Saturday, 30 April 2016

Within

Between need and greed,
Wherever I place you, I find
Picking once, one over the other 
I run again from one end to another
Endless need and eternal greed
For you, without you, within 

Between memory and presence 
Among those bylanes I find lessons
Picking presence, I gave in to 
Prayers to lure, coffees in liew
Your absence, like memory lingers
For me, without me, within 

Between promise and caprice 
I tally gains each verse apiece
Picking fuzzy promises eternal
I dreamt of flowers, all things vernal 
Wondrous, rapturous, whimsical songs
For us, within us, you sing 

Greedy memories are but whims
Promises of presence I need 
But among all these words is lost
A me, that is without you and me, within







Aflame

A spark from your brooding cigarette 
Rekindled a fire tonight
I woke up to burn them all
Those dried leaves, pages of unseen verses, books held, pocket tissues 
never used
Ruffling boxes, shelves, bedspreads
I gather all that is left to burn, to shine
While your cigarette traces a receding 
Line, of silent hearts and smoky flames
I offer treasures for your wild forest fire
Cigarettes, forests, books, you and I Ashes, one and all. But pray,
If it's not aflame, what worth is a heart?

Friday, 29 April 2016

Handmade Dreams

Every night I fashion a dream of you and 
of sleeping on your arm, me, 
an imagined me, or just me, 
the dreamer on a bed of dreams
I must bring my pillow
Along, and your warm breath
Somedays, I need them too
Sometimes nothing will do
Doors open into beds, blankets fly
Closed night skies churn
Endlessly in the galaxy's open- raw womb
Pulling me into the dream
Pushing me out of it; 
with me, even if as a ghost,
Your hand palpable in warmth 
But missing here when I wake up
Faded handmade dreams 

Wednesday, 27 April 2016

Dream Merchant

Sell me your words, merchant of verse
Light-feathered mirages however intense
 
Quick, sell them before waking up
priests of propriety and of windup 

Sell me potions of memory and loss
Throw in a few half-hearted goodbyes

Have you cultural idioms from the past
For my rusted picture frames at last

Bags of clouds, strings of unheeded hour
Have you rainflower shower, arm-lock our

Life lurks to steal these moonbeams
Oh sell me braided jasmine dreams 

Pray why do you look away?
Will all my dreams suffice to make you stay?



 

Monday, 25 April 2016

Miscue

Color me red, oh color me blue
Brush me jasmine in your mystery hue

They say shades of gray make you, you
If I could only these gloomy clouds hew
Rainbows would dance my rain through  

Oh color me honey, sweet as any you knew
If I could only taste that misty mouth's dew
Lost lore would sing my dream anew 

Color me the stark red, your adieu 
Color me ocean blue, our rendezvous  
Color me for without you, 
Love is a sweet musk kangaroo
A miscue, untrue.










Just Once More

One day at a time I count, moments
Cotton snowflakes, six headed tinkles
Of symmetrical finger touches, moments
slow-melting moon rays, lying on my bed

Days on end I seek, moments
Lost in meaning maze, birth and death 
Of locked eye spaces, vapor breathes,
Wild forest fire agony burning blood red

I will fashion time necklaces with moments 
Gathering blistering beads of rejection
Sea shells of sparkling laughter, and gemstones of tears,
breeze trinkets of my hair falling on your face  

Will you wear it around your neck 
for one moment, dear love?
Oh just once more! 

Sunday, 24 April 2016

Nothing

Touch my breasts, it's skin, just skin
Soft flesh, blue swells of pain pins 
Pleasure fountains of warm nerves
And for you, nothing? Nothing

Hold me tight, it's lust, just lust
Jazz Rythms of rippled desire 
Pressure mountains of just firm arms
And for you, nothing? Nothing

Walk away, it's death, just death
Silence straddling lifetimes to come
Treasure counting long-quelled fires
And for you, this thing? Nothing? 


