The Three steps

It's raining outside
and we are jostling for space
on the three steps of the doorway.
Taj Mahal, the tea, boils wantonly
with an aroma wafting to encircle us.
No one wishes to give up their place
Neither us kids nor the grownups.
Even the rain, yielding no room
splatters onto the muddy road.
Little rivers gurgle along downwards.
The paper boats sailed only too carefully
spread out like rafts in the stream.
Twigs and leaves, are stuck like our gaze
in a whirlpool of water.
Wind turns the tables now and then
and grabs us by surprise.
There are peels of laughter.
One with the other
and one within another.

Words

They make noise all the time.
Babble to Apple, and grappling to a fable.
You can't keep them glued to something.
They wear different shoes.
Slip across ages, don new hats
and tip them off to giants
marching-by with their muses.
At the restaurants, they wait to be mouthed.
Wait across tables for existence.
They attend to theories at a conference
often dozing off into nonsense.
Nothing is sacrilege to them.
They get to the greatest feeling
thought to be beyond their reach.
They pry open the past and draw out
the surviving crumbs of meaning.
Breaking boundaries is a chore.
They form the messages on glass ceilings.
Whether there is hope or not, they are there.
Desert roses blooming for the slightest dew.
They engulf this world and may be other ones too.
Happiness and sadness, are their anointed favorites.
And they are meant even in their absence.

Conclusions

After much else, I draw them
and it indeed gets difficult
as I feed in more on this world.
Full of possible opposites.
Take them or break them
They are a welcoming door mat
to further doubt.
To suspect the universe
to be upto something different
is without let down.
There are voices
behind the world's stage.
Voices - cynical, optimistic,
forgiving, avenging, angry,
immature, amateur, know-it-all,
silent, without hope, spectating-
forming the collage of experience.
Words and sounds
written down in silence
and gotten over without pomp
seem to possess life span
beyond the covers of our moral notebooks.
What meaning they wear and to
what voice they will move their lips
the audience awaits in a full house.
A tragedy too is an action
of these words, one upon the other.
Raising, over-powering and muting.
Very often the garbs get misplaced
or picked up cleverly, drawing
the audience into a confusion
when everything blends
into a spectrum of dizziness
even to a discerning eye.

A lonely station

There is a putrid smell
from the locked toilet.
The walls spell in charcoal
the names of people
who were once in love.
Someone walks in silence
hastily beyond the signs
ticking time with a clip-clop gait.
They seem moving on
as part of different pairs.
There is a staged performance
of a new set of eyes
trying out their luck.
For a moment, all this seems eternal
like the wait for a scheduled train.
But, far away, like conscience
there is a man sleeping on the bench.
Inebriation or death
it's difficult to judge.
His jugular is hidden
in the pillow of a folded arm.
To my relief, I can imagine
his blood shot eyes
dreaming about a lost love.
A safe world for me.A world
where things could still fail.

Shadow of doubt

In the vicinity of an experience
always lies, a shadow of doubt.
Hanging on to the coat tails
it will pull us down and mock
all that has happened
and is happening.

Not the friendly image
that appears in cinematic mirrors
guiding us to greater deeds.
This will only betray and
belittle whatever is dear.

As we march towards extinction
Putting on those best clothes
Falling in love with what is beautiful
Sending the chummy, Churchill-like
little children to school.
It is always present.
Like the emptiness after the chores.

We would want to dispel it
Dissolve it in the loud music
But it survives along with us
but only in smiles.
It forces us to rethink the purpose
and make peace with God.

But again, it shows up
like a recurring dream.
And adds a lingering taste
to the blandness of existence.
An eternally arguable one.

Scanning in progress

Falling in love
is slowly turning
into a logistical nightmare.
The lists that I draw up
are growing invalid by the day.
People with whom I associated
only remoteness, are noticeable now
because of all this ballyhoo of love.
Terrible people, ten years ago
are approachable and shady people
from the five year past, seem saviors.
May be there is an age
when every generation
is ostracized from its times.
That it comes in this form is a surprise.
I should confess, I slept like a log
through the gestation period of love.
There are growth rings around my eyes
marking my hibernation.
I missed all the stalking in the dusk
Talking in the dark
Huddling around candle lights
Walking in the rain
and dimming the lights.
I know in parts
and I can imagine the rest
what people have been up to
during my slumber.
There is no vengeance here
Only a case of genuine surprise.
I promise to myself
I will be more vigilant
and search for the lost signal
like a radar, for an emergency landing.

The Hero

The birth of a hero
is much awaited like his demise.
In movies, he pretends to die
with all the cheese popcorn and coke.
In reality he will come back
to haunt us in memorabilia.
Epitaphs and obituaries for him
end only in a comma,
New qualities are added to the cart
everyday and the hero is reinvented.
For lesser known ones
who give up life too easily,
(They take only their's)
we have only amnesia to offer.