I just feel the saw’s butchering
into my bloodless flesh in my guts,
There is no blood in me
to give the evidence of a murder,
The sanguine darkness of my mass
is worth only stone for you.
On this hazily sun-lit winter noon,
The hounds are around me,
My murder has been sanctioned
by the state authorities!
For decades I stood for both nature and man,
During those beautiful days
this road was a simple friend
leading to common journeys and destinations,
Now it becomes a foe and highway
leading to some illustrious ray,
And I become redundant old,
standing in the way of progress
with my few square-feet of foot-hold.
If a healthy mass like me is no life;
no more than a mile-stone,
I hope to tell my murder story
till the axes, scythes and saws
send my tiniest of branches to be turned to ashes.
We trees never wince with pain
as your axes spray around chips of our flesh,
I understand we had equal rights
till mankind was just part of nature,
Now this saw going deeper and deeper
into my bloodless guts,
reminds me of our inevitable fate,–
Every tree on earth now has a deadly date
with the greedy most, treacherous and unforgiving mate.
They know that I’m massive and big,
So they are afraid of my fall,
Haa! The cowards!
They don’t know, while they rob me
of my few square feet of space on earth,
My saplings are still doling out oxygen
under this winter sun,
Even my murder can’t change me
because I’m helpless due to my nature.
Now the saw has gone sufficiently deep,
And I get some signs of that eternal sleep,
I feel some unbearable pain in my painless mass,
For death is death after all,
Hope you will understand!
Like hangman’s noose, thick hemp ropes
are tied to direct my fall,
From a safe distance, the tractors pull
to bring down this wooden bull,
And now I feel the pain
as cleavage breaks through that portion
still holding me to my mother earth,
From softest saplings to rock hard tissues
my whole body is panicked,
Saplings are crying like purely innocent children,
Hardest of trunk tissues are shamelessly crying
like battle hard, handsome soldiers after losing a battle,
But who cares!
This big snapping sound is my death cry,
And I fall with a thud,
Yes, man you win,
I’m dead before I thought I will!
SPRING SEEDS
⋯and now the April has also gone,
Where are the seeds that I’d sown?
Like a ploughman I worked
in the summer almost melting bones,
Removed the stones,
Rattled which the spirit like someone
caught in desert’s sandy moans.
Then during winter my toil lit up a bonfire
amidst blinding blizzards and nature’s icy deeds,
These were my spring seeds,
embedded, impregnated in earth through my earthy deeds,
Spring seeds meant to
conceive, germinate, grow, ripe, flower and fructify,
But the spring came and went with a sad sigh,
Sorrows in my barren fields hit another high,
My spring seeds thus lost,
And me the farmer standing forlorn
without that harvest of which I used to boast,
Now the scorching May sun
beats down the dusty land with a fiery pun,
Peasant and his field thus stand mute,
Almost complete has’n the plunder and loot,
To gallows was sent my crop,
The hangman just mechanically pulled
the handle at the hanky’s drop,
Efforts’ dead body hangs from that noose,
And even the last strains of
faith, will power and hope getting loose.
People say that too much is my browbeat,
‘Why not clear another stony plot
to get something to eat?’
Perhaps they don’t realize
the blind, illogical passion’s treatise
which I wrote over stones with a pure soul,
Impractical, insane I stand out
with cracks and brain’s hole,
How could I expect fruits from this very plot?
And now I stare at the nullifying dot,
The desert storm meanwhile hisses with its lust hot,
Seeds have most probably been killed,
Aah, with amazing precision
the Goddess of infertility drilled!
While the songs of my fertile efforts in a chorus trilled,
But She has’n successful in its swipe,
Its blinding gung-ho and macabrous hype,
Lolloping its greedy tongue to
dejuice and deflower everything ripe,
Now I lay my back against a
hard, hot, unshaded rock,
My weariness, fatigue and torture
put me in a sleepy dock,
In that short uneasy sleep
I get some relief from the pain of this injury deep,
A luxuriant crop I see in my dream
and nearby gurgling goes a stream.
The Invisible, Untouched Debris
A painful churning goes on
in the deep, deep recesses mine,
Outwardly I manage to look well and fine.
On my skin sweat beads shine,
These tiny outpours of my desperation
are the struggling vestiges of battles
that I failed to win.
There is a salty sea of sufferings inside,
which the clothing and the mask hide,–
The sea of tears accumulated from yores,
Here mournful, tragic waves strike
the forlorn sand on gloomy shores,
There were deep, hollow pits and spaces
that could have’n easily filled up with
sweet freshwaters and lifeful braces,
But that wasn’t to be,
Rather the tears of endless traumas
made up the sorrowful sea,
Outwardly I just tread on the ground,
And even try to dance
to the social puppetry and civilized sound,
But in the deep recesses of the sea of my being
sharks shred the flesh like the bloodiest of hound,
Thousands of leeches suck the soul’s blood,
And the salty sea gets another torrential flood,
Surrounded by such deadly gloomy waters,
My being’s lofty peaks
shudder with protesting shrieks,
In those vales, precipitation born of miseries
sends down dark showers,
Creating mudslides and breaking stones
from the lofty towers,
Deep echoes of this sea’s triumphant storms
go rumbling through the inner being,
Rains, floods, earthquakes
storm the soul’s citadel,
Their combined fury unleashes mud and sleaze,
Carries which the ensnaring breeze
towards the salty sea of gloom,
Even though outwardly I manage to
keep up some bloom,
But the tremors from inside
reach new high day by day,
And the afraid soul runs helter-skelter
to find some solacing ray
that might say
a valiant nay
to the horrible avalanche pouncing on my soul,
But unmindfully the rocks of
my ideas and principles fatally slide,
and painfully the debris glide
towards the salty sea.
If the erosion from inside
goes on like this,
while I try to maintain the appearance
worth a lady’s kiss,
Then it will leave a huge
cavern overlooking the sea,
Collapse it will then,
And that shiny façade and that wren
will crash with its glittering,
broken eyeglasses still facing the sky,
With the last imprint of final worldly
shot with a cry,
What difference will it make then?
Perhaps, people will still
shed tears over the shiny shell,
And muse,
‘He didn’t die as a broken man.
He was as starry as anyone can.’
Their analysis will just
mull over the debris shiny,
But nobody will give solace
to the agonic corrosion going inside,
Because those who couldn’t
see it while I was alive,
How can they now
when I take the final dive?
Obituary lines will be written
on those broken shiny shards;–
Farcical symbols of my worldly struggle
and puny success,
While the real struggle
thousand times valorous remains unsung,
For it lies scattered at the lowest rung,
What foolhardiness!
Soul’s sanctum-sanctorium
remains in deadly pals,
while they kiss only the temple’s
outer walls.
Golden Noose
With that invisible love story
tied with an unseen cord
to my tightly sewn lips,
Let me kiss the last drops of her memory
from the cup still brimming
with her image.
The last spiritual door
opening finally for His light,
Preparing for something more,
somewhere in some other world and form,
Where down the distanceless
space-time continuum
lies the timeless face of an
untold, unrequited love tale.
The tiny waves of breathing
can now no longer carry the boat of life,
Last moment’s stormy seizure
quickly subdues the feeble efforts to stay afloat,
And down goes the body,
Hanged by the cord
of a painful love story that was never told.
The Defeated King
The night was very long
and all moments thronged
with frustration, angst and despair,
The darkest faces yelled for anyone to dare.
Like a terribly lynched mule
sluggered away the day
without bringing a new ray,
Now, the night’s long sinewy hairs
cast ghastly shadow over the battlefield lost,
And battle scars get bandaged with frost.
A cumbersome long-long day
when his efforts got butchered
by some mysterious force’s riotous ray,
Now stars shine on darkness’ face;
Like tiny lamps they twinkle from
some fallen hero’s mace
and point to hope and smile
somewhere still holding onto tiniest of trace,
Their poking raylets brace
the frozen blood around scars,
‘The day will come’, they say,
‘and the next sun will light up a new ray!’
‘You will then forget these days dark
and still fearsome nights with a terrible hark!’
The wounded, handsome soldier’s hands
clenched a fistful of earth all blood-soiled,
There were more moments to be toiled,
Somewhere fire in his blood still boiled,
The enemy’ll return in a couple of hours,
‘Let me see how many heads my club covers!’
For the mace handle his hands fumbled,
But once again his feet stumbled
and he fell down,
But that effort’s majesty shone on his face,
Succumbed he then to his injuries and died,
Aha! Immortal was that last shot of pride,
It was found frozen on his face
when the victorious hound
arrived later on the trophy’s trace.
Invisible Scars
Too often I’ve stumbled, staggered
and fallen headlong,
Cuts and wounds mercilessly throng
the bodily stranglehold mine,
Deep fissures reach
where the soul’s diamonds shine;
Injuries so deep—
Aaah! Invisible, invincible dragnet’s richest reap.
Nobody sees the gaping holes in my spirit,
Here the destiny’s blind force
so venomously hit!
God! Why is it that deepest scars
are invisible to the society’s eyes?
Why remain unnoticed
cuts and wounds of such mammoth size?
Injuries like deepest trenches on sea’s bosom,
Above on the surface
the worldly water waves normally,
Below the scars lurk dreadfully
and darkest of dark roam
in the gloomy, depthless womb.
I, the perpetual peasant,
Always engaged in the sacred labor duty,
While the foe doing
its undoing spadework continuously,
Its ensnaring checkerwork grinning cunningly,
I meanwhile rise up again
to get some littlest bit of gain,
Alas, my mountainously bulky efforts
only but go haywire!
Not even a little mice I find,
And sorrowfully the tiny lamp goes blind,
The invisible scars
get enlarged and multiplied, of course,
But not even a single eye
sees the bloody bath and the loss!
Last Hideout
Here I sit in my cold, secluded corner
and take stock of the
pleasant profanities scattered around,
The world basking in its
majestic, unholy mundanities,
while the unhindered morality singing unbound.
The corner with its stagnant stench
and mucking air;
where my tortured holy-self lie,
Cruelly contriving world meanwhile tempts,
‘Why thou become the fodder of game fair?
Son, now have an unfair try!’
‘Succeed thou will,
the moment thou unshackle
thyself of poor righteousness!
This load will always find you a loser,
for too old is now the history of uprightness!’
And I shiver and snivel
in my little, dark hole
to keep the little flicker going,
The dark-race however gets
perpetually stormy and cries,
‘Let’s us see! How long you’ll keep rowing?’
Too small is the boat which carries me
across this deadly sea,
Big waves pound from all sides
and each crest devilishly neigh.
How foolish of me
not to surrender to the cozy
seduction by the compromising short-cut!
Cut after cut they give me
to break open my little hutment
whose wispy door is bravely shut.
Passes as the time,
graver still become the urgency to
drag me out of my hiding hole,
Too far and wide is the
swash of ‘only feasible game’
in which all must play a survival role.
God! Let me see how long I can cling
to my altar-like holy den,
But times are really dark
and the moment will surely come,
The little lamp will go blind then⋯
Birth
This tiny flower
becoming a fruit;–
Transformation of this
once petalous soot:
Its beauty and color
now turning into a tiny vase,
Old flower and the infant fruit
transmixing for nature’s laws.
Flower’s beauty being sacrificed
at the fruity altar,
The Goddess of fruits
watches this pleasant hatching from far,
She muses with a midwifery glee,
Sings then a playful lullaby for the
fruitling in the flower’s womb,
Oh! How glittery is this little
juicy lad in the petalous tomb.
So, the soft flowery curls
take a hard, fruity mould,
The petals bold
vanish into juicy, hard fold.
Love Storm
When love smiles like a rose,
some famished heart gets a dose,
Cupid’s arrow breaks the shackles
and that unemotional, hard crust crackles.
A pumping machine is heart no longer,
as the softest turbulence gets stormily stronger,
Love-storm knocks at the rugged coastline,
There for a new dawn, several suns shine.
The Love like a flower
sways to sizzling dew-shower,
Dew-drenched, a new life sizzles,
and moments rejuvenate in precious drizzle.
The heart dancing in the rain,
Pleasant madness; nothing to gain!
Sheer abundance of all giving,
Gain-lorn is no longer the being.
Heart’s orchard in full bloom,
Archaic-old now seems that gloom,
Brightly starry is the night,
Self-esteem soars to loftiest height,
And when the storm ebbs out,
like a panicked fish heart’s angels shout,
‘Oh, thou uncertain tide,
when will thou again arrive with thy sweep wide?’
The Game
How hard and how long
I take to reach near
the summit of my hardworked hill,
All battered and bruised,
final steps I still try,
Above, the peak brags its highness,
while the caterpillar’s soul doth cry:
‘Yonder, still uphill sweet cups lie!’
My eyes ogle at the peak,
And heart ready to render
a full-throated victorious shriek,
But eyes then see
the hard taskmaster’s glee,
Awaits who there to teach
that solacing sips are still out of reach.
Oh! Its quick ascendancies!
Always galloping ahead
with mammoth mirth in hand,
It is always the first
to quench its thirst
from the cup at the crest,
Then uproariously beats its breast:
‘There lies another one!
Pal, let’s get promptly begun!’
Oofs, its insatiable thirst!
It claims exulting victory every time,
And I get my weeping, mediocre rhyme.
1412TH Toy
So they are clapping for their achievement!
They are celebrating the 1412th tiger in this land
where my forefather roamed to make legends.
But before they take all the credit
for saving my species,
Let me—a mere skinny kitten—clarify:
A tiger born in a zoo is no tiger!
An animal opening its eyes for the first time
among self-vaunting humans is no animal,
It’s a mere flesh and blood toy
conceived by semi-dark conscience
and mechanical techniques.
No man! No I’m no tiger!
I’m just a tiny means to allow you mighty
people to get some solace,
The genes in me have been broken
through your rampages across my lands,
You people know me as a mighty
hunter galloping after my prey,
And here in the confines of this cage
My parents forgot that they were tigers,
Your cages just define we poor animals
Just as poor dependents,
The showcase items for your kids,
To be hooted at,
To be laughed at,
To be mocked at,
No man no! I am no tiger!
I’m just a proof of your outgrowing
your shoes,
What tiger is a tiger that is tame,
It hangs down its tail in shame,
Yes man, you win!
And I bear the burden of being a tiger,
even though my genes have been changed!
Kiss of Death
Life! My purest kisses on your lips
were the honest stamps of
genuine love and loyalty,
I was in supremely pure love,
Even though my delicate, soft smooches
were returned by you as bleeding bites,
I always smiled,
ascending higher and higher to loftiest delights.
Each moment found me unprecedently crazy,
infatuated and caught in the sweet
tentacles of unreined, unrestrained love,
You but always bit back more viciously,
Oh thou heartless seductress!
Taking the poison as sweetest honey,
with bleeding lips I always smiled,
Cuts after cuts you gave,
even before the previous blood dried.
You only sucked,
I just gave rosy hues to you,
and you returned deadly blue,
Still smile and sweetness never
left my bloody lips,
How crazily I shed those lifeful drips!
Blindly I surrendered my being before you,
And you tricked me,
for I always saw life in that deadly hue.
Greedily gasping with venomous sighs and winner’s hiss,
You now approach with that final kiss
to deprive me of final breaths,
Life! Aren’t you ashamed of cheating someone
who perhaps loved you the most?
Flying Kiss
In these slumberous vales
and shy, silent dales,
My spirit escapes the clutch-hold
of my confined being,
And ecstatically saunters away
to those snow-melting peaks,
where the March sun breastfeeds
many a tiny rivulets,
Like a helpless, rooted palm,
I assuage myself and put balm
on my constricted conscience,
Cold sighs I vent out,
as the pinnacled majesty winks
from far with a seductive pout,
And my forlorn spirit runs amuck
and flies to kiss those
coyly surrendering, shining crystals,–
Away, away where rock’s snobby
ego melts maternally!
A Plump Hatch, and Tiny Catch
The day rose
after that stand-still, dark pause,
Like an infant’s mysterious muse,
pinkish horizon took shape
with dreams huge.
Warmth and light fastly spread,
Light prevailed and darkness retreated
with an uncharacteristic dread,
Shadows first lengthened
and then shrank to become bold;
clung firmly to get noontime foothold.
With crowning majesty,
the moments moved towards the zenith,
Everything warmed for brightest glory,
With a firmly straight venture
written was that glorious story,
Roses, roses all the way,
Endless seemed that ray,
Meanwhile the pendulum
swung the other way,
During the lazy afternoon’s lugubrious sway,
shadows silently crept away,
In that slumberous silence,
many a leaves gave away
to the titillating pulls of
mother earth’s gravity song,
Shadows panicked and slowly-slowly
ebbed away to become long,
The other horizon now crimson and red,
It sprayed colors sad,
Lolloping tongues of its funeral fury,
firmed up like death sentencing jury,
Tired voices, slow steps, ebbing strength:
The day that had risen
with such pomp and show,
It was wiped away after that
feeble twilighty ‘no’ .
Criminal Moment
There were times
and there would be times,
But endless is the moment
that still chimes
with the evil song and music of a crime,
A crime when it plucked a life
like a thief sneaking away with last breath
amidst heartbeats missing their mark
imperiled by that chaos and strife.
I bear witness against that murderous moment,
when I was left fatherless and
put on an unprotected plane like never before,
Like a boatman cast away
countless treacherous miles from the shore;
Like a pariah face
Bumping against a slammed, shut door.
No a fatherless being can’t be
the same anymore,
Moments will come
and moments will go,
But the steely vessel of my being
is almost cut to depth by that perilous hoe.
Betrayal
Life! You are plainly a treacherous friend,
He loved you more than himself,
Nurtured you with the most potent,
pious and vigorous juices of innocent childhood;
Fattened thy fibers
with the impassioned heartbeats of youth;
Increased the aura around your hallowed head
through graceful wisdom and talks of ripening age.
He made you the charming queen of his dreams,
With decades of love and toil,
he prepared a glittering palace for you,
And then you eloped,
Eloped with dark-winged shadows of death,
You crazy one!
Right from the start you were in
blind love with the angels of death.
Yet all he did was to love you,
Love you from the core of his soul.
Blossomed he a flower
that was always love-lorn for the
ghastly clutch from the other world,
Now, here lies your lover’s corpse
and you make merry with your evil playmate,
hidden in the darkest chambers.
Spring Rose
Spring rose!
Pampered by nights’ dewy dose
your full-lipped pout
invites stingy, sucking bites
from black bee, the lout!
You but mind it not
and give fresh flashes and fragrant shot,
Your lover’s impassioned gasps hot,
shake you up like a storm tossing a boat,
You but still smile,
Pure, unstinted, without any guile!
You have the softest, petalous lips,
And like a rapist he just sips
the feminine juices of your blood,
You rosy red and he black,
His crazy, blind passion lets loose a flood,
His darkish, sweating, contorted face,
How murderously he responds
to your innocent, breezy grace!
Greedily he goes on,
Those fiery grunts, subduing your softest moan,
And reaching the dangerous peaks
where his unquenchable thirst shrieks,
The plunderer flies away!
Away! Where more fresh faces sway,
You but still smile,
His love bites prominent on your lovely face,
Aha, undefeatable is this grace!
Vandalized Rose
Full moon night and this pond!
The sky flaunts its full-faced beauty,
The pond too kisses
the mirage, the reflection!
Love-lorn, the gentlest waves
caress the lovely, tricky mirage,
Ducks quack!
From the shore-side bushes
a bird suddenly goes for a night song,
With expert ease
and like nimblest breeze
suddenly a pack of night-fliers arrives,
And the hawks go for a hearty feast,
for every hungry belly is a beast,
Sharp talons, strong beaks, sturdy wings,
The air with pugnacity sings,
They swoop down on the soft delicacies
enjoying the soft bedspread on ripply waves,
That lotus too bears a talon scar,
The birds of prey swoop down for one-sided war,
Soft flesh; rock hard claws,
How easily soft life’s skin saws!
There is blood, noise and shrieks,
This softest of solitude creaks
And breaks down in the tight, lusty embrace of the storm,
A piece of black cloud takes the milky full-face
in its dark, mating brace,
There is darkness, blood, bites and noise,
Those dreamful moments lost of their poise!
Now, the oblivious cloud,
free of its impassioned hinges,
flies away, surrendered to the winds,
The sad beauty smiles again,
And throws its tired, tamed milkiness
on this torn serenity and pause,
lying here like a vandalized rose!