Your Image

Violet black Krishna, your image
Dark rain clouds Krishna, your image

Sweet love Krishna, your image
Tender passion Krishna, your image

Twin mothers Krishna, your image
Serpent dance Krishna your image

Mellifluous flute Krishna your image
End of time Krishna your image


Glass Bangles

Here, unwrap my tiny gift

Ribbons, wrappings and all

Amidst tissue dreams

Lies a golden moment

When a language was born

To speak of mythical tales

Buried by quicksands of time

Wear those moments, infinite

Rings of desire and of loss

Hard set fragile paths of no return

Touch gently at night and they write

Cadent poems, ancient lores,

Wear them on your right hand,

My poet, my lost friend







Saturday, 23 April 2016

Stories

Here, hand me all your sticks
And lie on my arm
I will recount forgotten tales
princes, parrots and magic tricks
Bring your white sheets, cool jasmine waters
And midsummer nights will weave fragrant carpets 
We will fly into faraway shooting stars
Where whims and nightmares turn into sweet dreams
All you have become, and all that shall be
Shed in that wonderland
Come back to yesterday
Here, hand me all those sticks
And take my hand.

Friday, 22 April 2016

Snows of Yesteryears

Ticket stubs of hold-my-hand bus rides 
Fallen flowers of wait-for-me alcoves

Conch shells of hear-my-heartbeat walks
Green ink letters of smudge-me-into you rooms

Handkerchiefs of wipe-away-guilt trips
Golden earrings of have-me-forever kingdoms

Each of your idols has a temple here
Ceremonial worship and a sweet tear

But that fistful of barely wet sand 
poured carefully into my cupped hands

Lies buried somewhere within 
and lands softly at dusk on my palms

Snows of Yesteryears

Oh beautiful that island of time!
Younger, prettier, wiser skirts
Wading whirling waters
Warnings unheard, unheeded
Today I stare at those captured waters
And wonder where the boat has gone

Thursday, 21 April 2016

Could Have Been

As dew drops of dreams
Fall on dusks of desire,

Your slow silent steps
Lead me to sweet-fire
memories, firefly fields.

Shimmering lost spaces,
And dense distances
of deep dark woods where

Millions of mini moons,
Cast fond spotlights on

That night, those dreams,
Tears, fears, kisses, arms.

Dawn’s curtain call
Unplugged my mini moons 
I lost my way out, yet again

Lead me to sweet-fire
memories, firefly fields.

Oh lure me into could-have-beens

A Good Bargain

Candied coconut moments
Wrapped in star jasmine rushes
Return those moonlit summer noons
And I will give you back one by one

Misty kisses, languid, long
Furtive undrapings, monsoon embraces
Each circumspect footstep
Speeding down a path of no return

And my forever wait at your doorstep


Loneliness

My universe dances a lethal trance
Destroying quantum dreams
Reducing binary possibilities
Into an unaltered singularity
I am alone

I carry within, unborn wombs
of eras which have passed
Fallow turfs of prospects
Many to come, many to go
I am alone

Born anew in each death
Ravenous, I latch onto
Another breast, quenching
Neither your thirst, nor mine
I am alone

You, who held me first,
Leaf-bourn blue lord
in the deluge of your creation,
I am alone
Were you as lonely?









Wednesday, 20 April 2016

Waiting To Die

I wait for you at the temple gate
With deep-brown smudgings
of a thousand earthen lamps
And absent minded Jasmines

My flickering restless eyes
Pursue these ancient walls
Only incense-lit questions arise
I close my fist on their smoky forms

And open a forlorn palm
Those lines you traced,
the blood that raced,
All intact, All still wait.

Does the night sky give up
its quest for light,
Or is it born to be quelled
By forlorn palms of the dawn?




Tuesday, 19 April 2016

My Poet

My poem is mad

Her poet is madness

My poem is fire

Star-crossed desire

It is sweet-dawn mist

night's wet-warm kiss

Her circumspect eyes

So long, good bye


Just forever-miss

Desire

Round and round we go
On the carousels of desire
Get in and say we lost the fire
Get off but then we need to aspire

Goodbye

Again and again I would easily die
If I knew I would have once again
Your sweet kiss, your tender touch
And that melancholy, half-hearted goodbye

Sin, Life and Everything in Between

Slow-boiled veins simmer my skin
Moonshine moods glimmer within
Wavelets of dreams flaunt anklets of sin
When eye meets eye, these verses begin

And then ends this world, it's pains, it's gains
And then bloom the stars, no reins, no chains
A slow-motion swirl of the black holes' kiss
A rain-drop curl, your sweet tender lips

Which aeons afar do we travel akin
Your arm holding my universe within
You brought me soft candles to help me shrive
Who carried that moment which held me alive?

