Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Evolutionary road

No. There are no proper guidelines 
Not even bright cautions on the sidelines
The sidewalks of this lonely road 
Are full of dead and discarded toad
Creatures of all kinds who took trips
Lie still doing their best, in reality's grips
They lie in their luckiest of suits 
With shine and polish on their boots.
The lamps are dimmed to get a feel
of time that's ever slippery of an eel.
Both at home and largely lost 
Steps are taken to be as fast.  
No walls to climb or depths to plumb
The road is still, dull and dumb
The rungs of ladders are lit as bonfire
Around it devils play the sweetest lyre
Traveler, you are to tread the path alone
Taking each painful step etched in stone. 
A milestone is set  beyond all this
Your wearier eyes shall sparkle in bliss
March on then, your time hasn't come 
Your goal ringing within you as a hymn. 


Sunday, October 19, 2014

Loneliness in high places

It all started with spotting a planet 
at the edge of a hill on a moonless night.
Soon, clouds obliged our wishes, stood off 
and even shrunk under their weight. 
The stars punctured the sky and 
Sparkle from an eternal road gave itself off 
to our eyes scanning in earnest. 
Distant lights from times gone by
reached and lit our anonymous faces. 
There was prayer written on all of us. 
Craning ourselves at the complexity 
Pouring out knowledge from times immemorial
There was a rewind of all that was known. 
Fairy tales, grandmothers and villages
all made their mote of appearance. 
But the road stood still 
waiting for that moment 
when all words are over. 
And the heavenly silence spun us out
into threads of water meeting an ocean. 


Saturday, October 18, 2014

Material

I know when I stumble upon 
the perfect material for a poem. 
As if among hundred shells a child finds 
the perfect one, cleans the sand off
Takes it home without waiting 
expectantly at the sea 
which mostly froths useless things. 
I know it when I stumble upon 
a reality that comes in the right size and 
texture of a backyard tomato 
and can be served up in sachets 
of ketchup to all those willing in a hurry.
Only its expiry date is in fine print.


Thursday, October 16, 2014

Clear headed

Purpose, lays ambush to our peace
Gnaws away a forest of confidence
Any finger pointing that these are these
is punished by poking at own expense.

It's always an inviting grip
Waiting for the next slip
Fall of the humpty-dumpty
Jack and Jill fallen empty.

When it takes hold
Our stars turn pretty bold.
They don't care one pence
And our planets maintain silence.

Amidst all this skulduggery
Time flies by in a jiffy
Flapping its giant wings
Disturbing the balance of things

Nothing much one can do
Except change one's hairdo
Come back with a clear head
Now, be a train without an engine ahead. 


The sieve

In the hands of wind 
The train sways like a craddle 
All godspeed to sleep
It also turns to be a sieve
Filtering out the united smell 
of shit and cigarette. 
All is not lost while asleep
A layer of this journey is carried
to beds, to partners.
And a country unites in smell
Who's who nobody can tell.


Tuesday, October 7, 2014

No different

The hills smell the same 
Before and after we came 
The chocolaty mud slipped upon 
Is what others also chanced upon. 
The tongues that loosen 
Not the best ones are chosen 
The bird goes about its chore
Landscape for it appears a bore
A desk that it has to man 
with an attentive eye to scan
A snake stumbled upon doesn't move 
Pretending to be dead it stays a groove 
A pacy wild cat has left its mark 
on its way to hiding in deeper bark.
Our guides spoon up heady tales 
As idling grows mythical tails

Among all the creatures wild 

That scarred the night a mild 
Is the beast sleeping inside me 
That roared and snored in utter glee. 
The tent shook with sleeplessness 
And fates were locked in helplessness 
Hills might remember the snore
And make a place for it in their lore.


Thursday, July 17, 2014

Sprinkler

Sprinkle the acts
of  kindness
as if one day
they would break ground and sprout.
Become a tree
A house.
A shelter. 

Empty room

Phone rings in the empty room
Faraway ground shudders
Unanswered hand, unspoken words.

Silence hangs still
Becomes a body bag
Later, a shroud.

Over the dead, grow
the trees of geneology.
One branch here too short.