Illustrious Sun
He was great in his own ways,
A small but substantial sun
brilliantly scattering its rays
across his being’s orbit,
We the planets majestically circling,
Sourced by him and always in debit,
He was fiery
and spun on his axis with copious fury,
His eyes had dreams,
Dreams of all of us becoming stars,
But fate was always at wars,
In the infinite and mysterious cosmic gloom
disposals were always in full bloom,
He and the family spun,
The supreme intelligence had pun for a fun.
We had our fire storms
and titillating, exciting bumps and smooth rides
in our small cozy orbits,
The burning core of his being
sucked fuel from the happiness born of
big dreams of his planets becoming stars,
But dreams are what?
May be they are the pyres in disguise!
In his own fire he collapsed,
From a distance the chunks of his own body
saw him being consumed by the same fiery tongues
that had zealously chorused his dreams,
There was an explosion,
His pieces were blown into
the depthless void of eternity,
And we the plants,
Shook, sobbed, stopped;
fatherless in our cradling orbits,
With horror and sorrow
we watched the cataclysmic fire,
Then helplessly driven by cosmic forces,
we were carried ahead by time’s horses.
A Moment Lives, Dies, Becomes Immortal
A dead mouse lies,
Forlornly the April air sighs,
Water in a nearby puddle dries,
A dung-beetle hurriedly tries
to roll its trophy; take home as pies.
There on the infinite, blue calm of the skies,
an eagle air-dives for ecstatic highs,
With death, decay and destruction,
its hunter instinct vies,
From the faded, sunburnt petals of that flower,
the short spring says byes.
Lower and lower the hunter comes,
It eyes the humble measles
a former life has still to offer,
Driven by the expert dynamics of its airy skill,
It goes for the carcass’ kill,
Triumphantly it ascends,
The trophy held in its talons,
A sparrow chirps as if crying of murder,
Another bird sounds applauding,
A curious mix:
The nature in qualityless, impersonal fluid.
Unseenly a chapter is closed,
The slumberous panorama, meanwhile, dozed.
Tryst with Destiny
To be popular and great
is the biggest bait,
So many of us miss the charming date
to get a favorable alliance
between hard work and fate,
Alas but its always too late
by the time journey comes to a sudden halt,
The bubble then bursts,
Names and dates turn to ashes,
Unconcerned world goes on
as usual with pompous dashes,
As soon as you become past,
Redundant thy memories turn really fast,
Still we surrender to the bait,
May be its just our inevitable, humble fate.
Lip-kissed Lies
Your lip-kissed lies are
the diamonds of truth for me,
Forgive me my blindness;
Lost in your dream, reality I cannot see!
The Princess
Many-many full moons ago,
There was a beautiful princess
in a tiny, paradisiacal hill state,
Surrounded by nature’s blooms great
her beauty was ever-touching new scales,
Nature spread across far-flung wild trails
sang songs of her majestic beauty,
Slowly-slowly it did its duty
to spread around the tales of her charms,
For miles and miles
her fame could measure distance in arms,
Reached it the ears of a prince far,
whose kingdom had’n at war
with her father’s,
And lo! Enough bravado this prince gathers
to set out to look at that famed face,
Seemed he then a futile chaser
running after destiny in a tragic race,
Lovely wild flowers kept on giving her trace,
Untamed breeze came to brace
his young heart and brave, soldierly chest,
Moved he ahead without rest,
After months-long sufferings in the ravines,
he found himself where her star shines,
Wandered he in her kingdom in impersonation,
for so antagonistic was the air in this nation.
Her fame spread more from the mouth’s word,
Too precious was this bird
to be ogled by too many eyes,
So desperately he tries
to give solace to his aching eyes,
His pining heart gave suffering, cold sighs,
Then chance showered its bloom
and gone was his heart’s gloom,
It was a full moon night
and moon was lit at its fairest bright,
The princess went for a boat ride
in the marvelously calm lake,
His heart shook with a thunderous heart-quake
as he stealthily waited in the shoreline foliage,
Every passing moment gave a new courage,
He was just above
the princess’ safe, secret bathing ghat of marble sleek,
This white monument gleamed
exotically in the panorama bleak,
Arrived her boat then with her giggling maidens,
His heart was now achingly struggling
against his broad chest,
In filigreed finery she was dressed,
In silent majesty she put her adorable feet
on the gleaming, cool facade by the waterside,
Waves rippled through him with a coquettish chide,
Her hallowed figure glowed distinctly
among her helping ladies,
And before he could think anything,
stony become his whole being,
Her finery no longer covered
her exquisitively carved flesh curves,
That naked fairy jammed his nerves,
That statuesque glow of marble on her skin soft,–
Aha that real life sculpture of
utmost sensuality and symmetry aloft!
Moon-rays deflected off her curves
and panting, pining reached his eyes,
Every moment her moon-sculpted body
acquired new vistas and highs,
Her flowing tresses on her naked back
lustily shook to her head’s gentle gyrations,
He couldn’t see her face clearly,
but he heard word spoken with mythic softness,
He was, but, dying to see her face,
so closer and closer he came
to fulfill his young heart’s only aim,
Alas! He was noticed by her female arm-guards,
Quickly their masculined arms hissed,
Surrounded by trained females
he’d decent chances of escape through a fight,
But how could he blot this night
by testing against females his skill,
Strong ladies advanced on him
with the chances to kill,
Caught he was in this way,
When the next sun came with its curious ray,
his misadventure’s word got around,
Shook then her father’s throne’s ground.
It was the enemy’s unforgivable crime,
So sentenced he was to death at his youth’s prime,
But kingdoms have inviolable laws,
so his royal blood deserved
the fulfillment of a last wish,
Then how could he miss
the last chance to see her face,
So request he an eye-full brace
of her magical features,
God! Why thou create such bewitching creatures?
He was thus led to the courtyard
below her balcony ornate,
Her sad eyes looked at him without any hate,
The prince too was no less on handsome scale,
On his perfect features a smile loomed pale,
The princess knew that her face had’n the bait,
which could soon seal this life’s fate,
Thus fell she at her father’s feet
with an utmost, painful entreat,
‘Father it was no fault of his,
but is all due to my well-thought kiss,
Stranger this prince is not,
for your daughter secretively tied the knot,
And if you kill him
sorrows and sins would cross ocean’s brim,
A father would widow his daughter,
For ages known will be this slaughter,
And if thou still send him to gallows,
certaily another death bellows’.
How could the King let this
darling flower wither away!
So smiled on many fates a new ray,
They were ceremoniously married,
Decades-old animosity was buried,
What beautiful outcome of her wise, petalous step,–
For herself marital bliss
and for two states a friendly kiss!
The Sage
Many-many years ago,
A sage was meditating
on a Himalayan peak,
Majestic dales and solitary vales
around all aglow with divine streak,
Though the bird chirped songs
and rain poured down in throngs;
In winters, icy cold storms blew
and snow around and over him glew;
In autumn wind-fallen leaves
sailed down with slumberous tumble,
and fruits ripe fell proudly,
adventurously for a juicy pleasant crumble;
In spring, wild flowers fully unfurled
their fragrance and smile,
and honey-bees engaged in
down-to-dusk toil;
Summer’s warm days sprayed
Desultory, eerie uneasiness around,
And cool nights proudly embraced
this son with soul heaven-bound,
But he never changed
from his meditative path.
Then on an autumn full-moon night,
A fairy was flying amid milky delight,
Her maidenly circles in air
found the seer in sight,
But even her laughter
and the rustle of her
unbelievably soft dress failed to
break the spell of engrossed sage,
His exquisitely masculine physique and personage,
Created tempted sparks on her magic stick,
She tried all juicily leering feminal trick,
But her desire-lorn curves in air
Brought only pearly tears in those eyes fair,
Helplessly she came down,
and sat in front of him
with those rose-red lips pursed in a
heart-breaking frown,
Her nymphatic eyes were lost
in the handsome sculptural face,
On it there was not a single worldly trace,
Mesmerized!
She lost the sense of night’s flight!
Next day!
The sun rose with full earthly delight,
Her eyes ogled at it terrified,
The hope to return to her realm died,
She’d broken the law of her place,
by not returning the same night
after that brief terrestrial, nocturnal brace,
The realization crashed at her
like a thunderbolt!
Her utmostly sensuous bare shoulders
heaved under the tremors of this fault,
A heart-rending shriek escaped her throat,
And serenely flowing meditative phase
met this sinful, fullstopping dot,
His communion with the divinity broken,
and his aeonically closed eyes opened,
Even flora-fauna realized
something terrible had happened,
His fiercely burning eyes
stared at the petalous flower in sobs and sighs,
Her large flooded eyes pleaded for mercy,
But fire in his eyes was unforgivingly cursey,
His fabric of serenity was torn,
He thundered,
‘Become an ugly bush of thorn!’
Mowed down by the spell off his cursing energy,
an ugly bush stood in place of those
beautiful limbs that kissed the air,
All shaken and ravaged he left the place,
A thorn branch, meanwhile, got entangled
in his loin cloth
as if for some meek, pleading brace.
The Parrot and the Old Sparrow
After a long, hard, heavy, wearisome journey
at sun down,
its will a bit cast down
and temper with a little frown,
The parrot with wings tired,
its beautiful colours all mired
in hard journey’s perspiration
landed on a branch.
Winter was at its peak,
And anxious, drooping, panting was the beak,
With every minute saffron slanting rays
were melting into misty bays,
Cold was slowly creeping up
and its pinch was becoming bold
to take everything in its hold,
With sad eyes it ogled at the setting sun,
Too long and taxing had’n the run
and long forgotten was the flight’s fun,
(Where was that fleeting, winged pun?)
With each mile the journey had become a drag
and vigour and energy that uplifted him with a brag
were now dumped in some pit,
Last ounce of strength was then hit,
But still he had far to go,
while his height became continuously low,
Before the eventuality did he bow
and anchored his feathery weight
upon a branch’s restful bait,
‘Merciless, frost-fanged will be the night,’
he thought to his misery’s delight,
As the warmth vapoured off his body,
Shudder came over him with incremental ease,
Anxiously he ruffled his feathers
as if to loosen cold night’s siege,
Where to spend the night
he thought from depression’s highest heights,
Suddenness of sunset made him realize
the possible utility of the remaining time,
And he looked around like the
feeble truth emanating from a sad rhyme,
For miles long everything appeared
surrendered to the twilight’s imminent pal,
And all wood appeared solid and creviceless;
without that niche which is a bird’s hall,
Before his despair and agony touched another peak,
he heard a muffled, breaking-free, old, juvenile shriek,
An old sparrow,
its grayish patches long under time’s harrow,
was seen bathing in a puddle,
Seeing him his senses went into a chilly huddle,
‘Hey, such a cold night in waiting!
Take care it does not become death’s baiting!
Fellow, you must take care
and must not extend your dare
to the extent of your doom!’
The sparrow squeaked and shrieked with zoom,
‘My old coat has enough room
for the water to turn vapours
and shun and beat death’s creepers!’
With his saggy, drenched feathering
the sparrow flew to him for a hearing,
And the visitor’s problem was told,
Said the sparrow becoming gracious and bold,
‘Dear, I have no family
and live in a banyan crevice,
Come with me, I’m at your service!’
It was a horribly chilly night,
No light for miles to sight,
Chilly rainstorm beat against the tree
to uproot the shackles and set it free,
But the tree was strong,
It withstood the deathly throng.
‘I live here all alone,
Though reminiscences sometimes come to moan
over my beautiful, active past,
Darted when I fast
and voowed damsel sparrows with finesse,
Raised families as the cost for my instinct’s ecstasies,
Then age caught with me,
Now eyes no longer see
the beauties of this world around,
but sense the death’s bloodthirsty hound.
Still I live happily as the tail-end
of that great life lived,
Enjoyed I the choices that fate sieved,
Now, I have to pickup and play
among those things and chaff discarded
which remain unwanted above
as fine particles trickle below,
Steadily this discarded heap grew
While I enjoyed the sieve’s fine brew,
Now I roll like a kid in that rubble of past
which was once waylaid by youth’s blast,
It now becomes the precious wealth
of my old age,
Shiny becomes the rage in this haze,
There are no takers for it now,
So I enjoy it all alone
without that competition’s drone,
Happily I’m all alone with my age old,
And try even to become bold
against this winter’s hold,
During youth I flew majestically high
To beat cold by my blood warmths,
But now wisdom swarmths,
And I still find ways
to brightly lit my days with these feeble rays,
In this cosy wood-hole of mine
Drunk I’m with my age’s vintage wine,
I know that I may not go out of this hole
to ride softly on time’s back at some dawn,
When mortality may pick up the pawn,
Leaving this old feathering engraved
in this very woody niche,
But that does not make me sick,
Because that sleep does not seem
different from the one that I now enjoy,
The pitcher of desire no longer exists,
Neither is it empty
so that I must have desires to have it full,
Nor it is full, so that I should browbeat
being afraid of losing it,
The sinews holding life to my body
have become impassive, senseless and bloodless,
They will not feel the pain of cleavage:
It will be just like an autumn leaf
being painlessly windblown into oblivion,
In this tepid existence of mine,
devoid of both heat and cold,
warmth and coolness prevail in some
pleasant, vague proportion,
Pleasure and pain seem to have lost their specificities:
Neither both exist, nor are they dead.
You are young and colourful!
How come you look so submissive and sad?
Have the conditions been so bad
to steal and rob all the real charm
and leave the colour on the feathers and soul
so dull and poor?’
The parrot spoke:
‘Though I am young
but the spirit seems to have sung
the last song of life,
Too much has been the pain and strife,
My spirit seems to have run dry now,
Though the colour on my feathers holds somehow,
When just a hatching, father was gone,
Grew I hearing mother’s moan,
The paternal sun thus never shone,
Still the biggest consolation was mother’s
caressing, preening, feeding beak,
Ate I fruits at love’s supreme-most peak,
As the sole nestling
I was fattened on her labours daylong,
And then went to sleep hearing her lullaby song,
Aha! Sweetest dreams came with a throng!
My whole existence was tethered
to that maternal pole,
The brightest, attractive-most star sole!
Under her great grooming,
colours on my feathering came bright,
Lavishly they flashed as I fluttered
them for my first flights,
Unbelievable was the pride and compassion
as her soaring soul’s maternal shades touched brightest heights,
In her eyes I saw a new light,
How marvelous was that sight!
Alas her incorruptible love of yore
was arrowed by fatality’s shot,
Again cupid’s love arrow came hot,
I became a past with negligence and rot,
She was now in another spring of love,–
Incipient love for the future in her womb,
I thus became an orphan
even though my parents lived,
After many cries and anguished aimless flights bereaved,
Life’s burden with my soft feathers I heaved,
Young and beautiful, flew I with
time’s oblivion and balm,
Intoxicating is such youth’s charm.
Inevitably I fell in love,
Heartfully I cooed my beautiful lady,
Those love-lorn days when heart
was ever ready to sing an ecstatic ditty,
Such a wealth was in my kitty,
So sweet, silent, mirthful, unencumbering
were those acceptances of nuptial responsibilities,
Those watchful, eager searches for niches
in trunks for our nest,
Tirelessly we wandered around for the best,
Guided by love’s brace
we found our place,
In this tiny hole
nothing else but we had all the role,
Our identities melted into each other,
How proud was I when I became father,
I’ll not become like my parents, I thought,
I will not be ensnared like they were caught,
So I clung to my possessions with pride,
But the inevitability came with a chide,
In full bloom of youth and colours
all of my brood flew away,
My lady-bird came to be infatuated
under someone’s cooing sway,
It was another fine day
when she bade adieu and flew away,
I embodied all forlornness,
All my loss was glaring in my face
monstrously unremedied,
I decided to leave that place,
And my sulking wings did brace
to take up the longest possible flight
from the place where such unfaithfulness abound,
So flew I as if pursued by
fearsome-most flying hound,
For many days I have been flying
with my soul aching and wings crying,
Why should we enter into something
and love somebody so completely,
if it is bound to gutters,
Isn’t all such temporary dives
into life all banal,
Aren’t we cogs in the hands of those
inevitable, unstoppable processes?
The old sparrow, full of wisdom,
Undisputed king of his life’s kingdom,
Spoke with the solace and simplification of age,
When youth’s dilemmas no longer
haunt with their pinch and rage,
The sparrow said:
‘Its just like a flower ruing
and weeping over other blooms,
because its beauty will not last forever
and will go to glooms,
Dear, it’s not we who are the ends,
Rather the beautiful phenomena like
love, marriage, procreation that decide the trends,
We are just means to these
beautiful ends and destinations,
So, become a tool uncomplaining
tilling earth without any expectations,
It is not that love exists
because we do love someone,
Love is the primordial sea without any
limits of space, time and individualities,
It is we who sweeten a few
moments of life with it,
till the chaotic, destructible existences get hit,
Do we procreate to cling to procreation life long?
No! We are made to procreate
to become unselfish means for the propagation,
for handing over the batons,
to perpetuate these beautiful phenomena of
love and relationships,
We do not leave behind an offspring,
but a possible instrument
which might come in handy for
the sustenance and survival of
those very precious moments
that got us the taste of love, happiness
and contentment at their best,
And if we recognize that
then our spirit gets a solacing rest,
If not,
then caught in the web of selfish net,
we acrimoniously bet
that I completely loved her
and became the cause of young lives,
It was I who caused that buzzing in those hives,
But such limitations would have been
meaningful had our survival unlimited,
or say our immortality was uninhibited,
But our journeys are to be ended,
So just cherish those moments which you tended,
If you cling to these phenomena
like they are your inheritance forever,
They become a drag around your neck,
making you a prisoner behind bars,
which you create around yourself,
Liberate fella! Liberate yourself!
Become a journeyman who understands that
young flowers on a plant,
young soots on a twig
do not lessen themselves or the spring,
in not ruing over their wispy autumnal dismantling,
for they inculcate phenomena,
They help perpetuate treeness
And they sustain the beautiful,
natural concepts of beauty and bloom,
They also served in a similar way,
made some new ray (though it is only light)
to decimate in some shadows, some gloom.’
The long fabric of the stormy night
was slowly lifted over their head,
Outside, stormy chilliness was fleeting
before a promising twilight,
Chances were there for a day bright,
Clouds parted from the face of sky,
The parrot’s spirits cut through the shadows
and soared high,
The old sparrow said:
‘The day today is warm and sunny,
The dawn promises sweet honey,
Youngman, I’m in hurry to come out of my hole
and play my chirpy role
in the beautiful stage set around,
My soft soufflés and feeble light in my eyes
are enough even for the down-hilly afternoon,
You but go high,
because the forenoon is there for you,
with its multihue,
Go, so that you do not rue over
the day aimlessly lost,
Do justice to the old spirit of thy host,
Take some lesson from my soft feebleness
and the way I make a day out of my night.
Thanking him the visitor flew away
into those swathes of promise,
where new life, new love, new relationships
held sway!
Platonic Love-making
These are the offsprings
of our platonic love-making,
I leave them in the
safe confines of your womb.
Nurture them!
Bear the pain of carrying
these restless, crying babies
inside your beautiful, safe self.
I am a weak father,
and you a strong mother,
You will need to
learn to be painless,
Because these burning babies of mine
are the angry fires
of their father’s pyre.
The pyre in which the soft flesh
of heart burns days in and days out.
You have been making love on the
hellish bed of my pyre
in which my living self burns forever.
In the fiery cradle
you have to hatch these cubs
of a father gone to ashes.
You have to blossom
living flowers amidst this
smouldering heap of
bones, flesh and my soul!
Torrents of Love
An old orchard!
Swathed in the peaceful shades
of meditative trance,
Wise old trees,
Ripe fruits hanging languidly,
Solitary footpath covered with
pale fallen leaves,
Moments mating with timelessness,
Then suddenly a gust of free breeze!
Pining storm!
Ruffled leaves!
Sighing branches!
And the fruits ripened from ancient times,
Fell under the spell of
those majestic shoves
unleashed by the free wind!
*********
It was a cave!
Dark, dreary and cold!
And he was the yogi,
Immersed in an unending trance
impregnating silent, still moments.
Mossy, damp, dark!
Then a softly shining
raylet sneaked in!
Unleashed a storm of light!
It kissed the darkest,
inaccessible stony crevices,
Sucked out the lifeless
core of dispirited self.
Those wispily pining lips exhaled
love, life and spirit!
