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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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.