Sad Tonight


The day meanders along
blushes jumpily in recall
of a long night that is yet to be.
I smile blithely into surfs
of timed-lives and seas of fears.
But the night, it is sad, sheds bitter tears.

Meaning, purpose, night's accordion door
Swings, deliberates right-wrong galore
My day smiles back, rides astride the breeze
Into chequered shadows of faraway trees;

I enter with it a world of you and me
No one believes in it, but see
How blithely we cross this sea?
No fear, desire, purpose or meaning
Just this moment, now and forever I glean

The night, it is sad, sheds bitter tears
Perhaps it knows this moment will pass
But the day smiles knowing just this
It was, it is and so it will.


Fly Closer

Buoyant in the sea of clouds

Like dreamy slow-motion

flocks afloat the vast azure

I wait half-open at daybreak

Draped in smooth-stark robes

My almost-fragrant being 

Naked in its arcane yearning 

Butterfly, fly closer



Monday, 18 April 2016

Poet, My Life

A long winding route to life
only half-visible to fate,
She moulds patient dreams
By night, moment by moment
By day, my pursuit of happiness.

She curves, returns, dances herself
into still-fragrant-bygone nooks,
My poet, this lonesome road
Gathers permutations of daily occurrence
To fashion melancholy probabilities,

Tales of a thousand and one nights,
Throwing gauntlets to memory, loss and pain
Clever-sparrow quests for endless grain
Sixty four squares squared again and again

She wrote my book and read it to me

That which is never read twice

Sunday, 17 April 2016

Silent Anklets

Tiny cadent couplets

Embracing my feet,

Anklets, they fly

Gambol sky high

You'd set them in silver

And bound them to whims

They lift my soul

Into moon-clouds, star winds

Astride the faraway tree

But hush, do hush

Fly by my dreams

Anklets, be silent

Let me hear them


Sing




Quantum Binary Tales

My poet writes
My poet doesn't write

Days are just binary
descriptions of a state

But I live in a
quantum state of being

All possible uncertainties
Take on dual probabilities,

Waves, particles, both at once
And perhaps nothing

Sometimes it seems
Everything is possible

But I wake up to see
My poet didn't write

And I dive into spaces
of confirmed singularity



Saturday, 16 April 2016

Mirror

Mirrors must cry way inside

craving for touch, a finger tip of bliss

And yet and yet when I see them

They laugh and then blow me a kiss

Words Kill

Words kill
They haunt and hunt
Ruthlessly seek out 
Your quietest hour
And one by one
they feast on your flesh
Until your words fill my
skin, body and soul

Rama Navami

Dark and strong but mostly sad
This song now sung in a movie-tune
Disco-lights drunk in dance
Foil gold, polyester silks,
paper flowers and colored emotions enact
Loyalty, love and honor ‘s fight
Ageless battles with arrogance
All the while the monkey-mind
Plays his mini-games of innocence
The winner however was not the king
Nor his queen entombed in blame
The poet won that race of time
His song sung in a myriad tongues
Today, in a movie tune, forever sad,
I traced those paths carved in his song
All the way from sadness
But the road to glory is circular
And time traces it every era

Loose

Something has come loose in me. 
Hold it someone and fix this wall
It will drop, and I will fall
Jump off the cliff, soar in my flight
Or simply run away and away
Hold me someone and let me run

Friday, 15 April 2016

Happiness

Happiness has a soft-ping sound
Of two black holes dying twin-bound
your message-kite lifts me sky high
Ah those views, and that steep fall
Happiness has a violent view
Of life's ability to disintegrate 
sound waves refuse to traverse 
Vast spaces of petty-quarrels 
Happiness comes empty handed
Takes my all, leaves me full
And walks away singing a tune
In the sheer vaccum of this afternoon



Words

Your friends, these words, 
Tiny intergalactic worlds 
Twisted sugared tubes 
Of death-kissed prose
My foes, your words
Blistering blazing 
sheets of gold, 
Sultry strains of 
Sitar strings, hoary
Whispers of blessings
Just words, mere words 
Bury me alive, revive
Play with my stars, 
My clock, my bed
And all that's in me,
Ah, your words!