It was pleasant riot!
An effusive mayhem!
An exhilarating melting!
An exciting massacre!
Of freedom over bondage!
Of light over dark!
Of…………………………
***********
Summits stood proud,
Flaunting their rocky citadels,
We are the unconquerable
mountains they proclaimed,
A wild river came
with its riveting fury.
Its sharp, serpentine curves
let out throbbing, pulsating fury,
which cut through
the iron-hard rigidity.
Rocks gave in!
Summits after summits fell,
Their proud mass melting
in those sensuous swirls!
The river flew majestically
carrying boulders and sand
of those fallen soldiers who
challenged its majestic mirth.
************
Across the darkish cloud of my being,
You shine like a moon.
Milky……soft!
Beloved! You put this shining
signature on my being!
*********
Wild river!
Feel the sand that you carry
in your majestic swirls!
That’s me the proud mountain!
But that self was rocky and rigid,
Now I’m soft and cradled
in your gushing torrents!
*********
Majestic river,
Now I feel like a
particle of sand
in the sensuous swathes
of your gushing waters!
*********
In the pining silence of
frozen, dark hours,
a star spreads its mystic light
over a vacant heart.
Feminine raylets mate with
cold stones and impregnate
the boundless womb with
countless little stars.
The heart now becomes a galaxy,
Its self enlarged with a cosmic quotient
and profound peace spread
across its bosom!
*********
I am the moth
and I love my flame!
My fire!
But I feel the burning core of
the glow around which
I helplessly circle around!
I know that I cannot stop
the fire from burning,
So I throw myself in a fiery pit
to forget my dear flame’s burning plight!
I throw myself in a bigger fire
so that I forget myself
and my flame’s cries!
***********
I feel the shapeless mass of your love,
It creeps like a venomous reptile
through the garden of my heart,
It furiously hisses,
returning my softest kisses,
I bear the toxic marks
left on my skin by your fangs.
Still I carry your poisonous bulk
in the soft cradle of my heart.
Why?
Because I have no choice to hate you,
I can just love you!
**********
Love, I’d a cemented identity,
It was narrow, confined,
and constricted by the iron mask
put on my true face
by the society and circumstances.
The you walked in my life
with your pining majesty!
Your soft lips kissed the
the lifeless iron of my mask.
It melted in the softly smoldering
furnace of your pout!
The melting mask!
Its glowing fluid shining on my true face,
Beloved, you salvage my
real self from that imprisonment!
This real self may be good or bad
for the society,
For they judge by my identity old,
I but care not
because at least I see my true face!
**********
There was an ice block,
As old as anyone can recall!
It had its frigid polar existence.
In the deep recesses of
its cold, snowy being,
endless nights pined,
Icy cage around its soul!
Then a warmth suddenly sneaked in!
Mossy rigidities melted under
the spell of those nimble cuts
and the stony ice melted,
Unleashing countless rivulets
gushing over his melting landscape.
The cage was broken,
The spirit merged in the
melodious embrace of
those royal-hued rays.
He lost his old self
to merge in a larger identity.
It was rebirth!
It was liberation!
*************
The Stone and Dead Wood
Only a flower that has been allowed to blossom
knows the pleasures of caresses and kisses,
A stone but misses the breeze’s deft touches,
Into its hardened pores no raylet reaches,
Only a beautifully blossomed bough
adorned with new soots, saplings, leaves and flowers
dances to the air’s singing tune,
A dry twig is all but immune to the storm’s fury
and soft breeze’s flirtatious games.
I too now become a stone,
Put me in desert’s parched sand
and you will listen no moan,
Put me in the cosy confines of a luxurious room,
And you will hear no heart’s boom,
Because all the juices vanished
during those nights of gloom.
A stone is a stone, is a stone, is a stone,
It has got its solid, concrete, lifeless status alone,
Inside it the light never shone
and its ironed particles clumped inseparably and forlorn.
Now, I too become a stone,
So let the storm blow,
It but cannot beat me further low,
Or let there be spring around,
Let the blossoms all panorama surround,
It but cannot change my face,
On my stony, statued lips no smile’s trace,
A stone statue now I become,
Expressionless and eternally mum,
But the stone statue is not dead,
Even though no calamity’s fear
roaming inside its ahead ,
and no pleasant expectation imprinted
anywhere in those cold stormy eyes,
But life somewhere deep down in its
solid chambers impassively sighs!
The Old Moon and the Imperiled Panorama
Pallid rays of this pale moon
had grown old so soon
during that half hour before the morning twilight,
It was a chilly, clear-skied, frosty, fogless January night,
The moon just a night away from fullness
had been exceptionally bright.
Nightlong, almost near the acme of its beauty
it had fulfilled its luminous duty,
Its milky beams had over-lighted
or overshadowed many a star,
It seemed eager to blot out
every stain and tainting tar,
Its beams falling like snows
upon sleeping horizon to the far,
The beautiful plains of this countryside
were lying in sleepy abundance
under the milky, chilly blanket with slumberous pride,
Everything was open to this celestial torch
with nothing to hide,
Cold-basking fields were huddled under their croppy sheets;
above was gloating the marvelous moon-shine,
Wheatlings stood bow-headed in reverence
with dewy crown fine,
Those marigold flowers were shining
unabashed under the milky showers,
The flowers happy about
losing their colors to the lover’s
mysterious smiles and its powers,
White pea flowers boasted their augmented whiteness,
Aha, such dolefully beneficent had been the brightness,
Even trees didn’t seem dark, indistinct specters
lurking shadowily over the horizon,
They appeared boats of foliage
floating in a misty sea,
In the background of such a brightly lit stage
even the sky seemed earth-lorn,
Through the milky transparency
its bluish-black veil lurked and through it
only the brightest stars smiled,
Scattered in the docile swathes of this
moon-baked countryside
villages seemed like mammoth ships silently
floating in the white wavy sea of light.
The moon was now well past its prime,
as if in shining too bright it had committed a crime,
Its setting quarter was in the north-west,
where the moony panorama had shone best,
And now it was moving towards rest,
Its strength and vigor had
dangerously plummeted down,
It now seemed ogling with a
meek, angry, anguished, helpless frown,
Its brightness was fastly fading out
And its yellowish pale rays
appeared eager for a wailing shout,
Glumly it was fading over those sandy undulation
carrying fields, furrows, crops on its gently unfolding dome,
Shiny fruits born of sweat-laden efforts in its sandy loam,
Accusingly the moon threw pale, protesting
shadows in south-east,
where urbanism, consumption and crass commercialist
blatantly had its seat commanding, metropolitan, capitalist feast,
The area had been earmarked
for some merciless development project,
It now being defined by a tiny space
bound in a map issued under
the state government’s gazetted notification,
What a mischief by the developmental hand!
Ever eager to bulldoze over nature
and turn it into uncomplaining, lifeless sand,
where lustrous stones will be built over nature’s burial,
Oofs! How heartless, wanton and depraved!
This pale, mournful moon
which was to set soon
into the misty gloom of twilight,
when a bright sun of consumerism and commerce
was ascending to its dawning height,
Those stalks of reeds
which sway in the cold breeze without greeds
seemed gently bidding the moon a good-bye,
Plummeted which further down
with a swollen face and a sigh,
Its pallid face grimacing with a painful nostalgia,
Its fading, setting rays tainted with deadly paleness;
Its oblong, teary face
now looked at this landscape,
Sleepy fields, warmthful wastes and fellow lands,
What mighty lessons have been taught here!
Aha! The farmer going to the fields with his gear,
Those long, painful, sometimes fruitless days
subsided when the sun’s eager rays
looking at the sweat’s trove
and the shirt’s hoe,
Where the long painful dark nights
arrived like the deeds accomplished,
Where the failures galore
but the hardwork never bored,
These failures defined success
as the losses stood just as a testimony to the profits,
Where hopes, aspirations and desires
varied with the changing hues of weather,
Farmer pawning everything
for the feathers in destiny’s crown,
Gold forms immaterially—
or minimally at the rate of a dust speck for a gram—
in the toiled soil brown,
All will be gone,
The moon was also dying with a moan,
This beautiful charming mystery of the landscape—
why hardest labor fetches minimal returns;
and why a bit less harder toil results in
a soul-satisfying speckful of return that seems wealthiest—
All this beautiful, aesthetic, curvy, circuiting strings;
Mysteries of landscape, of destiny,
of the see-saw battle between pleasure and pain,
between penury and sustainable as well as gluttonous gain,
between life and death:
All this will be lost for a direct, straight,
materially penetrating needle of surety,–
The commercial, unflinching and fixed
use of the landscape
in the form of concrete approach
where profits will boomerang
in proportion to the short-cuts;
Where compromised morality, ideology and conscience
will not face any ifs and buts;
Where there will not be any sweet scent
of labor that will be replaced by
the mechanical, greasy, muddy panting
of merciless competition and grab;
Where concrete blocks, flats will replace
these wonderous solitudes basking in and around;
Where sheaves, stalks, straw and reeds
will not sway to the breeze,
but blank, rigid, ironed tower
will stand mutely, inflexibly to the nature’s cooing calls.
Now the sorrowfully yellowing
death rattle of the setting time
was arriving with a chime.
There on the opposite horizon the day opened a window
to sneak a peek at the imperiled room of night,
Wispily, there was the twilight
with its mixed day-night delight,
In its mysterious lap,
the old moon met a slightly premature death,
Slumped as it feebly, freely
into the silvery sea of mist
standing still over the treeline.
Into this sea of death, the moon plunged,
And the twilight mischievously winked
with it unfaithful, teasing look asking favors
both from the night and the day,
The old moon was gone with its last ray,
And soon-to-be-doomed panorama,
unmindful of the fatality waiting,
came out of its dewy slumber,
A crane’s clarion call
cree….ked over its yawning breast,
The sun prepared to cast its first ray
and the fields got up for another hard farming day.
PS—Time of the poem: Half hour before the morning twilight of January 13, 2006 (Lohri); a day before the full moon day (Makar Sakranti, January 14).
Conversation with a Stranger
One day he asked someone hiding inside
the bodily façade like a fugitive,
‘Who are thou?
And why despite all the architectural negativities
people define thou positively?’
From it unreachable deep cellar
that someone raised it germ-free, disinfected voice,
‘I am the exiled one without choice,
While the bones and the flesh around me
in worldly spotlight rejoice,
I just take the ordained backseat
and watch the game of
birth, survival, struggle and death
played inside the castle on the shaking stage.
‘Don’t you feel perplexed by the passing days?’
Again the query was voiced,
‘Don’t you feel bad or ever you rejoiced?’.
It answered in a heavy, impassive tone,
‘Thy gimmick cannot shake my throne,
In the timeless shades I spend my time here
and when the castle will be broken
the death squad will find the door open,
Away I’ll fly with the figures of
deeds and misdeeds to the final court,
and if it is found short,
again I’ll be exiled.
It has been like this for thousands of years,
but I never rejoice at new birth
nor weep at death and shed tears,
My book lies in mighty primordial hands
and the player to settle cores changes with worldly trends,
I am the same forlorn, exiled child
of the majestic, mighty father,
It’s a never-ending game perhaps,
A tiny cog on the chessboard of creation,
Let’s see how high and mighty you make the castle,
Void will then gobble the tone and stars!’
Life
It is good that
we must cultivate dreams,
But most often
man’s uncertainty and destiny’s certainty screams
to shatter them to pieces.
We, though must hope
to evade the deadly anchor’s drop,
It is our futile, and not so futile, duty to
carry the life’s ship through heaving waves,
Wonderful! So many winds one braves!
Like smoldering coal in the hull
the passion ever craves,
The tiny flicker braves
against the mightiest swathes of stormy dark,
Storms, meanwhile, play against the timber strong,
In the wooden frame, but, many dreams throng,
And enjoy the journey, though, unfinishable and long!
Time’s worms eat the timber,
And stealthily doth eventuality limber,
to sneak through the destiny’s holes,
Longly piled up agony of the storm furiously rolls,
Carried thou so far and wide;
tattered are those soles.
We carry a mountainous bulk of hopes
encased in some ash and tear drops,
How meticulously time thrashes its harvest,–
From buxom ripe fruits
it reaps only peelings and stones,
From life’s crop
death reaps only the lifeless drop,
The majestic reaper
wants but few grains of soil
from all the juicy, lifeful, thriving tissues.
Still, we have to live
and we need to hope
till that final mop,
We know that the slate will be
cleaned up after all,
But we have to play our part in life’s ball,
For crammed will be the hall
tomorrow as well,
When in other bodies life will dwell.
Whom Should I Blame?
What we do and what we don’t,–
May be it is our choice,
Or maybe the hands of providence
guide or misguide?
Don’t know
whether it is our action’s rejoice,
or partisan fate’s prejudice?
Stealthily we try to ensure
the credit for the good falls in our own bag,
And if things go wrong
our stage-manages throng
to put all blame on the old hag.
Whatever we may think of ourselves,
We’re, but, the good- or bad-chanced kids
of the parental—earthly and other worldly—topsy-turvies,
If not so,
What person is there to wish
directly his doom;
Which life’s light voluntarily seeks
to be extinguished to gloom?
Still—less directly and more indirectly—many
against their will are brought to the wrong end,
Where the expected destination
does not exist not even its name;
Where the undoing swiper chuckles in all its fame,
And the half-willed animal
gets tethered to a peg for a chained tame,
Then follows the great game,
Many try to put each other to blame.
It is but a futile mockery,
Mere verbosity cannot bust
the secret of that trickery.
Ever-lorn to justify ourselves,
Many-a-time we put the blame
squarely on destiny’s elves,
saving just digestible morsels for ourselves,
And feed mammoth dose of
unwanted garbage to the uncomplaining lady.
What does it matter
if the blame lies with us
or it is borne by the
speeding wheel’s crush,
The loss, after all, is a loss,
Whoever is the causing boss.
To me, either both of us go scot free,
Or both are put under the accuser’s glee!
Victory
O thou poor lady of rich virtues
and big but spent eyes,
Thy rosy, soft, tempting lips
bear the blood-drawn scar of a
timeless, incessant, ever-greedy, lusty kiss;
On your fair cheek, tireless pursuer’s mouth;
Muck with saliva and pitiless, sadistic hiss;
Your majestic head,
heavily diamonded with uncountable,
innumerable, romping homes and wins;
Smartly, smirkly are tied under this crown,
thy mercilessly, heedlessly, heartlessly tresses
tampered by the fingers committing sins;
Thy firm, upright breasts have been
bobbed to excitement so many times
that stonily they no longer feel the lover’s lick,
They now feel the pathetic kid’s sickly blood-suckling.
I wonder after so many love-romps, intercourses,
love-makings, rapes, smotherings and sex games
—the victories—
what thou feel in the area of focus of such tireless passions!
Is it still the titillating sexual ecstasy,
or every endeavor is as repulsive
as the stealthy, predatory approach of a cowardly hyena?
Thou were once the Goddess of the realm of
commitment, excellence and diligent striving-forths,
But for thousands of years,
wars were lustily ravaged against thy beautiful body
and thy blissful skin was bombarded with
human passions and pestilence.
If the lofty destination all but becomes
Final steps of the mucking path,
Mud will definitely clung at its own apron,
As the stained devotee falls at its feet
after all those gutted baths,
And in its insurmountable helplessness
the Goddess of yore has been turned into a prostitute,
Though they still worship it in its old physical avatar,
But that soul banished and left destitute,
The herculean endeavors and efforts
of these throbbing masses
go on squeezing from all sides,
Thou in a tight corner,
Dressless and pitted against the wall;
Only that small, soft hand hides thy honor,
Thy Godly spirit now driven back to the
edge of a fearsome precipice,
Thou are no longer the Queen,
for thy own fate seems
worth decidable by the throw of a dice.
The poor lady now stands all exhausted;
Tattered, battered, bruised at the lowest tide,
The most coveted, prized virgin
now sulks like a dejuiced, unsuitable fruit
ready and waiting to give its stone and hide,
What can I get from thou O poor lady?
Thy treasure trove is all but famished now,
You are left with just
monstrously compromised Satan’s diamonds,
Even my beautifully courting pursuit
will seem a poor robbery and loot,
So here I step aside
from the blood- and treachery-rutted path,
and think of some long-drawn, circuitous path
that can take me
—after a life-long hard-worked journey—
to an isolated place
that may provide me thy pure, unstained sight!
Dark Shelter
Too far and deep I have gone into the pit of gloom,
And lost in the cavernous folds of the impending doom,
Even the brightest big suns now appear too far,
Faint stars these now and just flash their inspiring rays,
Feeble raylets reaching me cannot take out the ship caught in treacherous bays,
I know the futility of the beckoning light,
Even in its brightest folds outside, hope was always out of sight,
Now i go deep into my night,
With nobody as a witness to my plight,
All cherished dreams out of sight,
A wingless bird that tried to fly but then crashed from its struggled height,
Now I just silently walk into the dark hold of my night,
Alone
and forlorn,
Musicity of my soft moan,
Carrying me into hitherto unreachable zone!
Dark Shades under Light
It has been months since
I last lit my faith’s lamp,
So many days have passed since
prayers chimed in my dark den’s air damp,
My meditating self,
Now gives atheistic yelp.
Lost my faith!
Lost my prayer!
Lost my rituals!
Lost my meditative trance!
Hope Melting out of Frigidities!!
There is light beyond the deepest dark depth,
There is a bright day after the ghostly haunts of nightmarish night,
After a barren famished fight there is a blossomed springed delight,
After pining pangs of seperation there is a worthy end to the desperation,
After crashing in the gutters there is a surge and rise to bathe in holy waters,
After crying convulsions on the lips, a smile takes honeyed sips,
After the last deafeat, still there is an undying urge to accomplish the feat,
Even when blind with despair, there is hope hiding and cajoling somewhere,
Even in hate love still lurks somewhere!!!!
Self-defined World
The Spring’s traces last,
Hot summers approaching fast,
Languid notes in the air,
A solitary bird’s forlorn chirping for musical share,
Drowned in stillness
this late morning bright and fair,
Sky’s dull blue,
Overhanging the earth in paling hue,
But a smaller world is there,
The overall lethargy cannot reach where,–
In its self-defined world
in a corner tiny,
The luscious wild flower
still stands brave and shiny!
Being with the Self!
I know life has rejected me,
And death when will accept me
that time is yet to be!
Till then, O Sufi, is there any light to see?
Yes fella!
It’s in being with those who have been discarded by fate,
Who have laboriously scrawled and scribbled lifelong
but still have a clean slate;
It’s in smiling with innocent dawns;
It’s in basking in the sunny charms of forlorn lawns;
It’s in the faded twinkle of distant stars;
It’s in saying goodbye to the intrigues of my own internal wars;
It’s in being with me,
And the way it is, let it be!
Love Bites
The poisonous black coils hiss
and entangled in fanged loops go for a kiss.
Two glossy-black slithery bodies
lost in the fearsome quagmire of poisoned passion
eat each other’s identity in some unheard fashion.
The venomous fangs,
Lay bare their monstrosity,
making the moments vicious, stealthy, dangerous.
The tongues of death
nastily sway to a mysterious song,
It is like brutal soldiers of death
marching on a bloody path endlessly long.
It is like death dancing:
Its poisoned lips heaving, pushing its mighty pout
against the innocent, pure face of mortality.
Pitted against the cataclysmic forces of death,
the lovely pink sheen on the pristine face prevails.
Its softest brace breaks the hardest stones.
The fierce aura suddenly bids time to stay still,
to extinguish its fire at the acme:
the pleasure-topped hill.
The love prevails,
The horrible storm loses its restless travails
in the hazily lit mellowness of ecstatic surrender:
Defanged, depoisoned.
They are now just two beautiful creatures.
The Old Bull and the Dead Wood
I’m an old bull,
My rock-hard bones heave and pull
the rickety cart,
I’m skinny but perfect in my belief
that I’ve to justify my morsels before I depart.
I carry a dead body that once was
a robust attire for some sylvan soul,
It was an honest being;
this long, hard body,
It fulfilled all its duties without exception.
But then this is the age of vandals,
They can just vandalize only,
They axed it, chopped it.
I now carry the carcass
as the trophy of their triumphant glory,
I but silently mull over this murder story.
Delhi around me boasts of its mechanized colors;
cars, megamalls, skyscrapers,
westernized guys and gals,
and thousands of glamorous pitfalls.
