Hanging Up

Empty streets and yellow lights
All we got are these empty nights
Barking dogs and the summer blooms
We don't care if the darkness looms

Going there towards the bend of the road
We don't worry about the truck overload
Movin' in and movin' out
Nothin' like a shadow of doubt

The choices that made us, hang up now
Nothing of a chance, and any know how
Prancing about in the rickety ways
We finally catch onto our pace

Darkness looms
amid the summer blooms
empty streets and mellowed nights
and then they approach
those blazing lights.

Three Years

How years seem longer now
They are not simple hopping of grades
and section names writen in Roman
on the labels of new books every year.
The cartoons, cars and pinkish flowers
came to be aging along with me then.
Eventually I was dissappointed
by their new avatars the next year.
Now years distend enough and give room
for lot of events making up life.
They carry with them, images of myself
in moments of varied contrasts.

I pounded coffee tables under rushing adrenalin
Learnt allusive ways to discuss sex
Formed opinions, hardened them
Became brittle, broke eventually
Tried flexibility and the associated confusion
Went to dim lit dinners in dandiest clothes
Which looking back, only a gypsy could sport.
Discussed the arbitrariness of life.
Looked back on earlier times and patted my back
that I finally grew out of myself.
Played dumb charades with my words.
Posed cryptic questions on canteen tables.
Discounted people of their years of opinions.
Got thrashed by them as my views broke like eggs.
Experienced the heaviness in heart, body and mind.
Made friends, not regretting losing others.
I read, Masters and Slaves
Of Poetry and Prose : Flying pamphlets of suffering.
I unwrapped more of the candy of life
and yes, I found poetry.
Not an eternal fount or
a Scandinavian secret spring
But a faucet of cold water
drenching me in the summer afternoon
To which destiny or its chambermaids
escorted me, after three years of merry go round.

(On May 12, 2010 this blog turns three)

Main Course

The city has a stark look of concrete calm
as if struck by an epidemic.
In the middle of the road
unrustled leaves walk, like yet to be victims.
We head towards a restaurant
beyond that red-green-red blinking sign.
It is a setting out of the folk movies.
Caves and roots of trees hang around you.
Waiters, whose noses cast
a weird shadow on their faces
give an eerie look, unlisted in the menu.
We order starters and sit back to talk
while we hear faint wailing
amidst a constant thud of butchering.
We are shaken off our seats to our soups
and gobble as much as we can at that temperature.
We don't want starters here.
We cancel that order.
"Main course menu is different", the waiter says
as he carries a finger bowl, filled with
a red liquid soap to the next table.
He is smiling to himself.
Some one among us starts off the conversation
about our further choices, as we wait for the menu
tapping our fingers and listening
to each and every sound.

Time Machine

Tonight, an inky darkness surrounds me
with a spell of anguish
from years of those unread letters.
The mite of time has left
only shreds of bundled joys
in the corner of an overfilled carton.
I extract those letters now, for our meeting.
Like an atlas of our childhood
I would like those letters
to take us places without any blur.
When we finally meet
we can start off, from where we left
at that bus stop and seamlessly tie
all these years into a knot of forgetfulness.

In our new found paper time machine
an ancient conversation could be dug up
and we could have a hearty laugh
at the tiresomeness of each other's lives.

The Odd Visitor

People can't stand her sight.
With a groovy face and a flappy skin
propped up by a thin frame-like curtain of life
she walks the streets at odd times.
Dusty myths gather around her existence.
Journeys start over
when someone spots her in sight.
They rush inside, to avoid
all ill luck in their path.
No chances are taken.
Like an innocent child from bad influences
she is kept away, from anything living.
Her identities dissolve, one by one
like her bones
and she grows backwards, into nothing.

Bride Grooming

Look at them
They are made for each other
they groom when they meet
She cleans his glasses
Checks his nails
He holds her hand
to be sure of a normal pulse.
Counts the number of protruding veins
Arranges a lock of hair
and then orders coffee.

Diwan-e-Khas

Everybody is welcome
in this haunted house
Excuse me! Don't go that side
Those windows are cobwebbed
to cover her from the outside world
Yes, you heard it right
Even the slightest voices echo here
Take care to not drop that pin.
This used to be the waiting house
for her, the Nawab's mistress.
It is a disputed mansion now
between the local don
and a distant relative.
The judges keep changing
Fresh ones are searched
and put up like the stave
of Gandhi's statue
every Independence day.
She wears a worn out look now
with dark circles under her eyes.
Her eye lids flap in agony
as thunder strikes at her heart
in the pre-monsoon wind.