Alone

I climb alone sometimes

To that cave where lie buried

Empty citadels of abandoned passion

Night owns the space today

Where bloomed many aeons ago

Daily glories of yellow blazes

Here in the quiet, I light my oil lamp

lie down waiting for scarlet-brown

Apparitions of the past to warm the wall.


Kisses

Monsoon gushes of blessings

Those wet, hungry kisses

Leap out to reach the sky

Waves of darkness, shades of grey

Grab fitful fistfuls of heaven

While all those unhitched

honey-well clouds

Pour unblushing into spaces

that surely you shaped in me

Sweet Roses

Bunches of finite fragrant corners,
Yellow mouths circled in sparse pink

See them grin up to the sun and wink
Their meaningless glories, thorns, honors?

Street roses, do you have to wait
For Darwin to rise before succumbing to fate?

Ah for all the roses I met and held
Airports, funerals and weddings un-smelled

Packaged glory, unwrinkled youth,
skin so soft and oh, so smooth

A rose by another smell, who knew, who knew
Peel those thorns, evolution-man, you
Beauty, imperfect, will never do

Street roses but are not meant for vases
Bumble bees will tumble in at night
And steal their honey, no mess, no fight

Perfect roses meanwhile wait
Refrigerated in an unsmelling smile
Skin so soft, oh so smooth, the guile

This story but belongs neither to roses,
Not smooth skin nor sweet thorn
judgement, evolution, Darwin nor Moses

I was a street rose once, each night
I was the perfect rose, never worn.





Thursday, 14 April 2016

Scars

Jagged jaws of a jumpy past
digging into all tomorrows to come
Curved time and frozen space
of scarlet surrender, violet shame
Blue shock and black eternity.

Biology persevered these terrains
of extinct tremors, half- healed, nearly-raw
jigsaw puzzles, my soft scars
Fit them all into your memory
But you were whole with me

And now these mini-mountains
Of menial flesh, erect fences of silence
I hear no sweeping tales of oceans' ancient lore,
no secret life forms explode
four thousand feet below

Just tiny boats of separation
Carrying whole pieces of you and I
My scars, our scars, these
Sensuous pink-scarlet naked flesh
Half-healed and nearly-raw.









Wednesday, 13 April 2016

You

I seek not in you, tears for my past
Nor hope for future in your arms
Walk with me on life's by-path
For all that is true is today and now.
Your wrinkles wipe away somehow
all that's blue, black and grey.
In neither touch nor words do you let 
It spill, your eyes however do fill
At the mere mention of care.
Oh my silent, smoldering friend 
Life's glories appear at unforeseen bends
Mundane miseries, intense memories
Love's sweet moments spent in soft lights
I will go to the stars straight with these kites
That I fly at night with you, and you alone. 

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

Talk to Me

Stars, whiffs of white clouds
Canvass of the night sky
Brushed with the evening's scent
Flowers blooming in your lips
As you reach out to touch mine
Do not go, my sweetest love
And leave me alone to the night
Do not forget, my dearest love
This south wind on your skin
Moonstone and Diamonds, 
gentle bite marks, lock them all
On nights when you are weary 
And tired of small talk, open, 
open this bundle of our sweet talk
Magic, pranks, play on words
atoms, sex, dissolution of the worlds
Fishes with pelvic bones, holograms 
Of reality, nightmares and dreamscapes 
And things that keep you awake
Oh all those things that keep you awake
Bundle them up in our sweet talk
And read them to me, when you are gone  

Exist

Pretty ripples on the surface,
Your words; carefully composed shadows
in black, white or enhanced hue
I yearn for naught less than wild forest fire
In poetry, stars and throbbing desire
I seek the deep blue beyond black
A merger with every atom
once mine;
In you I am drawn
to the image of our primordial dawn
In you, I feel the rhythm of my pulse
Resonance, that hoary dance
Spinning the universe in a dream
You exist and so I do, I do
I dream and so you do, you do.
Exist, experience, exhilarate.