Haa..wonder they can’t do without me!
With salivated gusto
my labored breathing eggs me on,
while my victimized skeleton creaks and bemoan.
The flyover is the challenge,
My owner beats my back like an enemy,
It is a treacherous task,
But it is my duty to carry the body
for its final rites,
otherwise someone will miss
many a drawing room delights.
Iron Lady
It is noisy chaos,
Delhi at its best,
Impatient horns, smoky guffaws,
tired engines, shouts, dust,…
The lotus, but, shines in the mud.
Pulling the carrier rickshaw she is unfazed,
Two kids, a goat, a bundle of poor provisions
safely in tow,
Like a valiant captain at the best row.
Clad in a dirty saree
she shines like a queen,
I don’t think femininity had ever been
so illustrious in its sheen.
Meanwhile, madly mechanized world hisses,
But its lolloping tongue meekly kisses
the dirt on her hardened feet,
She pulls the rickshaw with pride
in full maternal heat,
Cramped for space she turns the tide,
The goat and the kids though panicked,
but the mother carries on the fight
in the traffic jam,
Fights for space with utmost grace,
and clears like a swiftest deer’s brace.
The prisoner
I’m ragged old,
I was once the youth icon
of the fauna around me,
Delhi was far and nonthreatening then,
We just enjoyed its lights from a safe distance,
The city didn’t seem at war with us,
But then it just spilled over,
Its bridges, roads, cemented pavements
ate into our innards,
I witnessed massacre of my near and dear ones,
I’m now caged in a high rise residential complex,
I’m just a poor, tiny banyan tree now,
Standing as an archaic symbol
in my cramped corner of this little park.
I go out of my way to give shade and cool air,
But I’m horrified and scared.
Even a kid picking a tiny pebble
to playfully hit my canopy
sounds like a terrorist hurling a deadly grenade.
So, against my nature
I’m always on guard,
crying for peace and mercy,
But it is too noisy around,
My mercy petitions fall on the deaf ears
of the stony facades standing haughty and proud,
I’m afraid any day the judgment
will arrive against me!
Encroachers
This thunderous beat of waves on the beach
tries to reach
the hardest core of rocks standing
mute and sullen on the coast.
The sea and its maddening waves;
uproarious, stormy, and boastful most.
For years, its stormy passion kissed the rocky face,
The fury of its infatuation caught the unsoliciting
lover in a grasping embrace,
The rocks mellowed and crumbled as beach sand,
Once where there was land
now becomes the soft love bed
for the waves to shed
their gnashing fury on its soft grains,
where love sighs in gay abandon
and soft showers turn into torrential drains.
In this land—sea love pit
a new passion gets lit,
Surrendered to excited storms
we forget all norms
and let loose waves
that break false rigidities and forced facades
build inside us for decades.
Waves to waves!
Rocks to rocks!
The sea just watches meekly
this sensuous storm on its bed:
The encroachers with all shame shed,
Its warning shouts ebbing away in distance,
as if afraid of this rival stormy surge
on the beach,
It recedes to save itself from this
huffing, puffing , grunting, tempestuous game.
The Kashmiri Girl
I read a pastoral poetry,
Among hills, of elysian delight;
Light’s incidental rays when
versified moment that,
A little queen burst into view,
Eyes were mesmerized by
that youthful hill girl.
Our eyes met for the first time,
Mine from the plains,
Vehicled, wind-screened, speeding,
And hers from the mountains;
Alluring gaiety of hills and pastures,
One which saw so few;
Forests, snow, pastures, goats,
apple orchards, pines, sheep,
And jovial looks of course at
the vehicles bound for the holy cave.
The other but fed up with
brain-sauced, levelled up intricacies,
And when they butted upon,
Tensioned smiles surfaced,
Some grudges, some complaints,
Fear, excitement and adventure,
Mine for the fee-faw going on,
Hers for their sufferings.
Symbolized it two plates,
The Indian and the Eurasian,
Rubbing into each other,
Earthquakes, landslides, killings;
The tale of two religions,
Two geographies also.
She looked coyly,
The deflorating valley hurtled while
a craggy voice around,
Kashmiri girl! Child you were not
to shout for toffee, biscuit from the pilgrims,
Like the small ones doing the same.
A long road the yatris travelled,
Mature too you were not,
To snub at the pilgrim’s gifts,
From the jovial 14- or 15-stepped podium,
Thou smiled with full brace;
Nature’s smile, unchecked and pure!
Made then a V-sign with fingers,
Its meaning you may not even know:
A win for which side?
O floret! Still it was a welcome,
Also a signal to get some gift
from the pilgrims to the holy cave,
Some returning to the plains,
Perhaps never to return again.
Stupefied, I leaned forward,
To accept welcome from the houri,
Crowning the celestial beauty around,
Dollishly you smiled again,
Alas, thou were welcoming
a fleeting acardiac tin box,
Sped off which by your side,
Thy fingers somewhat shaking,
Curling to show dejection,
Under your breath
a deflorating smile surfaced,
It was laced with a sweet request,
The excitement in your beautiful eyes
touched peak as the vehicle crossed over,
That emeraldine face blushed,
I was but the poorest man,
Not to possess anything to offer
to that welcoming symbol of love,
Something strung and awakened the self
like the morning song of birds;
The ditty which the heart
just danced to beatific rhythm,
Turned it now the verse
defective at the beginning,
Yes! Fugitive and guilty—
Escaping with the heartless machine,
While that velvety cord,
Connected which many Twos,
Was on the verge of snapping,
Moving was I with lolling time;
Chhee, a passive journey
from here to the place called home.
Past it was becoming from the present,
Dirt cheap celerity was taking a toll,
A few seconds ago
the feminine Goddess smiled like full moon,
Chiding Abba was now turning it demi-lune,
That soft, juicy, jovial, ripening
bird of love and peace was branched alone.
In that moment of versification
forgot this mortal to symbolize
its ecstasy in any way,
The distance was increasing now
to the farness of hills from the plains,
Like a misbecomed soul,
I convulsed and turned to look back,
And there you shone like a little star,
Bright enough to make time reflow
by the road and your little hamlet nearby,
Crowning the path like
a milestone reached by someone, somewhere,
Missy, thou as rare as a perfect lunar rainbow!
Me lucky to spot one!
I waved at you,
A gesture of defeat, bliss, apologetic and may more,
Good bye perhaps to that
monticule moonet waving back,
Oh, what purity!
Welcoming and forgiving,
Brisking away the netherworld bursting around.
Girl, I looked back till
you turned a faint image
to these eyes,
kept on which hope for the peep-o’-day,
To see the orchid again,
Alas, you but were sheer rarity;
An elusive dreamy appearance,
Which like a fictitious love-tale
painted the heart for a while,
And then you were gone,
For seconds nine or ten
waved when you at the vehicle,
Chiselled in the heart an ogive,
Fade which will not with time,
That small ray emanating
from that montane onyx,
Will always keep travelling
to deep fathoms in my heart.
Tears were of course there,
For that smiling forgiveness,
I gave you nothing,
But the novelette poured
such tomes of wordings in my heart;
That wave of hand,
As rattled on the clatter-hearted pilgrim,
Created big tremors inside,
Enough to break the glaciers
crowning the peaks above,
With suffering peals of thunder inside,
Driven was I forward on the gutted path.
O girl from the mountains!
You smiled for Kashmir whole,
The smile which was part-coloured;
Anguish, fear, communalism, violence
got mixed in an all-pervading whiteness;
That olive branch to a visitor,
Offering the nature’s indiscriminating boons around,
Negating all that repressing force
subdues which the free-ways of liberated hearts,
You thus appeared a little saint,
Preaching love, compassion and humanity,
Oneness of nature, humanity and God.
A pilgrim to the valley,
Aching was isolation:
Not of tough clime and testing terrain,
But of hearts rapidly forgetting love,
Kashmir! The crown of India,
The diadem of culture and history,
With man-nature bonhomie,
And cradled heaven on highest terrain,
The seat for spirituality of the great Lord,
And many legends of religion mine,
Meditations in the snowy peaks,
Vales, glaciers, pastures and clouds,
The cheering spectators for truth’s delight.
Now the same peaks isolated,
Bombs and bullets yell macabre,
Only suffering cries reach His door,
From these lofty peaks under His chin
guns rattle and bombs create bloody din,
But for whom?
Ishwar or Allah?
Devastated by such a loss,
Hung midair like legendary Trishanku,
Between two extremes,
Trapped in a paradox,
With numbed senses,
Unable to think and feel,
I crossed your roadside hamlet,
And there you were,
Ready to enliven this dazed puppet
with a gold thread having silver core.
That girlish look of eagerness and curiosity,
Excitedly standing on the toes, chin high,
Neck firm like a goddess:
Seemed it a salad-days gyration:
That V-sign,
That smile,
and the wave of hand,
Byeing and good-byeing the visitor,
Hill girl, you stood for the nature around,
Sang a little song of lovely nightingale,
With the scented message that
I am above the things you think,
Waving on the road
you were thus left behind,
Rattled as I along the road,
Knew the authority of ‘moving on’—
‘Accept not welcome such’,
Many uncertainties of the stoppage:
Of Hinduism, Islam and a pilgrim,
Of a Kashmiri Muslim adolescent girl
waving at an Indian Hindu,
And thus helplessly I moved on,
Surrendered to fate and destiny,
Caught in the forces of an orbit,
Mechanised like all the parts
of the vehicle around me,
And then the curve in the orbit
took me out of sight
from that small raylet,
Which was left lost there.
A huge nostalgia piling up already:
Tears in my eyes;
Tears for the curved inevitability,
Tears for a glorious spectacle,
which the fate provided to a stranger;
Fear for the turmoiled smoke
ready to engulf her and her tiny hamlet,
And the Ws about her—
What, when, why, where, whom.
Moisture in the eyes,
Feeling of pain about the damsel,
Who an instant back
poured nature’s shower upon me,
And with such an open heart!
With such unselfishness!
A gift for the miser from the plains,
The glorious gift of the hill girl,
From the daughter of clouds,
From the sister of serpentine ravines,
From the playmate of wild breeze,
From the princess of that golden silence.
O bather in the brooks,
Catcher of early sunrays,
O snowy beauty of winters,
Or the flowery one of springs,
I don’t know whether
I will see you again or not,
But you will always remind that
nature once stood before me,
versified as a slender hill girl,
looked and waved at me,
That nature once let me read her,
Not the chapter usual
of forest, peaks, snow and brooks,
But a new chapter
in her human version,
Where a sweet swifty angel
chanced across me;
That nature from its abditory
produced a juvenile accretion,
With gaiety, mirth, hilarity;
A page from the Elysium epoch,
With words of unqualified love and smile.
The rugged topography around
saw a goddess in the ripening face,
Those fishy lips moving to fullness,
Those oval eyes acquiring hazel depth,
That nose eager to snatch female coquetry,
Those cheeks eager to be apple-hued,
That forehead proud to recently hear the call of puberty,
That chin with a naughty twitch,
All these depicted the desire and dreams
of the unconquered nature around,
Earlier it lost its smile
in the generality pervading around,
Mother nature, voice whose
came through birds, brooks and sighing mountain winds,
All these and more realized their worth
around your lips,
Whispered as you some sweet word with a smile,
These ears are most unfortunate,
Not to catch that soft whiff,
Which nature tried to voice.
Kashmiri girl!
Mother nature again hid you in its folds,
As suddenly as you appeared,
Lost are you in your small world,
I recollect the sinews now,
Scattered in my soul,
That glimpse sparkled too heavenly,
Melting pains and sparkling ecstasies,
Ever evolving and diversifying,
And me with a birdie hurry
try to relive the same picture again,
Alas, now but I only fail,
Depersonified nature I face now—
Huge mountains, forests, snow
and a large vacant pool of silence,
A wave of pain surfaces from inside,
It goes to the soul’s deep well,
And echoes from that cosmic experience
travel far into the distances.
֍♠֎
The Lone Pine
‘Embraced by the pining silence
and stillness of these mute hours,
my detached self grows more independent,
free and aloof like these misty distances
virginally spread out under the moonlight,
The silvery mists kiss my prickly needles
with love free of pride or prejudice.’
Thus mused the lone pine
and felt absolutely fine!
֍♠֎
The Beauty and the Beast
Greedy, lustful gust of wind
clasped the fragrant petals
of the full-blossomed flower.
Covetous currents of its dark passion
tore the tiny vase of beauty and perfume.
Petals fly with dust in all directions.
The storm doesn’t win
and the beauty doesn’t lose!
The former loses battle over time and distance
and dies with thorny imprints
left by the stem on its viciously throbbing heart,
The latter spreads its cosily surrendered self
in the limitless folds of peace.
֍♠֎
The Roguery of Kiss
The sun playing hide and seek among floating clouds,
The humid air wispily whispering a smart secret,
The land lying languidly with overdose of love;
its pining thirst quenched
by the sky’s countless kisses and love-drops,
A dove pair mating,
lost in the silent majesty of lusty innocence,
And he holding her hand
with a soft touch to cover stony realities,
A gentle kiss follows
to hide the mutual lies told
to make each other happy and joyful
for the time being.
֍♠֎
A Paradisiacal Moment
With softly pining majesty,
silence sings a song,
Shadows grow long,
Her soft fingers brace my face
and go along a tear’s trace.
Delicate tip of her finger bears the jewel,
A tear,
The tear that would have been
lost as a salty line on my face.
֍♠֎
Moving on
Lynched by loneliness,
I surrendered to the
sweet tyranny of solitude,
The wounds healed,
The suffering receded,
They moved away
like shifting shadows,
Painful memories lagged behind
and turned milestones on the foggy path,
Of course sweet breeze blows sometimes
and carries syrupy memories from behind,
They leave a smile on my lips
and are again left behind, as I move on,
like sweet path-side flowers,
I look back,
They wave a sweet good bye
with a still sweeter sigh,
And thus we have to move on,
All alone
to our destination next,
And pitch our tent at one fine dusk
and go for a long, long sleep.
֍♠֎
Love-cuts
Love leaks out of my body,
drop by drop.
Her cuts are incurable:
The non-healing holes;
the ever-existing outlets
for the mellowness inside
to seep out and turn stones.
֍♠֎
Sugar-coated Hook
Was it your love?
Or the fishing hook of some winning, crushing trait,
On which you had expertly put
smart, suave, attractive and beautiful bait.
֍♠֎
A Pure Religionist
Religion mine isn’t that weak,
So as to cripple me
to condemn and hate some other religion.
I don’t have to hate others
to prove love for my own.
֍♠֎
A Normal Grip
If there is a storm around you,
I mean nasty, leering sea-storm
churned out by the incurable circumstances,
Whining like a dog won’t help,
Nor will the majestically brave lion’s roar
to tame the storm help you.
It’s better that we try to swim
to the best of our humble capacity,
Leave then the rest to the unknown forces.
Believe me,
even the burning core of the nastiest storm,
ultimately embraces
the cool ice block of a genuine effort!
֍♠֎
Awakening
In the mist-veiled silence of a dream,
I sleep-walked into the crazy grasp
of a thorny bush.
All we just need is a prickly bite
to see the reality!
֍♠֎
Grand Illusions
With sand-grains grasped in my hands,
fleeting clouds in my heart
and enforced philosophies in my head,
I set out to win the kingdom
that never existed!
֍♠֎
The Angels of Duality
We hatch our own agonies and ecstasies
in the workshop of our mind,
Deep in a little corner
of our private space.
֍♠֎
The Runaway Vagabond
In the calm core of my wind-lashed, stormed self,
some unmovable shadow
defines the substance of my being.
I but have been running miles after miles,
chasing mirages to seek my identity.
֍♠֎
The Journeyman
It doesn’t matter
where you come from,
what matters is
where you go;
and more importantly
how you go.
֍♠֎
A Rain-soaked Moment
Village…
musty…
like a mossy mushroom under a banyan…
rain-lashed…
semi-shaded silvery-haired wise days…
rain-washed greenery greedily sprouting forth…
a love-seeking peacock dancing…
a bee-eater diving for its success
and the dragonfly’s failure…
flirtatious swallows riding the airy horses…
a tailorbird throwing loud vocal force
for its 7 gram weight…
a squirrel and a crow fighting for a nut…
a mud-smeared dog losing the force of its barking
against a braying donkey…
paddy standing lugubriously…
and the water sailing above in huge cloudy ships,
ready to melt and shower its love again,
any moment…
֍♠֎
The Lost Love
A dewdrop slips down
the petal of a full-blossomed rose,
It seems like a tear,
A tear for the black bee that came,
sucked juice and was gone.
֍♠֎
Top of Form
Shadows under the Light
There is no perfect darkness,
and hardly complete light,
Not entirely good
and perfectly bad either,
Darkness stands because
the light is at some distance,
And light means
the shadows are yet to crawl near,
Here lies the challenge for goodness,
because bad is just a bit away
to unleash itself and dance and sway.
֍♠֎
The Winter Dawn of My Village
My village under cold, foggy clouds,
Lives, dallies in the wintery days,
The beholder of bare earth and smiling soil
and still closed to the rampaging world,
It’s a small corner of dew, mist, frost and all:
Birds, animals, villagers all surrender to the chill,
They too carry icy shades within:
Uninterested and not much conscious of the ‘hotty modernity’.
The dawn taking a yawn after a night frosty,
Like a curvaceous damsel,
after a dreamful, sweet night,
arms stretched to the vigorous pull of youth,
reddish lips in a tantalizing twisted pout,
and breasts firm against any overture uncouth,
Her dreamy eyes shine with maternity universal,
Ready to save this world from the doomed hate,
Her eyes full of love, smiles and dreams.
The westerly breeze sashaying over the budding wheat
like a dusky, nimble-footed beauty,
The soft touch of her heels on the earth—
soothing, assuaging, healing and comforting,
And the wheat spikes open their eyes
to the maternal touch,
Like an infant moves its wispy, sparse eyelashes.
Arrogant crows fly out of the village,
To those dense plantations afar,
With wings cutting the saffron rays,
Cawing labour they will engage in the whole day
and return with the smell of twilight among tired sunrays,
Choosy parrots fly to tastier trees,
Mother nature has extra-pampered them:
The vagrant beauty of colours red and green,
Even nature seems favouring them
more than the blacks,
So they fly in the opposite direction from the crows,
And why not?
Closer they are to nature
than the rookies showing many characters human
in being retentive, querulous and cunning,
So the greens fly higher than the blacks.
Wool-laden toddlers waddle along the streets,
Like little Eskimos,
Their mothers put extra woollen layers on them:
Maternal care swaddled around them,
While they sneak away like tiny explorers
to see a bit more of this world,
Their aged grandparents, their exact analogues
on the other side of the slope,
warm their fragile, old bones around hookahs in chaupals,
Hollow cheeks buzz with chuckle and logic simple,
Far from the warmth of gushing youthful blood,
They are mere fractions of life,
trying to integrate the group
and form a still-meaningful complete integer,
to live with at least that much of life
that at least would comprise a single, bubbly youth.
The village beauty smiles behind her thin veil:
The moon behind a fluffy curtain of soft clouds,
The sun peering over the cloud’s edge,
The star smiling from the farthest distance,–
The sweet enjoyment of ogling at lotus in hazy waters.
The hurried gait to finish her household chores
looking a bit odd on her fine, work-honed curves,
Her tipsy, honeyed ogles,
potent to infatuate the hardest heart,
just fall on crude work,
The locks of hair with style simplest,
The envy of metropolitan beauties of great care,
Worry not o damsel,
The virgin soil of the village
dances around your work-beaten heels;
a chilly breeze kisses your rosy cheeks;
The tiniest particles of the mist cling
to the single lock out of the veil.
And the sun struggles to rise in the east,
Only to look at your shadow moving graciously.
Yes, such is the winter dawn!
Saffron rays cut across the fog,
Gobble up the last traces of the night;
It comes to my village
like a daughter practicing ‘nature’s care’,
right from her birth in every relation.
The rising sun will dry away the dew, mist and frost,
Seedlings straighten up; the burden is off!
Bravo! Every seed off the peasant’s hand
fights nature to feed the nation,
Salutes! The farmer’s green paint splashed around.
Icy vapours in the village pond
shelter the migrants; many from the Himalayas,
Exiled by the snows,
they live happily, warmly here,
This dawn is proud to host the familiar
crane couple, ducks, pelicans, herons and many more.
