Trade

Come on, gear up
this is a tale of hope.
I would like to announce
Sadness is to renounce.
Happiness would arrive
by the express drive.
Remember to bow low
for it likes a humble show.
All those worries you had
made even happiness sad.
Now it's time for a change
and it is through exchange.
What could you offer?
What would it prefer?
No place for these questions
as there were many suggestions.
It was decided to have your memories
and re-tile the heart with bright ones.
Bright like the new white ones
mirroring your happy smiles.

Will you be ready
for such a trade?
Decide fast,there is a long queue
under the engulfing shade.

Ribs

The ribs of the umbrella have just got weaker.
However its skin has a better floral design.
Even in a slight wind they dangle like fractured arms
and once in a while they turn inside out.
I only wish to save my head from the rain
because that is where I exist as a mud hill
that could easily melt in this spate.

Disconnect and me

Disconnect is that one extra passenger
in a crowded transport.
Today it is between strangers.
Tomorrow it will catch up with chums.
When bards brood, it whispers to say
that it runs the whole world.
I request a private audience
and question, "What about trust?"
There is a villainous guffaw announcing
"Trust is a means and I am the end"
It prides itself in being the scissors
that cuts the umbilical cord.
I object and turn its chin
to the chirping lovers on the bench.
A laughter that knows the answer, quips
"Their nearness is the density of disconnect"
I sigh and point the picnic party on the grass.
There is silence for a moment and then it strikes
Don't you see the children scooping out
their parents lives and leaving them to the wind?
Weaker and lighter like those plastic cups.
I stroll a bit towards the pond and bend
to see the lotus growing out of the muck.
At such a precarious posiiton I push it
and as expected, there are no ripples.

Deep sea

The loneliness of waves is sea deep
and is opaque enough for my peep.
There is a struggle in the distant scene
Nearing the shore it subsides to glean
the innocence of children in the sands.
The evening star shines through twilight
as a twinkle in the eyes of a crying baby.
The waves well up to match
the grief of walking shadows.
The brine in the gale parches me
as the waves recede into darkness.

The silver lining

The Sun glows like
a blood stain out of a bandage
Birds fly hard and high
into the thinning sky
and escape the airy bondage.
Trees give in to their roots
and stand still like prisoners of war
A lone eagle gives up flapping
and floats lazily in descending circles.
Evening walks into a twilight gloom.
Curfew awaits the night
amidst the whistles of the owl
and beating of crickets.
Darkness envelopes like a womb
and I grope for succor
of a friendship of the past.

Health museum

The baby proved useful right away.
It is displayed at the museum
in a jar of clear Formalin.
The mother is allowed a free entry.
Once a week she comes and observes
the floating, growth-stilled piece of her.
Her only child.

She was worried that her child was lonely there.
No more now, as two more jars are added.
The children face each other as if talking.
From womb to womb, jar to jar
through an invisible umbilical cord.

Salsa

A few steps forward
and a few backward.
Salsa of life.

Reality

If commenting is a must
You are nothing but dust.
Scurrying rats
you and your thoughts.
Nibbling on the ends of
the gunny bags of reality.

Moving on

There was no drama
It was just smooth
This breakup of mine
with reality.
I withdrew like the snail
with all the softness
into a hardened shell
carried on my back.
A slow and unnoticed retreat.
But when it comes to moving on
I have the pace of a rabbit.
Burrowing here and burrowing there
there are holes dug all over me.
Voids which tunnel through
past and bend into future.
Somewhere in these gaps
I exist as the darkness
as a seeming shallowness.

Rain, go away; No, please come back

If I have to meet someone from the past
I would want it to be myself.
It is Narcissistic, I know
But how great it is
On a rainy day
to fall into the bed of past
and rest for a while
underneath the layers of time.

Time often leaves me
dry and disappointed
like a failed monsoon.
I pray for it to stop for a while
but it moves on like a school bus
carrying a hundred joys
to order and discipline.

Incessant rain is a recess
where time comes to a stop.
I remember it to be long back
when we made paper boats
that sailed safely till the canal
and joined others into time.
Only to meet me today, as glassy memories
circling in the eyes, before they are sucked
into the vortex of time.