Gyroscope

A professor of fluid mechanics in a recent meeting 
gladly mentioned to me a matter about the heart.
About how it tries to rest from all the pumping
while we are asleep, by encouraging us to switch 
to an easy sleeping position so as to use gravity. 
That night I couldn't help but thinking of this pump 
that acts so mechanically and coldly for its survival 
sidelining me into an embryonic position and
arm twisting me into using my hurtful elbow as a pillow. 
It seems to act like a powerful gyroscope that
quietly steers the ship while the captain is asleep.
The lamps of his eyes put out for the night. 
The steering wheel of life left unattended,
the ship slowly glides towards dawn and alarm!
A blinding iceberg, which I am somehow ready to face.

Night's language

The lights on the horizon become
the umlauts on a lengthy world.
They announce the banks of
a lively river snoring its way to sleep.
I am in an endless train
A centipede on wheels.
I ache my neck to catch the glimpse
of a tailing comma and watch for
the glowering pole red with its frown.
The breeze, unforgiving in its warmth
and urgency, is like a mail, full of bad news of
distant troubles that threaten to submerge
the lofty bridges built in dreams.
The journey continues between the lines of rails.
It is also between our patient silences
toughened by the weight of circumstance
and shining under the moonlight.

What lies ahead

is not just a rosy bed but a thorny tread 
announces, the old thought for the day
inscribed on my memory's blackboard. 
A flash from somewhen in the middle school
where roses were not colored by blood
and thorns were made from harmless plastic. 
When smiles were spontaneous and out of place, 
as if there is not going to be any memory of the times. 
There wasn't a device that shuttered all the time. 
An anxious eye that recorded on the rusty keys of nostalgia.
Everyone was absent then from that banal scene
of a hopeful child looking at the notice board
and thinking, "Yes, I could deal with the thorns".
As the times demanded, that ambition 
was tucked under the carpet. 
To be later discovered by the thorn of time. 
An arrow heading straight to the Achilles' heel.

How it could have happened

A hand that once hunted for game
later jotted down by the fire side
A mouth that sifted through the intestines
With a vocal drum now, sings mnemonic lines
Our fingers, dipped early in a river of ink
Had to just touch the walls, or each other 
Poems often painted as cave murals and endearments. 
Their expressions staying solid for millenniums 
Rock hard truths of hunger and want.

Surmise

A friend surmises: 
I have fathered a child 
Now I can go back, be wild.
His wife replies: 
I could say the same 
But a child needs 
both of us, to blame.

Written off

Written off most of the times 
Written down into oblivion
everything stands to be a poem.
The high points of metaphor 
are snow capped in mystery
and the meaning keeps itself low
in the between-the-lines valleys. 
It parts the stiff stanzaic blades. 
Tip toes its way into blankness. 
While the record worthy lines fall
into the I-don't-know bin
the sharp chin of the reader
consults the horizon, 
ever present just outside the window
and then something starts to make sense
and the poem is put away
like the years before and after the reading.

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.