Such is my village at dawn,
Ready to go and almost self-sustain,
So few are such places, elsewhere!
֍♠֎
The Light Beyond
There is light beyond
the deepest dark depth,
There is a bright day
after the ghostly haunts of a nightmarish night,
After a barren famished fight,
there is a full-blossomed spring’s delight,
After the pining pangs of separation,
there is a worthy end to the desperation,
After crashing in the gutters,
there is a surge and rise to bathe in holy waters,
After crying convulsions on the lips,
a smile takes honeyed sips,
After the last defeat,
still there is an undying urge to accomplish the feat,
Even when blind with despair,
there is hope hiding and cajoling somewhere,
Even in hate,
love casts its beautiful bait.
֍♠֎
Love-fangs
I feel the shapeless mass of your love,
It creeps like a venomous reptile
through the garden of my heart,
It furiously hisses,
returning my softest kisses,
I bear the toxic marks
left on my skin by your fangs.
Still I carry your poisonous stones
in the soft cradle of my heart.
Why?
Because I have no choice to hate you,
I can just love you!
֍♠֎
The Immortal
I know life has rejected me,
And when death will accept me
that time is yet to be!
Till then, O Sufi, is there any light to see?
Yes brother, there is!
It’s in being with those
who have been discarded by fate,
Who have laboriously scrawled
and scribbled lifelong
but still have a clean slate;
It’s in smiling with innocent dawns;
It’s in basking in the sunny charms
of sultry, forlorn lawns;
It’s in the faded twinkle of distant stars;
It’s in saying goodbye
to the intrigues of one’s own internal wars;
It’s in being with me,
And the way it is, let it be!
֍♠֎
A Note from Spring’s Deathbed
The spring’s traces last,
Hot summers approaching fast,
Languid notes in the air,
A solitary bird’s forlorn chirping for musical share,
Drowned in stillness,
this late morning bright and fair,
Sky’s dull blue,
Overhanging the earth in paling hue,
But a smaller world is there,
The overall weariness cannot reach where,–
In its self-defined world
in a corner tiny,
The luscious wild flower
still stands brave and shiny.
֍♠֎
The Smile, the Godliness
O thou wind-lashed flower,
Sadistic nature took rapist bites
at your soft petals,
At each bite and cut it laughed
and licked its blood-smeared lips,
You but stood unfazed for
beauty and fragrance.
The storm meanwhile
kept on increasing its fury,
But for how long?
It ran out of its fuel,
And stood panting and drained out,
When the night and the storm died
and a beautiful, warm, sunny day was born,
the profound flower stood majestically resplendent!
Its storm-lashed petals
more beautiful than ever!
Why?
Because never did it let
the smile go off its face!
֍♠֎
The Flower’s Tears
Flowers aren’t supposed to weep,
Even if their petals are vandalized,
As the raping storms
spit all their fury
on their fragrant face.
It’s just for beauty’s sake, they say,
And tears on its petals are no tears,
These are unholy signs of its revolt.
So they just expect it to smile
while their poisonous fingers
greedily tear away petal after petal.
Listen you merciless fools!
A flower bears the pain most!
Even though its unfading smile
never allows it to surface on
its smiling face.
But a flower weeps unseen in the
dark hours of the night,
Humans, the dew-laden petals that you
gratify your senses with
are in fact the tears of that
soft petalous self.
֍♠֎
The Mother
I’m the fire,
Who can fathom my
burning core’s plight?
They dance in my warmth
and see only the light!
֍♠֎
The Bleeding Flower
Flower you were always beautiful!
Those balmy days blossomed your wonderful petals.
Then the weather changed,
Stormy winds, furious storms
took sadistic bites at your soft petals.
Bleeding flower,
You but kept your smile,
Nature’s fury lashed you,
Biting winds lynched you,
Like a sinful rapist they groped you,
You but smiled forgivingly.
Now the sinner stands
robbed of its fury,
And you smile more beautiful than ever.
Love, beauty and harmony prevail,
Hate, anger and lust always fail.
֍♠֎
A Moment’s Pining Call
Staring at the misty past
and forcing myself not to see
the future eager to unfold itself too fast,
I wave at the nostalgic strains
still beckoning and alive,
How I wish I could dive
back into the pools of the past,
To have my moments last
at a place that held me in its cradle soft,
That soulful embrace which still holds me aloft!
֍♠֎
The Last Prayer
It has been months since
I last lit my faith’s lamp,
So many days have passed since
prayers chimed in my dark den’s air damp,
My meditating self,
Now gives atheistic yelp.
Lost my faith!
Lost my prayer!
Lost my rituals!
Lost my meditative trance!
֍♠֎
The Coin
My story is strange,
To understand it, you need less brains
and more open of a heart,
I was a coin with lots of shine,
Then I passed through hundreds of hands
one after the other,–
The moulding darkness gave me fearful creep,
And I was lying at the top of the mint’s heap,
Somehow I was given to a young guy,
Who tossed me in air and made me fly,
Then I was given to an old lady,
She kept in a place that was very shady,
I noticed I had lost my shine,
And I didn’t look young and fine.
That is because I had grown old,
Now, I know my life’s story is told,
There are endless scars
and imprints on my soul.
I have lost my value in my own esteem,
But they still haggle over me sometime.
֍♠֎
Oh God, that Hollowness!
Oof that soul entombed in misery!
The ragamuffin, the beggar,
Great potter’s potsherd he was,
Those decaying, yellow teeth
splashed and sprayed this world
with misery and incurable jaundice.
His trifle weight could outweigh
the fattest people in the street,
And eyes ever so colourless
could gobble down springs all.
The ears like the deepest gorges,
could accommodate a billion sympathies
and countless words soft,
The tongue would talk to millions,
if the opportunity arose,
Alas, the milling humanity around
pretended not to be visible at all,
People scampered past with the
careful eyes of a cautious thief;–
saving both their conscience and money.
His emotions lay buried deep
in his famished breast,
This was his treasure trove,
He kept it safe,
Afraid to take them out,
lest they slaughter these as well,
His bleeding heart would have
painted this planet in gloomy red.
A dog, cat poop, wrappers, dust, snoot, phlegm,
And he just another addition to these,
Almost indiscernible in his insect kingdom,–
Dusting, rottening, petty and cast-out.
The accusing emptiness,
And the hallowed universe around,
Holding his mocking lighthouse,
Throwing feeble, exposing light over the
fallacies lolloping under the abounding waves
of the booming sea of hilarity and well-being.
֍♠֎
The Feminizing Man
Fragrance scented and colours prismatic,
Flowers seduce with surrendering softness
and intoxicating aesthetics,
This alluring, sweet poison slays many,
Parasitically it creeps into
the hibernating, sleepy male vitality,
And the red, gushing blood of sense and sanity
turns into silly swirls of bluish oblivion.
Foolish torrents of bewitching beauty follow,–
A marvellous decolourisation of
flesh, vision and potency!
The woman does the same with the man,–
Her moves lie under the surface,
Letting loose amorous tremors,
The tamed beast clinging to feeble, unmanly chains:
the emotions, cooings and the mellowed stone,
Then she slaughters the prey most manly,
Bravo! Salutes to the femininity:
the hardest heart under the shield softest.
Weakness has its strength in vulnerability,
Don’t mistake power by the steel in muscles,
Soft flowers and seductive women
thrive on the dew shower of temptations,
Eyes thirsty, pining senses;–
The altars of the insected, infatuated masculinity,
More the offerings on the altar,
more the Goddess thrives,
So many wither to bloom a smile
in her sly eyes.
But her demands from the worshipper
are never satiated,–
Greedy Goddess!
She thus hunts around,
But greed can never make one complete,
So she just remains a fraction,
Men cut themselves to the same
to complete her missing portion,
The happy Goddess then
laughs at the follies of the maimed.
Black bee, man sacrifice to
prove the worth of an ounce of femininity,
Rivers eat mountains, while the stones
surrender to the fluidity of the majestic masseur,
The woman meanders to fragment the man,
Making round, harmless, cuddly pebbles.
As the feminine dreams web around,
The ensnared caterpillar hums the songs of love,
The spider salivates and chuckles,
The trap of seduction,
The cobwebs of death,
The river thus triumphantly
rolls on with mighty boulders,
The song of macabre swirling
among the torrential giggle and frightening moan.
Femininity wins through its weakness,
The flowers smile and bloom on showers of tears,
The woman makes the man a means to her end,
Travels on his strong back
to reach her destination
and find the purpose of her life.
֍♠֎
A Brief Love-grip
Love loops around on an early winter day,
In the heart, endless things to say,
Shines a gently warm, bright ray,
Before the icy winters shout, and chuck it all out,
Enjoy and make hay!
֍♠֎
The Whisper
The mighty lord whispers in a soft voice,
‘My son grow thou strong
and sire chances for those without any choice!’
֍♠֎
Sweet Enemy
Though your enemy, I am sweet!
My neck thus deserves a softer treat!
֍♠֎
My Mind, My Buddy
Be the seat of my strength, not weakness.
Be the seat of kindness, not cruelty.
Be the source of light, not darkness.
Be the source of energy, not idleness.
Be the source of creativity, not limited vision.
Be the source of love, not hate.
Be the source of smiles, not tears.
Be the source of happiness, not suffering.
Be the seat of optimism, not pessimism.
Be the seat of gain, not loss.
Be the source of help, not obstruction.
Be the seat of leadership, not just sleepwalk.
Be the seat of a better human being.
Be the source of a more loving person.
O my mind, my seat of potential,
take my journey further.
Choose the better half of all the dualities for me.
One should keep reminding one’s mind.
Repeatedly.
Daily.
With eyes closed with a fervent request.
It’s a very nice, nutritious pre-breakfast food.
֍♠֎
The Voice Inside
Forget about the hoot and holler
emanating from the world outside,
And give an ear to the soft and murmurous
cooings emanating from the soul,
It has a soft and sympathetic
message for you only,–
your most personal message,
meant only for you,
Listen to these delicate chimes,
It’ll help you in finding peace in chaos,
In getting a foothold in the stampede,
In feeling rest, repose and respite
amidst constant buffeting by the world around,
It’ll help you in breaking
the hardest of superficial layers,
which suffocate and limit your identity,
And put you face to face with
your true self, your real worth,
Listen to it, close your eyes,
And pay attention with all your heart,
Just for a change,
don’t look far, look closest at yourself,
It’ll be as uneventful as looking
at a dust particle around your feet,
But it changes the universe for you,
You will have the biggest message
in the softest of whispering phrases!
And it’ll help you in finding yourself.
֍♠֎
Jewelled Vagary by Nature and Man
White-pearled necklace smiles,
Of cobweb, with dew beading it,
Silvery, on a bonsai-like acacia,
In murky morning, fog and cold.
Prickly branches sprout, frozen,
Empty-headed, standing still and mute,
Like a bribed beauty silent;
Jewelled throats disclose nothing.
The fog-vaulted sky above,
Vapours riding nuclei unseen,
Making things around appear as sprites,
And the necklace among the bones and thorns.
Gallowed! Thus serene forever,
Like the ever-impressed eyes portrayed,
Follow which the observer always,
Greedy to be jewelled more.
Nature’s goldsmithy and the man’s:
The necklace in the thorns,
The other making the skin prized more,
Beauty thus defined, thrives on donated bounties.
֍♠֎
Drawing, Sketching Webs of History
People come and go,
with genealogies spinning history,
Everything changes to survive,
Similarly, man becomes his opposite more.
Fast riding jockey he is,
Sticks to the saddle of time,
His horse trampling the turf,
And the cheers eating the dust around;
The ‘eagle’s eye’ spotting the winner
among the beasts riding the same,
Gallops match the applauds around
to cut the finishing line first.
Whoever may be the lucky one,
It’s nothing but simply
a line drawn over the last one,
And many parallels following.
What did the winner get?
Nothing but the smallest
glimpse of others doing the same;
Irony drips from the dusted moments,
Look, the victor ponders back the maximum,
Trickles which to zero
for the last one cutting across.
A trophy, a V-sign, a horse’s smile,
That is what they give him,
And some rest on the podium;
That is what life is,
Dropping every skill of ours
on the back of a beast
to carry us as a victor,
Half-man, half-beast,
we leave nothing but litter around;
Exhausted and throbbing hearts.
So much of the course is
trampled to death,
only for the thinnest line
connected by similar tangential lines;
With milestones of eulogy,
And battlefields in between,
This is what we call
history, progress and more.
֍♠֎
Death in a Forest
Night was falling in the jungle,
With stars smiling from a cold sky,
Early mist making a drink
to inebriate the trees through the night,
And the leaves preparing for a dewy bath.
A dark man matching the night’s colours,
Stumbled across the decaying windfalls,
His skin clad in more darkness,
White teeth flashed to life,
Like water in the abyss of a well,
A sigh of agony poured out
warmth in the imposing cold.
All vestiges fading out of sight,
Yet, two gentle eyes like an elephant’s said,
‘Live and let live’;
His burning self gave
some warm solace to the dewy, cold leaves,
His bright foot-soles drummed
on the decaying leaves,
Sowed seeds of life among death and decay.
The music approaching the forest’s centre,
With stars applauding
and the trees swaying to the tune,
Nature styled his hair:
Curls, locks, dust matched the jungle’s disarray,
He stumbles now more
and finally sits under a tree,
Sleeps then to eternity,
The last trace of life mixed
with the darkness around;
The morning came to enliven everything,
but not the last trace of night.
֍♠֎
Escapades from the Pyre
Hot ash of the cremated,
There lies the voice of the Himalayas,
Stood which rock firm,
Now turned into grains few
by the holy flames,
Fire ate the fire—
an elaborate oasis
combusted to a desert small.
Hot air rising upwards
with liberating soul
and mourners’ tears,
To make rain of it,
which will shower upon a flower
manured by the cemetery’s ashes;
‘Will’ dies never,
The passion of a life whole
now forms the flower of a single day!
֍♠֎
Jailed by Destiny
With every sinew losing out,
There lies the nest of my hopes,
Scattered like dying, gasping fishes,
Destiny chuckles over the vaporizing,
fading signs of its opposition.
Why not? Sinners are those
who toil against the lines of fate
drawn on our palms;
The web of destiny
that limits and chains ventures all,
And the puppets merely dancing to its tune.
Every pulse, dying or born,
Here in this world, or the other;
From the first cry to the last in an abyss,
We are just tools in the great reaper’s hands,
The cruel General leads an army
comprising we the puny foot-soldiers,
Fighting against each other;
Instruments and weapons in millions of hands,
The leader uses one to cut, thrash and mow the other.
Each hope and cause great
turn the sins bigger for the mighty ringleader,
And I am the biggest sinner,
With my misplaced ideals and misfitted compassion;
Now I stand amidst my garbage,
Unworthy, hopeless and thoroughly beaten.
֍♠֎
To Talk Small; To Talk to Earth
Hiccups come whooshing like arrows,
Bowed backs, tension-stringed souls,
The tension stored from the time immemorial,
And the sobs go squelching.
Ye squeak only, bad marksmen!
Your shots just firecrackers
around the towers of the exploiters,
The towers hanging sprucely, with talons.
Tag-rags! Thou from yore,
From womb to the grave,
Cry just one by one;
Individually and separately,
Pouring saline anguish on wasted cheeks.
Ever eager to attack
the heavenly vaults for the evils all;
Hands ready to break His head,
Never but the real cause lying nearest.
You murder prophets easily,
Never but support the champion of liberty,
So you remain as ever,
Ugh, historically the same beaten class!
Yoke fellows! Please let Him rest,
If eager to weep yet,
Then cry ghoulishly in a chorus,
Like Shiva’s drumbeats.
Or waste not anguish in tears,
And noises that fall on ears deaf,
Shout Tally Ho! For history’s sake,
Let it progress by a different type of change.
֍♠֎
Fenced Jaunties
Billions jangle, survive, obey
the instructions of a single urge;
Of infinity,
finites which itself
by kraaling simpletons in a common craze,
It lounges to exist forever,
And the night-walkers sleep-walking,
Moving in the shadows
and believing it to be a bright sunny day.
The ever prudent God, the shrewd muleteer!
Measures His fathomless depths
with puppets playing on strings of ecstasy and tragedy;
The luminary lights a bit of the stage,
Death and darkness but circle around,
where the light of reason and faith
escapes with the escaping soul.
The five senses slipping over the oily scalp;
Tongues turned steely by quoting borrowed words,
Nostrils get clogged with the smell of decay,
Eyes take the last shot of the puzzles around,
Ears drum for the last to the eternity’s beat,
The touch of mystery leaves more clueless,
And all it turns out is a
journey from nowhere to nowhere.
Sheep peeping across the fences barbed,
Hoy! Bleating jargon longing to voice the truth last;
The final mystery meanwhile
buried underwater like the lotus roots,
Above, a water lily blooms under the owl light,
Excitedly flickering to pamper
the Himalayan vanities scattered around.
֍♠֎
Beloved, Thou art Life’s Sestet
Your love became soul’s food,
O my lyrical lyre special;
Intoxicated was every pore and cell,
Mind lost its relevance,
Only heart ruled over the show.
Body vibrated with thy name,
Love-blinded, the eyes saw only your dreams,
Thy voice drummed on the plane of my being,
Millions of nerves sensed only you.
Time and this world sped off for me,
I got time-frozen for the eyes deep and brown;
Red, curvy lips eager for a smile,
That moony face bewitched me.
Path’s prickles smiled like you,
I stepped over, where was the pain!
The mind didn’t reason with heart anymore,
Even in sadness I glowed with visions thine.
Now, away you are; ever to be seen?
The soul cries, lynches each second passing by,
But, thou are my last lines,
And will remain so, till I die.
֍♠֎
An Atom Leaps, Snakes Hiss Around
Purple clouds, fires ablaze,
The atom danced profusely,
The soil around its feet got burnt,
The choreographer talked peace in future,
Peace! In invisible poisoned wombs,
Not in the beak of the pigeon white,
The reactor fumes coloured it black,
The black messenger flew around for fifty years,
Talking of peace with its
tearing talons ready to prey upon
anyone who won’t believe in manufactured peace.
Death centred on missiles privileged
blackened earth dark without peace,
A trauma of half century,
When thousand Buddhas smiled and feigned peace,
A peaceful country now becomes
more so with another noise underground,
And lo an earthquake endangers all
who had been made too safe by
the numerous stockpiles around;
The nuclear snakes,
which can bite for once and all,
Point now poison in an earthworm,
Why not? A few furrows by the latter
lay bare the hollowness beneath.
The nation that never hissed,
Only jumped like a rabbit under attack,
Now takes shelter in the steely womb,
which the python cannot digest,
Nor can play the cat and mouse;
And the mighty keepers of peace
go making floods of tears around.
֍♠֎
Destinies in Drunken Laps
Like a drunken old man,
The tree sways to the December breeze,
Intoxication of age, alcohol in one,
The other with the spirit of the air,
A boozy synchronism!
The old man and the tree,
Winy hearts and the swings.
Legs unsteady; walked too much,
The tree too, does it
sillily in the syrupy cold,
Veins and vegetations drunk!
Synchronicity involves two more elements:
A caterpillar among the leaves,
Clutching like the grandson
in the grandpa’s fragile, shaky arms,
And so the swaying moments go on,
The tree and the old man gyrate,
The infant, the caterpillar hold.
Really gentle is the breeze,
Makes not noise among the leaves,
Soufflés inside the body old,
Gentle and feeble same,
Very calm and noiseless!
Some leaves now and then
break off and fall serenely;
A sylvan goddess plucking them,
Similarly, the likes of the old man,
Full with age, go heavenwards,
The leaves around the caterpillar’s,
The old men around the boy’s,
Calmly fall one by one,
But they hold on,
The caterpillar and the child.
֍♠֎
Firefly, Thou art Life’s Sparkle
Firefly, you are nature’s cutest sparkle,
Twinkling to celebrate the mysterious wedding,
And dance to the tune of crickets and katydids,
Thy single leap in the air
matches ours from the caves to Edison.
Glow the branches like a Christmas tree;
Swirl over lake muddy like a lighthouse;
Caged in the puffs of hair, thou smile,
Starry beetle, thou cast a dim light
on an eulogy unknown
on a grave remote in the forest.
The wind whirls around you,
But you still glow like a candle
fighting for life by the deathbed,
Glow thou in the haze of winters,
Like the auroras of the Poles.