And for years that come
An uncrossable
bridge of silence.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Weather wise

We now talk in 'weather'
The unifying language of strangers
We exchange warmth
in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Rain and smell of the earth
do enter our conversations.
But only differently.
And time turns slowly
like an earthworm. 


Tuesday, May 27, 2014

To fellow travelers

My pecking on the keyboard grew sparser. 
My fingers, what have they touched 
that is better than writing? 
Maybe experience, too ugly and 
clichéd to be in a poem. 
But surely it takes 
a long time to wash it off. 
Maybe a sadness that is regular 
or a happiness which isn't particular
To note it down as an important 
signpost to other travelers. 
Maybe they are wiping the sweat off  
as the Sun beats its heated drum 
and a mirage trembles at a distance. 

There is silence spread out on roads 
guarded by stern afternoon trees. 
A throat is cleared to suggest 
lines that were long impending. 
Scribble I do, like a hurried moth 
Then follows an ant like editing. 
And the long line of my mistakes
ends up in a hill yet to be scaled. 


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Tell-tale

Tell-tale stories make their way 
out of the parleys stained with 
coffee and conversation. 
A relationship tugs its way
accross the wooden silence 
spread between the two.
The knife yells to the fork 
I will hold this side of the bread
And the China with its billion noises 
adds to the conversing clatter. 
The dead chicken whispers a wish
to meet its waving ancestors
waiting beyond the alimentary canal. 
And the table turns into a boquet of tissues
Crumpled and forgotten without any issues.

Later, the chairs lay diverged
away from this tabular prison. 
And the inmates escape this sentence.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Stand up to the stars

The shower corners me into a tiny alcove 
of thoughts. The cold jet is harsh: 
An experience pouring down. And I sift
through the onslaught of beady thoughts.
For a split second there, I realize something:
My position of insignificance in this universe,
how cosmos expands all around the shower head!
And thus the day almost starts with a prayer. 
I see a child like cell pull itself up
from the soapy primordial waters.
Crawl on fours and stand up to the stars. 
This revised edition of evolution 
cleans up my soul and a primate 
wonder shows up on my face. 

Thursday, March 13, 2014

O love!

You break people's hearts
Those pious temple coconuts 
Sweet from them flows out dry
and their remains lie divided
between God and you.
Since then and till eternity 
life becomes a long chutney 
Your image, a carried around radium
burns holes in pockets and hearts. 
Life goes on only to be half
It sheds its happiness chaff.
O love! Steps to thy altar
leave their bruise and scar.
And we skin our knees in prayer.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Touch me not

I know your coordinates
Yet dare not write to you
You are a touch-me-not plant 
Deep in the internet jungle
Your virtual withdrawal is real
And 'Bother-Me-Not' ricochets
from the other end  
of the fiber that carries my worries.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

A Frog's disguise

A frog disguised as a prince
But was unable to convince
Much outpouring from his heart
But the kiss was never to start
He croaked for some simple dating
Losing all hope for a rainy mating
Taking refuge in amphibious wisdom
Asked her out for a walk in the kingdom.
She pitied tremendously like it was a dog
But in heart of hearts, she knew it was a frog.
Something would happen they all thought
And his friends jumped, at the deepening plot.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

To poetry

Pluck words that mean 
different from what's been 
Words empty of deeds 
But bursting with needs 
Cause something to shift 
a detail that closes a rift 
Lie face down till dawn 
postpone every other yawn. 
Wander the brain till end 
in wait for the right send 

An end to reach 
attempting a breach
But what's been put down 
is not what is 
Only a noise of tools 
offering some ease
Other dimensions 
swell behind the blinds 
plotting something 
beyond these lines.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Love comet

Love comets 
in a long orbit around a circumstance. 
Sighted now
it juts across the hazy silence. 
Will return 
years later to mark some words.
Longer tail
Sprouting, a smile at the blazing head.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Table manners

Wounds of the daily grind
are put into words
that shine with loneliness.
Yet, the sheen
of someone else's sadness
takes its time to cut through.
My armor of good times
has to thin itself for that feat.
Empathy is often table manners.