Monday, 11 April 2016

Absence

Drop by drop the oil lamp
Burnt its hope and waited
While the night draped his mantle
of a zillion sparkling dots,
To kiss the dawn alive
And meet his deathly lot.
I remain at the corner we met
Tracing the outlines of your gifts
Captured shadows blew
lightness into my being,
Dawn's deepest secrets
revealed themselves to the night
And in my half-empty embrace, I held
the greatest gift of them all
silent presence, your absence,
Filling me with all it takes to love.


Sunday, 10 April 2016

Era Wind's Muffler Story

Your survival splashes no stories
But another's death? 
Oh yes, oh yes
Color the corpse, 
dress up, dress up
Drape him in green
and here we go
Heave ho, heave ho,
He was murdered by the cow
Fury lashes a thousand tongues
Silence, silence, this intolerance
Return the stars, trophies and all
Not glory, only guts, you dreary dimwits
A superstar who has figured it all
Perchance he made the empire fall
And rules the Delhi of the old
From paper thrones the shape of gold
Mangoes, mufflers, modesty
Take the broom, all is dusty
Or better still start counting odds
Of getting even and betting ends
Get in the line, quick form a queue 
And repeat after me, "is this true"?
And wrap your muffler tight around ears. 

Runaway, Return

Run away from unreturned lust

Summon the sun, memories of thy skin

Go quickly to the west

Bring back those rain clouds, 

wild drum beats of arcane rhythms 

No, just crumble to dust

Sweet torments, fire, desire, 

Where is justice, calm and peace?

Oh find a way to quench this thirst

Bleeding odes to amarantine bruises 

Bones turn to jiggling-jelly-pits of touch

Melting wrinkles, fusing fingers, 

erasing future, dreaming up yesterdays 

And love's gigantic monuments that crush

My night heaves behind this incrust 

Breath, return, bring thy life-gust

Oh go quickly to the west.








Friday, 8 April 2016

Miscarriage

Keeper-of-melancholy, madnened-by-rain
Many mantles I wear, many faces unseen
Mother to a soul that is hidden to the world
I await your birth in an alternate universe
Create little pools of happiness from dribbles,
Golden auras of snug from mud-tainted fingers
And hum not-to-be-repeated-lullabies
Into never-to-be-seen tiny ears
I sleep in red blankets and wake up 
drenched in warm shreiks
Giggle daily in your special way
At my minuscule-giant hint of gay
And wonder if each single day 
You dream of me as the cool moon ray






Pain

They say we are here to learn the song
Nature strums on your gene-strings
What hurts you once, will kill you forever 
And what's left is stronger; survives
Rubbish! Desire burnt to ashes
Rises again to sweet spring's shower

The pain, it starts to crumble slowly turning into dust, love fumbles to lust
And all is then lost. Rubbish!
I die day after day of hearing-nothing-from you
Reborn with each sentence you write
Desire, death, lust, and life
I love you with all these and more

And so I say, nature's songs are her lessons to herself not to you
I am here not to learn to change my life's course; but to seek and see 
In you, me. In me, you. 
Giver, seeker, lover, lust-er, and yes,
Moonlight on god-forsaken paths








Thursday, 7 April 2016

Kiss -2

Heavens split up and oceans sank 
And I fell through this wild dark
Deep crack in the womb of earth
Darkness has an orange glow
I know, I know, I know
Sweetness has a sour ghost
Bitter, hungry, naked feind 
Boils my blood, freezes at once
Inch by inch, my insides, skin
Awash with bitter tears; slow
Salty trickles into no man's land
Your song's swift guilloutine sweep ends finger-fumblings, crinkled-corners; all 
But darkness has an orange glow
Lustrous shadows, hasten to slow
A soulless death; dainty hollow life
And no redemption will do but this
Just your bitter-sweet, sour, never-again kiss








Architectural Conquests

Win the world? Oh the gall!
Giant dreams, ethereal, fragile
Steel mountains, eggs- tractile
You leave but your name beguiles
Trees, leaves, grounds, red earth
Sacrifice themselves at the altar of glass
You win, you win, they sing when tamed
Into little corner pots, soveiners- framed
Quake the earth with your drill, go on 
Dig, reap, search, plunder, rape and build 
Once you raise your Pantheon,
Catch a flight to a far away land
Lie on the grass, sand, water
Find your grain, true self, nature
Oh the gall! 



Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Forty-two

If the answer is 42,
And the question is why
Here is few wonder- whys

Does sadness hurt?
I go looking for it
In books, songs, poems and pictures.

Does sadness not hurt?
I run away from it
Into drinks, laughter, loudness and crowds.

Does happiness have a face?
I draw faces with stars at night 
Smile at strangers with your smile.

Do stars smile at night?
Or are they the tears of night?

Are flowers happiness?
Or just the roots' unheeded 
love-letters to the sun?

Why is the answer 42?
When all I want is you?


Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Crossword Puzzle

Grammar plays scramble
Words and phrases tumble
Each little letter yields
Heady morsels of steady rue
Seize them with my pen
Slay them, lay them
Vertical-Horizontal-Diagonal?
Jumble, toss, and try again.
Clueless crossword puzzles
Second singular, first possessive,
Everything in between, just naught.
My mother tongue speaks a lot
And pauses in her noble vein
Somewhere in between
Music, coffee cups,
Light afternoon rain,
Mad fingers
Scramble, jumble, tumble
Heady morsels of steady rue
You not mine.



Crossword Puzzles

Two cups of coffee,
light afternoon rain
Alone with words
Grammar plays scramble
Snippets of time deliver
Meaningless phrases
Written vertically,
Horizontal-diagonal,
Crossword puzzle
Clues: mine, yours.
You, not mine.
Mother tongue says more.
Silence, perhaps even more.
Music,
coffee cups,
light afternoon rain?
Meaningless phrases.





Monday, 4 April 2016

Lost Chapters

You filled my book, page after page;
Yellowed cover, frayed binding,
Pressed wild flowers into chapters
Wayward trance recto, verso
And I ran hungrily, singing your songs

Your dreamy toes etched bewitching
Silent tales of sun drenched seaside
Verse, chorus, bridge and refrain
Golden diamonds splattered again
And I ran greedily, gathering them all.

Those verses, chorus, and refrain
I sing and hum them many times.
Those chapters, yellowed cover, 
Wild flowers, wayward trance, 
I search for them in books some times.

Sunday, 3 April 2016

Pictures From Long Ago

Bloodless stains spreading nowhere
Splintering frozen time, grainy arcs;
Captured in the wrong way, away, long away
When chemicals brought pictures to life
And shades of white cuddled up with grey
Frayed rectangles of fractal yearnings
How sweet, how sweet, that long long away!


An Afternoon in a Rainforest

Sunlight ripples on gamuts of green,
Dancing with the eastern wind;
Autumn's gentle shooting stars;
Mellow drizzles on unwoven carpets
Velvet, fragrant moss;
Petal-soft ripened leaves,
Sturdy trunks jump up to court
Chary stars of daytime skies
And at once, unforeseen
a million jewels spring up from nowhere
Treasures of a forest nymph?
Or maybe just beauty, unseen,
wasted, untrampled

Shrill cicadas synch to the song
sung from afar by the eastern wind
Silence lurks, prevails and mediates
In midflight, the heroin, wonders
surely what keeps her aflight;
Or does it not?
Gracious wingspan, feathers light
Air in her bones, wind on her wings
Or maybe just beauty, unseen,
Wasted, untrampled?




Saturday, 2 April 2016

Drenched in the rains

Spring had come and left too
I remained drenched in the rains
Summer's winds could not dry 
Neither could the winter freeze
Autum ran here and there but
I remained drenched in the rains
Those glorious rains! 
Waters from the heaven,
trickles of sweet hope and stark faith
Gushes of angst of all things missed
The lazy afternoon showers of sunlit confusion 
Meaningless drizzles of daily conversations
Whichever way life chose to wet me,
I remain drenched in the rain.