On the tender palm of a child,
Thou glow still to light the future
printed on the rosy, soft skin,
Thou have passed many hands,
And read the lines of
Hitlers, Gandhis and many more.
Sparkle like a gem from
the poorest of a thatched hut,
Make them the Kings of the world,
Shikara, cross, dome and stupa,
You sit on all of them
and still retain your real self.
From the moments of ecstasy supreme
to the predator’s clutch,
thou only smile,
To light and glow,
Touches which a lonely heart
to make it alive and hope again.
֍♠֎
Beyond Moon and up to the Soul
The lonely star twinkles for me,
Shining still brighter than the full moon,
Full hearted in the cold, milky sky,
While others sleep to the moon’s lullaby.
It casts pointed, long shafts of arrows,
Over chilly, rounded, moonlit landscape,
Engraving rays play filigree
with the ghosts loathing light, but out now!
Meanwhile, ogles this world just the beauty ‘round’;
Encircling lewd stupidity,
Destined to beat the same path,
The same journey and its similar vanity.
I welcome the winks from the
fluctuating one, whose needly rays venture into
the deepest corners of the heart;
Ditches, ravines unfortunate,
where the round beauty’s shower reaches never,
So they also smile as fairy rings,
Like prosperous moonlit palaces;
Caper and pearl in abalone come to life,
As its pointed rays caress the prickles
and seep through the entrance narrow.
Needle away the fear in a nest,
As parents return not and the nestlings huddle;
Peep through the thatched roof,
Help the feeble lamp inside,
Battle then the corners dark;
Streak into the narrowest gorges in minds,
where luxurious moony rays reach never,
Star, thou light up
far more than we ever believe.
֍♠֎
At What Cost, O Thou City?
Lost world or call them worlds,
On the pavements, by flyovers,
In slums, by traffic lights,
On railway stations, and bus stands;
A trail ablaze,
Howling, hissing in its smouldering stupor.
Serpentine curves of life amidst
roads glutted with tired travellers
and buildings choked with bleak elegance;
Each bend thrusts a shock wave,
Badged with the numbers of struggle
people falter, bawl, hackle and sneer
with thick-veined throats and emptying souls.
The urban rosary and its beads:
The halt imposed by a red light,
A mother in torn, soiled clothes,
He/she held in arms and rags,
Pleading in front of the windscreens,
And the wealthy rag-picker
searching lust in the garbage;
Green light beckons the stampede once again,
And taking a carnal sip for free
the already privileged reveller jolts away.
Beggars feigning sleep among foot taps;
Humanity dancing to the tunes of hard heels,
Wheels rumble overhead,
As the trams screech and cringe over the bridge,
Killing by sparing them to live in a mass grave.
A big car chirrs and whirrs
and smiles glossily to defracture the void,
The puffiness hovering around the wheel,
Alas, spacious more for
accommodating the emptiness of the soul;
Rich eulogies for the poor graves around.
Lost worlds piled up in a bigger one,
Fed on something squeezed tight and narrow;
Ghostly and visible not,
Its spirits turned wooden,
And multiplying at mere pin-drops,
What to talk of human efforts, Metro?
֍♠֎
The Winter Sunset in our Fields
The night is taking birth,
Sunset is imminent thus,
Over the fields cropped,
And silvery mist upcoming,
With the silent majesty of
the sunbeams gently smiling still.
The day, like a minimalist,
Looks sunward to get
yellowish orange traces last,
The sundown moment!
Mingling day and night,
With the sunbeams garlanding,
Which one? Day or night?
Guava, blackberry, mango,
Wild not, but tamed in the orchards,
Stand silent and still,
Their natural character somewhat lost,
Which they laugh away
for some purpose human,
They with the brethren wild
along the canal embankments,
Stand as spectators for the great handover.
Wheat saplings turned plantlets now;
Few inches tall and strong,
To go into the dark
without crying; no fear.
The cawing of a raven,
And a parrot’s cherishing tone,
All speak of a day gone,
Distant howl of an owl
from a lone banyan big,
Sounds like a factory hooter,
To awaken the ploughman
from his submission to the work hard,
And realize the world beyond the field.
The long-shadowed sun picture:
A weaver bird’s nest
hanging still and safe,
Similarly, the mushroom huts
warm with the lights glowing now,
All seem ready to face
the upcoming dark for the day next.
A cuckoo sings
a little song of bravery
for the hut, the nest
and everything at the dark front.
A crow ogles at the subsiding
redness in the south-west,
Whose vanishing traces
leave its eyes parted wide
and smirking with amazement,
Suddenly, realizing the need of time,
Off it goes with a flutter.
This slow acceleration of
the day into the night;
The gentle fluidity of the light and the dark
embracing and melting into each other,
The gentlest of a brace,
The slow pace,
Unnoticeable bonhomie,
And biggest will be the change;
The change as snaily
as some minutest growth to the wheat saplings.
Thus the sunset is imminent,
Moments stand calm and meditative;
Like we at the birth time
know nothing of the life ahead.
The cool air and the mist
with their dense brush,
Paint a picture tranquil,
With the protagonists standing still,
Save some small movement
among the boyish wheatlings,
And the ‘painted lady’ butterflying.
The sun goes down further,
Its rays now dissolve
in a woodpecker’s eyes
perched atop a tall eucalyptus;
Undefined colour of the painter’s disk,
Thus, the sunset is imminent;
The scarecrow in a field,
The proxy owner in the farmer’s absence,
Begins now to enliven,
With each degree of the sundown,
It enlivens more and more
to protect the child crop;
The farmer’s self symbolized through
the effigy turned human,
Or ghostly, in the dark.
The rim goes below,
Thus it’s all over for the day!
The sadness of the moment,
Or the joy of the job done,
And they all stand sunless,
In a state of sweet sorrow
for the celestial minstrel gone,
But still the moment is
pleasing for the soul.
Although everything
may not glow like a diamond,
But like an ill-formed sapphire,
It has its maze,
Where everything has got
mixed feelings, mixed appearances.
֍♠֎
Believer, Atheist or Agnostic! Which Path?
Religion is made a spade
in the hands which hypnotize
the masses blindfolded, hoping for cures;
Remedies for why, what, when…
The religionist!
The crowd before the sermonizing hands,
The lucky ones looking for
good fate’s another instalment,
And the majority begging their first,
Denied to them till now.
Awe-struck!
Stupefied thus, they squat,
The mighty grip around the tool’s handle
meanwhile rakes up further ritualistic earth,–
The great spadework!
By the hands preaching, hypnotizing the audience,
who cannot see beyond the fence,
Get up when they after the show,
See apostles build up,
answering meaninglessly
the great queries of what, when, why, how…
And more lines get written to theology,
The magic book of all panaceas.
The Pandora box!
Opens with uncountable spectacles,
And the tears of agony, joy, everything,
The chorus now grows further,
Politicians, bureaucrats, corporate…
The expertise! The hypnotizers join
with their ever-elusive tete-a-tete;
Spreads His gospel theatrically,
And the mass stupefaction multiplies.
The great religious band!
A pair of hands symbolizing God’s,
Music in the background by the experts,
And the hypnotized cloud enlarges
from the religious opera house,
Reaches the lone hut, villages,
states, countries and continents,
And finally the farthest universe,
Enlarges it too much,
To infinity!
The hypnotized universe!
Ever multiplying talks about why, what, when…
Stamps from the Pandora box:
Devotional, devout, pious, religious,
After the show, they all come out,
Stamped foreheads, the believers!
Beguiled by the tricks of the gloved hands,
If hypnotized not still,
They bark at him ‘Atheist’,
The one who questions what, when, why…
This unstamped, unorthodox outcaste,
Counters the divine oratory
with sizzling counter-points,
Questions upon answers to what, when, why…
And they neigh in desperation.
Opens the atheist now
the Pandora box of his own,
The box with tricks to
to undo all the great work done,
Another magic book!
But for the negative infinity
by a ‘single god’ over all the godheads,
To dehypnotize the public,
Too great an effort!
But still a small whiff,
Unable to create a storm
of negative winds,
and negative why, what, when…
Devotional winds blow around, meanwhile,
So what do we have now?
The majority hypnotized, blindfolded,
And someone in tantrums,
Arguing testily and
striking as many heads as possible,
To awaken them from the slumber,
Alas! He but is negative more, restless more.
What do we have now?
A dish with spice:
Orthodoxy spiced with unorthodoxy,
Hence tasty, juicy more.
Someone is also sitting somewhere,
His existence too earthly,
The real dweller of the earth!
The agnostic!
Questions or their counters
don’t reach this self-religioner,
So, worry not about what, when, why…
Beyond the confines of luck and destiny,
This conscious, relinquishing soul
has outflown too much from inside,
Vacuum thus created, where
cravings die and magic tricks fail.
֍♠֎
Reaching Heavens with Wings
There I zoom like a bird,
Imagination matching its flight,
Aerial view of the panorama below,
With earth laughing, cajoling,
But, I sense the futility of its smile,
Which myriads personify by
living, sweating in the furrows.
Bird’s eye! Yes, I just see
the scenery general most,
Without ‘particularity’ any,
Strikes which at the chance first,
No, I don’t create particularity,
Not of woman and things tempting,
My ‘bird’s eye’ slipping over the edges,
Making curves of generality,
So universal is my love,
Not to be caught by a single heart.
O man, fly like a bird,
With wings carrying across
the infinity of the universe;
Never become stones of personality,
Bound by specialities many,
Whom many things strike
like bugs eating the dead;
When every incident and trend
lynch the prisoner chained.
So fluff away like a bird,
At the trivial most instance to save life;
I do the same like a bird,
Shy away from everything,
And fly away, tail twitching,
To the horizons where nothing pinches;
No love, hate or nymph-like thing
cling to the mind to create trauma,
Yes, I wish to be only such!
֍♠֎
Our Existence Torched: The Life
Life is like a shooting meteor;
Just a whizzing-past star,
Whose starting point nobody sees,
But of course, visibility of the end,
Wow! Abruptness with a vengeance,
And wormy annihilation in
capacious, unbound space.
We are the shots from the unknown;
Intentional or accidental?
Predetermined or chancy?
Willy-nilly, we just roll over
the calamitous mud of the slippery path.
Life sparkling with a fizz,
Pain, joy, smiles, weepings and ecstasies
swoop like a meteoric trail in the sky;
Born to soil the earth,
Like the broken star’s residue,
We add to the primal matter.
From unknown to the unknown,
We are known as a ‘life’,
Just as the luminosity of
a shooting, breaking star.
֍♠֎
The Old Man and the Hut
The old man and the hut,
Reed and grass sheltered
like the old bones in his body frail,
And both of them hold
on the brink of life and death,
being and non-being,
Wispy fleecy in a hush,
Penned down by the destiny when
she was on flying clouds
and wanderlust.
The old man, nobody knows
from where he came,
Stranger even than a foreigner;
Wind-fallen in his own land,
A pedigree, on the verge of
ending on his side;
Nobody to inherit the wishy-washy shelter.
Nature habituated to them,
The old man and the hut,
A small brook, a forest averagely thick,
And a loneliness persisting,
Save a sortie or two
by an occasional adventurer,
Who may come to spread the self.
Nothing changes here,
Except time through his wrinkles
and some sinew blown from the hut,
A marvellous, fluid constancy of nature:
Same chirps of the birds,
Same bubbling in the brook;
Also the same generality,
Except one particularity,
The old man and the hut.
Wintery shivers in his humble bed,
With eyes staring at the roof,
Giving strength to it
against the raindrops naughty,
Longing to play with him.
In summers, he sleeps outside,
In the open, under the starlight,
Too much light above!
But alas, too far!
Spread out thus in the open,
A look into the stars above
with the eager eyes of a child,
Then close with a peep
into the depths of age,
Thus sleep layers over him,
He knows not when,
And where, nobody cares.
֍♠֎
Sympathy Game
Disability, permanent or short-lived,
Is a cause of distress extreme,
For, sulks one in the ripped self,
A mere breaking star among shiny thousands.
Satisfaction of the competition
being the fuel of life,
As nothing else is society
but relentless rivalry among the capable.
Abhorred is robust and fit here,
Know they, fitness is nothing
but a hindrance in their path,
And cursing goes everyone.
No time for the interests common,
As heart has shrunk much,
Bellicose is man, bellows only;
Bereaved human is rival such.
Ah! The redeeming glimmer exists,
Thank God! Thrown is someone
out of the race mad; abed is faculty,
Sprouts then the sympathy fountain.
Emotions, adages pour out
for the poor player out of the race,
Admire they the infirmity in him,
Already dead he is without playmanship.
It’s the disease and disability,
Making you suffer lot,
Yet smile at it,
For it has aroused an emotion precious.
֍♠֎
When I was Small
Bird was I, flew tirelessly
in what was to become golden past,
And the innocent, humane most,
Matured are the wings now,
But lost is ‘big’ in its bigness.
World was then,
as small as me, and beautiful;
Distorted are both today,
As I trample the ‘soft me’,
And the world grows up harsh.
Things only trivial now,
Hugely inspired that delicate heart,
The urge today being fat;
Lost is imagination and heart shrunk,
Mind has become iron clod almost.
Weak was then I,
for flying too high and far,
I flap wings too much today,
But tired I am,
as wings fall short of the desires.
Then I had only heart,
Too big and I lived,
I only survive today
with a tiny heart;
Vast is my mind today.
Frightened was I then of
most common, simple things,
But now, bold I am,
not to fear any inhumanity,
Present of that past, I am.
֍♠֎
Heaven under the Hot Sun
The sun marches north; sultry evenings,
Bulging wheat pods await rituals last,
The wizened golden stalks ready
to surrender the fecundity crowning them;
Farmers cut, gather, reap and mow
with bull’s eye and parental care,
Birds filch every lost grain in the soil,
Crops smile daughterly in the days bright,
Hats off! Accept they the rites last with smiles.
A dog, dry-mouthed, awaits master’s lunch,
Birds, their beaks full, ferry the cargo to the nests,
A bunny runs in the fields bare,
looks for some hideout any;
Above, a gibberish crow caws a laugh,
A sparrow looks into a waterhole,
Few drops there and a hornet gnarls over,
A child plays under a tree’s hot shadow,
The air dances around the working mother;
Plays with pollen in hair long,
And she doing filigree with grains,
The locks of her hair try to protect
the ‘moon’ shining in the glaring day,
She jerks them away and smiles.
֍♠֎
Thrives my Village
Life and people stroll easily,
Fast and furious urbanity outside
being the sole kicker at the easy pace,
It’s a rickety creaking pace,
Measuring minutes in hours,
Hours in days,
It retains its creaky pace
even if the land share may shorten,
or enforcing come the modernity’s grip.
They are all here,
and the same poor villagers,
Nature’s cruel bite or the soft hand,
It’s all but life whole;
Be the dripping roofs,
Mud in the streets,
Or ‘life drops’ in the fields,
All are the basics here.
The children too simple
and the creations of adaptations,
Stuffed in the studies captive
wait they for the last bell,
God’s pity or else,
Weak and empty they are not,
and will survive through life all.
The elders amazed at the change,
Try to catch up with the new,
But survive they only,
Age is a curse,
for it deprives one of the productivity,
Outcaste they are;
assemble and remain in a unified maze.
Simplest is the society here,–
The psyche prone to ignore,
The hands eager to work more,
And hence the life going with easy lore.
֍♠֎
Footsteps Lost
Walking I was, some day,
Along a track; a tracery it was
of those who passed in the past;
‘Hurried only they,’ I mused; left poor trail,
Mingled which easily in the earth.
The beaten dust beneath looked
easy for a venture fresh,
Swayed I with pomp and pride,
for easy was the poor path to tread;
And admiring all, went I with a happy song.
The soil below seemed
only poorly tottered in the past,
As no footprint was distinct,
I will leave a permanent one,
Thought I, proud of youth and time.
Praised I everything,
Fresh and exuberant all,
Trying I was, to put
steps distinct, firm most,
So that mingle they not in dust soon.
Alas! Pinched the sun bitterly,
Shrewd wind howled; Hated I all,
Lost rhythm and balance, and tottered,
Vanished my footprints right there,
Sadly sighed I for their short span.
֍♠֎
Live Bright in Dark
Dream it was, happened
between conscious and unconscious,
Lost I was in gloom, but
made it the flaccid self alive,
Passing was the night and
lying I was, stretched piteously.
Weak to the extreme;
Lined horizontal I was and dormant,
Existed so low, puny and dwarf,
But raised it me, telling
so little was left of the night;
Awake! Compensate the scrawny past,
I now realised, obscured was I by
my own fears in the darkness of night,
So low I’d made myself,
And piteously near to the ground.
Certainly some were there,
Who valiantly fought the gloom,
And were alive among the dead,
Realised I, lived they more,
Enjoyed the panorama swathed in darkness,
Made they full use of the pitch dark,
While the rest slept among the dog’s bark.
Vertical I turned myself,
Decided to be among the few,
Little was left of the night,
And lived then brightly,
With that great dream
shining in my eyes.
֍♠֎
Friendship Unsocial
A lot of relations throng,
God creates some,
Draw we some in the social garb,
But nothing relates humans,
as does friendship divine.
Lynched by formality is this world,
For nothing is society but rules of convenience;
The individuals form society by
becoming ceremonious, social to all,
Doctrined are thus the relations here.
But, friendship evades laws,
Most informal as it is,
Sheds away all cautioned, decorated self;
Enlarges the individual’s scope with soul freed,
Suffocated who earlier with the chained self.
All behave stilted, skewed here,
Some for their own greed,
Also, some for others’ harm,
Thus framed in cunningness becomes each,
As nothing else is society.
But friends share all,
Break they walls of social norms and etiquette,
Multiplies individuality to
become a spacious whole,
Ethereal is this ‘unsocial’ supplement.
Many envy the enhanced persona;
Individuality lost among the friends,
But, the enlarged self never
goes astray; such is
friendship, fracturing formal rules.
֍♠֎
Humane is My Village
The air is laden with cooperation,
No thorny apathy;
No mob to throng the cornered self,
And murderous individualism axing hearts,
Here, we have a mixed self: the kind behemoth.
Neither bucolic love and unity whole,
Nor nucleated as in concrete jungles;
Limited is the spectrum; holds which
tender human bond still strong, and
live we all in slow majesty of decent unconcern.
The hunger and thirst for electricity and water,
Though dents the moral fabric a bit,
But in patience and forbearance the real self prides—
To bear all hardships and deprivations;
And adapt to disadvantages all.
The people still carry habits, conventions old,
Burdened further by the stuff new,
Still, carry they the rusted self with rural pomp,
Habituated to ignore and move on,
Veneers which as rough pride of the ruralites.
The commuters to the city carry old bags,
Hoping to fetch something new,
The very same villagers still they are
whose rough-hewn character
breathes with unease in the city big.
Still able to smile and laugh,
Holding a big open heart
in its tanned, work-beaten, hairy chest,
Priceless it is for the modern world,
Very few as there are places such.
֍♠֎
The Little Sparrow
Passed the long stormy night,
The tiny sparrow saw a world,
Strange and scary enough to turn him
worried for the first time in life.
The sunrays ended the gloom,
Darker was the clouded night,
Light brought but misery more,
Far away was he from his little nest,
‘The night storm took away everything,’
Sighed he,
His little body aching due to the strikes
by the unseen drops in the dark,
Aching were the delicate feathers,
due to the buffeting wind,
Shivered the little one,
under the impacts huge.
Remembered he,
how a watery gust
blew away their nest in the dark,
In just one pitiless moment,
lost was the warmth of his siblings,
And gone was parental protection,
Thrown away they were into the night,
as the tree lost its footing.
Played he always there,
Never thought or worried,
Realized he now the opposite,
Piteously ruffled was the fur,
Distorted were feathers,
Desperately he looked for his family
in a nest still intact nearby,
It was a replica of their own world,
Wept the little one with its poor whole,
Thought, he will die.
֍♠֎
The Shepherd Boy
Lying was he in nature’s lap,
While his sheep grazed in
warmth early of a November sun,
Femininely undulating hillside it was,
Rolling pastures,
Overlooking thick-wooded shadowy vales.
The rock beneath gave all he needed:
Felt its hugging warmth and support hard,
Swirling came the breeze by the valley,
Intoxicating it was, as the bright sunrays
stole the bitter pinch.
Shared he the perfect calm,
His herd bleating in harmony,
Rubbing against each other and gambolling,
Running came a little lamb,
Licked his hands,
The master surrendering to the
titillating tinker of love and peace.
Gazed he skywards lazily,
His eyes saturated with nature,
Very thin foamy clouds trailed
across the vast blue unknown,
Same was his existence here.
Faced as he the serenity above,
Forgot the self, shone as his face
under the great fire’s light above,
Flew kites tirelessly there,
He too, with imagination unchained.
The wood below across the valley,
Sang with the season;
Some sound broke the silence now and then,
But sweet it was,
As nature was playing with itself.
֍♠֎
Rain, or Not?
Poor farmers provoked the monsoon,
For it’s their last savoir
despite the modernity all,
Farms, cattle, land lifeless feared the burning sand,
Looked meekly for the hope last.
Then came the respite thundering,
Healing them like mother’s kiss;
Hayricks, animals, mud-houses,
All made merry with jumpy Utopia,
But to a point only,
Because beyond that misery stares starkly.
Starts the spiritual plight again,
But for the opposite now,
Fee-fawing scarecrow turns the blessing,
As the little life of before,
Gets stalled by the gushing torrents,
Heresy turns all for the low-borns,
It’s a world swinging to the extremes,
Never allowing them the stable life of balmy
balance in the middle.
Viciously hammered all with the season—
Paddy appearing just grass over the water sheet,
The cattle gone ownerless,
And the farmers working tirelessly to
drain the great solvent away,
Now they pine for the dry earth;
Dreams of dry, buffeting, blinding sands,
Because water is the foe now.
Zoomed then the drama official,
In all its hypocritical sheen,
Came the dirty hand gloved nicely,
The chameleon offered the rites soft;
Joined mankind nature to plunder emotions.
But the poor people new,
The curse was no irresolvable puzzle,
Hide which can in the nature’s maze,
It was simply a man-made flood;
a common way of
saving a great city from getting flooded
by diverting the rich waters
to the poorer fates.
֍♠֎
Tolerance Divine
Bears society the onslaught,
Abound ‘isms’ around,
Suppress they the kind, loving natural self,
Dead sea are they,
Drowned is man in,
Modernity aids the evils old,
Making them almost immortal.
Shrinks the world today
with a deadly spasm,
Its small size
not a sign of humanity broad,
But a stone like
exploding dead apathy,
Useless is the human real
for the ultramodern heart,
Centuries tread away,
Tangled is man more;
Inhuman and intolerant manifold.
Yes! The only hope being
the tolerance divine;
The thing humane most,
Able to do good to all.
The chances to survive lie
not so in modernity,
As in being a human real,
Intolerant who is not
like a hardy machine soulless.
֍♠֎
That Great Flight
Merrily gushed the air,
Happily gyrated the tree compassionate,
Shook the nest; the nestlings became aware
of both good and bad comingled in nature.
Far away were the parents,
Laboriously engaged in ripe corn,
The farmer’s little son watched
the birds old, yet littlest to him!
Flew he them away unwillingly,
Due to father’s past rebukes,
Subdued which his innocence to give up
fancy and realize the ways of the old.
Flew then the group,
to that dense wood far,
Attracted which always
the little boy’s dreamy self.
Flew he also, one day,
On foot to catch his fancy,
Lagged behind but the poor,
for we humans trudge the earth only.
Realized the bird couple,
the plight innocent of the child,
Melt heart theirs for the child,
The same were in the nest.
Flew they slow and halted on the way,
To allow the man’s child to catch up,
Joined bird-human to fly,
Delighted which the mother earth.
The boy found himself in a dream;
Stood under the tree,
The birdie kids flapped their wings,
And parentally sang the bird couple.
֍♠֎
The Weeping ‘Dead Place’
Solitary is the place,
Left out almost as a grave,
Comes nobody to live here,
As if a cemetery it is,
Beyond the nature-human tussle of life.
Pulled it never the time’s leg,
So passed it swiftly most;
Nothing blossomed here,
Which could drag along,
And force the time to stay and pause.
Shrubs, arid semi,
Rocky foothills small,
Faded grass, poor earth’s robe,
Sulks which in clumps,
at places here and there.
Chokes the wind to sing
the prayer for the dead,
Sunrays fall in impassivity,
And wail burningly,
Above is the sky forlorn and discharmed.
Thorny branch sheds tears
motherly for the birds,
But come they not in
the poor mother’s clumsy lap;
Play they in gaudy shades elsewhere.
Calls it the humans;
feebly crying to catch someone’s attention,
But, unbothered is everyone;
Man as well as nature,
All avoid this place.
֍♠֎
Zeroed Self for the Crane Couple
The winter is ageing,
The small heaven sulks here,
Wheat’s seedlings strong now,
Dew feeds grass healthy,
Meekly await they, only you,
Yes, away you are! But where?
Winter always seemed natural,
Started with your arrival—
Legs long, wings big and beaks strong,
Made you look a bossy bird,
Echoed the horizon with your resounding cree…k,
Nothing is same without you.
What is this poor night
without those clarion calls?
Sailed which across the dark,
Now, the same night with
countless twinkling lamps above,
Alas! Missing is its pride.
So dull is the cold rain,
Drops waste without wetting your fur,
Ah, what luck of those
mingled which in your shabby coat!
Now die they in earth,
Tears are they for a chance missed.
Moon cared not about its diminishing size,
As you turned the crescent brighter,
Your gentle movements under
the chilly night played with solitude,
You alone were there to share its sorrow,
Empty now, and suffers alone.
Then, the sun played with earth;
Your shadow proved its essence,
Now, looks it timidly below,
Lost is its identity without you;
Nobody big like you is here
to play with the shining rays.
Red adorned you around the head,
The sky lost its colours in yours bluish gray,
The humans may envy size and
the stormy wind around the wings,
Even other delicate feathers looked strong,
Now, just poor birds are they.
Those long flights brought
the fragrance of land distance,
United was my country,
due to your migrations across it,
We felt unity in diversity,
Landed you down as you here.
Thy long strides measured the land,
Its vastness was proved by you,
Alas, lies it worthless now!
Unfortunate mother, without baby
to measure its maternal depth,
Away are you! Survive or not?
Little was your world,
despite all those bigs about you,
Bird’s vapour eyes you were not,
As, lesser was that scary alertness,
And still more, and more, as
I approached you with my humanness.
At a certain night
you tugged at my heart through the ears,
Heart’s imagery it was or else,
Maybe just a deep sigh of the past,
I don’t know:
At the zero hour
zeroed my imagination and reality.
֍♠֎
The Human Coronet
So strange are we humans,
Rule a swooning world by faking consciousness,
Take us to be the Kings but slaves we are
to the self-perpetuating mind’s yarn,
And always bowed down by the whirling emotions.
A tyrant is this human trait,
But compensates with coronation;
The humans rule with a heavy diadem,
Happy we are to be supreme in the food chain,
But fodder we are to our own selves.
Make we fun of the beasts
for being bald without the coronet;
The crown finds them too low,
So taken they are as light-headed and funny;
And we high with a loaded head.
Lashed is the master by the desires unstoppable,
Cries, wails, neighs, but cannot deny
as a revolting ‘no’ needs the head’s shake,
which the King’s craving avoids,
for any browbeat will turn the head bare.
Dressed we are with the shiny fabric
of chronic self-importance,
So much is piled up by the ‘thinker’
that it turns a creaky, complaining wagon,
Throw we then our load at others with hate.
֍♠֎
Nothing Isn’t My Village
Testy, desultory or heavenly,
Bright as theism or atheistic blind,
Devoid of twenty-first harum-scarum,
But not a dormouse of the nineteenth,
Nothing is my village, yet all.
Perfect are a few weeks of spring here
even without the famed flowering flora,
The acacia prickles smile
among the lush green branches,
Nature’s soldiers last; the green army retreating fast.
Not nature’s compassion soft,
Nor concrete’s girdle hard,
Soil’s warmth scent or burn,
Villagers enjoy the extremes both,
While, the oxen envy the master’s stamina.
Law abiding, if they ignore,
Awareness shows only the opposite,
Rises humanity with the sun,
Skilled and unskilled
live here lifefully most.
The summers pass, remain as they
cool to the facilitated islands,
Easily strolls the cold, stay as they warm
to the icy deprivations,
Such are the people here.
Aspire they only a harvest good,
Loss-gain being the sequence,
Teasing nature throws them
on the hard but motherly soil,
Live where they as simple villagers.
֍♠֎
Little Angels
Little angels, swim in the pond
till the lazy days of late winters,
Flew the elder ducks to reach the hills,
For the nature’s law to survive,
Ducklings but too small to fly to the hilly lakes.
Earlier, started the monsoonal song above,
The pond got fed to be a tiny lake,
Secluded and safe turned the adjoining land,
For, no foot treads there
through the chilly winter whole.
And the ducks far in the hills
smell the heaven waiting motherly,
They feel the aroma of peace extreme in the plains,
Despite being so close to the agents of noise,
Arrived they with birdie songs and quacking notes.
Little ones, you were then just hopes,
Eyed the parents the village pond to breed,
Many dreams thronged the waters,
Swam throngs of tiny ducklings among the elders,
Quack-quack started the great birdie game.
Passed the winters; the early born grew,
Many more were the big ducks now,
But alas, the serenity lost,
The silence was conquered,
The spring brought the conquering foot.
Now, your elders sip peace in the hills,
You here; being the last to be born,
Unable to take the flight long,
Pray I, grow thou strong alone!
And conquer the hills with a brave song.
֍♠֎
Small Farmer
The shifting shades under the sun,
The poor farmer’s fate fluctuates with the same,
God watches detached from far,
Test’s His creation’s performance
through endless nature’s play.
A misfit in the modern world,
He desperately tries; turns unfit,
Greater is the loss,
for a misfit can have a hope of salvation,
The unfit loses his rights to dreams all.
Still, the dew shines daughterly,
The morning breeze sooths motherly,
The rising sunrays enhance the small self,
The brave shadow treads bravely afore,
Implores him to be happy and live just for a day.
The birds pass joyfully chirping;
Large becomes the small world,
Walks as he in his little world,
The insects line up to honour,
Confident becomes the poor man.
Fading sounds from the village,
Again remind him of his real worth,
As home is there,
Storehouse of all deprivations and anxiety;
Much to be extracted from the plot small.
Big-hearted he becomes,
Till he reaches the last night’s dream,
But alas! Too big for his little parcel of land,
Passes the sweat-drenched day,
only to repeat its old version with the next ray.
֍♠֎
The Little, Mossy Stepping Stone
I am a round, moss-clad stone
laid as a fording step on this small, shallow riverbed,
I am glistening white on my face,
And moss-skirted around my base,
Sways my stony heart to the gentle tugs
of the shallow, rippling waters,
I, along with my brethren,
Line up to define a path,
across this little pebbled valley,
Humans, you may have a stony heart,
under the soft muscles in your breast,
But mine is definitely
a soft, mellifluous, mossy green one,
And I wear it on my sleeve,
While you step over my clean white face,
And scamper away,
I just pray,
Safe you reach,
Without any further breach.
Mossy Fluidity
In the mossy fluidity of a solitary pool
in a lonely vale,
An open, welcoming canvas,–
Mossy green, pale yellow, rusted brown and mottled gray,
As a tired traveller I stand and
see my shadows while the mountain breeze hail,
My spread self mixed with the mossy waters,
And I marvel at the small canvas holding the image,
While the brook tries to rewrite the colours.
֍♠֎
God! Who or What are You?
God, reside thou where?
In a simpleton’s easy, empty mind,
or an intellectual’s heavy, shiny brain?
Fill you an innocent, almost empty child,
or burst from the laden, wise old?
Sun’s warm rays are you
that bathes us with life?
Or the dark, blind night,
imitate when we death and forgetfulness?
God, which facet of appearance you are?
The winner’s pride are thou?
Or sulk through the defeated?
The water around a lotus
or the parched land below thorns?
God, which extreme you are?
Ever blooming, fade not,
or rejuvenate now and then?
Punishment to the guilty
or mother’s soft hand to the wronged,
God, what art thou?
Strong’s heavy impact are you,
or the weak’s escape?
Whether the animals in the jungle,
or most social are you?
God, which thing art you?
Humane more than humanity,
or a taboo you are to avoid?
Whose master are you?
Of those devouts in temples and shrines,
or just a common good being?
֍♠֎
The Wind from Dreamland
O wind, come you from far,
From that land beyond dreams,
which the eyes never saw, nor ears heard,
and the sleep missed even in dreams;
Bless thou! You enable my senses
to feel, hear, see and dream.
I dream with eyes open,
Of the land distant,
Thy touch makes me
imagine all that must be
now happening there,
Circle as you around me.
Those small hills rounded,
With pastures, scattered trees,
Clouds playing with the sun,
And the laughing blue also,
The distant howl of a wolf,
and the bleating lambs straighten their ears.
I accompany that tiller
walking barefoot, on the way
to his small farm and
touch the tools he shoulders,
And wish him the best of potatoes,
O air, I can feel his worries also.
I look at that house far away,
On that flat ledge by the hillside,
Chimney smokes, doors closed,
Family gathered around a table,
And listen to their chit-chat,
O wind, I can see their balmy routine.
My heart feels their feelings,
They worry about the father
gone to the nearest town;
One of them going to the window
and stare into the misty distances
of the winding, hilly path.
I walk on the grass unbeaten,
which softly pricks with virginal blades,
Nobody must have walked here
except some lone animal,
Or, some forlorn love-drenched soul,
I rest on the green carpet now and close my eyes.
Sit now under a luxuriant tree’s canopy,
Few must have rested here,
A bird chirps above in the green,
Heart beats with its melody,
And the notes go spreading
and surrendering to the majestic solitude.
There flows a brook,
Its gentle murmur on the pebbled bed,
The eyes see a fluid canvas:
Sand, pebbles and fishes,
I now dip my legs in the water,
I feel rain somewhere up.
O wind, I can live all that scene,
Distances have melted,
You mixed that hilly essence
as you swept over the charming panorama,
That is the world only for me,
As nobody else hears, sees or dreams it.
֍♠֎
Betrayed Self of the Indian Soul
Runs today this country, but how?
Gazing up to its stars, who
sowed the potential seeds of mass destiny,
Oof, defeated now by its masses own!
Their self vouched for a nation great,
But now self-betrayed most,
Self-defeating today’s youth
listen not the soulful cries of those martyred.
Ripe fruits they were,
Thrust themselves in freedom’s crusher,
Blood came pure, while the fleshy mass
and powdered bones smiled in the dust.
Those dying heaps of flesh dreamt
a rainbow-hued nation,
Alas, we stomped over their blood’s carpet,
With monstrous hoofs of every sort.
Torn out dream it’s now, smiling in some old eye,
While we run hoarsely, sometimes just to
pick up certain dusted piece
on some anniversary or the other.
Nehru’s ‘productive hands’ throttle others;
Non-violence simply an impractical antonym,
This nation will wither; its rulers show
moral corruptibility extreme; subjects do the same.
Gasps this nation for life, its body
sixty years old, clad in wornouts,
Holding its staggering and crawling billion souls,
But for how long, I am afraid to guess!
֍♠֎
Mother
So many things exist, to whom
one must shed the pungent sense of self,
But the murky self always neighs,
Making a nimble, smart, selfish, social dummy.
Stretch such things till the stars,
Whom our desires turn to dust around our feet,
Although measurable not,
Mother is but the loser most.
Machine is this society,
Operates on input-output principle,
Vary the losses among different relations,
Ever-giving mother is but the giver biggest.
All her relations take it through:
Parents as the ‘other’s property’,
Outshines husband as the hope last,
And children fatten on her maternity.
Mother of pearl she is,
Harder the shell, the better it is,
One day, sulks which empty, the pearl gone,
Suffers she with the hollow title of an ideal mother.
Most imbalanced is her equation,
Fattest is the oaf on the opposite;
Melts her in childhood,
And befools in his youth.
Mowed down in the old age,
Obsolete and ignored manifold,
Dies she before herself,
Without any solace even from the past.
֍♠֎
The Orthodox Proverb
Work hard, you will get a reward—
It’s drilled deep in childhood soft,
A saying it’s only then,
Simple minds find it the elders’ trick,
Who any way must find fault
and ordain so many things unplayful.
The same proverb spreads its tentacles,
Grows it with the body,
Burden it is not now,
But a necessity to survive,
And they obey its command,
What a devil! Free by now.
The adults are serious enough
about name, fame and glory,
Dedicate they themselves to a cause,
Create a glass palace so huge,
Crumbles which one day,
Splintered pieces cut through the flesh.
The evil survives still,
Now through the sympathetic pout,
Except the sulking self, the universe parrots it,
What can the poor soul do?
If not aspire for the palace again,
Alas, the fate repeats itself most often!
Success is rarely the outcome,
If it comes, greater is the endeavour,
somehow doomed to fail another time,
And if not, failure is loosened
from the garb it had taken,
Both lead to the same age-old futility.
Battered is failure through pompous words,
To get ready the wounded,
And obey the immortal proverb’s command,
Dies it never, only we perish,
Even the dying is wished to
succeed in the life next!
There is no other way,
But to fall in its trap,
It’s supposed to last
even after the death,
If the saying has an exception,
Then please, tell me one!
֍♠֎
The Lost Light
Stumbled I across
the rugged mountain track,
Tall pines lingered above,
The gigantic peaks snubbed,
I felt the smallest there.
Cold air touched peaks,
Higher they appeared still,
Shrivelled I and crinkled,
Passed clouds above swiftly,
Confirmed piteous lowness mine.
Trifling I felt,
Took them as ghosts around,
Subdued I was,
Less by the body weak,
But more in the mind.
My eyes saw piteously,
Sick was my soul
in getting fooled by the pessimistic eyes,
Aching were my legs,
More by the weakness imagined.
Earlier, the sun illuminated
the whole valley alongside,
Living were all except me,
Now, setting it was,
And imminent was gloom.
Knew I, the lost opportunity,
Wasted I the entire day
in seeing desperate dark,
Now, manifold it was,
Realized I, the lost light.
֍♠֎
The Eulogy, Vanished
Frowned upon he was,
As failed he all expectations,
Own was fault,
Lived he on others’ dreams.
Like a slave he was,
Wasted life whole;
Did as the master wanted,
Died then empty all.
Always he cried hoarsely,
Sand song theirs,
Bleeding were his own
deep inside the imprisoned self.
Eulogized he was then,
Renowned became the grave,
Rot inside which the flesh
of the dead heart’s unsung song.
Fame he took it to
crush his own heart’s freedom,
Played they with it,
While his soul cried.
Expected they still more
from the slavish being,
Crumpled which under the demand,
A living grave he turned.
Now uncouth history he was,
Same was the grave,
Alas, eulogy had vanished
like his powdered bones in the grave.
֍♠֎
Last Death
Dirty song is life, peeled off
throats of those who sing this grisly verse,
It is a curse,
we get it due to past births’ misdeeds.
Why was I born? Only to
continue breathing like a statue,
every cycle pinches; why all
live to be murdered at each step?
I aspire to live, but always
lynched to death, which comes never,
Leaves me tossing and bleeding,
I pray for the divine death only.
Skinny dog paddling for life,
With a mute look in the waters dangerous,
Alas, destined to be drowned!
A bird with chipped wings I am.
So much takes out every breath,
Appears this nature feeding on me—
The soul escapes nostrils every second,
I hate all, drink they my soul’s blood.
Cursed never to act or imagine,
As these always fall on me;
Strike like a thunderbolt,
And there I lay tossing in pain.
The time will come when I will
become passive to the hunter’s arrows,
Nothing will remain to make Him happy;
Die when will I for the last time.
Alas, it’s a dream, not to be true,
I know, I won’t meet the death last,
as long as I wish for it,
As I’m destined to fail even in this wish.
֍♠֎
Falling in a Pit
Too far and deep
I have gone into the pit of gloom,
And lost in the cavernous folds
of the impending doom,
Even the brightest big suns
now appear too far and take puns,
Faint stars these now
and just flash their inspiring rays,
Feeble rays reaching me cannot take out
the ship caught in treacherous bays,
I know the futility of the beckoning light,
Even in its brightest folds outside,
hope was always out of sight,
Now I go deep into my night,
With nobody as a witness to my plight,
All cherished dreams out of sight,
A wingless bird that tried to fly
but then crashed from its struggled height,
Now I just silently walk into
the dark hold of my night,
Alone
and forlorn,
The musicality of my soft moan,
Carrying me into hitherto unreachable zone.
Top of Form
One Special Speciality
Thou are all speciality;
Standing above the ordinary,
You pleasantly cuddle my psyche,
Everlasting is the image,
Such is rarity yours.
Eureka! Ethereal evasiveness yours,
Exalted is the examinee,
As the human self aspires always
exemption from the commonness around,
Thou make me feel special.
Speciality, fragrance distinct,
Aspire which humans all;
Asphodel singled out in orchard,
Smiles which like the rarest blossom,
And I become privileged more.
Emotions about you perfect me,
Assuage the beast inside,
Attar sweetest you are,
By which austere is not
the world abounding in trivialities.
Need humans an aurora new,
Subdued in the race mad,
I like you as an axiom of beauty,
But not just for my sake,
Rather for the humanity whole.
All should aspire for
one lyrical lyre special,
Last hope it is for
the defeating self in a world ghoulish,
Salvager, aspire I always thou.
֍♠֎
The Dying Day, Unwanted
Day! You now prepare to go,
Exactly one thousand years ago
brother your did the same,
Repeat thou now history,
For man’s sake, the millennium new!
The ageing process of humanity—
The new millennium,
New hopes and aspirations,
Grew we up by a thousand years,
Thus historically old,
Pretend now to be kids,
And get jumpy-grumpy in pell-mell celebrations.
You, who will carry the billions
laden on your chariot,
While they will rejoice,
Unmindful of the old, greying carrier.
You, ready to die a universal death
without ageing anyone,
As they pluck off you from
the reach of the biological clock,
Or infinite pendulum’s swing,
Billions of aspirations and load,
Like ant swarms,
they queue up to the holes next—
The looming unknown and dark millennium,
And you who proudly hold
the baton for the last time,
Stand here alone,
watching the mob trudging forward,
You, who like thousand brothers yours
bore the brunt of thousand years’ flurry,
Obeyed the command of God—
‘Falter never or choke!
Let them go!’
֍♠֎
Let the Change Prevail Inside
This chilly gentle breeze of a defined era
blankets us for the last,
This sun struggling in the fog,
Tries to see us for the last.
From a long slumber we arise,
On this millennium’s last dawn,
The moon in its last phase
still gracing the western sky,
And through its bloated,
Obscured shape in the west,
Stubbornly watches the hoopla,
The millennium eve’s noise.
God! Amidst such fire-cracking ‘lasts’,
About the matter and externalities,
Will the ‘lasts’ extend
to the dark corners in us?
The patches where
greed, selfishness, war
and all man-made disasters
vying with the nature’s,
Will they also pack off
to follow the trend around.
O night, when you arrive today,
Please chuck away all the dirt
in thy nocturnal folds:
O sun, cast your ochre rays
oblique upon the wrong facets,
Make them glow like jewels;
O breeze, enter the souls,
Soothe the passion inside,
Blow up which like volcano;
O man, let the series culminating around,
enter your deeper self and make you realise,
the futility of sticking to old follies
even in the new era.
֍♠֎
The Millennium Bath
A bath I am to have today,
The ‘after death’ ritual
for the mortals left behind;
The old millennium will die today.
The certainty of its death,
And the certainty of timing as well!
I want to be certain myself;
Wash I will, the mortal remains.
The remains of the millennium last,
Quantified efforts to measure eternity,
A part of me will also die today,
Fragmented death to live fully another day.
Die with the millennium,
A thousand years old man,
Wash I will myself,
Midnight is the hour to depart.
We will go hand in hand,
The remains will be left behind—
All washed out and infants;
Millennium new, and the new man.
That is why I will bathe
for the new man, millennium new,
We know, the new may loath the old;
Two thousand-year-olds.
Try I will to oblate the sins,
And all the sewage and garbage,
Layered which over both of us,
I will bathe for both today.
֍♠֎
Some Celebrating Lamps
Celebrations will occur today,
With firecrackers and partying
on happy islands on the west coast,
Noise huge, colours bright
will try to subdue something.
Something which plagues the east,
The hush and fury in the dark,
Arrowed upon poorly quantified humanity,
Died where even the little traces of quality and dignity,
And celebrations will take place in the west.
Those drunken dances and rockets flying,
The rich garbage of celebration scattered around,
Myriads swaying upon the boozed beaches,
With joy, sensuousness and laughter,
While deadly claws put a print on the sand in the east.
The east spread out like an orphan,
The forlorn beaches, where swept out
were the labouring footprints of masses,
The night where howls around
the decaying uncremated remains.
And unmindful and uncaring
they will celebrate the night whole,
For new dawn, millennium new,
Hope has died meanwhile
somewhere with the millennium gone.
Such is the case with humans,
Segmented society for roles,
The lucky ones with a lamp
to welcome the change great,
Others carried on bier in the dark.
֍♠֎
There is Always Light Somehow
There is light beyond
the deepest dark depth,
There is a bright day after
the ghostly haunts of a nightmarish night,
After a barren famished fight
there is a full blossomed spring’s delight,
After pining pangs of separation
there is a worthy end to the desperation,
After crashing in the gutters
there is a surge and rise to bathe in holy waters,
After crying convulsions on the lips,
a smile takes honeyed sips,
After the last defeat,
still there is an undying urge to accomplish the feat,
Even when blind with despair,
there is hope hiding and cajoling somewhere,
Even in hate love still lurks somewhere!
֍♠֎
The Millennium takes a Big Toll
The millennium is to end,
So will be the case with the century,
Approaches as this day the zero hour;
Aah, this narrowing down,
Too eager to embrace the next,
The altar of nationalism too
looks for some selfless sacrifice,
The stale flowers of its glorious past,
Now need some offerings fresh.
On this 31st of December,
alarmed is this mortal
for the countdown quickened,
The relatives few weep hoarsely,
For their loved ones,
Hijacked at a land distant;
Nationalism is thirsty,
It demands sacrifice,
A billion souls expecting a few hundred people
to assuage their boiling sense of nationhood,
But the pain of one’s own blood
is felt only by the closest kin.
Their pointing fingers,
And slogans for the release
of someone who challenged
our integrity, our pride,
They have to put self above the nation,
Jingoism is on a hypothetical plane,
The realty cuts us to our real size.
Wails, cries and noises,
Chorused a pleading, ‘Release’,
For a week whole,
Nationalism squirmed meanwhile,
Dreams of national glory postponed
to save the blood in real life,
Struck was a bargain
to save those who constitute the nation.
Three militants go free,
Hundreds died to capture whom,
Our soldiers look mute,
Bullets in their chests
though pain not much,
But then there are tears of joy
as the captives walk free,
Nationalism may feel the pinch,
But is it above the life of its ordinary citizens?
This millennium can seek comfort,
As another will follow figuratively,
Nationalism but must be feeling
a fishy death out of the pond,
Suffocated to death;
Vanish as the oxygen from the lungs,
The hawks may condemn them as selfish,
But is it a sin to cry to save one’s kin?
Earlier, some soldiers kidnapped for
the cause same were slaughtered,
Nobody then barked ‘Release’,
O my God,
A soldier taken guaranteed to die.
The hostages will return tonight,
Under pressure by the citizens,
The painful wails shut out
all nationalistic doors in the state,
And they will celebrate,
Some 160 families will rejoice extra,
But they should light candles also
for those who died in Kargil,
Everybody jingled when
with pride and love for the nation,
Certain as they were of safety,
Died meanwhile our soldiers icy deaths.
Yes, we will celebrate today
the approach of the millennium new;
And the great guffaws will echo around,
Hysterically rising towards
the zero hour approaching,
But at what cost?
A question difficult to answer.
֍♠֎
My Sleepy Village on the Millennium Eve
The new millennium will
take birth in a couple of hours
in the foggy dark with the stars blown out.
What kind of handover is this?
When we see no light,
Either in the houses or starry twinklings above.
The dusk today was prematurely lost in fog,
Not a single star smiled,
Starless, light-less we go into the changeover.
Same in the houses, blackouted,
We here in this sleepy village
lie abed in the archaic dark.
Surely the fog will last
for another half of the day to come,
Sunless, we will welcome the newborn triplets.
Millennium, century, day;
The momentous birth-time in the dark,
Electric bulbs in houses also follow nature in gloom.
Of course, luminosity is there somewhere,
At places some; houses privileged,
Bulbs glow, create as they stars new.
Lucky they are,
Take part in the natal activities,
And the partisan, crony-crazed new one arrives.
And we the irritating ones,
Shunned for not taking part in the celebrations
at the long anticipated moment of break in history.
Uncertain we are thus,
What change has for us?
The stale old dry dust or some fresh dew?
The night is thus cold and dark,
Great events will occur,
Our fate but hardly provides any succour.
֍♠֎
The Night in Labour Pain
The night is in labour pain today,
I can feel its sweat, suffering and plight.
Triplets are to be born today—
The millennium, the century, the day.
Labour pain is too much—
Wars, epidemics, killings kicked her belly.
For years one thousand she bore
the pregnancy period all turbulent and disturbed.
The pain is thus too much,
Yet birth she has to give for new life.
A new child among the maternal pains,
The elder one meanwhile writhing to die.
And look at the urgency,
Sky has touched the ground almost.
A smoky fog circles around
to work as a midwife.
Too many kicks have been hurled at the belly,
Pain hence cannot be avoided.
Painful writhing more so,
For the birth time’s certainty is there.
Also scared is the mother
of those rioters awaiting the birth.
God forbid, if they go crazy,
and kick at the moment last.
Anxious for the infant,
She fears pangs more.
Small hope is there in a lamp
glowing dimply by death bed.
But a furious whiff by anyone
can blow it out too.
֍♠֎
Midnight Crowning
Now that clock has struck twelve,
We have entered the millennium new;
The grand ceremonial crowning,
Celebrations for which were going on
among hopes, fears, opportunities new.
The court members are jubilant,
Exult at this moment,
The rest, meanwhile, remain unconscious,
Even about the newly crowned!
What type of coronation is this?
That people nearest to the ground understand it not,
Just a time-pass game perhaps,
Still, on this foggy cold night,
When voices are heard high and near,
Thanks to the dense foggy medium,
The noise made here or there
travels disproportionate to the source’s distance,
And the majority just takes a turn,
Lying while in their beds.
Isn’t it an unsuitable time?
For they must sleep now,
While the crowning ceremony
being held at this freezing zero hour,
When few must be awake
and left with celebrity nocturnal spirit,
Sleep they will like bats and owls
when the day will break,
And the rest will start toiling,
Unmindful of the nocturnalities.
Of course, new sun, new day
will be there for them,
Its meaning but will be unnoticeable;
Hungry, deprived bellies never
sense theoretical change in the cosmos as such.
֍♠֎
Three Big Zeroes for All
At this zero hour I stand in the dark,
trying to see the newcomer,
Nobody is there, alas!
Not even the refracted skylight.
Bundled out round in a circle,
I thus fumble around words,
Meaning whose has fatality—
Of circling around; ending nowhere.
Three big zeroes of the new,
which hover over, gobble up
the sleepy environment around me,
Wonder while I about the ‘zeroness’.
Three zeroes take me round—
The zero for myself,
A bigger one for the country,
Still larger one for the world whole.
Will I break this vicious circle
of rounding on the path same;
Burning out too much energy,
Arriving then at nothing?
Will this country having
so many self-centred circles,
Arrive at something new,
rather than the same big zero?
And what about this world?
Will it unmatch its physical shape?
The great big circle,
Binds which our orbiting passions.
֍♠֎
Of New Glimpses, New Rays
The new sun, millennium new,
Rays new at Dong, Katchel,
Pray I, crown my India anew!
New with a newly hewed crown
with hopes of more survival,
Not so with basics, rather
new roles, responsibilities new.
That India which saw
so much of flux and turbulence
over thy last empire—
History of religions,
Of races, ideas and many more,
Pray I, the newly diademed
remain such in the millennium next.
O new sun, shine too bright,
To light the patches dark,
Haunt which the geography ours,
And shadows whose reach hearts,
Sun, please warm up our hearts
with new warm ideas,
Glow with such spiritual aura
that the highest peaks in the Himalayas
shine like a jewel on the head,
O light, traverse through body
‘Hindustan’ to most distant parts;
Each hut, each palace, each home,
Light them, do away with the dark.
God, we committed wrongs,
Blood spilled over,
Minds became rigid; misunderstood,
Pray I, o new rays,
Warm up them again,
Blanket up the wrong,
O new sun,
Shine with vibrancy such.
֍♠֎
New Dawn—Warm Rays for Frigid Fate
The days are in fact trotting,
A new dawn, new year, of course
new century and millennium,
The snaily destiny but pulls back.
Time may fly past,
Making us grow manifold,
We but remain stony,
rigid and preyed upon by chance.
Moves it too slowly,
Whom spirit never catches,
Its rock-like firmness,
makes us stick mossily around.
I do not know
what the new rays have in store?
Better or worse?
Rays to see or to blind?
Today I start my new day;
A new start and initiative,
Let me see if the occasion special
lends its hues to me also.
My palette has just two colours,
Just black and white,
Let me see if it gets multi-coloured,
Giving me a new rainbow.
I do not know whether the new dawn
is a different one, after the night long,
When darkness grappled with me and I failed,
Or is it the same as the old?
Let me see the occasion
too special and celebrity,
Prismatic and multicoloured,
Too long was the one-coloured night.
O new rays,
Please turn the occasion special,
God please, leave I myself
at thy complete mercy.
֍♠֎
The Midnight’s Throaty Call
The great call at midnight:
‘Will the throaty pitch and guffaw
be the same for the thousand years coming?’
If it’s to be such,
Please, then let us all
turn to nothingness at this moment.
Nothing new does it seem:
The chorus behind the throaty
noise seems to be the same foolish dream.
Such a huge and godly definition
given to the change,
Most forgettable is which,
but parroted now with childish rage.
Godliness has been contrived out of it,
I’m afraid it will bear the end same;
Revered now most formally,
Misunderstood and negated afterwards,
In all practices which
the sun will uncover at the dawn.
֍♠֎
A Cosily Safe Smile Somewhere
The spring’s traces last,
Hot summers approaching fast,
Languid notes in the air,
A solitary bird’s forlorn chirping
for its musical share,
Drowned in stillness
this late morning bright and fair,
The sky’s dull blue,
Spread with some mystical clue,
But a smaller world is there,
The overall unease cannot reach where,–
In its self-defined world
in a corner tiny,
The luscious wild flower
still stands brave and shiny.
֍♠֎
Indefatigable Beauty
The storm screeched through the night,
Poured its fury through sadistic love-bite,
Undefeated but smiles the beauty,
Still doing its fragrant duty,
Her holy petals bear
the storm’s violating drops without fear,
Holy beads now they are,
Smiles, smiles and no war!
֍♠֎
Little Master Corona
O thou little master,
The world was a bit faster,
You now force brakes,
Lions turn into drakes,
Even newspaper is scary,
No longer a news-carrying fairy,
It comes from Delhi,
Fear pinches my guts and belly,
With inhibitions I touch,
A fearful world is such.
֍♠֎
The Story of a Frost-beaten Tree
The winter has been brutal and harsh,
And my struggle turned almost a farce,
Lost all my leaves,
With loss my soul grieves,
Still not all is lost,
For greenish life finds a host
in the wheat at my feet,
They pay a respectable greet,
My loss and my pain
don’t go in vain,
Tumbled down as my leaf
with pain and grief,
Blossom thousands around,
Wheatlings like daughters doth surround,
Fell where my tear,
Many a smile this earth doth bear,
Doesn’t go waste my pain,
Sows it the prospects of gain,
If not for me,
Definitely for thee.
֍♠֎
The Light
The light does hark,
beyond the deepest dark,
There is a day bright,
after the ghostly haunts of a nightmarish night,
After a barren famished fight,
there blossoms the spring’s delight,
After pining pangs of separation,
there is a worthy end to the desperation,
After crashing in the gutters,
there is a surge and rise to bathe in holy waters,
After crying convulsions on the lips,
a smile takes honeyed sips,
After the last defeat,
still there is an undying urge to accomplish the feat,
Even when blind with despair,
there is hope hiding and cajoling somewhere,
Even in hate, love still lurks somewhere.
֍♠֎
Lost
It has been months since
I last lit my faith’s lamp,
So many days have passed since
prayers chimed in my dark den’s air damp,
My meditating self,
Now gives atheistic yelp.
Lost my faith!
Lost my prayer!
Lost my rituals!
Lost my meditative trance!
֍♠֎
A Story
The story told by the soul to its own corpse:
Once I flew and frolicked high,
Now the flesh and blood gone dry,
The real me withdrew with a painful sigh,
They say, ‘I was destined to die,’
It’s but the biggest lie!
֍♠֎
The Night
Too far and deep,
I have gone into the pit of gloom,
And lost in the cavernous folds
of the impending doom,
Even the brightest big suns
now appear too far,
Faint stars these now
that just flash their feebly inspiring rays,
The feeble raylets reaching me
cannot take out the ship caught in treacherous bays,
I know the futility of the beckoning light,
Even in its brightest folds outside,
hope was always out of sight,
Now I go deep into my night,
With nobody as a witness to my plight,
All cherished dreams out of sight,
A wingless bird that tried to fly
but then crashed from its struggled height,
Now I just silently walk
into the dark hold of my night,
Alone
and forlorn,
The echo of my soft moan,
carrying me into hitherto unreachable zone.
֍♠֎
Holy Fire
I am the moth
and I love my flame!
My fire!
But I feel the burning core of
the glow around which
I helplessly circle around!
I know that I cannot stop
the fire from burning,
So I throw myself in a fiery pit
to forget my dear flame’s burning plight!
I throw myself in a bigger fire
so that I forget myself
and my flame’s cries!
֍♠֎
The Voice Inside
Forget about the hoot and holler
emanating from the world outside,
And give an ear to the soft and murmurous
cooings emanating from the soul,
It has a soft and sympathetic
message for you only,–
your most personal message,
meant only for you,
Listen to these delicate chimes,
It’ll help you in finding peace in chaos,
In getting a foothold in the stampede,
In feeling rest, repose and respite
against constant buffeting by the world around,
It’ll help you in breaking
the hardest of superficial layers,
which suffocate and limit your identity,
And put you face to face with
your true self, your real worth,
Listen to it, close your eyes,
And pay attention with all your heart,
Just for a change,
don’t look far, look closest at yourself,
It’ll be as uneventful as looking
at a dust particle around your feet,
But it changes the universe for you,
You will have the biggest message
in the softest of whispering phrases,
And it’ll help you in finding yourself.
֍♠֎
My Mind, My Buddy
Be the seat of my strength, not weakness.
Be the seat of kindness, not cruelty.
Be the source of light, not darkness.
Be the source of energy, not idleness.
Be the source of creativity, not limited vision.
Be the source of love, not hate.
Be the source of smiles, not tears.
Be the source of happiness, not suffering.
Be the seat of optimism, not pessimism.
Be the seat of gain, not loss.
Be the source of help, not obstruction.
Be the seat of leadership, not just sleepwalk.
Be the seat of a better human being.
Be the source of a more loving person.
O my mind, my seat of potential,
take my journey further.
Please choose the better half
of all the dualities for me.
֍♠֎
Midnight Musings
A few night-blossoming jasmine flowers muse:
Dewy fun under nightly sun
Swathed in the cool shades of a dewy night,
We stand brave with smiles and innocent delight,
When all sleep,
we hold the beacon of love and light,
The moon is our sun,
When you will get up in the morning,
you can’t imagine how much was the nightly fun!
֍♠֎
Sweet Pangs of Nostalgia
Holding a dream in my fist,
Staring at the misty past
and forcing myself not to see the future
eager to unfold itself too fast,
I wave at the nostalgic strains
still beckoning and faintly alive,
How I wish I could dive
back into the pools of the past,
To have my moments last
at a place that held me in its cradle soft,
That pious embrace which still holds me aloft!
֍♠֎
A Fatherly Whisper
Parental love loops around with a new ray
on an early winter day,
The mighty lord whispers in a soft voice,
‘My son grow thou strongest in spirit
and sire chances for those without any choice!’
֍♠֎
Your Sweet Enemy
Though your enemy, I am sweet,
My neck thus deserves a softer treat.
֍♠֎